Southeast Football

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.

Last fall, the Southeast Missouri State football program showed a “no fear” mentality as it progressed through a challenging schedule.

Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz liked several things about Cape Central senior athlete Dony’e Taylor.

From a player’s perspective, a positive of being in the Southeast Missouri State football program is that the Redhawk coaches take an equal opportunity approach to dispersing playing time.

With National Signing Day being conducted by college football programs throughout the nation Wednesday, there will be a myriad of evaluations of just how good each program’s class is. However, the truth is, no one – even the involved coaches and athletes – truly have any idea at this time how each class will ultimately turn out.

There were several aspects in a college football program that Cape Central senior Dony’e Taylor was looking for as he made his decision on where to play over the next five years.

There hasn’t been a football team in the Ohio Valley Conference that has won more games (18) over the past two seasons than Southeast Missouri State. So it might be surprising to learn what seventh-year Redhawk coach Tom Matukewicz’s mindset is right now.

There is the Hollywood version of what transpires on a college football-recruiting visit. For those old enough to recall Anthony Michael Hall playing the role of a coveted quarterback in the fairly decent movie “Johnny be good.”

The recruiting class of 2020 for Southeast Missouri State football has a lot to live up to in comparison to the group that just departed from the program. The 2019 senior class of Redhawks was the most successful class in the history of the program...

The Southeast Missouri State football program has strung together a pair of special seasons, the latest having culminated in a recent FCS Playoff loss to Illinois State.

The Southeast Missouri State football program has strung together a pair of special seasons, the latest having culminated in a recent FCS Playoff loss to Illinois State.

The Southeast Missouri State football program recently concluded its second consecutive highly-successful season despite its loss to Illinois State in the 2019 FCS Playoff opening round.

Three significant pieces for the Southeast Missouri State football program gathered Saturday for the postgame press conference in wake of the Redhawks’ 24-6 loss to Illinois State in the opening round of the FCS Playoffs.

The indications that Southeast Missouri State football was in peril against Illinois State in the opening round of the 2019 FCS Playoffs Saturday at Houck Stadium began to smolder prior to the game when fifth-year senior quarterback Daniel Santacaterina was held out – at least initially – due to multiple injuries.

There was no secret as to what Illinois State wanted to do in its FCS Playoff game Saturday at Southeast Missouri State.

For the second consecutive season, the Southeast Missouri State football program will host its opening game of the FCS Playoffs.