Southeast Missouri is in a spot that the Eastern football team is used to seeing themselves in. The Redhawks are on top of the Ohio Valley Conference. For the first time in red-shirt senior punter Kevin Cook’s career, he said the Panthers are going to be underdogs facing the Redhawks.

But the fact that they will be underdogs is not the only thing different about Saturday’s game between Eastern and SEMO, 1:30 p.m. at O’Brien Field.

The Redhawks will run the ball, according to Eastern defensive coordinator Roc Bellantoni, but they will run it differently. Bellantoni said the Redhawks used to be a smash mouth running team. Even though they still do some of that, Bellantoni said there is a lot more to it.

“They’re doing crazy motions where they have a wide receiver motion into the backfield and then they’ll run options,” Bellantoni said. “They do a lot of zone reads and that stuff.”

Bellantoni said the Panther defense is concerned about the option style of play that the Redhawks will bring to O’Brien Field Saturday.

“They have five seniors on their offensive line, all of them are over 300 pounds,” Bellantoni said.

With a big offensive line and a lot of weapons, the Redhawks’ offense has been tough to stop this season.

SEMO has the second-best offense in the OVC, averaging 382 yards per game. That average is second in the conference to No. 4 Jacksonville State, who Eastern lost to last weekend.

On average, about 250 of the Redhawks’ total offensive yards come through the running game. Bellantoni said red-shirt senior running back Henry Harris is a big part of that.

Harris is second in the conference in rushing yards per game, averaging 126 per game.

But he’s not alone in the SEMO backfield.

Redhawk junior quarterback Matt Scheible is fifth in the conference in rushing yards per game. Redhawk senior fullback Mike Jones is tenth.

When Scheible isn’t running the ball for 68 yards per game, he will pass the ball as the third most efficient passer in the conference.

A combination of passing and running was the reason SEMO beat No. 24 Southern Illinois-Carbondale in the third week of the season, according to Bellantoni. SIU-C was ranked NO. 5 in the nation at the time of the game.

“They have a big 6-foot-6 receiver who they threw it up to for some big gains against Southern,” Bellantoni said.

Redhawk red-shirt junior wide receiver Chantae Ahamefule had seven catches for 93 yards against SIU-C.

Ahamefule is a tall, 215-pound, target for Scheible; however, senior wide receiver Miles Edwards is the team’s leading receiver. Edwards is fifth in the OVC, averaging 48 receiving yards per game.

The Panthers will have to deal with both aspects of the SEMO offense. That’s for Bellantoni to worry about.

On the other side of the ball, Eastern offensive coordinator Roy Wittke said SEMO is just as good.

“They are a veteran unit that wants to play hard and fast across the board,” Wittke said. “Especially their front seven.”

SEMO has the top-ranked scoring defense in the OVC, as the defense only gives up 22 points per game.

The Redhawks total defense is ranked second, only giving up 313 yards of offense to their opponents.

Wittke said the Redhawks’ defense is going to make things tough on the Panther offense.

The Panther offense is the worst team in the OVC in keeping the ball on offense. The Panthers only average about 26 minutes of offensive possession each game.

In turn, SEMO is No. 2 in the OVC with about 32 minutes of offense each game.

“We have to do a better job of staying on the field,” Wittke said.

When the Eastern offense is able to stay on the field and sustain a drive, Wittke said the offense must to do a better job of finishing the drives, which is something the Panthers had trouble doing last week in their loss to No. 4 Jacksonville State.

With a talented offensive unit, and a tough defensive group, Eastern special teams coach Matthew Smiley said SEMO is a very good football team.

Eastern might not have all of the talent that SEMO has, and the Panthers might be 0-4, but Eastern head coach Bob Spoo said none of that matters.

“Young people are resilient,” Spoo said. “We’ll be ready.”

Saturday’s kickoff is set for 1:30 p.m. at O’Brien Field. Eastern will try to get its first win, and hurt the Redhawks’ chances of being voted into the top 25 polls next week.

This week, SEMO received the second-most votes of any team in the nation that isn’t already in the Football Championship Subdivision.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944 or [email protected].