YSU opponent battling with injuries

By JOE SCALZO

scalzo@vindy.com

In one 16-minute stretch last Saturday, Southern Illinois went from being a confident, surging team to one with a lot of question marks (most notably at quarterback) and almost no margin for error entering conference play.

Funny what blowing an 18-point lead can do.

“Wake-up calls aren’t very fun; I don’t know if there’s ever a good time to have a wake-up call,” said Salukis coach Dale Lennon, whose team led 21-3 late in the third quarter before falling to Southeast Missouri State 24-21 last weekend. “We do need to get better in certain areas and we knew that coming into season. We had a big senior class last year that we had to replace and had to have some players step up and play at a high level right away .

“I think that potential is still there but I really don’t want to be talking about potential going into Week 4.”

That said, Southern Illinois is still the two-time Missouri Valley Football Conference champions, having won a record 14 straight conference games. It begins a new season Saturday when it plays YSU at Stambaugh Stadium.

Read the story in Thursday’s Vindicator.