Special teams play pleases Samuel

Southeast Missouri State football coach Tony Samuel never gets too carried away by one game.

As Samuel pointed out, the Redhawks still have much to improve on.

But as far as season openers go, Samuel had few complaints after watching the film of Thursday's record-setting 72-3 destruction of NAIA Quincy.

"I thought the kids played hard, more than anything," Samuel said. "I just liked the energy. These kids have made some great sacrifices.

"It's a real good start, but we still have a lot of work to do."

Southeast's offense received plenty of attention for piling up 512 yards despite most of the starters not seeing the field in the second half after the Redhawks led 58-0 at the break.

The offense did play a major role in Southeast setting a modern-day school record for most points in a game.

"We saw the potential our offense has," said sophomore quarterback Matt Scheible, who threw for 222 yards and two touchdowns while running for a TD, all in the first half.

If the opener is an indication, Southeast also displayed its potential on defense and special teams.

Southeast allowed its fewest points under Samuel, who is in his fourth season, and the fewest since the 1997 team shut out Austin Peay 31-0.

The Redhawks gave up 220 yards, only 75 coming in the first half. The defense might have pitched a shutout but a roughing the punter penalty early in the second half kept alive Quincy's only scoring drive.

"It [a shutout] would have been nice, but it's really not that big a deal," said junior linebacker Tyler Epstein, whose 24-yard interception return for a touchdown gave Southeast an early 14-0 lead.

Samuel said he was impressed with how well the defense performed despite having such a massive lead.

"When you get into those types of games, you hope the defense can hold up," Samuel said. "We played a lot of people."

As for special teams, that unit set the tone on the opening kickoff when sophomore Jacob McKinley, who set a school record for kickoff return yardage last year, brought the boot back 80 yards to the Quincy 11.

Southeast scored three plays later and the rout was on.

Samuel lauded junior linebacker Justin Woodlief, a walk-on at Division I-A San Jose State last year who led the Redhawks with 10 tackles off the bench, for one of the best special teams plays he's seen.

According to Samuel, Woodlief got "four knockdowns in the span of 50 yards" on the opening kickoff to help spring McKinley.

Samuel called Woodlief's effort "one of the all-time great plays on special teams. Those kinds of things go unnoticed. That's pretty impressive."

Ahead 14-0, Southeast got another big special teams play when junior linebacker Andrew Adams blocked a punt deep in Quincy territory and true freshman safety Tylor Brock recovered in the end zone.

That put Southeast ahead 21-0 just 4 minutes, 25 seconds into the game.

Southeast also excelled in kickoff coverage, keeping Quincy bottled up deep in its territory all night.

"The kickoff coverage was really good, the punt block was big and probably the kickoff return was the play that set the tempo for the game," Samuel said. "We've always put a lot of time in [on special teams]. Special teams can make or break you."

Now the Redhawks will turn their attention to Cincinnati, which is paying Southeast's athletic department $275,000 for the Sept. 12 visit.

Defending Big East Conference champion Cincinnati, which played in the Orange Bowl last year, opens its season Monday at Rutgers in a key early-season Big East matchup.

Samuel said the Redhawks should get a good scouting report on the Bearcats from Monday's 3 p.m. contest that will be televised nationally by ESPN.

"That's a big game," Samuel said. "They [Cincinnati] won't hold anything back."

Noteworthy

* Junior running back Mike Jones did not dress Thursday because of a foot injury. His status for Cincinnati is unknown.

* Samuel said freshman offensive lineman Craig Robinson from Hayti recently quit the team after going through much of fall camp. Samuel said Robinson remains in school at Southeast.