Southeast Missouri State offensive line being pieced together in spring practice

When the music that blares throughout Houck Stadium or the Rosengarten Athletic Complex comes to a stop when the Southeast Missouri State football team's spring football practices conclude April 18, the game of "musical chairs" with the offensive line likely will not be over.

Offensive line coach Jon Wiemers, who likened the search for his top five linemen to the musical game, may have a better idea after five weeks and 15 spring practices or the competition for starting spots may just be heating up.

"Your best five, you've got to rearrange them to not necessarily where it's the best tackle, but it's the best five," Wiemers said, "and somehow you've got to rearrange that to make it work."

The two tackle spots were vacated by seniors Corey Porter and Kyle Finney, who exhausted their eligibility last season.

The Redhawks return starting center Jake McCandless and guards Traven Mable and Garret Baker.

Sophomore offensive tackle Alex Snyder and junior tackle Michael Cooke currently practice with the No. 1s. Cooke played in five games while Snyder played in three for the Redhawks last season.

Senior Billy Dasher, who played in all of Southeast's games and started two at right guard last year, has been McCandless' backup center "with the intention that he might not stay there," according to Wiemers, who's embracing the challenge of eventually putting his best five into the puzzle that is the offensive line.

Offensive line and assistant head coach Jon Wiemers works with players during a spring practice Thursday, March 26, 2015 at Houck Field. (Glenn Landberg)

Snyder, listed at 6 foot 3 and 274 pounds, is the newcomer that has stood out the most to coach Tom Matukewicz as someone that seems "like a totally different player."

"I feel like he's kind of getting used to carrying this much weight," Matukewicz said. "We asked him to get a little bigger and he's stronger now. I think just all the work we've put in on him is finally taking root as far as the coaching and all the strength training."

Wiemers said growing the confidence of each offensive lineman is a focus for spring practices, and Snyder's improvements have stemmed from that.

"Our strength staff's done an awesome job. A kid like that I'd love to take all the credit, but I don't do much with them December until now," Wiemers said. "So much of our position is strength. I've got to get them to go the right way and play really hard and have that attitude, but just physically he's improved so much -- his strength and his agility that you can tell they've done an awesome job with him, and I think that's made him more confident. The weight room builds a lot of confidence in offensive linemen."

Mable, a senior listed at 6-3, 308 pounds, was the player that Matukewicz said had the best offseason of all the offensive linemen. Mable played in all 12 of Southeast's games last season, starting 11.

"We do a lot of competition stuff in January, and his overall records were in the 80 percentile," Matukewicz said. "He did a great job getting himself better."

Baker started and played in 11 games while McCandless started all 12 for a Redhawks offensive line that Matukewicz called "phenomenal."

Southeast's offense averaged 201.6 yards rushing per game last season, even without their all-conference running back DeMichael Jackson, who missed four games with a broken hand.

The Redhawks were tops in the Ohio Valley Conference with just eight sacks allowed, and they also led the conference in third- and fourth-down conversions, in large part to the offensive line.

"When you look at what they had to go against, they really dominated," Matukewicz said. "Offensively, we ran the ball well. We were in the top 10 in not giving up sacks, and that's all the O-line. It's a concern to see how this plays out. We looked for some transfer O-lineman and really weren't able to find any that were better than what we already had. That's why we coach. If they could do it without us, we wouldn't have a job, so we've got to coach them."

Baker's junior season may be his last as he continues to play through a labrum injury and will receive his degree this spring. He has tried to assist his coaches and make the transition to new members of the line as smooth as possible.

Matukewicz described Baker, a member of the team's leadership council, as "the heart and soul of the O-line," and Baker is embracing that by trying to set a standard for how the rest of the linemen should play.

"The biggest challenge I feel is the guys gaining confidence that have to step in because they've been in the shadow for a couple years and they haven't been given maybe the attention they've needed," Baker said. "Now I think since they've gotten in the spotlight, they're starting [with the No. 1s] in their head makes them play better and makes them feel important, and I think that's a really big deal."

Attitude and confidence are the keys that Wiemers is trying to establish with the Redhawks linemen, which completed their fifth spring practice Thursday.

"We'll have a few young guys in there. They have to believe that, 'You're no longer a backup anymore,'" Wiemers said. "You have to have the confidence to be aggressive. It's an aggressive position, and I think that's something that I'm trying to instill in them right now. It's an attitude more than anything -- the attitude that all five of you dominate your opponent all the time that's across from you. To get all five of them to believe that -- whoever those five are -- is the kind of the challenge a lot of the times with this position."