Young and undefeated Indians ready for opening day

There is a lot of excitement as our football team prepares for the season opener against Arkansas-Monticello tonight at Houck Stadium. I hope everyone is planning on attending the game and giving us that home field advantage of a very enthusiastic crowd.

The start of a new season is always exciting. Teams all over the country are still unbeaten and have high hopes just like we do here at Southeast.

I feel very good about this football team. I know we have come a long way in the last two years. For the first time since we've been here, we will put an experienced team on the field tonight.

We are still young, but most of the players who take the field have college football experience. Many of them played as true freshmen and now they are approaching being the type of football players we knew they could be.

We are bigger and stronger because of our new strength coach, Paul Helsel, and I know we are much improved over last season. The question is, how much are the other teams in our conference improved?

With five teams ranked in the top 25 in one or more preseason poll, the Ohio Valley Conference is stronger than it has ever been. I really think the OVC is the premier Division I-AA conference in the country this season. We have our work cut out for us.

Our opening opponent is a Division II team with a lot of talented players. Arkansas-Monticello has an all-American running back in Corwin Elliott, who rushed for more than 1,600 yards last season. He rushed for more than 100 yards in eight games and went over 200 yards in three games. Elliott will be a test for our defense that is vastly improved over last season.

Arkansas-Monticello has a completely new coaching staff, so we don't really know what to expect on either offense or defense. This will provide a good learning experience for our coaches and players because we will have to make a lot of adjustments during the game. How quickly we make the needed adjustments will be a key to our success.

Our motto as a team this year is "one game at a time." Our opener is very important because it is the only time we will be at home for more than a month. We follow the opener with four straight road games.

However, five of our seven road games are within three to four hours from Cape Girardeau. SIU is only about 45 minutes away and Tennessee-Martin and Murray State are close. Southwest Missouri and Middle Tennessee are within easy driving distance. We hope that many of you will follow us on the road as well as at Houck Stadium.

I would like to thank all those who attended our reverse faffle Saturday night. It was a big success thanks to the participation of our sponsors, the many merchants who donated prizes and to the organizing committee that did such a great job.

If you weren't able to be with us Saturday, make plans now to be with us next August, and definitely make plans to be at Houck Stadium tonight. We need your support.

Tim Billings is the football coach at Southeast Missouri State University