Southeast's offensive line tackles challenges

In football, the offensive line sometimes goes unnoticed when they have a good game and help the team to victory. Yet, when the offensive line has a bad game, almost everyone notices.

In the case of the offensive line of the Southeast Missouri State football team, this has been true the past two weeks against Austin Peay and Jacksonville State.

Against Austin Peay on Oct. 29, senior running back Will Young ran for 154 yards and one touchdown. He did not have a carry for negative yards the whole game. Senior running back Tremane McCullough also had a positive day rushing, running for 92 yards and two touchdowns.

Young gave credit where credit was due to the offensive line.

"All credit goes to the offensive line," Young said. "You could have driven a semi-truck through those holes that they made today."

Overall, the offensive line helped the Redhawks rush 46 times for a season-best of 276 yards and three touchdowns that day.

The offensive line was able to keep junior quarterback Jesse Hosket upright, allowing only one sack and him to throw for 230 yards and a touchdown with 20-of-24 passing.

Hosket praised the offensive line members in their efforts for protection and allowing plays to develop.

"They gave us a lot of time today," Hosket said.

Coach Tom Matukewicz liked how well his offensive line performed.

"They really did a nice job," Matukewicz said. "We still had a couple procedure penalties that got us behind the chain, but for the most part we were pretty clean."

When an offensive line is overmatched and plays poorly, it gets much attention. Against Jacksonville State on Saturday, Nov. 5, this seemed to be the case.

Southeast rushed for zero yards on 28 attempts. Although Hosket did throw a touchdown pass, he only completed 14 of 39 passes, threw two interceptions and was sacked twice.

The difference between the offensive line from Austin Peay to Jacksonville State was night and day.

One of those linemen, senior guard Garret Baker, knew going into the Jacksonville State game it was going to a physical matchup.

"We knew this was one of the teams in the conference that plays really physical," Baker said. "We knew as a defense, offense and special teams that we had to be really physical with this team. We couldn't let them push us around, so we came out and showed them we're here to play. We knew it was going to be a battle up front. They're a really good defensive team."

Baker said no matter what, the offensive line was going to give the defense all they had.

"We knew we just had to swing first and keep swinging," Baker said. "They're at their best in third and long situations, so we just had to stay in front of the chains."

However, it turned out to be a rough day for the offensive line.

"We had our plays when we're doing all right," Baker said. "But when we had our plays that didn't work, it just came down to execution."

Baker mentioned how difficult it was to block against Jacksonville State.

"They ran a complex defense," Baker said. "It was hard to block every single time."

Hosket was under constant pressure all day.

The team took several deep shots downfield, which forced the line to hold its blocks a little bit longer.

Baker said Jacksonville State's defense did nothing to throw off Southeast's offensive line.

"They were exactly who we thought they were," Baker said. "Coach did a great job telling us who they were going to be. Sometimes their players made plays and sometimes we didn't. Sometimes we made plays and their players didn't."

Despite the negatives, Baker saw the positives that can be taken from last Saturday.

"We held our own against them the whole game," Baker said. "We shouldn't be ashamed of ourselves at all. I'm really proud of this team."