The difference between last weekend’s conference-opening win at Eastern Kentucky and Saturday’s 44-33 home win over Tennessee Tech could be seen in the expression on Bob Spoo’s face.

With a grin from ear to ear after spoiling Eastern Kentucky head coach Roy Kidd’s day with a 21-14 win at EKU last weekend, Spoo’s sullen face appeared Saturday as if the Golden Eagles had just ruined his.

“We won, that’s what counts,” he said. “It’s a lot better than being 0-2, I can tell you that.”

“But we’re just hurting ourselves too much. Some day it’s going to catch up to us and we’re not going to be able to pull it out.”

After falling behind twice in the first half, the No. 8 ranked Panthers (3-0, 2-0) managed a 20-20 tie at halftime. Eastern then pulled away by three touchdowns in the second half, only to watch the Golden Eagles (2-2, 0-1) close the gap to eight late in the game.

Spoo, angry with his team’s unfocused play and mental mistakes, said the game shouldn’t have been close to begin with.

“Their first touchdown came off of a fumble,” a fiery Spoo said. “Their second touchdown they had because we can’t intercept two deflected passes, and the third touchdown they got because we made two major penalties that kept their drive alive on third down.”

After scoring their third touchdown of the first half, the Panthers had a chance to pull ahead 21-20 after Tech failed to convert on an extra point earlier in the half. But a celebration penalty on junior running back/wide receiver Andre Raymond turned the point after attempt into a 35 yard kick into the wind. Senior kicker Bill Besenhofer was unable to convert the kick, which Spoo said never should have had to be attempted.

“We have a guy strut and roll the ball in the endzone and get a PAT into the wind at the 18-yard-line instead of the three,” he said. “It’s a stupid thing and as long as the guys are playing their own game, it’s going to happen.

“It was the correct call, you’re supposed to hand the ball to the official or leave it on the ground. It’s things like that I hope don’t catch up to us. They almost caught up to us (Saturday).”

The Panthers comitted eight penalties in the game, costing them 73 yards. But it wasn’t just the penalties that left Spoo irate after his team’s third win of the season.

“We dropped three pass interceptions,” he said. “We keep our opponents in the game that way. Those things are the difference in putting people away. We keep opponents in the game just by our play.”

Spoo said he expected a difficult game against Tech, but said his team made it a lot harder than it should have been.

“I thought it would be a tougher game and it was only because we let them get into the game,” Spoo said.

“I’d like to think we can play with anyone if we play smart football.”

While his team may not have played smart football for a full 60 minutes, it did come away with a win, something Spoo said, in the end, is most important.

“It’s little things like that that grate on you. Those are fundamental things. There were plays that could have blown the game wide open we should have made,” Spoo said. “We won the game that’s all that matters. Whether it’s by one or 41, we won the game. And we have to be pleased about that.”