SEMO FB success is going to have to emanate from the trenches

Veteran Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz has had two weeks to analyze just how a season with magnificent potential has evolved into a 1-3 start with a tough road challenge staring his team in the face on Saturday, and his evaluation this week was pretty concise and blunt.

“I don’t believe that well-coached, veteran teams lose these games,” Matukewicz said of his team’s poor start. “We’ve got to look in the mirror. I don’t think that we are coaching well enough, and I don’t think that we are playing well enough.”

The Redhawks (1-3) will visit No. 23-ranked Central Arkansas (3-2) on Saturday at 4 p.m. (ESPN+).

In assessing the coaching, SEMO has blown double-digit leads with less than eight minutes remaining in each of the past two games. In the latest loss (41-38 defeat at Eastern Kentucky), the Redhawk coaching staff shockingly called a timeout with one second remaining, which allowed the host Colonels, who were without a timeout, to take their time and set up the game-winning field goal attempt.

As far as the poor play is concerned, there is no shortage of statistical areas that can be looked at to see how Matukewicz’s team needs to improve.

The Redhawks, who have an All-American running back, are dead last in the Big South/OVC Football Association in rushing attempts and total yards while being next to last in average yards gained per game.

“To me,” Matukewicz said, “I think that it is about the line of scrimmage. When we have the lead, we are in what is called the ‘four-minute drill,’ and we couldn’t run it.”

Defensively, SEMO has been simply awful at rushing the quarterback, which is going to be imperative on Saturday.

The Redhawks have one sack in four games, which is by far the least amount in their conference (three league teams have at least 10 sacks).

“We can’t rush the passer,” Matukewicz continued.

Switching back to the poor offensive line play, SEMO has allowed 12 sacks of Redhawk quarterback Paxton DeLaurent, which is more than five league teams have allowed despite having played one more game than SEMO.

“Losing the leads,” Matukewicz said, “has a lot to do with losing the line of scrimmage.”

The defensive line of scrimmage, which has been without senior defensive lineman Lunden Manuel for the past two games (and is not listed on this week’s depth chart), is only part of the SEMO pass defense, which has either been great (if you look at interceptions) or very poor (if you watch the games or look at yards allowed).

The Redhawks have picked off six passes this season, which is the second most in the conference, but have allowed 276 yards passing, which is far and away the worst in the conference.

“What people don’t understand,” Matukewicz said when asked recently about his team’s pass defense, “is that it is not just the secondary’s job, it is everybody’s job to play better pass defense.

“It is tackling. It’s pressure (on the quarterback). It’s all of those things.”

Very good quarterback play has been the nemesis of SEMO so far this season, and it won’t get any easier on Saturday.

Central Arkansas quarterback Will McElvain has thrown for nearly 1,100 yards and 10 touchdowns while being picked off just twice.

He also completed over 64 percent of his throws.

“This is what we need,” Matukewicz said of facing another tough quarterback this fall. “If we are going to do what we said that we wanted to do (in playing for championships), we’ve got to beat a good quarterback, because they are all going to be good in the playoffs.”