By Eric Stock
NORMAL – Illinois State football coach Brock Spack was no less cordial than usual during his weekly media visit on Tuesday, but he noted he wants to see a lot more nastiness this week.
Specifically, Spack wants to see more of his from his football team which suffered its second straight lopsided loss on Saturday in a 42-7 defeat at Southern Illinois.
“They are very, very young and they want to do well,” Spack said of his young offensive line which includes three underclassmen starters. “They are a little bit anal if you will about their technique and it’s getting in the way of their being nasty.”
Spack said he hopes to see more nasty from his Redbirds (4-2) who will try to end a two-game losing streak on Saturday when No. 4 South Dakota comes to Hancock Stadium for homecoming.
Spack said his young team, which plays 15 freshman, will have to grow accustomed to the grind of a long and bruising college football season.
“You have to be able to play through discomfort,” Spack declared. “Guess what? We obviously didn’t look like we were very comfortable on Saturday. We didn’t play very hard in certain spots.”
Spack suggested that he will likely turn up the intensity during practice this week to help his players focus.
“We are going to warm up, put the ball down and play live, tackle football 1s on 1s and 2s on 2s,” Spack said. “But you have to explain to the players that this is not a punishment. You should be excited about this.”
South Dakota (6-0) is coming off a 56-6 win over Indiana State in which the Coyotes tacked up 705 yards of total offense, the eighth in Missouri Valley Football Conference history.
WJBC will have the game at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
