Don’t be surprised if the Central Arkansas football team moves from play to play on offense in the blink of a second Saturday.

The Bears have a fast paced, no huddle offense that realigns almost immediately following the end of the previous play, according to Eastern defensive coordinator Roc Bellantoni.

The Eastern football team has to be well conditioned when their defense faces Central Arkansas’ quick-start offense Saturday at 1:30 p.m. on O’Brien Field.

The Panthers know that they are playing an entirely different opponent than they played last weekend, losing to the Iowa Hawkeyes 37-7.

Last week, Central Arkansas had 86 snaps on offense, accumulating 585 yards from scrimmage.

Eastern saw 65 snaps from Iowa. The Hawkeyes gained a total of 435 yards.

Eastern senior linebacker Nick Nasti said the conditioning this week in practice has been annoying because you have to be prepared to play a team that is fast. Nasti said while the Bears offense will work quickly, the Eastern defense has to do the same.

Bellantoni said the key to facing the no huddle offense is to keep up as much as possible.

“We have to adjust and not panic when they’re in the no huddle,” Bellantoni said.

As soon as a play is over, the offense will make a call and run it, according to Bellantoni. Sometimes, they’ll make a “dumby call.”

“They will line up after the play and act like they’ll running a play, but then you’ll see every member of the offense look to the sideline to get the real play call,” Bellantoni said.

The Panthers will have to make adjustments to the offense Saturday, especially since the team hasn’t had a lot of tape on the new players on offense.

The Bears have new starters at quarterback, running back, wide receiver and offensive line; in fact, Bellantoni said they have three new receivers and four new linemen.

Since the Panthers only had one game tape of the new offense to study, the coaches and players don’t know how the new Bear starters will react to the speed of the game.

“It’s tough to get a read on this team, but we’re most scared about their scheme,” Nasti said.

Nasti said that the Panthers always worry about a team’s scheme all week, but that the defense just needs to be confident – a trait the Panthers learned from Iowa.

“Iowa played with a lot of swagger and confidence that they belong there,” Nasti said. “That’s always good for any defense to do.”

Scouting is made especially hard when coaches aren’t sure if what’s on the tape is everything a team has, which is what Eastern offensive coordinator Roy Wittke wonders.

Last week, Central Arkansas played Elizabeth City State, beating them 47-20.

Wittke said he doesn’t know if the Bears will throw something new at the Panthers Saturday, but special teams coach Matthew Smiley said he expects some tricks.

“Their special teams unit had a surprise onside kick last week and two fake punts in their last game of the season last year,” Smiley said.

Smiley said Central Arkansas could have a whole bag of tricks that Eastern doesn’t know about, but he is trying to make his special teams unit as sound as possible.

Last week, Eastern had a punt blocked by Iowa, so Smiley said there are improvements to make.

The Bears might have a bag of tricks, but Wittke said he is most concerned about his offense performing well.

“We need to be tremendously more productive than we were last week,” Wittke said.

The Panthers totaled only 157 total yards last week against the Hawkeyes.

While he worries about the offense being productive, Wittke said he’d watch out for Central Arkansas’ two star players – senior defensive end Markell Carter and senior defensive back Henry Minor.

The Panthers will start adjusting to Central Arkansas’ gameplan at kickoff, Saturday 1:30 p.m. on O’Brien Field.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944 or admcnamee@eiu.edu.

Sophomore wide receiver Chris Wright is brought down by fellow sophomore University of Iowa corner back Micah Hyde before Wright is able to score Saturday in Kinnick Stadium.(Danny Damiani

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