Showdown with EKU presents a coaching honor

It will be a great honor and a tremendous opportunity for our football team when we play Eastern Kentucky at 5 p.m. Saturday in coach Roy Kidd's final game at Roy Kidd Stadium in Richmond.

I've known coach Kidd for about 13 or 14 years and I really respect what he has accomplished in his 39 year coaching career at EKU. When I was at Marshall we were rivals with Eastern Kentucky at a national level, meeting twice in the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs. After Marshall moved to Division I-A many of his staff members would visit us at Marshall to talk football.

Coach Kidd really took care of his players over the years and I know many of them will be on hand Saturday for his final home game. He is a class act and the Ohio Valley Conference will miss the national attention he has brought to the league.

Roy Kidd is a coaching legend and as a young head coach it will be an honor for me to go against him in his final home game. There will be national media representatives on hand for the game and that is good for Southeast Missouri State University.

Any pictures that appear in magazines or footage that is shown on network television will also include Southeast and that is tremendous for our university.

We have also been informed that the blocked field goal for a touchdown that won last week's exciting game with Tennessee Tech will be shown on ESPN at halftime of tonight's nationally televised college football game between Louisville and Cincinnati. What great exposure for our university.

Eastern Kentucky has a really good football team that is ranked 16th nationally. I think we match up with them pretty well.

They are a defense-oriented team with a great pass rush. We are a passing team with good pass protection. If we can get that protection for Jack Tomco on Saturday we will be in the game.

Offensively, EKU likes to run the football. We hope to shut down the run and force them to pass. The main thing is to show improvement this week and play error-free football. You can't give up big plays or make mistakes against a team like EKU because they will make you pay for it.

We have never beaten Eastern Kentucky and so this is a chance for this football team to accomplish another first. A win over a team like EKU is the type of breakthrough victory we've been working for in the OVC.

I really appreciate all you fans that braved the elements for Saturday night's game. It was good to win one of those games that went right to the wire. I was thinking overtime, but our special teams go the job done and we all got out of the rain a little earlier and with a win.

Tim Billings is the football coach at Southeast Missouri State University.