Published: October 11, 2008 11:30 pm            

Sycamores now own the nation’s longest losing streak

CARBONDALE, ILL. — On Friday night, hundreds of miles from Terre Haute on a field in North Andover, Mass., St. Anselm ended the nation’s longest NCAA football losing streak, beating Merrimack by a touchdown to end a 34-game skid.

Back in the Midwest, Indiana State reluctantly inherited the burden from the Division II Hawks’ and had the weight placed on their own backs going into Saturday’s Missouri Valley Football Conference game at Southern Illinois.

Then, the Sycamores went out and demonstrated why the dubious honor is all theirs.

The Sycamores were outclassed by in a big way by the experienced Salukis, falling in a 60-7 rout in front of a Homecoming crowd of 11,857 at SIU’s McAndrew Stadium.

The Sycamores (0-6, 0-2) lost their 20th in a row, the longest streak across any of the NCAA’s four football divisions.

It could have been a lot worse for the Sycamores. SIU led 50-0 at halftime and scored 36 points in the second quarter alone. Once ISU went youth-against-SIU youth in the second half, the Sycamores did far better as SIU only outscored ISU 10-7 after the break.

It was something to salvage, though the Sycamores took little satisfaction that it spotted SIU (3-2, 2-1) a 50-point lead before it got to that point.

“Football is how you finish, so we’re OK with how we ended it. We have a lot of guys doing the right thing, but we need every single guy doing the right thing or it’s going to be like this for a while,” ISU fullback Brock Lough said.

There were bright spots. Quarterback Calvin Schmidtke emerged from an early game quarterback rotation to turn in a good performance. The freshman completed 17 of 24 passes for 160 yards and his first career touchdown pass. Of his passing yards, 123 were amassed in the second half against SIU reserves, but it was progress nonetheless.

Lough averaged 5.7 yards per carry for 40 yards overall and was ISU’s best running threat. Lough was the best of ISU’s all-freshmen backfield including Reece Craig and Taylor Johnson. Starter Darrius Gates could not play due to an ankle injury.

Running back Antoine Brown didn’t play due to a suspension and suspensions morphed ISU’s defense too, which was already short-handed due as linebacker Jayden Everett couldn’t play due to a shoulder injury.

Linebacker Quinton Scott, ISU’s leading tackler, missed the first two series due to a violation of team rules, as did safety Darius Middlebrooks. Partly due to the disciplinary benchings, there were six freshmen defenders on the field to start the game for the Sycamores.

“It’s disheartening because we’re already low in numbers. Coach Miles has said from day one that if you don’t do things right off the field, you’re not going to be on the field. It all goes hand-in-hand. [The suspended players] are just going to have to deal with it,” said ISU junior defensive end Kevin Wilson, who dropped SIU’s quarterbacks twice, though he wasn’t officially credited with a sack.

All of the suspended players are veterans and Miles is not happy that it is the older players that are letting the team down with conduct he deems unacceptable.

“I’m very disappointed in them at times because they’ve been here and they should be the ones stepping out and being leaders. When I’m naming freshmen as team captains for the game, you know we have an issue,” Miles said.

“It’s disappointing when players who have been here for three or four years aren’t doing things the right way, but they’re going to understand that I’m going to make them do things the right way. They’re going to be accountable. They’re going to do things the right way or they’re not going to play, it’s that simple,” Miles added.

The first half was nightmarish for the Sycamores. Against ISU’s green defense, SIU scored on its first play — a 60-yard touchdown strike – as SIU quarterback Chris Dieker went over the top of ISU’s safeties to find Damian Sherman just seven seconds into the game. SIU scored again on a 10-yard Larry Warner run later in the first quarter to make it 14-0.

To that point, ISU mixed it up offensively. Matt Seliger, Schmidtke and Chuck Dowdell alternated at quarterback, changing by the play at times. The plan was scuttled when Dowdell injured his shoulder late in the first quarter (Dowdell’s arm was in a sling as he walked off the field), but no matter who ran the offense, they had limited success … just two first downs in the first quarter.

“I knew we’d be switching. Chuck was in there in running situations, I was in on third-and-long passing situations and Matt was in for the other plays. It was the coaches’ call [who played when],” Schmidtke said.

SIU would amass 15 first downs and 298 total yards in the first half to five first downs and 87 yards for ISU, but the yardage gap wasn’t the problem for the Sycamores.

In a second quarter straight from a horror movie, SIU used unfathomably easy scoring drives and short-yardage defensive touchdowns to drive the score up. Of SIU’s five second quarter touchdowns, only one of the drives was longer than 22 yards — as a 65-yard drive was capped by a perfectly-executed 36-yard option pass from receiver Matt Guinn to Dieker to get the second quarter started on a horrid note for ISU.

SIU followed with a 3-yard blocked punt recovery and an 8-yard fumble recovery within the span to make it 36-0 midway through the period. Sublime became ridiculous when ISU punter Gabe Mullane shanked a punt under heavy pressure that went for negative-5 yards deep in ISU territory, setting up a 1-yard Lucien Walker touchdown run. On ISU’s first play after the kickoff, Craig fumbled, it was recovered at the 14, and SIU marched right in as Richard White scored on a 14-yard touchdown run.

“We can’t turn the ball over, you can’t do it against good football teams. We’re doing all we can, we’re fighting, but we’re mismatched, and when you turn it over, it gets ugly. When we settled down, it was a different deal,” Miles said.

The second half was better. ISU held SIU to an opening drive field goal and then embarked on its best drive of the game. Schmidtke led a 10-play, 72-yard drive, scrambling out of trouble on 3rd-and-11 from the SIU 48 to find Ryan Patrick down the right sideline for a touchdown strike to put ISU on the board.

The Sycamores wouldn’t score again, but they did drive to the SIU 33 in the fourth quarter before surrendering the ball on downs. Meanwhile, SIU took it easy with the lead, mostly playing its underclassmen.

“The young guys aren’t getting down at all. They’re the future of this football team. We need some of the older guys to step up,” Miles said.

“We don’t have that many older guys on this team, but they need to understand that they’re the reason this is going to be turned in the right direction,” he added. “The best thing they can do is leave here knowing they contributed to getting this thing going the right way. On and off the field. I can’t say right now that all our seniors are doing that.”

ISU finishes its tour of directional Illinois schools next Saturday at Western Illinois.





SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 60,

INDIANA STATE 7

Indiana State 0 0 7 0 — 7

S. Illinois 14 36 3 7 — 60

SIll—Sherman 60 pass from Dieker (Dougherty kick), 14:53.

SIll—Warner 10 run (Dougherty kick), 3:16.

SIll—Dieker 36 pass from Guinn (Dougherty kick), 14:26.

SIll—Caldwell 3 blocked punt return (Dougherty kick), 12:42.

SIll—K.Walker 8 fumble return (Seaman pass from Dougherty), 6:29.

SIll—L.Walker 1 run (Dougherty kick), 3:52.

SIll—White 14 run (Dougherty kick), 3:40.

SIll—FG Dougherty 25, 7:07.

InSt— Patrick 48 pass from Schmidtke (Martinez kick), 1:34.

SIll—Govan 20 run (Dougherty kick), 9:12.

A—11,857.

InSt SIll

First downs 12 21

Rushes-yards 39-63 38-237

Passing 175 205

Comp-Att-Int 20-28-0 10-11-0

Return Yards (-1) 16

Punts-Avg. 7-25.3 3-41.0

Fumbles-Lost 5-3 3-1

Penalties-Yards 2-20 5-42

Time of Possession 34:55 25:05

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING—Indiana St., Lough 7-40, Ta.Johnson 12-15, Craig 11-10, Schmidtke 6-4, Dowdell 1-2, Seliger 2-(minus 8). S. Illinois, Warner 7-67, White 7-52, Govan 8-52, Allaria 9-41, Dieker 2-18, L.Walker 3-10, Team 2-(minus 3).

PASSING—Indiana St., Schmidtke 17-24-0-160, Seliger 3-4-0-15. S. Illinois, Dieker 5-5-0-117, Allaria 3-3-0-15, Brenneisen 1-2-0-37, Guinn 1-1-0-36.

RECEIVING—Indiana St., Patrick 7-92, Gray 4-24, Craig 3-17, Kent 2-23, Dowdell 2-9, Ta.Johnson 1-8, Lough 1-2. S. Illinois, Sherman 2-82, Govan 2-42, Morris 2-23, Dieker 1-36, White 1-12, Warner 1-6, Seay 1-4.

        

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