At Tuesday’s practice, it was pretty clear that the Eastern football players were not full of themselves following an impressive, 31-6 victory against arch-rival Illinois State last week.

Which is good, because they haven’t achieved anything noteworthy yet.

And they’ll be the first ones to admit it.

“The win over Illinois State was nice, but we’ve got to move forward and get ready for Indiana State,” junior cornerback Rashad Haynes said.

That’s the mindset the team needs to have, and defensive coordinator Roc Bellantoni said the team is making sure it doesn’t fall into the same trap it did last season.

“The team learned from when we beat Illinois State last year,” Bellantoni said (the team lost two in a row after the win last season). “They know better. They’re not going to fall into the same mindset. We’ve won one game. Our goal wasn’t to win one game. We haven’t achieved any of our goals yet this season.”

It’s cliché for players or coaches to say “one game at a time,” or that it’s not looking past this week’s opponent; but in Eastern’s case, it’s a true and necessary statement.

If the Panthers want to go far in the conference and snap their playoff drought at one year, they’ll need to focus on each opponent individually.

Yes, even the lowly Sycamores.

Besides, it has been proven time and time again that anything is possible in sports, let alone football.

When a team goes into a hostile, road environment, the possibilities are endless.

So the Panthers are going to have to go into Terre Haute, Ind., and envision it’s State College, Pa., and they’re facing nationally ranked No. 7 Penn State (as they’ll do Oct. 10).

Talking to players and watching practice, it would be surprising to expect anything less than that Saturday.

“We know Indiana State is a good team,” senior defensive tackle Andre Lima said. “We’re just going to practice hard and stay focused all week.”

If things go as planned, the Panthers will have a win wrapped up by halftime and senior back-up quarterback Bodie Reeder and co. will get the majority of the reps in the second half.

But for that to happen the Panthers are going to have to come out just as focused Saturday as they did against Illinois State.

Collin Whitchurch can be reached at

581-7944 or at cfwhitchurch@eiu.edu.

Marty Essen illustrates stories from his book “Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents” on Thursday night in Lumpkin Hall Auditorium. (Audrey Sawyer/The Daily Eastern News)

(more…)