TENNESSEE STATE SETS RECORD IN 76-0 ROMP

Tennessee State's football team has been on a serious roll lately -- and that trend certainly continued last weekend when the Tigers faced lowly Tennessee-Martin.

The Tigers set an Ohio Valley Conference record by piling up an amazing 737 yards of total offense during a 76-0 homecoming demolition of the Skyhawks. A record crowd of 22,046 was on hand at Hale Stadium to watch the massacre.

Tennessee State has now won four straight games to improve to 5-2 and the Tigers are squarely in the chase for the OVC title with a 3-1 league record.

The Tigers' offensive explosion against the winless Skyhawks broke the old OVC total offense record of 734 yards set by Austin Peay against Kentucky Wesleyan in 1994. Tennessee State's offense was balanced, with 375 yards passing and 364 yards rushing.

Now things figure to get a whole lot tougher for the Tigers as they visit first-place Eastern Illinois Saturday in a huge OVC game. A win by the Tigers would give them at least a share of the conference lead.

Eastern Illinois improved to 3-0 in the OVC and 5-2 overall with a pretty amazing win of its own. The Panthers trailed host Middle Tennessee 32-21 with 1:25 remaining but pulled out an improbable 35-32 victory.

The Panthers drove 65 yards in 47 seconds for a touchdown and then recovered the ensuing onside kick. From there, the Panthers drove 50 yards in five plays, with Justin Lynch providing the game-winning score on a 2-yard run with six seconds left.

And there was one other pretty incredible OVC game last weekend -- Tennessee Tech's 31-29, triple-overtime victory over Eastern Kentucky.

It was Tech's first win over the Colonels since 1975 and gave Eastern Kentucky its first three-game OVC losing streak since 1972. The loss also virtually eliminated the preseason OVC favorites from title contention.

Murray State, which was idle, is 3-1 in the league (5-2 overall) and tied for second place with Tennessee State. Middle Tennessee is a game back at 3-2.

The race for the championship will likely be decided in head-to-head matchups over the next three weeks, starting Saturday with the Eastern Illinois-Tennessee State contest.

Eastern Illinois will then play host to Murray State on Nov. 7. Should the Panthers slip up in either game, it will set up another key showdown on Nov. 14 as Tennessee State visits Murray State.

* The three squads at the top of the eight-team OVC -- Eastern Illinois, Tennessee State and Murray State -- are the only conference squads with overall winning records.

Middle Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee Tech are all 3-4, Southeast Missouri is 3-5 and Tennessee-Martin is 0-7.

* Tennessee State tailback DeJuan Marshall and Tennessee Tech defensive end Branon Vaughn received the OVC's weekly honors.

Marshall rushed for 160 yards on 17 carries, marking his second 100-yard game in three weeks, in the rout of Tennessee-Martin.

Vaughn made a career-high 10 tackles, registered four sacks and tied a school record with six tackles for loss in the upset win over Eastern Kentucky.

* Only two OVC teams are ranked in this week's Sports Network Division I-AA top 25. Murray State is 13th and Eastern Illinois is 18th.