Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Football Loses Double Overtime Thriller To Eastern Michigan, 48-45
09/28/2002 | 12:00:00 | Football
Sept 28, 2002
YPSILANTI, Mich. (AP) - Eastern Michigan rallied from a two-touchdown deficit in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime, where it eventually beat Southern Illinois, 48-45, in a wild game that featured 1,139 yards of total offense.
Southern Illinois (2-3) appeared to have the game in hand when quarterback Joel Sambursky scored the second of his three touchdowns on an 11-yard run to put the Salukis up 35-21 late in the third quarter.
However, Eastern Michigan (2-3) scored on a 47-yard pass from Troy Edwards to Kevin Walter with 6:25 to go in the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to 35-28.
The Eagles then forced Southern to punt and got the ball back at their own 15 with 2:33 remaining. Faced with 4th-and-10 at their own 15, EMU had no choice but to go for it on fourth down, and Chris Talley moved the chains as he caught a 13-yard pass from Edwards that was deflected by a Saluki defender.
On the next play, Edwards completed a 62-yard pass to Walter to put the ball at the Saluki 28.Two plays later, Eastern scored on a five-yard run by Ime Akpan to tie the game.
Southern got the ball back with 1:18 left and no timeouts and had a chance to win the game in regulation. Running back Muhammad Abdulqaadir ripped off gains of 12 and 14 yards, and Sambursky rushed for 10 yards to advance the ball to the EMU 30 with 20 seconds remaining.
Abdulqaadir was then dropped for a three-yard loss and the clock almost expired. As Abdulqaadir got up, the ball was knocked away from the official, and Sambursky retrieved it and hurriedly lined up his team. He spiked the ball with one-second left, however Southern was flagged for illegal procedure, moving the ball back to the 38.
Scott Everhart's 55-yard field goal attempt came up just shy, and the game went into overtime.
In OT, Eastern got on the board first with a 23-yard pass from Edwards to Kevin Zurecki to take a 42-35 lead.
However, SIU would not buckle, responding with a nine-yard touchdown run by Sambursky to tie the game at 42-42. The Salukis' drive included a key fourth down conversion in which Sambursky hit Kellen Allen with a 13-yard pass on 4th-and-9.
Southern had the ball first in the second overtime and could not get a first down. However, Everhart connected on a 41-yard field goal to give the Salukis a momentary 45-42 lead.
Eastern, aided by a pass interference penalty in the endzone on SIU, scored from two yards out on a run by Akpan to win the game, 48-45.
The Salukis lost despite a phenomenal effort by Abdulqaadir, who carried 43 times for 312 yards and three touchdowns. He finished eight yards shy of the school's single-game rushing record. Sambursky added 129 yards rushing.
Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Jerry Kill: "We'll linger on it all night long and on the plane flight home, and it'll hurt like heck tomorrow. We'll look at the film and see all the things we didn't do to win the game. It's going to hurt, and like I told the team, it should hurt. Losing hurts. But we have to get back to work and get ready for Western Illinois."
"We're doing a lot of positive things. We didn't do all those things tonight a year ago. We just have to continue to improve. But I don't worry about (the team) from the neck down, I worry about their heads and not giving up on themselves."
"There's no better game than the game of football. There are so many momentum swings. You have to play for four quarters."
QB Joel Sambursky: "We can't point fingers. We just have to get better as a team. The thing is, our attitude is great. It's the thing Coach Kill has really turned around. We went out and played a Division I opponent that played Maryland last week, but we expected to win. It was heart-breaking to lose, but we expected to win, and that's a tribute to Coach Kill and his staff. He's really selling that mindset in us. I'm proud of our guys. I'm extremely disappointed that we lost. It's killing me, but I'm so proud of our guys, the way they never gave up, and the way they just continued to battle."
"We're upset, we're mad, there's guys in there who are crying. It's hard. It's a dream come true to walk out in a big stadium and to fight and play like that, and we expected to win. Everybody's down, obviously, but nobody's mad at each other. I'm not mad at anybody. I'm just mad at the score."
RB Muhammad Abdulqaadir: "The O-line was great. You should talk to them. They're the cause of (his 312-yard performance). It starts with them. Like Coach Kill says, 'the game is won and lost at the line.' I could be Barry Sanders or Walter Payton, if I don't have a good front, nothing's going down."
DL Brandon Walker: "Division I or I-AA doesn't matter. We came here to win. We came out focused. We just came up short."
"I told our team when we put this uniform on, we all bleed the same blood. We're all bro's. I just tell everybody to go out there and play their hardest every play."
LB Eric Egan: "We have to stay positive and keep plugging away and learn from the mistakes that cost us the game. We haven't even started conference play yet. We're not folding our cards."
