Remember us? We can't wait to get back home

Dispatch from Charleston, Ill.

Dated Saturday, Oct. 18

Dear Redhawks Nation:

Remember us.

It seems like it's been forever since we played in front of the faithful at Houck Stadium. It was a loss to Missouri State, way back in the days when Don Kaverman still was the athletic director and Scott Edgar still was known as the men's basketball coach.

Really, it was only a month ago.

Much has changed since then. And not just back in Cape Girardeau.

Why, just today here in Charleston, we handed the quarterback chores over to a true freshman, Matt Scheible, from Washington, Mo.

Sure, the result was a 24-21 loss, but he led the offense into the end zone three times, which is close to our season-best in regulation. He only completed 6 of 16 passes, but he showed he can run for some yardage as well.

Houston Lillard was having a rough day -- two interceptions in five passes. But he threw three completions, so the ball never hit the ground when he was in.

We just didn't move the ball when he was in. We did with Matt, going 80 yards on a single drive. We moved it pretty well until the third period, but we just won't talk about that forgettable 15 minutes.

You remember Timmy? Timmy Holloman? You haven't seen him play back there in Cape yet this year, but he's getting back into form. After that one-year suspension, he had 44 yards last week at Jacksonville State, and he was the leading rusher with 84 yards on 23 carries against Eastern Illinois.

One of these days, he's going to break one off for big yardage, like he used to before the NCAA made him sit on the sidelines.

You should've seen our defense today. It only allowed 275 yards. Those 24 points? That tied for the best defensive effort of the season, and this team was better than Indiana State.

We've got this freshman linebacker, the Klaproth kid from Poplar Bluff. Phil Klaproth. Twelve tackles today. He's going to be a player. Best thing to come out of Poplar Bluff since those Hansbrough kids.

Some things haven't changed since we've been away from Cape.

We still haven't scored in the first quarter this season. (Missed it by just 6 seconds this time, as Henry Harris scored on the first play of the second period.)

And we gave up another touchdown in the first period, so now we're down a collective 73-0 in the opening quarter. Interesting, eh? We've only been outscored by 82 points for the year.

We're close, people.

Our special teams continues to entertain -- and not always in a good way. OK, we didn't give up a touchdown on a kickoff like we did last time you saw us or last week in Jacksonville State. But our punter got swarmed and sacked near our own goal line -- we got lucky there -- and one of their line-drive punts hit our blocker. We didn't get so lucky there. They scored off that one.

You know what else hasn't changed? We keep fighting to the end of every game, and we're going to pull one of these remaining games out.

We have known joy on this road trip, beating Indiana State. And we have known pain. We still have just the one Ohio Valley Conference road victory in Coach Sam's 2 seasons. That's 1-for-9. Thank you, Murray State, 2006.

It will be nice to be home again.

We hope to see you Saturday when we play Tennessee State.

It really will be homecoming.

Love,

The Redhawks

Toby Carrig is editor of the regional Web site semoball.com