Southeast Missouri State football team anticipates numerous signings

Jackson quarterback Dante Vandeven, Kennett linebacker Bud Hilburn and more than a dozen other players will make their commitment to the Southeast Missouri State football team official today.

National Signing Day kicks off for Redhawks football coach Tom Matukewicz and his staff, who will sign their first true class after having about a month between Matukewicz being hired and signing day last year.

He was announced as the head coach Dec. 18, 2013, and signing day was Feb. 5, 2013, about a month after he had his entire coaching staff in place.

"We're fired up about the class because it's our first true class where we had a whole year to evaluate and collect information on all the kids and then recruit them and get them committed," recruiting coordinator and safeties coach Eric Burrow said. "We're fired up about it."

The ample time that the coaching staff had to recruit their second class of players to Southeast was not wasted.

"The biggest thing for us in recruiting is we want to verify the kids we sign," Burrow said. "By that I mean we want to see them at a camp in the summer, we want to see them play football in the fall, and we want to have verified testing numbers like 40-yard times, height, weight, pro-agility times, those types of things. We want to verify them.

"When you get hired in January and signing day's a month away, you don't have an opportunity to do that. When you have a full year we can get them to our camps, we can go out and see them at other camps, and we're excited that 12 of the 16 high school kids we're signing we saw them live and verified their ability, and you don't get a chance to do that if you don't have a full year."

Recruits were frequently seen on the sidelines for unofficial visits during Southeast games, and the coaching staff was out and about visiting schools and watching potential recruits throughout the past season, and more recently official visits to the campus have helped recruits commit to the Redhawks.

"The official visits all come down to Coach Tuke, and he's a guy that wants to do things first class, no matter what it is. You do it the best you can," Burrow said. "No matter how minute you think it is, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. With an official visit we get a chance to really pull out all the stops within the rules of the NCAA. If they say we can pay for a meal, we're going to make it the best meal we can possibly make it. With the cars, the cookie cakes, everything that we do we just try to -- within the NCAA rules -- make it the best official visit that we can possibly make it."

"We take them to our head coach's home [for dinner], which I think is a great reflection of what we're all about, and that's family," Burrow added. "We're in this thing together. It's not just a football factory. We're in it together. We kick it off with that and then we've got the cars, the cookie cake, all kinds of good stuff. I don't want to give away all our secrets. One thing we try to emphasize in our visits is that facilities and buildings don't win championships. Nobody ever won a football game because they had a shiny weight room. We try to really sell ourselves and sell the people around here, from our academic staff and professors to our strength staff and everything, and then especially our coaching staff."

In addition to regional signees, student-athletes expected to sign with Southeast will hail from the St. Louis area, Memphis, Florida and more.

Six mid-year junior college transfers have already inked their National Letters of Intent with the Redhawks.

Iowa Western Community College quarterback Tavarius "Tay" Bender, Northwest Mississippi Community College defensive lineman Kendall Carr and running back Donterio Fowler, Pearl River Community College defensive backs Taron Divens and Jamarl Holloway, and Arizona Western Community College running back Tremaine McCullough signed with Southeast and have begun working out on campus.

More information on Southeast signees will be available on semoball.com today shortly after each signing is announced along with thoughts from Matukewicz following his signing day press conference.

Matukewicz and his staff will have a "Brick by Brick" Signing Day Party at Wings, Etc. in Jackson tonight, where they'll introduce the entire class.

The event begins at 5:30 p.m. and is open to the public. There will be an appetizer bar available for $5.