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SIU football ready for first playoff game in 20 years

No. 2 seed Delaware awaits arrival of No. 4 ranked Salukis

When the playoff pairings were announced Sunday and the SIU football team was sent packing for Delaware, most of the players were left disappointed.

For one Saluki, sophomore tight end Chris Kupec, another thought was going through his head.

A native of Columbia, Md., just an hour and a half away from the Delaware campus, Kupec was courted by the Blue Hens. Now, he has a chance to end their season a few games earlier than they would like.

"I didn't even realize it until they announced it and then I was like hey, Delaware recruited me," Kupec said.

Kupec, an aviation flight major, never seriously considered Delaware because his field was not available, but it is still a game he looks forward to as it places him close to home.

"It's going to be great being able to go out and show old coaches and old friends how much I've improved," Kupec said.

He will not be the only one showing how far he has come.

It was just two seasons ago when the Salukis finished the year 1-10 in Jerry Kill's first season and were only worried about classwork at this time of year.

Now, in just his third season at the helm, the Gateway Conference's freshly crowned coach of the year has his team at 10-1, ranked No. 4 in the nation and playing in the Division I-AA playoffs with a chance to go after a national championship.

Saturday's game, which kicks off at about noon Central time, will mark the Salukis' first playoff game since winning the national championship in 1983. Local ABC affiliate WSIL TV-3 will air the game locally from a live feed from cable network College Sports Television.

Delaware, the No. 2 seed in the playoffs, enters the game with an 11-1 record and boasts wins over Division I Navy and nationally ranked Massachusetts and Villanova.

The Blue Hens run a no-huddle, four-receiver, spread offense. The triggerman for the offense is Georgia Tech transfer and Payton Award candidate Andy Hall.

Hall, who completed 195 of 303 passes for 2,285 yards and 21 touchdowns this season, was named the Atlantic 10 Offensive Player of the Year and should cause all types of headaches for the Salukis.

"He's the key to the whole operation," Kill said. "He's a very, very good football player. He's the one that makes them go offensively."

Hall suffered a separated shoulder in Delaware≠s 22-17 win over Villanova last week. But despite having his arm in a sling, the quarterback is expected to play Saturday as the injury was to his non-throwing arm.

Running back Germaine Bennett is another player the Salukis will have to look out for. He ran the ball 232 times for 1,135 yards this season and posted 12 scores out of the Blue Hens' one-back formation.

What Hall is to Delaware's offense, defensive end and Duke transfer Shawn Johnson is to its defense.

Johnson, a candidate for the Buchanan Award and the Atlantic 10's Defensive Player of the Year, racked up 12 sacks and 21 tackles for loss, causing Kill to call him the best defensive lineman he has seen this season.

"We haven't seen one like him," Kill said. "He's a beast."

The rest of the Delaware defense is also solid and allows an average of 114 rushing yards per game and just under 19 points per game.

But the Blue Hens have not faced a Division I-AA team with as potent a rushing attack as the Salukis this season.

SIU averaged 5.2 yards a carry and has run for 3,009 yards and scored 40 touchdowns on the ground this year.

In SIU's last game, a heartbreaking 43-40 loss to Northern Iowa that cost the Salukis an outright Gateway title, the team's secondary was torched by quarterback Tom Petrie for 422 yards and three touchdowns. Panthers wide receiver Eddie Galles hooked up with Petrie to do most of the damage, reeling in 16 receptions for 251 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Kill blames the lack of an effective pass rush put out by the Salukis' defensive line as the key to Northern Iowa's Nov. 15 win over SIU.

If the Salukis' pass rush suffers as much as it did in Northern Iowa, Kill said the team could be in for a very long day against Delaware.

"If we don't play better on the defensive line than we did at Northern Iowa, we'll get our ass handed to us," Kill said.

The disappointment of not getting a first round playoff game seemed to have vanished from the faces of SIU's players during Wednesday's practice.

Junior safety Alexis Moreland said the excitement of being in the playoffs has taken over and anything else is now secondary.

"A lot of people are ready to get to the playoffs and see what it's all about," Moreland said. "It's been dry here for 20 years and I think we're ready."

The Salukis were not the only ones less than thrilled about their first round meetings.

Delaware figured a No. 2 seed and No. 3 national rankings would get them an easier first round match-up than the No. 4 ranked Salukis, but head coach K.C. Keeler would not let the Blue Hens stay down for long.

"Saturday afternoon, at about 3:30, someone's going to be packing up their equipment for the last time, and it's not going to be us," Keeler told his players following the announcement of the playoff bracket, according to a story in the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal.

While Keeler and his players are confident heading into the game, the prospect of playing a highly ranked team on the road is not something that scares the Salukis.

SIU has already gone on the road and beat fellow playoff participants Western Illinois and Western Kentucky. The Salukis' lone road loss was the season finale against Northern Iowa, who overcame a 40-28 fourth quarter deficit for the win.

Still, Kill is not going to assume the Salukis can enter Delaware Stadium and have an easy time.

"We've got a tremendous challenge, an unbelievable challenge," Kill said. "But I think [the players are] excited about it, and we're not going to hold anything back. We're just going to go up there and get after it."