Samuel buoyed by 'Hawks' effort

Southeast Missouri State football coach Tony Samuel has been in the business way too long to have a huge overreaction -- positively or negatively -- regarding one game.

Samuel admitted the Redhawks' season-opening performance last week was dismal.

He also believes there is plenty of hope for the young and inexperienced Redhawks, whose 12-game schedule began with Thursday night's 45-7 clunker at Southeastern Louisiana.

Little went right for the Redhawks, who struggled offensively, defensively and on special teams.

"The old saying, it's never as good as it seems and it's never as bad as it seems," Samuel said Monday during his weekly media conference. "The score was bad. The effort of our players was very good.

"We didn't execute our techniques the way we needed to ... the real good was how hard they played, the thing that must get fixed in a hurry is playing smarter."

The Redhawks -- who had 11 players make their first career start Thursday, with six of those playing in their first-ever collegiate game (not counting junior college) -- looked every bit like the young, inexperienced squad they are.

Southeast's offense generated less than 300 yards, the defense allowed nearly 500 yards and the special teams might have been even worse.

The Redhawks allowed a 65-yard return on the opening kickoff that led to a touchdown, a 21-yard punt return that led to a touchdown and a 44-yard punt return that led to a field goal -- all in the first half.

Southeast also had a 37-yard field-goal attempt blocked and missed a 47-yarder.

"The worst thing that probably happened to us for the first game was how we started the game. We gave up a big play on a kickoff. ... The youth of the team showed up for a period," said Samuel, whose squad hosts the Lions next season to complete the two-year series. "Young team, very emotional team. These kids want to be successful ... we just didn't execute in too many areas."

The Redhawks had no answer for Lions first-year quarterback Bryan Bennett, an Oregon transfer who compiled solid statistics as a backup for the FBS power Ducks the past two years.

Bennett passed for 169 yards. He also rushed for 106 yards and three touchdowns.

"He was a good quarterback. They've got a very good football team. I thought they had a lot of speed, a lot of skill," Samuel said.

While Bennett directed the Lions' offense until early in the fourth quarter after the game was out of reach, Southeast used two signal callers.

Junior Kyle Snyder started and played the majority of the contest, but sophomore Scott Lathrop -- last year's starter after Snyder suffered a season-ending knee injury in fall camp -- got into four series, two in each half.

Neither player did anything exceptional in the opener, and Samuel said it's up in the air whether both will again see action during Saturday's 6 p.m. contest at Mississippi. Snyder remains the starter.

"We'll see," he said. "We'll go into this week and practice and prepare, see where we are and make a decision based on that."

While Samuel remains hopeful for the rest of the season, things don't figure to get much better for the Redhawks this week, although he's not about to concede anything.

Southeast visits Oxford, Miss., in the program's annual "money" game to generate revenue for the athletic department. Southeast will receive a school-record $375,000 payday.

Mississippi is on the rise after going 7-6 overall last year, including 3-5 in the rugged Southeastern Conference, and winning a bowl game.

The Rebels got their 2013 season off to a rousing start Thursday, scoring on a 75-yard run with 67 seconds left to post a thrilling 39-35 nationally-televised SEC win at Vanderbilt.

"Great football team. We're preparing right now with the idea of figuring out how to win the game. That's the only way that we know how," Samuel said. "We'd like to say we're going to win the football game. I can't predict what the score is going to be. I'd rather be able to predict that we're going to go down there and execute our plan.

"I want to see us get better, no question about it. We're young and talented. I want to see us use our physical ability and combine that with the playing experience, which we've already got one [game] under our belt."

Jones traded

Former Southeast All-American Edgar Jones was traded over the weekend from the Kansas City Chiefs to the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys sent their 2014 sixth-round draft pick to the Chiefs and also acquired Kansas City's 2014 seventh-round draft pick.

Jones, a backup linebacker, has primarily been a special teams player since making the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2007. He spent his first five NFL seasons with the Baltimore Ravens before playing for the Chiefs in 2012.