The date — Saturday, Nov. 7 — has been marked on our sports calendar for some time due to the fact that Chris Lowery’s basketball Salukis would be hosting Rodney Watson’s first team at University of Southern Indiana that afternoon in the SIU Arena. It’s even in red as a “must-see” event.
Now two other games have challenged it as far as interest is concerned. All three are taking place at approximately the same time which creates a problem.
In addition to the SIU-USI basketball game, which is probably the least important of all being as though its only an exhibition game, the football Salukis are engaged in one of their biggest games in recent years at South Dakota State (Brookings, S.D.). And, if you’re a Du Quoin High School football fan, which we are, you’ve got to be listening to what’s going on in little Tolono, a suburb of Champaign, where the Indians are challenging the third-ranked team in their division of the IHSA’s 3A playoffs.
The SIU-South Dakota State matchup is obviously the most important to area fans. Both teams are 7-1 on the season and have identical 6-0 records in Missouri Valley Football Conference play. They’re almost mirror images of one another in other ways as well.
The Salukis are the league’s second best team in rushing stats (195 yards per) while SDSU is fourth (156).
The Jackrabbits are the MVFC’s top team in rushing defense allowing only 84 yards per game while SIU is second (112).
SIU averages 30.7 ppg while SDSU has scored 28.7 per. The Salukis have allowed opponents 12.5 per while their Saturday hosts have given up only 10.7.
One could go on and on and still come up with the same expectation. It’ll be an interesting game and it’s just too bad it’s not taking place in old McAndrew Stadium.
The winner is assured of at least a co-championship for the season and will be the MVFC’s automatic representative come playoff time in a couple of weeks.
Incidentally, this is the 25th year for the league which only recently took on the title of “Missouri Valley Football Conference”. Up until 2008 it was the “Gateway”, a league formed in 1985 on a hot summer afternoon in a meeting held in the old Holiday Inn in Carbondale.
We remember the day well as Lew Hartzog, SIU’s athletics director at the time, and I picked up Northern Iowa’s AD — Bob Bowlsby — at the Carbondale airport. Bowlsby had called the meeting which involved only 9-10 individuals and, if you can believe it, just a few hours later we were instructed to write a release on the formation of a new football conference — the Gateway — which would begin operations immediately. It had been the first time the group had met on the subject although obviously there had been phone calls exchanged.
