SIU football team makes up for poor first half with strong second half

Last season the SIU football team lost a total of four games by seven points or less.

Two of those, a 24-20 loss to Murray State and a 25-24 loss to Southwest Missouri State, came on touchdowns with exactly 11 seconds left each time.

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One can’t help but wonder if those thoughts were going through the Salukis’ heads when Jack Tomco connected on a 38-yard touchdown pass with Willie Ponder to put SEMO up for good 21-14 Saturday night at McAndrew Stadium.

The Salukis, who went into the locker room at halftime down 14-0, fought back in the second half to tie the game at 14 with 2:03 left thanks to Tom Koutsos’ second touchdown run of the quarter.

The touchdown put Koutsos on top of the SIU record books for career touchdowns with 38, passing former standout wide receiver Cornell Craig’s 37.

SEMO then took the ensuing kickoff and drove 80 yards in seven plays for the winning score.

“The last drive we were fatigued, it was the end of the game, we were struggling to come back; some people were tired,” said sophomore safety Alexis Moreland. “We held on as long as we could. [SEMO] was a good team and I hope they go on to do good things.”

The Salukis offense retook the field and tried to tie the game yet again. However, some poor clock management and a mental mistake by redshirt freshman quarterback Joel Sambursky sealed the loss for the Salukis.

Despite the fact the Salukis once again blew a game in the final seconds, this was clearly not the same old Salukis.

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Koutsos, who has suffered through nine loses by seven or fewer points during his career, said the current Salukis didn’t give up like they might have in years past.

“You wouldn’t have seen this team a year ago,” Koutsos said. “People should be excited about what’s going on at Southern Illinois. We didn’t get blown out by any means. Everyone played great.

“In the fourth quarter, I couldn’t say a year ago that we would look like that. We came out and we battled back.”

Head coach Jerry Kill was also proud of the way his young team fought until the final second ticked off of the clock.

“I’ve seen a lot of good things tonight that I haven’t seen since I got here,” Kill said. “The youngsters really stepped it up when the money was on the line and worked their tail end off.

“Sometimes these things bring you together instead of falling apart, and hopefully this will bring us together.”

One of the biggest differences in the second half was how much better the SIU defense played against the SEMO run.

In the first half, SEMO running back Corey Kinsey rushed 15 times for 105 yards.

In the second, he ran nine times for a mere 27 yards.

Moreland said the Salukis were surprised by how well SEMO ran the ball early in the game and said the defense made a commitment to slow it down during the final half.

“In the second half, we told ourselves to focus more on the run,” Moreland said. “We needed to step up and make tackles, wrap-up, and that’s what we did.”

The defense as a whole performed much better after giving up two touchdowns in the first half. The SEMO offense didn’t even venture inside the red zone until the game-winning drive.

The SIU offense, on the other hand, came alive in the second half.

The Salukis scored both of their touchdowns in the second half and had a chance for another score, but junior running back Muhammad Abdulqaadir fumbled at the SEMO 13-yard line.

Senior cornerback Derrick Corker said one of the drawbacks to having a young team is that you’re going to experience some ups and downs.

However, he also felt the team played with a lot more heart than it did in years past.

“We lost on the scoreboard, but in a different aspect we won,” Corker said. “We probably would have laid down last year, but that’s not the case this year.

“We understand that we’re never out of it. No matter what the score is, what time it is in the game, we’re never out of it until the last second.”

Reporter Jens Deju can be reached at [email protected]