Allen still looks for success at Missouri St.

By Pete Mollica

The Bears are just 14-23 in his three-plus years as head coach.

YOUNGSTOWN — Terry Allen spent nearly 20 years as a player and coach at the University of Northern Iowa, and when he gave up the head coaching position in 1996 he was the winningest coach in Missouri Valley Football Conference history (formerly the Gateway Football Conference.)

Three years ago Allen came back to the conference as the head coach at Missouri State, but the return hasn’t been nearly as successful as his run at UNI.

The Bears come into Saturday’s MVFC contest with Youngstown State sporting a 2-2 record, 0-1 in the conference, following last week’s 35-7 loss to Allen’s former team. Allen is 14-23 in his fourth season with the Bears.

Kickoff for Saturday’s contest is 6 p.m. at Stambaugh Stadium.

Missouri State opened the season with a 48-10 loss to Arkansas, but then bounced back to beat UT Martin 24-14 an Murray State 35-10, both games at home.

The Bears had their problems against Northern Iowa, falling behind 21-0 at halftime and not scoring until the final five minutes of the contest.

“We didn’t help ourselves at all last week,” Allen said. “We had a couple of turnovers and just didn’t play well on either side of the football.”

One of the Bears’ turnovers came on a fumbled punt at their own 10 yard line, which led to an easy Panthers touchdown, while the other turnover came at the close of the first half deep in Northern Iowa territory when quarterback Cody Kirby was intercepted in the end zone.

“We have to play extremely better this week against Youngstown State, especially since we’re playing them over there where they don’t lose very often,” Allen said.

A year ago the Bears posted a 42-28 victory over the Penguins in Springfield, Mo., and it was the most points Missouri State has scored against the Penguins in 13 meetings. YSU holds an 11-2 edge in the series and is a perfect 6-0 at Stambaugh Stadium.

The Bears come into the contest averaging 267.5 yards per game on offense, but they are giving up 392.8 yards a contest, including 273.6 yards passing.

Kirby, a 5-foot-11, 197-pound junior, has passed for 549 yards on 55-of-94 attempts, but has been intercepted six times and last week was sacked four times.

His top receiver is All-American candidate, tight end senior Clay Harbor (6-4, 243), who has caught 16 passes for 149 yards and a touchdown.

The running game, which is averaging just 126.2 yards per game, is led by senior tailback Miguel Warren (5-6, 165) who has 173 yards on 34 attempts, but hasn’t scored a touchdown. His backup, Jonathan Davis, a 5-10, 200 pound junior, has 136 yards on 33 carries and has scored two touchdowns.

Defensively, junior linebacker Antoine Wilkinson (6-2, 220) leads the team with 36 tackles, two for losses, while junior linebacker Terian Washington (6-4, 245) leads the team with four tackles for losses including two sacks.

The Bears have a strong kicking game led by sophomore punter Jordan Chiles, who averages 41.5 yards per kick. Last week had a career long 72 yarder.

Senior place kicker Matt Hottelman is 2-for-4 in field goals, but one of them was over 50 yards, and he’s 10-for-10 in extra points.

mollica@vindy.com