This Saturday, Eastern’s football team will play at the University of Tennessee-Martin. Last season, the two teams faced off in what turned out to be a crucial Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) matchup. UT Martin won that game, but if that match flipped, Eastern would have been OVC champions. The Skyhawks finished the season 5-1 in conference. The Panthers finished 4-2.
That game was a battle. UT Martin won 27-26 in overtime after they successfully stopped a would-be game winning two-point conversion from the Panthers.
This year, Eastern travels down to Martin, Tennessee with a 1-6 record (0-3 in conference). UT-Martin, on the other hand, remains in the higher echelon of OVC schools with a 4-3 record (2-1).
To provide more insight into this Skyhawk team, The News got in contact with Chyler Lee, assistant sports editor at the Pacer, UT Martin’s student newspaper.
The Daily Eastern News: We kinda noticed UT Martin has a ruthless running game. They average, what, about 172 yards per game. Why are they so good?
Chyler Lee: Well, we got this transfer, Patrick Smith from Vanderbilt. He’s just been awesome. Just a powerful guy. He can hit the hit the home run, like most other backs. But also, just we have a very veteran offensive line group as well. Four out of our five offensive linemen are graduates, and our right tackle is a junior who’s been a starter for the past 2 years. So, there’s a veteran present across that whole front. And these past two games, they’ve really gotten the quarterback [graduate student Kinkead] Dent involved in the offense, running the ball at least; a lot more than they had at the start of the season. So, it’s all just compounded into a very strong running game for the Skyhawks who are usually known for a strong running game anyway.
DEN: What about on defense? What are some players to look out for?
CL: [Graduate linebacker] Jalen Sharp, He was named to the midseason All-American team, a couple weeks ago. He’s been really killing it, especially in the tackle for loss department. He leads the OVC [Ohio Valley Conference] in tackles for loss. And he’s just been the real leader on that team, but also [senior safety] Oshea Baker, who was a preseason All-American for the FCS. He was named to a 3rd team All-American team this past week, but he’s just been he’s just a playmaker on defense. You can see he flies around. And if the ball is in his area, he’s gonna try and pick it off and take it the other way.
DEN: So last year, Eastern played a pretty crucial game against UT Martin in terms of OVC positioning. What might be different from last year’s UT Martin team compared to this year’s?
CL: That’s the that’s the big thing, there’s not there’s not much of a difference. They carried over a lot of players from that same year. They lost out on Sam Franklin; he was their big running back last year. He transferred to Oklahoma, but they replaced him with an almost-at-that-same-level guy, Patrick Smith. Defensively, Daylen Dotson transferred out. He was their best pass rusher last year. He went to UCF. But, overall, I think that’s the big story of this Skyhawk team is that they pretty much brought the same team from last year over again this year. They have a lot of experience, and that’s what I think has brought them out of that hole when they were down. They were 1-3 to start the year.
DEN: UT Martin has been a powerhouse for a while; they’ve lost two OVC games over the last three seasons. What do you attribute that success to?
CL: So, it’s been a lot of strong running back play these past few years and just a really, really strong defense. All the all those things these old school coaches like head coach [Jason] Simpson praises, they’ve been really good at. They got strong running game. They stop the run. They don’t turn the ball over. They just do all the all the little things right. I know it’s cliche to say, but they really have been doing great at that. They’re best in the OVC in terms of turnover ratio. They just don’t make the big mistakes as often as some of these other teams that you might see.
DEN: If Eastern were to win this game against UT Martin, what might they have to do to beat them?
CL: They gotta hit the big play, passing the ball. I know I know they’re missing a lot of their great wide receivers. I looked into it a little bit, Quenton Rogers, the freshman. I think he needs to have a big game. He already had one big game already this year. But I think in order for, for y’all to really pull away from this game, I think y’all should hit big plays in the passing game, trying to turn the ball over, which the past three games, it looks like your quarterback has been really doing a good job of avoiding those mistakes.
Aidan Cusack can be reached at 581-2812 or at atcusack@eiu.edu.
