Panther head football coach Bob Spoo got off the phone with Tennessee Tech coach Mike Hennigan Wednesday and shook his head.

Spoo talked at length with Hennigan about Eastern’s alleged chop block at Hawaii in Week 1.

“You get a reputation with these things,” Spoo said after he hung up.

The Panthers have a chance to make a new reputation for themselves Saturday that’ll resound through the Ohio Valley Conference. Eastern travels to Cookeville, Tenn., to begin its league schedule against the Golden Eagles (2-3) at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

Spoo said Saturday marks a new season for the Panthers – one that will have to begin without one of Eastern’s best defensive players, junior strong safety Fred Miller.

Miller re-aggravated a leg injury last week against Illinois State.

Running backs Andre Raymond and J.R. Taylor are both battling nagging injuries.

The list of players who can’t practice with the team has shrunk considerably from last week, when Spoo had a sheet full of names that couldn’t strap on pads for practice.

Sophomore cornerback Vincent Lewis is out indefinitely as is sophomore running back Justin Morris.

But Spoo has plenty to be hopeful about and said practices this week have shown plenty of promise.

“We’re definitely confident that our offense is in place now,” Spoo said. “I think we showed that last week.”

The Golden Eagles have shown considerable improvement on offense too. Tennessee Tech is notorious for its tough defense, but this season with help from starting quarterback Robert Craft the offense also is a force.

“Tennessee Tech has got good receivers and they’ve got a good plan,” Spoo said. “They’ve got a good running game too and they’re really a well-coached group of hard-nosed guys.”

The Golden Eagles survived their non-conference schedule with the best overall offense in the OVC. Tennessee Tech’s two wins came against teams that are winless so far this season (Chattanooga and Valparaiso) and its three losses came against teams with a combined record of 10-3 (Iowa State, Bowling Green and Jacksonville State)

“We’re just going to have to minimize our mistakes and make sure the team plays smart,” Spoo said.

The Panther special teams unit looked smarter last week and Spoo has a plan to raise the intelligence quotient higher.

“Until about two weeks ago, that was one part of our program that didn’t get instant feed back,” Spoo said. “We didn’t look at film right away. We do now and I think it’s really helped us.”