Poll falls short of total respect for OVC champs

Some people might say the Southeast Missouri State football team was slighted in the Ohio Valley Conference's preseason poll released last week.

Others might say the Redhawks were afforded a measure of respect.

The bottom line is that it really doesn't matter because the prognosticators -- the league's coaches and sports information directors -- rarely have been accurate in predicting what's actually going to happen.

Consider that no OVC team has been picked to win the conference title and gone on to accomplish the feat since since Eastern Illinois in 2002. And the Panthers only shared the crown that year.

So it appears to be more a curse than a blessing to be anointed as the OVC favorite.

Jacksonville State gets to wear the bull's-eye this year. The Gamecocks have been picked No. 1 for the third time in the past four years.

As for the defending OVC champion Redhawks, they were tabbed fourth in the nine-team conference for their highest preseason ranking since 2004.

There is a logical reason why the Redhawks weren't picked to repeat. They lost 15 starters, including several All-Americans.

But the Redhawks do return quite a few key players, including all-conference quarterback Matt Scheible.

Because the efficient, cool-under-pressure Scheible is still around, along with some other all-star performers plus a batch of promising returning squad members and new recruits, I give the Redhawks a fighting chance of repeating.

While that might be something of a longshot, I do think the Redhawks have a good chance of posting a second straight winning season, which considering all their personnel losses would be no small feat.

The 2010 Redhawks notched just the program's third winning record since moving up to the Football Championship Subdivision in 1991. The other two such seasons were followed by losing campaigns.

I would consider the year an unqualified success if Southeast posted any type of winning record, although I know the Redhawks are shooting much higher than that, which they should be.

And after what I saw the Redhawks accomplish last year, against all odds, I sure wouldn't rule them out.

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What Southeast did a year ago has to give hope to all the OVC teams picked toward the bottom of the preseason poll.

The Redhawks were slotted in a seventh-place tie a year ago after finishing in the OVC basement in 2009. They had not won more than four games in any of coach Tony Samuel's first four seasons.

Southeast shocked everybody, winning the program's first OVC title, ranking among the nation's top FCS teams and earning the program's first playoff berth on any level.

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While Jacksonville State is the prohibitive preseason favorite, receiving 13 of a possible 18 first-place votes, Murray State is a trendy pick.

The Racers were tabbed for last place a year ago but finished fourth and went 6-5 overall in their first season under coach Chris Hatcher for their first winning record since 2004.

That has resulted in the Racers, who feature the league's preseason offensive player of the year in quarterback Casey Brockman, being selected second. One publication even picked them to capture the title.

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Southeast will have an international flavor when players report for fall camp Thursday, followed by conditioning tests Friday and the first practice Saturday.

Eddie Kocwa is a freshman kicker from Australia and Conrad Schmid is a sophomore offensive lineman from Germany who is a former walk-on at Western Michigan. Kocwa is new to the program, while Schmid went through spring drills.

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Here's hoping former Southeast All-American running back Henry Harris gets a free agent shot with an NFL team, which has been his goal after his record-setting 2010 season.

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Southeast product Houston Lillard was the quarterback for the Tri-Cities (Wash.) Fever team that recently lost in the Indoor Football League championship game.

Lillard passed for more than 2,000 yards during his final Southeast season in 2008.

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The Festus Senior American Legion baseball team that won the recent Zone 4 tournament in Cape Girardeau captured its third consecutive state championship, something never before done in Missouri Legion play.

Festus went 3-1 during the state tournament in Sedalia, beating Washington 9-8 in Sunday's if-necessary title contest to qualify for regional competition.

Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.