Southeast Missouri State football team shows no quit

When Tom Matukewicz was introduced as the Southeast Missouri State football coach in December, he addressed a room of university dignitaries and promised -- among other things -- that he would put a disciplined Redhawks football team on the field and that the team would be one students, fans and alumni could be proud.

The promise of a disciplined team on the field will have to wait to be fulfilled another day after the team committed 14 penalties for 174 yards and missed more than one assignment Saturday night at Kansas.

But if I was a Southeast fan, I would be proud of the effort Matukewicz's team put forth Saturday night in a 34-28 loss.

I wouldn't be proud of the loss. I don't believe in moral victories, so I'm not going to award the Redhawks one.

But Southeast turned down every opportunity to quit Saturday night -- and some of the opportunities were so tantalizing there are plenty of good programs that would have taken them.

Case in point, the Redhawks spent more than two quarters fighting to build momentum and put up a fight while they were being shut out.

Then it all paid off and disappeared in a matter of two minutes in the third quarter.

Senior cornerback Tim Hamm-Bey blocked a field goal attempt with the team trailing 24-0 with 12 minutes, 16 seconds remaining in the third quarter.

"On my side I'm the scoop and score guy," fellow senior Reggie Jennings said. "Tim Hamm-Bey, he's the block side. He came off the the edge, blocked it, and my eyes get big. I see. I'm ready to scoop it. He kind of rolls on the ball a little bit. I scoop it, and then all I hear is "Pitch it, Reg. Pitch it, Reg.' I look and I see Eriq Moore … I trust him. I pitch it to him. The ball is in the air. He was just taking off with it. On a play like that you don't want to get tackled. I'm just glad my teammates came through."

Eventually the ball was returned to the KU 37 and another 15 yards was tacked on thanks to a late hit by the Jayhawks.

DeMichael Jackson ran in the Redhawks first scored with 10:34 to go in the third and Southeast appeared to recover an onside kick that had the Redhawks' sideline going crazy.

The play was called back on an offside penalty, however, and after the Redhawks were forced to kick the ball away Kansas scored on a 67-yard pass on the first play on its next drive to make it 31-7 with 10:17 to go in the third.

I was prepared to write about how that play changed everything. How it all but ended the game. How it broke the Redhawks' will.

But it didn't -- not even when Kyle Snyder was intercepted on the Redhawks' next possession.

"Coach Tuke, he's one of the most positive coaches I've ever met," Jackson said after the game. "He continued to stay positive the whole game. He said he's never going to yell at us or nothing. He's going to continue to stay positive. That helps out the players a lot. It keeps up the ego and everything. It keeps them calm and collected. That's one thing. Coaches usually yell at a player when they mess up, but Coach Tuke will continue to clap -- tell them to keep going, keep going, keep going. It just gets us all up as a team."

I wrote before the season that not all losses would be setbacks for Southeast in Matukewicz's first season, but if things had continued the way they were going in the first quarter, Saturday night's game would have been a major setback.

Kansas, a FBS and Big 12 bottom-dweller, might not win a game this season. No one is pretending they're a powerhouse and no one -- Southeast coaches and players especially -- is pretending the Redhawks should spend the week patting themselves of the back for a loss that could have been a win with better execution.

But lots of teams say they won't quit. Lots of players say they never will, some even claim they never have.

Most wouldn't have lived up to that promise Saturday night. Southeast did.

When was the last time a Southeast fan could say that with pride?

Rachel Crader is editor of the Southeast Missourian and semoball.com.