Koutsos' Last Stand

Commentary

Mark Grace on the Chicago Cubs, Barry Sanders on the Detroit Lions and Darth Vader with the Empire.

All were incredible players stuck on horrid teams.

Grace was considered a loser until he broke the shackles of Cubdom and won a World Series with Arizona.

Sanders became so frustrated with his alleged team in Detroit that he retired only 1,457 yards short of Walter Payton's rushing record.

So many bunglers surrounded Darth Vader that he let a moon-sized space station be blown apart by a single person - twice.

Those people, or fictional characters for those of you who believe Grace was just an actor in a movie, were labeled as players who were great individuals but couldn't win a game to save their lives.

And this year is SIU's last chance to remove that undesired label from Tom Koutsos.

"I want to go out as a winner," Koutsos said. "When I leave campus people will say 'Tom Koutsos was a good football player, but what about the wins? 'I want to go out as a winner this year."

Koutsos has rushed for more than 1,000 yards every year he has donned the Saluki uniform. He earned the SIU rushing record in only three years, was named First Team All-Gateway the past two years and is considered, at least in the preseason, to be one of the best running backs in Division I-AA.

Yet the Salukis, through their poor performance on the field, have covered up Koutsos' accomplishments as if they were FBI agents in Roswell.

For every hundred or so yards Koutsos gained while rushing to the school record, SIU lost a game. SIU won a respectable five games during Koutsos' freshman campaign, but the Salukis' win total has been falling as fast as the Nasdaq since then.

SIU managed three wins in 2000 and only one last year.

Koutsos knows he can't go it alone, no matter how bad the supporting cast - which in all fairness to Saluki football should be better this year.

Koutsos can't kick field goals, play defense or take snaps. His reputation is reliant on 21 other men.

"People don't understand that football's a team game, and one offensive player is not going to have a winning season," Koutsos said. "It's the whole team. I'm just part of a machine that works together."

Koutsos is a team player, so he's not going to blame his teammates for losses and be a selfish brat like Randy Moss. But it must be frustrating to be the V-8 engine in a car made of Yugo parts.

And after this year, the Salukis will have to downgrade to a four-banger, so it's their last chance to take advantage of the extra horsepower - and head coach Jerry Kill is fully aware of that.

"I've coached several very good football players at that position, and Tommy has a unique quality," Kill said of Koutsos. "He's a very physical, tough and determined young man. I think he plays his guts out and that's what makes him special."

Not that the next running back won't play his guts out, but it would be unfair to expect him to produce numbers like those Koutsos has posted. In the meantime, SIU has one more year with Koutsos, and they should make it count.

Koutsos believes there is a sense of urgency to win, and he's fed up with rebuilding.

"We got all the facilities, the lights, new locker room," he said. "We got everything in place. Rebuilding is out of the question. We gotta win now."

They better, because if SIU can only win one game with the best rusher in the conference, negative numbers in the win column can't be far behind.

Just remember what happened to the Lions when they lost Barry Sanders.

Reporter Michael Brenner can be reached at mbrenner@dailyegyptian.com