Shorter Notes
SE Missouri Notes
Watch the Game

By Jim O'Hara
 
ROME, Ga. – Very few Division II football programs play two games against Division I teams in a single season. Squaring off against the higher-level foes on consecutive weeks is even rarer.

But as far as Shorter head coach Phil Jones is concerned, there are reasons why the Hawks will do just that on Saturday when, for the second straight week, they will line up against a Division I Football Championship Subdivision opponent by facing Ohio Valley Conference member Southeast Missouri State in Cape Girardeau, Mo. It's also the first time in 10 years that a GSC team has played two Division I teams in the same season.

"One of the reasons we play teams like this," Jones said as the 0-2 Hawks try to shake off a stinging 18-10 setback last week to FCS newcomer Kennesaw State, "is to try and be ready when we start playing our league games because our conference plays, like they do, at a very high level."

Saturday's 2 p.m. (ET) kick-off against the 1-2 Redhawks marks the end of Shorter's non-conference portion of its schedule, with the start of the Hawks' Gulf South Conference slate looming ahead of them on Oct. 3 when they visit GSC foe Mississippi College in Clinton, Miss., the Hawks' fourth straight road game and one that is against the team that wound being Shorter's last win last year.

Jones, however, is making sure that his team is not looking past the Redhawks, emphasizing that Southeast is coming off heartbreaking defeat of its own and will be seeking to get back on track as they enter their own conference schedule the following week as well.

"They're a very good football team that is coached very, very well," Jones said about the Redhawks, who opened the season falling to Southeastern Conference power Missouri, fought off Southern Illinois for a win and last week suffered a one-point setback to FCS nationally-ranked Indiana State. "Defensively they run wherever the football is and get after it, and offensively they work out of a spread with good receivers but what we're impressed with is their offensive line."

The seventh Division I team Shorter has played in its 11-year history, Southeast has a perfect 15-0 record and has averaged more than 42 points a game against non-Division I teams, its last game coming a year ag when the Redhawks trounced NAIA Missouri Baptist 77-0.

Led by second-year head coach Tom Matukewicz, the Redhawks – like Shorter – came up just short of pulling off a road win last week against Indiana State when they scored a touchdown on the final play of the game to pull to within a point, opted to go for the win with a two-point conversion but saw what would have been the game-winning pass fall incomplete.

What the game, however, did produce was a quarterback who will become Southeast's first-ever true freshman to start this week as Dante Vandeven, who led his team to the near-comeback win last week in the fourth quarter, will lead his team against the Hawks.

Against Indiana State, Vandeven finished the game completing 12-of-17 passes for 115 yards and a touchdown, and ran for 28 more yards on four carries, a performance that netted him this week's OVC Newcomer of the Year award and the STATS FCS Freshman Player of the Week honor.

The Redhawks average 350 yards and 19 points a game and despite the fact that they give up 426 yards and 29 points a game, they boast a defense that is among the best in the FCS.

Southeast is currently tied for second in the FCS with 9.3 tackles for loss per game and SEMO's 28 total tackles for loss are first in the nation with South Carolina State and Samford. Additionally, the Redhawks are also among the top-10 FCS teams in fumbles recovered (7th, 4), interceptions (7th, 5), turnover margin (6th, 1.67 avg.), turnovers gained (6th, 9) and sacks (10th, 3.3 spg).

The Hawks, however, have a defensive unit of their own that last week held a Kennesaw State team that had been averaging more than 50 points a game to less than half of that average and did not allow the Owls to score a single offensive touchdown, the first time a Shorter team has done that since 2008.

Just how solid the veteran group of Shorter defenders are is evident in the GSC defensive statistic totals as junior linebacker Zach Butts – he was named this week's GSC Defensive Player of the Week after recording 16 tackles against KSU – and senior linebacker Dominique Henfield are the top two tacklers in the Gulf South.

But what the Hawks clearly understand is that they need to get their offense on track immediately in order to become a factor when they begin playing conference games.

Last week, Shorter was held to just 162 yards, most of that coming on a 61-yard drive in the game's final minute that set the Hawks up for what would have been a game-winning field goal as time expired but ended with a bad snap that Kennesaw returned for its only touchdown.

Junior fullback B.J. McCoy, who opened the season rushing for 139 yards and a 77-yard scoring run in a loss to Division II Carson-Newman, was held to just 22 yards on 10 carries against Kennesaw and will be looking to help ignite Shorter's triple-option attack, and sophomore Aaron Bryant turned in a strong showing in his first-ever start at quarterback competing 8-of-11 passes for 135 yards, most of that coming on the Hawks' final drive.

Though the end of the game against Kennesaw felt, Jones noted, like a "dagger in the heart", the veteran coach has once seen his team cast the heartbreak aside and refocus on what's ahead of them this week in Shorter's first-ever trip to the Show Me State.

"Typically, our guys come right back and are ready to go after a game," Jones said, "but this week it took a couple of days. That game meant so much to them.
"But in the past couple of days you could see them getting back," he added. "They know what they have to do, know what's ahead of them and are working hard to get it done.

"Hopefully, we can go there and make ourselves better."