By Bryan Bloodworth
NORMAL – Much like last week, Illinois State’s football team could go into battle this week without one of its top defensive players.
ISU coach Brock Spack said pre-season All-American defensive end Teddy Corwin is ‘week-to-week’ with a lower leg injury. Corwin sat out last week’s 67-14 thrashing of Morgan State and hasn’t practiced this week.
“We’ll see how Teddy does,” Spack said. “This injury is different. It’s kind of a gray area where it’s at. It’s one of those things it might take some time to heal or it might heal pretty quickly.”
With or without Corwin, the Redbirds will have to be at their best when they travel to Charleston to face long-time rival Eastern Illinois in a 7 p.m. non-conference contest at O’Brien Field.
ISU is 2-1 while the Panthers are winless in two games, suffering a 33-5 setback at Western Illinois and 41-0 loss at Northwestern.
“Their record is deceiving,” said Spack. “You can throw the records out in this game, particularly down there. This will be a very difficult game for us as it always is.”
Saturday’s game is the 104th meeting between the teams, which makes it the oldest FCS rivalry in the state and the 13th oldest at the FCS level. Also, at stake is the Mid-America Classic traveling trophy.
“Eastern plays very hard,” said Spack. ““I’ve been very impressed with their defense. Their linebackers are good players. They have some moxie about them and the secondary is the strength of their team, I think.
“Their quarterback is very athletic. They’re always good up front. They have very good skill players, very good backs. We’re going to have our hands full.”
Spack said he liked what he saw in last week’s win over Morgan State.
“All and all, it wasn’t bad,” he added. “There was a lot of improvement, but we have a long way to go to be the team we want to be right now.”
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at leftywjbc.com
