OVC up for grabs in Saturday showdown

The Eastern football team packed its bags and headed back to Charleston from Richmond, Ky., on Oct. 11, when the Panthers let a 26-5 lead slip away.

The Colonels came back, winning 36-33 in overtime, handing the Panthers their first Ohio Valley Conference loss since 2012 and dropping Eastern to 1-5 in Kim Dameron’s first season as Eastern’s coach.

Dameron was worried, but doubt in what he was doing never crossed his mind.

“I was concerned, obviously,” Dameron said. “Frustrated. I didn’t have any real doubts as far as the philosophy, we just had to stay on message and keep pounding away. I got some encouragement from some of the players, who would say, ‘we’ll get it, coach.’ We just had to keep banging at it.”

But it was still early for the Panthers, who entered this year as the OVC’s two-time defending champions.

Now, Eastern is 5-5 overall, 5-1 in the OVC and its 3 p.m. kickoff Saturday in Jacksonville, Ala., against the Gamecocks will decide if the Panthers will continue to have a chance at their third straight conference title.

Jacksonville State has not lost a game since its 45-7 defeat on Aug. 29, at Michigan State and stands in first place in the OVC at 6-0. A win against Eastern would clinch the title for the Gamecocks. Eastern has to win Saturday and then come back home the following week and beat Tennessee-Martin to win a third championship in a row.

While many players from last season’s 14-2 Eastern team returned, Jimmy Garoppolo and Erik Lora did not. From day one, Dameron made it clear this was a new team and those two players would not be coming back to save the day.

“There’s been a couple times in team meetings, where I’ve told the guys, ‘it’s up to us, it’s not up to anyone else and we’re the only ones that can get this right,’ we had a couple of those,” Dameron said.

The first meeting was the first time Dameron met the entire Eastern roster before spring practice was even in the near future.

“I basically told them that this is their football team and we had to move forward and those guys were not coming back,” Dameron said. “They knew that Jimmy (Garoppolo) wasn’t going to walk back through the door, Erik Lora wasn’t walking back through the door.”

After a crushing defeat against Eastern Kentucky, the Panthers have rebounded, winning four straight conference games, winning each game by at least three touchdowns.

“We didn’t get too high or too low,” Dameron said. “We didn’t panic. Obviously, you worry about how the kids feel and we just talked to them a lot. We showed them exactly where we were and why we were there.”

Dameron has watched his team dominate both offensively and defensively, as the Panthers now rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the OVC, in each respective stat.

It wasn’t always easy for Eastern, which battled through a new coaching change, two quarterbacks trying to lead a team and a new defense being implemented by a first-time defensive coordinator. Through the drastic change, Dameron gives all the praise to the men that have gone on the field and given the Panthers a chance to be on top of the OVC again.

“If there’s any credit to be had about the ability for this team to come back from a 1-5 start it goes back to the players,” Dameron said. “We as coaches, we wanted them to buy in and we wanted them to believe and it took a while, but they never quit.”

Jacksonville State is also under the direction a first-year coach in John Grass, who has the Gamecocks ranked No. 3 in the FCS. At 8-1 overall, the Gamecocks are led by their No. 4 rushing attack in the nation, and the No. 1 ranked defense in the OVC.

Eastern is right behind Jacksonville State in running, a big improvement from the start of the season, when the Panthers were only successful running the ball with quarterback Jalen Whitlow. Now, Eastern is running left, right, up the middle, running through defenders and around them.

Even at Eastern Kentucky, where the Panthers lost, they established an efficient running game, led by Shepard Little.

“I knew we were doing the right thing,” Dameron said. “I knew that with the personnel that we had that this was what was best.” I really have to credit the seniors and some of the older guys, who believed when they didn’t have to.”

Senior linebacker Adam Gristick has been on Eastern’s last two conference-winning teams. In his final year, Saturday’s game means everything for him and the rest of the seniors. A loss and Eastern is out of the FCS playoff picture. A win, Eastern’s picture becomes clearer.

“Especially for me being a senior, if we lose this one there’s no chance of us getting into the playoffs,” Gristick said. “I want to keep playing this season and I know all of the other seniors want to as well. We have to elevate everything this week.”

As cliché as it might be, Saturday’s game is a must-win for the Panthers.

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812 or asoto2@eiu.edu.