The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

SIU finally closes technology gap

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - For the first time in four weeks, SIU head coach Jerry Kill could worry about football, and only football, during a game.

Youngstown State became the first victim of SIU's now working headsets, a basic necessity normally taken for granted that has been a thorn in the side of the Salukis since the loss to Northern Illinois.

Kill was thrilled after the game, joking that any "bad coaching" was strictly his fault.

"Excellent, excellent, excellent night with the headsets," Kill said with a massive smile. "All them bad calls you seen, I just didn't do a very good job."

There were not any controversial coaching decisions, perhaps because of the working headsets.

SIU's coaches had not been able to communicate well the last few weeks because of a comedy of errors regarding the headsets, the most recent being when the headset company sent them the wrong batteries, causing the system to die in the second quarter.

For one day, no news was good news Saturday, and Kill hopes it stays this way when he coaches arguably the biggest game of his life against No. 4 Western Kentucky Saturday.

He can now go into the game with everything a Division I-AA coach is supposed to have.

"That was an improvement in our program," Kill said.

Moreland named defensive player of the week

The Gateway conference named safety Alexis Moreland its defensive player of the week Monday, mainly for his 95-yard touchdown return after an interception. The performance came on the heels of Moreland's removal from the Buchanan Award watch list, a list of players eligible to be named the best defensive player in Division I-AA.

Moreland is not the type of guy who cares about individual awards, and is likely to approach this one as he did the Buchanan award.

"It don't matter because we're 5-1 now," Moreland said after the Youngstown State game, brushing off his removal from the Buchanan watch.

Craig Turner breaks one - again

In what is becoming a weekly theme for SIU football, freshman Craig Turner broke another long touchdown play Saturday.

Turner - on his first play ever at Stambaugh Stadium - took a screen pass from Joel Sambursky 56 yards to the end zone near the end of the first half, essentially putting the game away at 30-0.

Turner now has touchdown plays of more than 50 yards in three of the four games he has played in since Kill removed his redshirt.

No. 1 again

For the fourth week in a row, SIU is the No. 1 team in Division I-AA in both the Sports Network media poll and the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll.

Georgia Southern is now the only team siphoning significant first-place votes from the Salukis, replacing former No. 2 Furman. The Paladins dropped to No. 8 and No. 9 after a one-point loss to Appalachian State.

Western Kentucky, after winning at Northern Iowa, moved to No. 4 in both polls. SIU and Western Kentucky are now the only teams in the Gateway Conference that are ranked.

Salukis' discipline slips at Youngstown

The Salukis were plagued by uncharacteristically dumb penalties against Youngstown State.

SIU racked up 17 penalties for 140 yards Saturday, including four personal fouls, almost equaling its penalty yardage of the last three games combined.

The Salukis lost only 147 yards on penalties against William Penn, Delaware State and Northern Iowa, numbers that Kill wants to see from his team again.

But, as Kill said, at least the headsets finally worked.

"We didn't do a very good job with the penalties, and I'm not happy about that, but we did get better headsets," Kill said. "So we're excited about that."