Contender or pretender?

After a very exciting road victory over Division I-A Middle Tennessee State, we face a very talented Tennessee State team in our Ohio Valley Conference opener at Houck Stadium at 6 p.m. Saturday.

In the win over MTSU, we played well on both sides of the ball for four quarters. It's the first time that has happened since I came here three years ago. Now we have to see if we can continue to play at that level and become a contender, not just a pretender.

I told the team at halftime of the MTSU game that they had raised the bar of expectations and that they would have to go out in the second half and prove to MTSU and everybody else that it wasn't a fluke, and they did.

Our goal coming into the game was to show improvement on both sides of the ball and we did. Now we have to continue to improve and prove that we have turned the program around.

The first phase of building a winning football program is to get good players and we have been able to do that. I think it is evident to everybody that we have better players who are more athletic. That is something everybody can see.

The mental part of the process is more abstract. We have to find a way to develop a winning attitude. The difference between a winning attitude and a wanting-to-win attitude is a very fine line. I think we are on the right side of the line now, but we have to continue to raise the bar. Our expectations are much higher.

We have to remember that we beat a very good football team in front of nearly 28,000 enthusiastic fans. MTSU is the best team we have played since I've been here and that includes our game at Marshall.

We beat MTSU in every aspect of the game. We outplayed a team that nearly beat Alabama. We have raised the bar and gone over it. Now we have to make sure we stay on the right side and continue to raise the bar.

Tennessee State is a very talented football team, loaded with very athletic players. They struggled early because of problems at quarterback, but they have solved that now with the emergence of a true freshman quarterback from St. Louis and they will only get better. They have beaten Southeast five straight times and it is time to reverse that trend.

Last week we played in front of almost 28,000 fans. Now we return home for the first time in a month and hopefully we will have a full house at Houck Stadium. We are working hard to provide the university, the students and the community a product you can all be proud of.

We need your help in filling the stands at Houck. Come to the game and bring your friends. It should be a great college football game with both teams trying to get off to a 1-0 start in the OVC. We need your enthusiasm to help us prove we are a contender and not a pretender.

I'll see you Saturday night.

Tim Billings is the football coach at Southeast Missouri State University