Southeast football ranked low in national media preseason forecast

The Sports Network, which covers NCAA Division I-AA football more extensively than any other media outlet, doesn't hold out much hope for Southeast Missouri State's Redhawks this year.

A few days ago, TSN recently ranked all of the nation's Division I-AA teams and listed Southeast No. 81 among the 98 Division I-AA squads that award scholarships.

Southeast was rated ahead of only one other Ohio Valley Conference team, perennial doormat Tennessee-Martin, which came in at No. 90.

Overall, TSN once again did not give the OVC -- which has made a habit of being hammered in the playoffs in recent years -- much respect. The highest-ranked league team is two-time defending champion Jacksonville State at No. 22. After that, the conference dropped all the way down to Eastern Illinois at No. 41.

On the bright side for the Redhawks, TSN named Southeast's David Simonhoff as its first team All-American punter, the same honor recently bestowed on Simonhoff by Street & Smith's.

After earning All-American honors as a sophomore last season, Simonhoff is widely regarded as the nation's finest Division I-AA punter entering the 2005 campaign.

By the way, Furman is TSN's top-ranked Division I-AA team entering the season, and three Gateway Conference squads are in the top 10, with Western Kentucky fifth, Southern Illinois ninth and Northern Iowa 10th. Southeast kicks off the campaign Sept. 1 at home against SIU's Salukis.

Of course, the above is all just preseason speculation -- and there will be plenty more of it the rest of the summer -- but college football fans won't have to wait long to find out just how accurate some of those predictions are. Practice begins in a few weeks and the actual games are less than two months away.

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Southeast will be represented well at the independent Frontier League All-Star Game, as three former Redhawks' standouts have been selected for Wednesday's contest in Washington, Pa.

Third baseman Denver Stuckey -- a Kelly High School product -- second baseman Gary Gilbert and pitcher Brandon Smith were recently named Frontier League All-Stars.

The Frontier League, which is not affiliated with any major league organization, features a distinct Southeast flavor as seven ex-Redhawks players are on various rosters.

Gilbert, Smith, Phil Warren and Freddy Lopez are with the Gateway (Ill.) Grizzlies; Stuckey is with the Evansville (Ill.) Otters; Clemente Bonilla plays for the Windy City (Ill.) ThunderBolts; and Darin Kinsolving is a member of the Florence (Ky.) Freedom.

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Southeast's Miles Smith will have a tuneup meet in California next weekend as he continues to prepare for the World Track and Field Championships, set for Aug. 6 through 14 in Helsinki, Finland.

Smith, who finished sixth in the 400 meters at the recent USA Championships to earn a spot on the USA 1,600-meter relay team for the World Championships, is scheduled to leave for Finland July 31.

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One of the top players in OVC men's basketball history has turned to coaching -- and he should be a familiar name to Southeast hoop fans.

Charles "Bubba" Wells, a two-time OVC male athlete of the year and the 1997 OVC men's basketball player of the year while competing for Austin Peay, recently was hired as an assistant at his alma mater.

Wells, a three-time first-team all-OVC pick, ranks third in all-time OVC scoring with 2,267 points. He was a second-round draft pick by the Dallas Mavericks in 1997 and has played professionally ever since, including the last two years with the Harlem Globetrotters.

One of the most popular players in OVC history, Wells was perhaps best known for overcoming two leg surgeries to repair stress fractures during his collegiate career, the second of which came at the start of his senior year and forced him to miss the first 12 games. In his debut contest that season, Wells lit up Southeast for 39 points in a 28-minute span and went on to average 31.7 points for the campaign. I was on hand for that performance in Clarksville, Tenn., and it was definitely something to see.

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I know, it's been over a week since the NBA draft was held, but I haven't had a chance to touch on it yet, so here are several observations.

First, quite a few players with regional ties fared well. Not only did Illinois have two players taken early -- Deron Williams at No. 3 and Luther Head at No. 24 -- but Missouri's Linas Kleiza and St. Louis high school product David Lee also went in the first round, and both somewhat surprisingly.

Kleiza, regarded prior to the draft as a likely second-rounder, went at No. 27. Lee, who played collegiately at Florida, was also considered to be a probable second-rounder, but he was gobbled up with the 30th and final selection of the opening round.

Second, it was a shame to see so many high school players come out early, only to be taken in the second round, where nothing is guaranteed and the chances of making an NBA roster aren't all that great. Six high school players went in the second round.

And ditto for a host of fairly high-profile college underclassmen who came out early -- and weren't even drafted. Talk about getting some bad advice.

Third, I guess it probably wasn't so surprising that North Carolina and Illinois played for the national title this year. While the runner-up Illini had two players taken in the first round, the champion Tar Heels had four of the top 14 selections.

Now all we've got to do is wait and see which of the draftees turn out to be stars and which wind up as busts. There are always plenty of both.

Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.