The Panthers were minutes away from playing spoiler to Murray State’s Homecoming game last week, but now Tennessee-Martin will come into O’Brien Field, trying to do the exact same thing.

At just over 9,000, the crowd at Family Weekend game was the Panthers’ biggest draw of the season. The Homecoming game will most likely draw just as much, if not more.

The Panthers have watched their post-season dreams from a few months ago spiral into a nightmare of missed tackles and injuries to key players.

This weekend will see a big crowd, and the team will still have something to prove to the fans in attendance. The team has to prove that they can still play with pride and at least try and end this season on a high note.

“EIU football is definitely back,” the now seemingly infamous quote uttered by red-shirt senior Nick Martinez after the team’s first and only win of the season now seems to take on a different meaning.

Eastern football is back, but not to the dominating ways of the past. Eastern football is back to where they were last season: struggling.

Eastern is not a bad team, they’ve just been struggling. This weekend they need to prove that they’re not as bad as all the statistics show. The team just needs to go out, put all the numbers, all the storyline, aside and just play football. Eastern doesn’t need to play like a team that’s seeking its first Ohio Valley Conference win. They need to play like a team that wants to put on a show to cap off a great Homecoming weekend. They need to play not just for the fans, not just for head coach Bob Spoo, but for themselves. They need to have some fun.

Eastern played the Skyhawks tough last year, but still came up short. The story remains the same for almost every game this season. Eastern had their chances against Jacksonville State and Tennessee Tech, and they’ll give a very good Tennessee-Martin team a run for their money this week. The Skyhawks aren’t going to lay down for them, so if the Panthers want to win, they’ll have to give it everything they’ve got. They need to show the student body and all of their fans that they are a better team than their record says.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-7944 or dcrenzetti@eiu.edu.