Southeast Missouri State football team hosts defending OVC champ Eastern Illinois

~ Eastern Illinois has won the last two conference titles

When the Southeast Missouri State and Eastern Illinois football teams converge at Houck Stadium on Saturday it will be as two teams with a lot in common.

Both teams enter the matchup with one loss in the Ohio Valley Conference this season.

Both are under the leadership of new coaches.

And both are looking to rebound from three-point overtime losses, which Panthers coach Kim Dameron called "heartbreaking," in the conference's weekly teleconference.

"I look at it as two football teams this week that are looking at each other dead in the eye, and whoever comes away with the victory down there kind of stays with a possibility of maybe still being in the conference race," Dameron said Tuesday, "and [for] the other one it's going to be awful hard."

The OVC title chase is on the mind of the two-time defending conference champion Panthers, but Southeast coach Tom Matukewicz tries not to look at it that way with his team.

"They're very talented, and I know their back's against the wall if you look at it from the conference chase," Matukewicz said. "I don't feel like my back's against the wall because I don't know what that means [to be in the conference chase]. I'm just trying to win this game, and then Sunday I'll try to win the next one."

Saturday's kickoff is set for 1 p.m. at Houck Stadium, where the Redhawks are 3-0 this season.

Southeast, which was knocked out of the Sports Network Top 25 following its 44-41 double overtime loss to Murray State on Saturday, enters the contest with a 4-3 record overall and a 2-1 mark in the conference.

EIU is a deceiving 1-5 overall and 1-1 in OVC play. The Panthers' lone win came against Austin Peay, which has lost 18 consecutive games. Losses have come at the hands of two Football Bowl Subdivision opponents as well as some of the top Football Championship Subdivision teams.

Their most recent loss was a 36-33 overtime loss to then-No. 16 Eastern Kentucky, which is 6-0 on the season. They've also lost to nationally-ranked Southern Illinois and Illinois State.

The Panthers led by as many as 21 against EKU on Saturday and held a 26-12 advantage after three quarters.

The Colonels scored the first 21 points of the fourth for their first lead of the game, but the Panthers scored with a minute left in regulation to force overtime.

EIU had the ball first in overtime but running back Shepard Little, who returned after missing two games from injury, fumbled. EKU recovered and won the game on a field goal.

"That was the first time all year that we'd gotten down and came back. I'm seeing signs of us being able to compete for 60 minutes," Dameron said. "It's something that, in every other game we played in, when adversity hit we really never answered too well. No matter who you're playing, when adversity hits you want to see your kids get out there and come back and answer. ... We're trying to glean as much of the positives as we can out of a loss, and I'm kind of a glass-half-full guy anyway, but I really feel like that little glean of being able to compete and to come back is something that I was looking forward to seeing and was glad to see."

Junior quarterback Jalen Whitlow, who transferred to EIU following two seasons at Kentucky, has been named the conference's Newcomer of the Week three times this season.

He's got five rushing touchdowns and averaging 80.5 yards rushing per game -- third in the conference -- and averages 173.3 yards passing and has thrown for five touchdowns. He's second behind Southeast quarterback Kyle Snyder in total offense.

"It all starts with their quarterback," Matukewicz said. "He's a guy that can throw it, he can run it. He started in the SEC, so talent's not his problem. He's kind of running that show."

Whitlow's top target is the conference's top receiver, Adam Drake. Drake averages 110 yards a game and has three touchdowns.

Little is the team's second-leading rusher, averaging 57.2 yards in four games this season. Taylor Duncan and Jimmy Lera have both rushed for more than 150 yards this season.

The Redhawks have a definite advantage on special teams. They lead the conference in punting while EIU is last.

"They tried a couple punters in this last game ... so not sure what that'll look like, but that's something that we have to dominate," Matukewicz said. "If you just look statistically, we're around 40 and they're around 25, so every time you trade a punt that's a first down and a half."

Dameron, although in just his first season as EIU's coach, called the Redhawks "resurging" and has taken notice of the team's transformation in Matukewicz's first season.

"Well you just put the film on and watch them play and they play hard," Dameron said. "They're good fundamentally, they're good schematically -- they're an improved football team. I didn't get to see them a lot last year. I just look at what's on film right now, but they're competing their hind-end off and they've got weapons offensively. They've got a weapon of a kicker."