Indians showed new dimensions in EMU game

For the first time this season, we are preparing for a football game after losing a tough decision to a Division I-A team at Eastern Michigan Saturday night.

I told our team that even coming down to the wire Saturday I felt we were going to win the game and we did have a chance to win. If you hang on the edge of the cliff enough times, the law of averages says you will fall once in a while. I think our team has the confidence to win, but we need to stay off the edge of the cliff.

There were some positives that came out of the Eastern Michigan game. I'm excited about our offense because we are becoming a two-dimensional football team. We have proven that we can run the football, even against a big physical team like EMU, and we have a very explosive passing game. We want to be able to run and throw the football.

Going into the season everyone was worried about replacing Curtis Cooper, who had such a great year. This season we have three backs with different strengths that enable us to have a healthy and fresh back in the game at all times. Our offensive line has really matured and gotten stronger. Our o-line is the strength of our football team right now.

Jack Tomco is really developing as our quarterback. He got most of the reps during spring drills because Jeromy McDowell was injured and he again got most of the reps in fall drills because of McDowell's injuries. When Jeromy went down after the first game, Jack was ready and he continues to improve each week.

Our wide receivers are continuing to improve and it seems like someone different steps up each game. Bill Coleman, Chris NesSmith and Tarik Simpson have all come up with big games, and of course Willie Ponder is always there as a tremendous threat. As long as defenses continue to double Willie, we have confidence in throwing to the other receivers and in running the football. We are not a one man show.

Knock on wood, but the thing that has really helped us the last two games is not turning the football over. Hopefully that trend will continue this Saturday night at Southwest Missouri State.

Our defense is playing hard, but we continue to give up too many big plays because of our inconsistency. We have had many key people like Dimitri Patterson, Adam Jones and Marco Tipton injured, but our backups have to come in and get the job done. Hopefully both Patterson and Tipton will be ready for this Saturday's game, although Jones is still questionable.

The SMS game is another bragging rights game just like the SIU game. It is an interesting matchup of different coaching philosophies. Coach Randy Ball at SMS believes in building with transfers. He has 28 transfers from junior colleges or I-A schools on this year's roster. Our philosophy has been to build with high school players, with just a few transfers added in.

Coach Ball is in his fourth year at SMS while we are in our third year. The Bears have dominated the long series and have won nine of the last 10 games. I felt we narrowed the gap last season in a three-point loss. Hopefully we can get a victory in Springfield for the first time since 1979.

We had a great group of fans make the long trip to Michigan last week. Hopefully we'll see even more red in the stands at Plaster Field in Springfield.

Tim Billings is the football coach at Southeast Missouri State University