Big MO State weekend

The Bears travel to C-dale to take on them Ugly Dawgs Saturday afternoon. It will be interesting for sure. MO State had three good days of practice in preparation for Sam Houston State before Hurricane Rita forced cancellation of what would've been a stellar shootout, a rematch of last year's come-from-behind thriller the Bears took 33-31 on Kaya Farris' TD catch in the closing seconds. Will the open Saturday help or hurt the Bears?

It will be televised LIVE on Mediacom Connections Channel 14.

If hockey's your thing, MO State will be in Jeff City for a showdown with Missouri University-Columbia, the first athletic meeting between MSU and MU-C. Those games are becoming less and less common. Both women's basketball and volleyball have stopped competing...and it wasn't MO State's idea. Men's basketball wouldn't think of playing us, though a football meeting could be down the road, maybe sometime after '08.

That leaves us with baseball and other non-revenue sports. I don't want to say the UM-C is hiding from MSU in revenue sports, but they're hiding from MSU in revenue sports.

Back to the subject at hand. These should be some intense games in Jeff City. UM-C was solid last year, going unbeaten in MACHA play before bowing out in the league tournament. MO State is still relatively young, though they finally have some solid senior leadership. They split games at Bradley last weekend, a team UM-C swept.

These games will be broadcast LIVE on the internet by WebSportsRadio.com. Dan Lee and Steve Casson do a good job and actually have some hockey experience under their belts. WSR is a fledgling venture that could bring some live, free high school and college sports to those with internet access and has given good exposure for MO State hockey. Listen live if you can and support their advertisers.

Listening to: Apollo Sunshine - "Today is the Day"

MU-C to play SEMO, Tigerboard wigs out

OzarkSportsNet over on the letsgobears.com Football Board points out that TigerBoard - the spot for Missouri University-Columbia fans to gather - is abuzz over news that the MU-C Tigers will play SEMO in football at some point in the next few years.

These posts, kids, are good reads. A friend of my wife's - a med student at MU-C - told her the whole name change thing has blown over. Apparently not with everybody. Folks like "AndyTiger" are still carrying the torch.

"Why do we want to give teams in our own state money," he asks."As far as I'm concerned they're competition. MU needs to be the flagship school. No use in legitimizing the directional schools."

Some posters over there see scheduling SEMO as a swipe at Missouri State. One so eloquently says "They can never really get rid of the directional in them." Most think we're a bunch of wanna-bes.

The most ludicrous post, though, refers to Missouri State as arrogant. Of course. We're arrogant, not the fans who don't want to legitimize the directional schools by playing them in football.

Thanks, TigerBoard. You're always good for a laugh.

MO State Defense to get tested

Injuries have the Bears defense a little thin this weekend for SEMO. MLB Darryl Johnson is out, meaning freshman Dan Graham will patrol the middle for the Bears. Two-thirds of the starting corps is now out, with Michael Evans still sidelined by a broken arm. Another freshman - Luke Harper - is second on the depth chart at one of the defensive tackle spots. They will be challenged by a Redhawk receiver group that includes a couple of big targets - TE Joe Tuineau (6-8, 280) and WR T.J. Milcic (6-5, 200). Tuienau has nine grabs for 107 yards while Milcic's got eight for 154 and a 71-yard TD strike.

It's up to Sid Rone (13) and the boys up front to get some heat on QB Mike Haley. He was busy last week, throwing 61 times in a loss to Kent state. He completed 34. He's 53-for-96 on the year for 498 yards, but has two TD's against five picks. The ground game doesn't look intimidating on paper, with JuCo transfer John Radney's 13 carries for 60 yards leading the way. True freshman Tim Holloman has 38 yards on the season.

The MO State offense, however, will face a SEMO 'D' that has surrendered 69 points in two outings and is without DT Bernard Quinn, who suffered an elbow injury in the Kent State game. Still, the Redhawks can bring the noise. DE Edgar Jones had 2.5 sacks for -10 yards at Kent State and leads the OVC in sacks and tackles for loss (3.5, -11 yards). He also has two QB hurries. D'Eldrick Taylor has 13 tackles to lead the time - including nine solos - while redshirt frosh Monroe Hicks has two interceptions, one returned for 47 yards and a TD. Look for them to bring heat from all angles and - from the sounds of Bears coach Randy Ball's radio show - try and make the Bears lose their cool with some rough/aggressive/maybe dirty play.

But Ball said you might be able to sneak a couple of cheap ones by them and, with Scottie Reddix still sidelined, Steve Rush has a chance for another big game.

Love special teams? You're in luck. MO State K/P Jon Scifres is an All-American, as is SEMO punter David Simonhoff.

Bottom Line: SEMO seems like a worthy foe, but the Bears will wear them down and pick up the W.

Time to rough up SEMO again

So much to get to, so little time. I'll start in the future and work backwards. How's that for good organization?

The Missouri State Bears (1-1) will meet Southeast Missouri State on the football field for the 72nd time when they play Saturday night at Plaster Sports Complex (kickoff is at 6 p.m.). MO State leads the series 43-28 and the Bears have won 13 of the last 15.

SEMO is 0-2, but are supposed to be a physical team that blitzes from every angle. Coach Randy Ball didn't come out and say what's on his mind, so allow me to fire up the ol' coach translator and run a few lines through it.

Ball said: "There were several fight-type situations (against Southern Illinois, who drubbed them 58-23. These are my words, not Ball's) where they could've ejected people. Some guys took some hits that they thought might have been a little late and they didn't like that, so they retaliated. ... SEMO blitzes from the inside, the outside, everywhere. You might be able to sneak a a couple of cheap ones by them, but you'd better be able to block them because they're coming after your quarterback. They'll hit him when he has the ball, and they might hit him after he releases the ball."

Translation: They play dirty, so we'd better keep a cool head.

More to come on this, the Quincy game, Springfield Falcons lacrosse, and the MO State hockey team (can't bring myself to say Ice Bears). In the meantime, please enjoy these excerpts from an actual SEMO job posting, circa 1986.

"Southeast Missouri State University is a regional university which serves students in the southeast portion of the state including St. Louis. Our students tend to be poorly prepared for college level work, intellectually passive, interested primarily in partying, and culturally provincial in the extreme.

...

We also offer a religious studies minor; most of the students who declare this minor are shocked to learn that Moses might not have written the Pentateuch and regard higher criticism as secular humanist propaganda.

...

The academic environment at SEMO is distinctly non-intellectual — somewhat like a Norman Rockwell painting — and the candidate cannot expect to attract students by offering courses that assume innate curiosity about ideas and books, or intellectual playfulness, or independence of moral and political thought."