When the 2014 season began the No. 1 question surrounding the Eastern football team was, who will be the starting quarterback and now as the season comes to a close at noon on Saturday at O’Brien Field the same question is being asked.

Eastern coach Kim Dameron said Jalen Whitlow is questionable for the Panthers’ season finale against Tennessee-Martin, opening the window for red-shirt senior Andrew Manley.

In the Panthers’ 27-20 defeat against Jacksonville State, Whitlow left the game with a hip flexor in the fourth quarter and did not return. The junior transfer from Kentucky started eight straight games after splitting time with Manley in Eastern’s first three games.

“Once we found our identity and we decided to go with Jalen we started to roll,” Dameron said.

But heading into Saturday’s game Whitlow may not be available at all.

With Whitlow, Eastern turned its season around, going from 1-5 to 5-5 before last week’s loss. The four consecutive wins in the Ohio Valley Conference included two on the road.

Tennessee-Martin coach Jason Simpson remembers last year’s loss to Eastern, but is leaving that defeat in the past.

“It was certainly high-scoring for them not for us, we hardly moved the ball at all,” Simpson said with a chuckle. “But it’s a new staff, a new quarterback. I’d like to think we could put that game behind us.”

The Panthers beat the Skyhawks 70-22 to end the 2013 regular season.

With both teams entering with 5-6 records, Dameron said the Skyhawks are similar to the Panthers, both in how their seasons have played out and also defensively.

“They deploy in somewhat of a 3-3 stack type, (defense) they play with five defensive backs much like we do, so there are a lot of similarities,” Dameron said.

The one glaring difference on defense is the way Tennessee-Martin covers wide receivers.

“Coverage wise they quite a bit different than us,” Dameron said. “They play quite a bit more man-coverage than we do.”

Simpson has noticed the differences watching film, especially when comparing this year’s Eastern defense with the past couple of year’s.

“They move around a lot more, have more pressures, they chase the football and they’re really hungry on defense,” Simpson said. “They win games defensively and their statistics are really good.”

The Panthers have the No. 2 scoring defense in the OVC, allowing an average of 17.4 points per game.

Tennessee-Martin has had its own defense success as a team and individually, as the Skyhawks rank in the top-five in all defensive categories in OVC play. Senior linebacker Tony Bell leads the Skyhawks with 5.5 sacks in conference games, while also leading his team with 69 tackles.

“We started him on the inside earlier in the year and we moved him back to outside linebacker and since we’ve done that probably our last six weeks, you look at our defensive statistics and how they’ve improved since the first part of the year.” Simpson said.

The Tennessee-Martin coach continued and said Bell needs to perform every week for the Skyhawks’ defense to be successful.

“We need him to make 10 tackles a week, sack the quarterback and make big plays,” Simpson said.

Just like the Minnesota defense did not know what quarterback it would be chasing in Eastern’s season opener, Bell and the Tennessee-Martin defense still do not know what quarterback will be taking snaps on Saturday.

Regardless of who it is, Dameron said he is confident that whoever it is will play well.

More importantly for Dameron, Saturday gives the Panthers one more chance to execute, play as a team and end the year with a win.

“Our challenge for the younger players and our seniors too, is to go out and let’s play our best football game we’ve played thus far this year, let’s send out these seniors the right way,” Dameron said.

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