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."