Terrance Peacock

Daily Egyptian

The SIU Football team nearly let a 14-point lead slip away but found a way to edge Northern Iowa in overtime Saturday at the UNI-Dome.

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The Salukis (4-3, 2-1 Missouri Valley Football Conference) survived for a 24-17 win against the No. 4 ranked Panthers (4-2, 0-2 MVFC) in front of a UNI Homecoming crowd of more than 16,000. The Salukis have now defeated two consecutive top-10 ranked teams on the road and on the opposing team’s Homecoming.

The Salukis had a chance to win in regulation, but junior place-kicker Thomas Kinney missed a 29-yard field goal as time expired to send the game into overtime tied at 17.

SIU began the overtime session on offense and senior quarterback Kory Faulkner quickly completed a 20-yard pass to receiver John Lantz, which set up the game-winning option run by junior running back Malcom Agnew.

Coach Dale Lennon said the play call wasn’t typical for the Saluki offense, but knew overtime was the right time to call it.

“(Agnew’s touchdown) was a play we hadn’t run all year and had just put in the playbook for this game,” Lennon said. “We knew how (UNI) lined up that it would end up being a pitch, which scares you a bit because we’re not an option football team and we’re going to count on our quarterback to make a pitch to our running back. But he did and he went in untouched.”

UNI had a chance to tie the game on its first possession of overtime, but on fourth-and-one, senior linebacker Bryan Presume fought through the line and stood up Panther running back David Johnson to secure the victory.

“I went in untouched,” Presume said. “The guard was coming to block me, but I gave him a little juke move, met the running back in the hole and was able to make the stop.”

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Faulkner finished the game completing 21 of 35 passes for 252 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Agnew had 113 rushing yards on 25 carries and one score in the win. It was Agnew’s third 100-yard performance of the season.

The Salukis controlled the time of possession for the majority of the game and Lennon said the reason was because of the running game.

“We have a lot of faith in our run game,” Lennon said. “That was a big part of our game plan, trying to keep Northern Iowa off the field. We knew time of possession was going to be key, and I thought we did and extremely good job of just keeping our offense on the field.”

Lennon said his team has played with a chip on its shoulder after the win against South Dakota State. The Salukis will try to make it three straight wins over top-10 teams when they host No. 1 North Dakota State Saturday for Homecoming.

“We figured to take that next step up in credibility, you have to beat a team like Northern Iowa, so that was a big motivation for us,” Lennon said. “We’re there, it’s just we hadn’t shown it in the end, so I think teams now are going to realize that we’re probably better than what our record shows.”

Terrance Peacock can be reached at [email protected] or 536-3311 ext. 256.