Last Saturday turned into a football bonanza for the five Illinois schools that play in the Mid-American, Ohio Valley or Gateway Conferences. All four “directional” schools–Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western Illinois–won their games. So did Illinois State.
This left an Illinois school as the unbeaten co-leader in each of the three leagues: coach Joe Novak’s NIU Huskies in the Division I-A MAC, coach Don Patterson’s WIU Leathernecks in the I-AA Gateway and coach Bob Spoo’s EIU Panthers in the I-AA Ohio Valley.
This Saturday, however, the Huskies, Leathernecks and Panthers each compete against another co-leader or highly regarded contender. Here’s a look at those contests plus games involving Southern Illinois and Illinois State.
Western Illinois: The Leathernecks (6-1, 3-0), ranked No. 6 in I-AA, will try to parlay Charles Tharp’s running, Mike Scifres’ punting and a tough defense led by Edgerton Hartwell into a home victory over No. 3 Youngstown State (6-0, 3-0).
Scifres, averaging 42 yards per kick, averaged 50.3 and boomed one 89 yards in last week’s 14-10 victory over Southwest Missouri. Linebacker Hartwell made 20 tackles for the second straight week. He also forced one fumble, recovered another, sacked the quarterback and made 12 tackles in a critical 17-play fourth-period stretch.
Scifres was named Gateway special teams player of the week. Hartwell was named the league’s defensive player of the week. Tharp is averaging 6.2 yards per carry.
Although Youngstown has the higher ranking, Western has played the tougher schedule. The Leathernecks split their first two games against I-A foes, Missouri and Ball State. The Penguins opened against Slippery Rock and Edinboro.
Northern Illinois: Thomas Hammock, a 19-year old sophomore from Ft. Wayne, rushed for five TDs and 174 yards in the Huskies’ 52-35 victory over Akron to set up a showdown for the MAC’s Western Division lead at Western Michigan (5-1, 3-0).
Hammock will have to run against a defense that improved from 83rd in the nation last year to No. 7 with an average yield of 12.3 points this season. Senior linebackers Mario Evans and Garrett Soldano lead this defense. Evans, Soldano & Co. will face an offensive line that helped the Huskies (4-2, 2-0) rush for 360 yards and control the clock for 40:34 last week.
Tim Lester, the Broncos’ record-breaking quarterback from Wheaton Warrenville South, has been replaced by another Chicago-area native, Jeff Welsh.
Eastern Illinois: When Spoo was quarterback coach at his alma mater, Purdue, from 1978 to 1986, he helped develop such stars as Mark Herrmann, Scott Campbell and Jim Everett. Spoo has continued this tradition at Eastern (5-1, 3-0), where his current quarterback is Tony Romo. Romo, who threw six touchdown passes in last week’s 48-7 rout over Murray State, played in only three games last year.
Host Tennessee State is 4-2, 3-1 in the Ohio Valley.
Southern Illinois: The Salukis (2-4, 1-1) stonewalled Drake with a net of minus-9 yards rushing last week when they dealt the Bulldogs their first loss of the season. This week at Southwest Missouri (2-4, 1-2) they will have to defend against Austin Moherman, who completed a I-AA-record 20 consecutive passes in earlier this season against Indiana State. Southern’s best chance to keep the ball from Moherman’s hands is to move the chains and the clock through the running of 138.8-yards per game Gateway rushing leader Tom Koutsos.
Illinois State: Dusty Burk won the quarterback job last week when he replaced Kevin Glenn and passed for 310 yards and three TDs as the Redbirds (2-4, 1-2) shut out Indiana State 21-0. Visiting Prairie View (1-6, 1-5) of the Southwest Athletic Conference has lost to three ranked teams.