Special teams has the word special in front of it for a reason. If it wasn’t important, they would just call it the extra guys or the kicking game players.

Saturday at Missouri, Eastern found out just how important it is to have flawless special teams.

On its first drive of the game, Eastern could have taken a 3-0 lead (yes the Panthers could have been beating the powerful Tigers), but holder Andy Vincent had trouble with the snap preventing place kicker Steve Kuehn to even get a chance to get his foot on the ball.

With Eastern down 7-0, and still very much in the the game, the Panthers set up for a routine punt after a three and out when Missouri freshman safety Shaun Hibbets snuck around his blocker to partially deflect Tom Schofield’s punt.

The ball took a 13-yard trip down the field, staying put on Eastern’s 37-yard line and giving Missouri the perfect opportunity to put seven more points on the board and have a 14-point lead at halftime.

The next mishap came the same way as the previous, but gave the Tigers immediate offense.

Hibbets blocked his second punt of the game and decided to save Brad Smith and the offense from coming on the field as he picked it up and ran 15 yards for a touchdown, making the score 27-0.

Those three plays cost Eastern a total of 17 points they could not afford to lose. The score could have been 13-3 and a whole different ball game.

Head coach Bob Spoo, who is also head of the special teams, took full responsibility for the mishaps.

“To be honest with you, I probably could have helped our team out if I had made some calls,” Spoo said. “I’ll take the blame for the breakdown there.”

Spoo’s fault or not, Eastern was a few special team plays away from making 37-0 a much closer and more appealing score for the Panthers against a division 1-A opponent.

Field position plays too much of an important role in a team’s gameplan for it to have three goofs on special teams.

Even Dick Jauron knows how important special teams are when he said punter Brad Maynard was the Bears’ MVP following their fluke run to the playoffs a few years ago.

Missouri had only two scoring drives longer than 40 yards Saturday with ideal field position on almost every drive.

“Giving them the opportunity so close is going to kill you and it did,” Spoo said.

So it’s time to go back to the practice field and make sure all goes well when Illinois State comes to town this weekend.

The Redbirds will provide another good non-conference matchup for the Panthers and will be good enough to capitalize on any letdowns Eastern has.

So the gameplan should be to put the special back in the special teams.