Senior Jimmy Garoppolo became Eastern’s No. 1 ranked quarterback of all-time in Saturday’s 55-33 win against Southeast Missouri, but it was the Panther running game that wore down the Redhawks at O’Brien Field in the school’s 96th Homecoming game.

With a 41-yard pass to Charleston native Adam Drake, Garoppolo passed Sean Payton for the school’s career passing yards record. Garoppolo finished the game with 376 yards, bringing his career total to 10,841.

Prior to the game Southeast Missouri coach Tony Samuel compared Murray State’s offense to Eastern’s after beating the Racers in triple overtime on Oct. 12. Samuel said a difference would be the running game for the Panthers.

“(Eastern) will run the ball better and will have a more concerted effort to run the ball than Murray State did,” Samuel said.

He was right.

Eastern had two 100-yard rushers as Shepard Little, and Taylor Duncan rushed for 236 yards, which led the Panthers to their third consecutive Ohio Valley Conference win to start the season.

Little had a game-high 129 yards on the ground on 15 attempts and scored three first-half touchdowns.

Little said he knew Eastern would rely on the running game more after Friday night.

“(Friday) night it was raining, so I knew today was going to be a big day running the ball,” Little said.

The Panthers fast-paced offense erupted for 27 points in the first quarter, marking the second straight game Eastern has scored 27 points in the first quarter. By the end of the first half Eastern had scored 41 points, making that three games in a row that the Panthers have scored at least 35 points in the opening half of play.

Garoppolo began the game completing his first 10 passes for 254 yards and two touchdowns. In the first quarter he threw for 242 yards, which was the third time this season Garoppolo has thrown at least 200 yards in the first quarter.

After completing two long touchdowns, the first to Erik Lora for 60 yards and the other to Drake for 82, Garoppolo began handing the ball off to his running backs.

Eastern coach Dino Babers said although Garoppolo completed 73 percent of his passes (22-of-30), the passing attack did not execute as sharply as he would have wanted it to.

“I didn’t think our base passing game was as sharp as it should have been, but we have time to work on that,” Babers said.

The second-year coach said the running game did work well as Eastern ran for 283 yards, a season-high for the Panthers.

In the opening half, Little and Duncan combined for 174 yards, gaining 97 and 77 yards, respectively.

Out of Eastern’s six touchdowns in the first two quarters, Duncan and Little ran in for four. In those four scoring drives the two backs combined for 15 carries for 107 yards, capped off by 19, 10, five and eight yard-touchdown runs, with Duncan scoring from 10 yards out.

“No matter how much you throw the football there’s going to come a time during that game that even if you are successful throwing it there is going to be a time when you will have to run it to win the game,” Babers said.

Little averaged 8.6 yards per carry against the Redhawks, bringing his season average to 7.3 yards per attempt.

“Defensively we knew what (Southeast Missouri) was doing,” Little said. “I was taking the right steps and making the right reads.”

Babers said success in the running game would be key for the rest of the season.

“If you are not capable of (running the ball) somewhere down the road you are going to be walking back to locker room with tears in your eyes,” he said. “You have to practice to stop the run and you have to be able to run the football.”

Aldo Soto can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]