Indiana St. seeking 1st win in long time

By Pete Mollica

The Sycamores have lost 23 straight for the nation’s longest losing streak.

YOUNGSTOWN — When Trent Miles was playing football at Indiana State, the Sycamores made back-to-back appearances in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

But that was back in 1983-84 and the Sycamores haven’t come close to the playoffs since that time. In fact, the Sycamores have had only three winning seasons since those playoff years.

Miles returned this season to take over the head coaching duties and it hasn’t been a pleasant experience.

He inherited a team that has won just one game in three seasons and although his expectations were high for this season they never developed.

Indiana State, which will meet Youngstown State on Saturday in a 1 p.m. contest at Stambaugh Stadium, has lost nine straight games and is 0-5 in the Missouri Valley Conference.

They have the nation’s longest losing streak of 23 straight games dating to a 28-22 win over Missouri State back in the 2006 season.

The Sycamores were 0-11 a year ago.

“It’s been difficult to say the least,” Miles said. “We’ve played well at times, but we’ve hurt ourselves more times than naught and we’ve really haven’t been able to get anything going on a consistent basis.

“Life in the Missouri Valley Football Conference is never easy and when you add powers like North Dakota State and South Dakota State to the mix it just makes things that much more difficult,” Miles said.

“We probably played one of our best games last week against North Dakota State, but it still wasn’t enough,” Miles said.

The Sycamores problems have been on offense and defense.

Offensively, they’ve managed to score just six touchdowns in nine games. They’ve been shutout twice and didn’t score a touchdown in three other games.

Their best game was a 24-21 loss at home to Southeast Missouri State on Sept. 27.

They’ve been blown out in all of their other games, but gave the Bison a battle last week before finally bowing 34-7.

“We know that Youngstown State has been struggling this year also, but when you go to Youngstown you know that you are going to be in for a real battle and that’s what we are expecting,” he said.

The Sycamore are averaging just 6.2 points a game and 190.4 yards in total offense, 84 yards passing and 106.4 rushing.

They will start five freshmen on offense including quarterback Ryan Roberts (6-4, 195), who is one of four quarterbacks the Sycamores have used this season.

In nine games, Roberts has completed 26 of 43 passes for 169 yards and no touchdowns. He has been intercepted twice.

The team has 10 interceptions on the year and also lost seven fumbles out of 21 they had.

The top two running backs share most of the carries this season. Sophomore Antoine Brown (5-9, 210) is the team leader with 241 yards on 60 carries, while sophomore Darius Gates (5-9, 180) has 201 yards on 60 tries. Those two have scored all three of the team’s rushing touchdowns.

The team’s top receiver is senior Patrick Ryan (5-10, 170) who has 25 receptions for 259 yards and caught two of the three touchdown passes the team has thrown this year.

Defense has also been a big problem for the Sycamores since they’ve rarely stopped anybody.

Indiana State has allowed 416.8 yards a game and 46.7 points a game. They give up 263.7 yards rushing and 153.1 passing.

The Sycamores’ leading tackler is junior linebacker Quinton Scott (5-10, 195) who has 88 total tackles including four sacks and two forced fumbles.

Free safety Dony McCleskey (6-0, 215, Jr.) is second with 73 tackles and has the team’s only interception this year. The team has recovered 10 fumbles.

mollica@vindy.com