Monday, September 14, 2009 9:17 AM CDT
A shutout but no perfect game for Panthers
BY BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.om
TERRE HAUTE -- After griping about a win when allowing just six points, Eastern Illinois’ football defense pitched a shutout.
So what now?
“Oh, we’ve got a few things to complain about,” defensive coordinator Roc Bellantoni said. “Wait until we watch the film.”
Even before such a review, defensive tackle Trevor Frerichs said this: “We still gave up too many yards.”
Granted, Eastern Illinois with Saturday’s 31-0 non-conference football win at Indiana State just falls into the long list of teams contributing to the nation’s longest current losing streak that has now reached 29 games, three of them this year.
Then again, you can hardly beat a shutout – the Panthers’ first since Oct. 7, 2006 when they defeated Southeast Missouri 21-0 – following the season opening 31-6 win over Illinois State.
“That’s pretty good defense isn’t it – six points?” junior cornerback C.J. James said.
James was speaking of Eastern’s total points allowed this year, not the six points he scored with a 26-yard interception return in the first quarter.
That 3.0 point-per-game average ties Eastern with Lafayette and Drake for the national lead in scoring defense for NCAA Football Championship Subdivision teams.
Limiting Indiana State to 95 yards in total offense, the Panthers rank third in the FCS with a 97.5-yard-per-game total defense average and fourth in rushing defense with 22.0 yards per game allowed.
“About the sixth or seventh week I start paying attention to those kinds of things,” Bellantoni said.
By then Eastern not only will have had that supreme challenge with the Oct. 10 game at Penn State but also be into its Ohio Valley Conference schedule.
“Now we’re going to face a team coming of age,” EIU coach Bob Spoo said. “We’ve played against teams that don’t have the experience of teams we’ll be facing the next couple of weeks. In order to win these games coming up we’ll have to play better than we have been.”
Maybe the Panthers started looking toward OVC play after they had a 14-0 lead just one offensive possession and five minutes, 48 seconds into this game at Indiana State.
“I’m not really sure,” quarterback Jake Christensen said when asked if things came too easy too early. “A combination of that and them putting us on the 3-yard line twice. I don’t care who you’re playing that makes it tough.”
Indiana State punter Gabe Mullane stalled the Panthers by bouncing a 55-yard punt to the 3-yard line and then on the Sycamores’ next possession a 35-yarder downed at the 3 again.
By then Eastern had already given itself some breathing room.
Christensen, who finished the day 14-for-19 passing for 145 yards, completed his first four passes including a 20-yard strike to Chavar Watkins in the end zone to finish a seven-play, 63-yard touchdown drive.
Then on the next series, James picked off a pass from Travis Johnson near the sideline and had a clear path for a 26-yard return for a touchdown.
“It was basically a three-step read,” James said. “Watching films we were ready for that. We’d mainly been watching films of (Nos.) 18 and 10. With Jake, he is pretty fast so practicing against him we are ready for their guys.”
James was referring to the jersey numbers of quarterbacks Chris Stutzriem and Matt Seliger, who played in Indiana State’s opener two weeks earlier.
Sycamores coach Trent Miles decided on this day to start No. 12 Travis Johnson, the redshirt freshman from Marshall and son of Mattoon coach Troy Johnson.
“It surprised me,” Spoo said. “I don’t know if it surprised Roc. ”
Frerichs, who recorded one of the Panthers’ three sacks, said: “We knew they were going to have more run options with him. He could run the ball more than the other quarterback.”
Johnson finished 8-for-15 for 63 yards with the one interception and Stutzriem, the Wyoming transfer who started the Sycamores’ first two games, got in the game to complete three of seven passes totaling 8 yards.
Eastern’s Mon Williams, who ran for 113 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries, by himself topped Indiana State’s total offense of 95 yards, marking the fewest by a Sycamores team since getting just 48 yards in 2003 against Missouri State.
“This whole week all we wanted was to get a goose egg,” linebacker Gordy Kickels said. “We played really fast today. We’ve been working on getting turnovers. I think we were ahead in turnovers 3-1 today.”
Safety Adrian Arrington had seven tackles, including two for loss while Nick Nasti also totaled seven tackles and Cory Leman figured in five, including a sack, a tackle for loss and a forced fumble.
Still, this does not change the EIU rallying cry and the defense’s “Nobodies” self-given nickname following last year’s 5-7 season as the Panthers gear toward their Ohio Valley opener set for 6 p.m. Saturday at Southeast Missouri.
“Last year was an embarrassment to the program,” James said. “Coach Roc is staying on us. We’re still nobody. Until we get to Chattanooga (the NCAA championship game site), that’s when we’ll be somebody.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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