Football Pulls Away in Second Half to Win 43-23

Saturday, October 10

Carbondale, Ill.

2:00 PM

Southern Illinois University

4-1 , 3-0

Illinois St.

2-4 , 1-2

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Illinois State

Southern Illinois

10/10/2009 | 12:00:00 | Football

Box Score

Oct. 10, 2009

By Jason Clay
www.SIUSalukis.com

Final Stats | Photo Gallery

CARBONDALE, Ill. - An electric first half full of big offensive plays was topped by two huge Saluki defensive plays that allowed No. 6 Southern Illinois to win its ninth-straight Missouri Valley Football Conference game with a 43-23 victory over Illinois State, Saturday on Homecoming at McAndrew Stadium.

Southern Illinois was led by 273 rushing yards and three touchdowns by senior running back Deji Karim. Karim's yardage on the ground is the third most in a game in school history.

The Dawgs improve to 4-1 overall and 3-0 in the conference, setting up a pivotal matchup at No. 3 Northern Iowa next weekend. ISU falls to 2-4 on the year and 1-2 in the league.

Korey Lindsey's interception against two open receivers on a flee-flicker early in the fourth quarter allowed SIU to extend its three-point lead. Then Ryan Patton forced a fumble on a sack with the Redbirds inside the SIU 30 in the fourth quarter, allowing the Dawgs to finish the game with 20 unanswered points.

Karim became just the ninth back in SIU history to rush for 100 yards in four-straight games. His 93-yard touchdown run in the first quarter was one yard further than his school record 92-yarder he had last weekend at Western Illinois. It was his second 200-yard rushing game of the season.

"Deji was pretty impressive," head coach Dale Lennon said. "It's just one of those things that when you have a player like that offensively, it makes it difficult to defend."

The Salukis had 613 yards of total offense in the game - the fourth most in school history. Junior quarterback Chris Dieker threw for a career-high 274 yards and two scores that were both over 40 yards.

Illinois State quarterback Matt Brown, a Marion native, had 321 yards passing with two TDs and two interceptions. Geno Blow had 84 yards rushing and the Redbirds had 428 yards of total offense.

Kyle Walker led the SIU defense with seven tackles, while Lindsey had six as did senior safety Marty Rodgers. Patton's sack, was the only one in the game for the Dawgs and Mike McElroy intercepted a pass of his own after the game had been decided.

In the first half alone, there was 650 yards of total offense between the two teams. Southern Illinois had 364 of that. Four of the five touchdowns between the two teams in the first half longer than 30 yards. The Salukis had seven plays in the first 30 minutes that were longer than 15 yards.

In the same fashion as last weekend, Karim started the scoring with a huge touchdown run. This week his 93-yarder at 7:27 gave the Salukis a 7-0 lead.

Illinois State's Zach Kutch was able to get a 25-yard field goal before Karim struck again. With 27 seconds left in the first quarter, Karim bounced through the left side of the line and outran the Redbird defense to the goal line for a 31-yard touchdown. That put SIU up 13-3 after a mis com/javascript/wysiwyg/tiny_mce/the mes/advanced/langs/en.js">sed point after attempt and Karim had 154 yards on six carries after the first 15 minutes of the game.

Junior kicker Kyle Dougherty put the Salukis up 16-3 with a 33-yard field goal at 8:12 of the second quarter.

The Salukis had the Redbirds backed up on a third-and-11 on their ensuing drive. Brown dropped back to pass and was flushed out of the pocket, but bought time and found Tyrone Walker past the SIU secondary. He caught the pass near the SIU 40-yard line and took it in for an 81-yard score.

That play gave Illinois State enough momentum to halt the Salukis on the ensuing drive and set up a 33-yard Kutch field goal to cut SIU's lead down to three. However, Dieker put an end to ISU's run, momentarily.

Southern Illinois got the ball back with 2:13 left in the first half and after a sack on first down, Dieker got SIU a first down with a nine-yard rush and a short pass to Bryce Morris. Then on a first down, he hit Marc Cheatham on a fade down the sideline for a 54-yard touchdown with 59 seconds left in the half.

Three personal foul calls against the Salukis, one following the touchdown that was enforced on the kickoff, allowed Illinois State to drive down inside the SIU 20-yard line in the final minute of the half. That's when Brown found Eyad Salem open in the corner of the end zone for the TD. With the last score, Southern Illinois only held a 23-20 lead at the half.

Both teams exchanged field goals in the first seven minutes of the third period. After the busy first half, those were the only points scored in the third quarter.

Early in the fourth, Illinois State had a flee-flicker called and SIU bit on the run. The Redbirds had two open receivers down field, but Lindsey was playing centerfield and he was able to make an incredible interception.

Three plays later Karim found the end zone for the third time on a 21-yard run to put SIU up by 10.

Illinois State came back with a drive past the SIU 30-yard line, but the Saluki defense came up with another big play. Brown was rolling out to his left, but senior linebacker Ryan Patton got to him for the sack and forced a fumble that Chance Coda recovered.

Southern Illinois put the game away from there, adding a 27-yard Dougherty field goal and a 42-yard Dieker to Ryan Kernes touchdown pass.

Saturday's win gives the Salukis eight-straight victories on homecoming. Now Southern Illinois travels to meet Northern Iowa in a heavyweight bout where both teams could possibly be ranked in the Top five.