Eastern’s football team is in position to win an Ohio Valley Conference championship under first-year head coach Dino Babers. The up-tempo style of play and winning attitude that Babers brought to Eastern has transformed a team that won four games in two seasons to a team that is on the verge of celebrating a conference championship on Saturday.

The changes that Babers has instilled among his team echoes from player-to-player, as they have repeatedly credited their new-look attitude for their success in 2012. Babers and his staff has the team believing they can beat anyone in the nation on any given Saturday, something that was completely absent since I came to Eastern in the fall of 2010.

The two years of football futility was disheartening to the Panther faithfuls, to say the least. The stands at O’Brien Field were lacking a student presence, and the Panthers looked like a group of individuals instead of a team.

Babers changed that, seemingly overnight.

The student fan base is now relevant at O’Brien Field, and the campus is buzzing about Eastern football, something that I seriously doubted would ever happen in my time at Eastern.

Outside of the newly developed winning attitude, the Panthers have developed into a cohesive unit that has had several players calling the 2012 version of the Panthers a “family.”

Star quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo said everything is “different.” Although he was unable to describe exactly what has changed, he said, “It’s just something that is going on in the locker room and in the weight room. Everyone just has this winning mindset that we are going to go out there and we are going to win.”

That “winning attitude” has transformed a team that was picked to finish second to last in the OVC to a team that could be crowned champions in just a matter of days.

An up-tempo offense has certainly helped transform the Panthers from cellar-dwellers to championship contenders, but it takes more than a no-huddle offense and a new coaching staff roaming the sidelines to go from worst to first.

What’s going on with the Eastern football team is something special. It’s something unfamiliar to the majority of students on campus, and it’s something that should be recognized.

Come Saturday, Eastern could be celebrating an OVC championship.

I think they will be.

Jordan Pottorff can be reached at 581-2812 or jbpottorff@eiu.edu.