Tennessee State head coach Rod Reed’s Tigers are coming off of an off-week after losing to Eastern Kentucky by a score of 22-33. Reed said the off-week was much needed for his team.

“We had a much needed off-week,” he said. “We had gone eight straight without a bye.”

In the Tigers’ last game against Eastern Kentucky, the team was without several defensive starters.

“We were pretty banged up, played without a couple starters in the Eastern Kentucky game on defense,” Reed said.

Though Reed said the rest was much needed, he said his team is focusing on taking on the Panthers this Saturday.

“It was a much needed rest, but we’ve been hard at work trying to get EIU figured out,” he said.

He said that despite Eastern’s record, the Panthers are still a very tough team, having lost many close games throughout the season.

“It’s a very good football team, well coached team, just had some tough breaks in there,” Reed said.

One Eastern player Reed’s defense will be keying in on is sophomore quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

“(Eastern has) a quarterback in there that’s thrown for over 2,200 yards,” he said.

This season, Garoppolo has thrown for 2,219 this season, completing 188 of 288 passes. He has also thrown for 18 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

In last year’s meeting, Garoppolo led the Panthers to an overtime victory over the Tigers, throwing for 331 yards and four touchdowns. He completed 20 of 33 passes in that game as well.

Reed, like Eastern head coach Bob Spoo, noticed the resurgence of red-shirt junior running back Jake Walker, who broke 100 yards rushing last week against Austin Peay.

“They’ve got a running back who’s got back on track, looked like last week, doing some good things there,” he said.

On the defensive side of the ball, Reed said the Tigers will be aware of junior defensive lineman Artavious Dowdell and red-shirt senior linebacker Cory Leman.

“They’ve got a kid there that sacks the quarterback, and every knows about Cory Leman,” he said.

Dowdell is the OVC’s sack leader, recording five sacks for a loss of 29 total yards. Four of those sacks came last week against Austin Peay’s freshman quarterback Landon Curtis.

Leman has more tackles than any other player on the Panther defense, notching 87 total tackles, 46 of which were solo tackles.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Reed said. “We’re going to be up for the challenge. It’s a long ride up, but we’re getting ready.”

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-7942 or dcrenzetti@eiu.edu.