Revived 'Hawks hope to end with streak

~ Southeast is looking for three more wins after claiming its first victory on Saturday.

Southeast Missouri State has its sights set on ending the season with a four-game winning streak -- but the Redhawks also want to make sure they don't get ahead of themselves.

Sure, it's a cliche, but Southeast coach Tim Billings warned that the Redhawks -- revived by Saturday's 52-21 rout of visiting Murray State -- need to make sure they take things one game at a time.

"No question," said Billings during his weekly media conference Monday. "The most important game is this week."

Meaning the Redhawks (1-7, 1-4 Ohio Valley Conference) will have their sights focused totally on Tennessee-Martin (4-4, 2-3). The squads square off at noon Saturday in Martin, Tenn.

"They're better than they've ever been," said Billings of the Skyhawks, the perennial OVC whipping boys who are having their best season since 1995.

Billings acknowledged, however, that if the Redhawks continue to perform like they did against Murray State, they will have every opportunity to finish strong in their final three games of the season.

"Hopefully we can take this momentum into the last three weeks," Billings said. "We're playing really well right now, and I feel like we can end on a good, positive note these last three weeks.

"We're a good football team right now. It's amazing. Two weeks ago I couldn't have said that."

The Redhawks have played by far their best football of the season in their past two games, starting with a last-second 33-32 loss at Eastern Kentucky on Oct. 22.

Then came Saturday's performance, as Southeast dominated a Murray State squad that had beaten the Redhawks 12 straight times.

The Redhawks piled up a season-high 505 yards of offense while scoring 20 more points than it had in any previous game this year.

Defensively, the Redhawks held the Racers to just 251 yards -- and a good chunk of that came late in the contest. Murray State needed two touchdowns in the final five minutes against mainly Southeast reserves to avoid its most lopsided OVC defeat since 1992.

"It was our best overall performance," Billings said. "We played well in all three phases."

After scoring just 107 points in the first six games, the Redhawks have exploded for 84 points in the last two contests. Helping Southeast greatly has been just one turnover the past two weeks, after the Redhawks turned the ball over 22 times in the first six games.

"What a great plus that is," said Billings, who added with a smile, "This is how we wish we'd played all year. The only negative is I wish the season started now."

Like Billings, Southeast players said following the rout of Murray State that they have to guard against not looking too far ahead.

But the Redhawks do believe winning out the rest of the way is a solid possibility, especially since their last three opponents -- Tennessee-Martin, Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech -- are a combined 8-16 overall and 4-10 in OVC play.

"The season hasn't gone the way we wanted it to, but now we're playing really good and we're looking to win the rest of the way," senior safety Mike Miller said. "Teams know they're going to be getting our best shot now."

Added junior linebacker Seth Harrell, "I think we've got a good chance to win the rest of our games if we keep playing like we have been. It would be a great way to go into next season."

Haley comes on strong

While Billings heaped plenty of praise on most of the Redhawks' players and coaches for Saturday's performance, he was especially pleased with senior quarterback Mike Haley, who continued to bounce back from several shaky outings in the first half of the season.

Haley completed 14 of 21 passes for 203 yards and three touchdowns against Murray State. In the last two games, Haley is 32 of 48 for 440 yards, with five touchdowns and just one interception.

"Mike played really well again," Billings said. "I'm really proud of Mike. Where he was, being a senior, he could have given it up. The last two weeks, he's played as well as anybody in the conference."

Billings pointed out that having a strong running game for the first time all season has no doubt helped take some of the pressure off Haley and has opened things up in the passing game.

After Southeast rushed for a total of just 381 yards in its first six games, the Redhawks gained a season-high 161 yards on the ground against Eastern Kentucky, on a season-high 43 attempts.

Then, against Murray State, the Redhawks nearly doubled that rushing yardage total as they piled up 302 yards on 59 attempts.

Southeast has thrown by far its fewest passes of the season over the last two weeks.

Noteworthy

* With another quarterback sack Saturday -- and three in the last two games -- Southeast senior defensive end Justin Komondoreas has moved into the OVC lead in that category with 4.5 sacks on the season.