Part of the preparation for Saturday’s upcoming football game with Tennessee-Martin should be defensive coordinator Roc Bellantoni’s defensive prediction.

Two cases have stood out thus far, and in both cases, defensive players have made Bellantoni’s pre-game wish come true.

The coordinator, in an attempt to fire up his players before the game, has been giving them something to strive for.

In Eastern’s biggest game of the year thus far, a loss to Illinois State, Bellantoni gave senior middle linebacker Fred Miller motivation to score a touchdown in the game.

Of course Miller followed his coach’s orders exactly.

Miller intercepted a Mike Souza pass deep inside Panther territory and went untouched into the endzone.

But that wasn’t the only positive part of Miller’s game against the Redbirds. It actually could have been Miller’s best game of his career. He ended up filling the stat sheet with 19 tackles, four of them were for a loss on the play and he had the interception return for the touchdown.

Bellantoni’s most recent psychic encounter took place last week when Eastern traveled to Murray State.

Again, Bellantoni approached a player before the game. This time it was freshman cornerback Albert Brown.

The freshman had been playing regularly for Eastern, mostly because Brown is currently the tallest cornerback listed for Eastern at 6-feet tall. However, he had not been as effective as Bellantoni had hoped because he still had been learning the defensive concepts Bellantoni teaches.

Nevertheless, before the game Bellantoni fired up his young player by simply telling Brown to go have the game of his life.

This could have been just simple coach speak, one of the many cliches they will use to fire up the troops. However, Brown must have taken the coach for his word, because he did just what Bellantoni said and had the best game of his life.

Brown ended the game with his name filling up much of the stat book. He took part in three turnovers by recovering two fumbles and intercepting a pass. He also had four tackles in the game.

Most importantly, by recovering the two fumbles and intercepting a pass, Brown ignited what had been a fairly lifeless defense.

Throughout the year, the best way to describe the Eastern defense would be that they bend but don’t break. They rarely created turnovers, and opponents often had a large advantage at the end of the game in total yards gained.

But when the defense limited the opposing offenses time on the field by forcing turnovers, more opportunities were created for the offense. Finally, it all resulted in an Eastern victory, the team’s first since the initial week of the season.

Perhaps Bellantoni will use his new found consistency in predicting the future to give some player a thrill this weekend. It could prove to make homecoming weekend a lot more memorable for one of the members of the defense.