Southeast Football

When former Southeast Missouri State all-everything wide receiver Kristian Wilkerson graduated a year ago and took his 219 career receptions with him, it left a hole the size of Houck Stadium in the Redhawks’ offensive statistics.

In an incredible act of irony, as the FBS college football season came to a close on Monday with Alabama and Ohio State competing for a national championship, programs at the FCS level were opening their training camps.

When seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz addressed his team at a gathering this fall, he made clear what the purpose of the Redhawk program was. “It goes back to what is the purpose of SEMO football,” Matukewicz told his student-athletes, “It is to use the sport to make better men.”

Veteran Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz had already coached college football for six seasons when the latest Redhawk recruits were born, so he has enough experience in building a roster to know not to complicate the matter too much.

Moments after leading the Jackson High School football team to the 2020 MSHSAA Class 5 state championship earlier this month, senior linebacker Bryce Norman was subdued in his celebration.

The success of an athlete or coach achieves in competition always is founded on their ability to adapt.

If you think the global pandemic wreaked havoc on your job, try being a recruiting coordinator for a college football program. “Well,” Southeast Missouri State recruiting coordinator and wide receivers coach Justin Drudik sighed on Monday, “I mean,” he then took another breath, “it went good but it’s been very different.”

Numerous times throughout the 2020 football season, veteran Jackson High School football coach Brent Eckley lauded Indian senior linebacker, Bryce Norman, as “the best linebacker in the state.”

The difference between the Jackson football teams through the early seasons under Indian coach Brent Eckley and the 2020 version, which just finished making a mockery of its high school opposition throughout this state, isn’t so much seen on the offensive side of the ball as it was the defensive side.

CARBONDALE, Ill. — Seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz wasn’t glad that his team dropped its 2020-21 season-opening game Friday 20-17 to rival Southern Illinois. However, he was happy that the Redhawks ended up playing the game at all, which wasn’t a certainty earlier this autumn.

CARBONDALE, Ill. – Seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz entered Friday’s game at Southern Illinois not knowing much about his team after not playing a game for 334 days.

There are a lot of unknowns regarding how the Southeast Missouri State football team will perform in its only game of this calendar year. But what should not be questioned is the amount of experience that the Redhawk defensive secondary brings to the field.

The handful of fans that can attend the Southeast Missouri State football game at Southern Illinois more than likely won’t be focused on the play of Redhawk inside linebacker Mike Matthews. However, the SEMO coaches certainly will be due to the sophomore’s playing a critical role in how successful the Redhawk defense executes.

It’s game week for the Southeast Missouri State football program, but according to seventh-year coach Tom Matukewicz, he doesn’t feel like he has just wrapped up a typical fall training camp.

Like every other aspect of this global society, the 2020 college football season has followed a predictable path of unpredictability.

Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz has been coaching the sport for a quarter of a century but nothing he had ever done at his eight different stops has prepared him for what has transpired over the past eight months.

As the cars turned off of Kingshighway onto Kiwanis Drive before veering toward Maria Louise Lane Saturday there was no mistaking the two (and too) cute girls dancing in the back of a Redhawk-adorned pick-up truck that belonged to seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz.

There has been no shortage of stories reported through the years on interactions between collegiate athletic programs and law enforcement, however, the majority of those instances have been told in a negative light.

With the recent and surprising announcement by Southeast Missouri State football that it would be returning to the football field over the next four weeks for training camp, followed by a game at Southern Illinois on Oct. 23, seventh-year coach Tom Matukewicz was excited about the opportunity to “learn a lot about our team.”

Everything in life during this calamitous year has been fluid and nothing captures that instability more so than the college football season.

The figurative path leading from the Ohio Valley Conference to the NFL isn’t exactly an interstate, but it’s not an overgrown trail in a woods either.

From afar, the job of Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz may look glamorous.

The Jackson High School football program is now on its third opening week opponent with the season less than a week from getting underway. Having said that, is there anyone willing to bet a large sum of money that the Indians absolutely, unequivocally, will not be making another schedule change before Friday?

For nearly four months, seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz and his staff monitored the physical conditioning of the Redhawk student-athletes as best as they could while navigating a global pandemic.

After not being on a football field with his team for eight months, seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz acted like it was his birthday on Aug. 5 when the Redhawks opened their 2020 training camp.

Give the Ohio Valley Conference credit for this; no one will accuse the league of rushing into any decision to manage its sports competition this fall.

The world of sports is a whirlwind right now as it is caught up in the COVID-19 storm. Games are being shut down, programs are cancelling seasons, and players are opting out of even playing in some instances.

One couldn’t fault seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz if he would have woken up before sunrise Wednesday and sprinted down the stairs in a childlike fashion.

Friday is likely a red-letter day for the Southeast Missouri State football program. Head coach Tom Matukewicz expects to find out August 7 some critical information about the 2020 schedule. “I think we’ll know by then if we’ll be playing (Ohio Valley Conference) teams only or OVC plus-1,” said Matukewicz on Tuesday, who is beginning his 7th season at the helm of the defending OVC champion Redhawks...

Tom Matukewicz was a teenager the last time he went eight months without taking part in football practice and he sure as heck doesn’t want to make it nine months.

Ohio Valley Commissioner Beth DeBauche recently stated that the league could be addressing whether or not to play football following its Board of Presidents convening this past Wednesday.

As it related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Ohio Valley Conference didn’t pull the plug on its 2020 football season Monday when Commissioner Beth DeBauche met with members of the media via a Zoom conference call. However, she couldn’t guarantee the playing of a season either.

Good Sports is a column featured weekly in the Southeast Missourian and on semoball.com. It is primarily designed to showcase people who have impacted the sporting life of Southeast Missouri, so that readers may get to know them more fully. Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity...

When Southeast Missouri State senior defensive back Al Young made it to the Houck Stadium sidelines last September after injuring his Achilles tendon against West Virginia State, he was immediately surrounded by a throng of people – some employed by Southeast as medical professionals – but even more by concerned people streaming out of the stands to check on him.

When Daterraion Richardson was a high school senior, Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz was enraptured with the young athlete’s strength and agility.

Southeast Missouri State athletic director Brady Barke is figuratively driving a car down a road – at night – and with no headlights as he tries to navigate a sporting world that has never existed.

Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor was somewhat prophetic when he recently told the Wichita Eagle “I am still confident that we are going to play football, but I am less confident that we are going to play 12 games.”

Seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz was concerned about the play of his 2020 quarterback group in February after two-year standout Daniel Santacaterina graduated. But when the Covid-19 pandemic completely wiped out the Redhawks’ spring football practices, Matukewicz altered his entire mindset as it related to the position.

It’s the dream of every college football player to one day make it onto an NFL field, and it is the same for a college coach wanting to make it into an NFL meeting room.

There weren’t many glaring concerns with the Southeast Missouri State football program in 2019, as it won a share of the Ohio Valley Conference championship. And that certainly applied to the running back corps.

Good Sports is a column featured weekly in the Southeast Missourian and on semoball.com. It is primarily designed to showcase people who have impacted the sporting life of Southeast Missouri, so that readers may get to know them more fully. Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity...

During this time of social distancing, the SuperFan series of articles focuses on fans who are geographically distant from the teams they support, who are fiercely loyal to a team outside the state of Missouri. Today: Harry Rediger, 82, former two-term mayor of Cape Girardeau, longtime local J.C. ...

Success on the football field is breeding awareness and that has been evident in recent springs, as the Southeast Missouri State program is beginning to build a pipeline to the NFL.

For the time being, the NCAA rule book as it pertains to off-season diligence by Division I programs is a very, very fluid situation. What was allowed a few weeks ago (for example, virtual workouts), is no longer acceptable.

For those fans of the Southeast Missouri State football program that felt the lack of spring football would impede the development of the 2020 version of the Redhawks, those concerns need to have tampered a tad.

The COVID-19 situation has not only cancelled spring football for the Southeast Missouri State program (as well as every other football program in the country), but it has also eliminated the opportunity for the Redhawk student-athletes to make an in-person impression academically, as classes are not being conducted on campus at this time.

The only thing spreading more rapidly than the COVID-19 public health threat Thursday was the sporting events and leagues that were ceasing operations for the time being.

Both Southeast Missouri State athletic director Brady Barke, as well as Redhawk football coach Tom Matukewicz, have spoken recently on the emphasis placed on “people” and how it relates to success at Southeast.

There is no shortage of national collegiate football powers vying for the services of Jackson High School junior offensive lineman Connor Tollison.

The Southeast Missouri State quarterback room this spring appears as crowded as a Democratic Presidential debate stage and figuring out who will take the Redhawks first snap of the 2020 season isn’t any easier to analyze than that political battle.