CAPE GIRARDEAU - It may have been closer than the Salukis wanted, but the Southern Illinois University football team claimed a 42-24 win over Southeast Missouri State on Saturday in the regular season finale. The Salukis finish the regular season with a 10-1 mark, just the fourth 10-win season in school history.

The 2-9 Redhawks pushed the Salukis, cutting the deficit to 35-24 with 9:22 remaining when William Castro picked off a Paul McIntosh pass and went 14-yards for the score.

"It was one of those games where you have to keep making plays," said SIU coach Dale Lennon. "I think it was definitely in doubt in the fourth quarter. With about six minutes left, we weren't sure what could happen. We had to work for it for four quarters."

One of the Salukis who kept making plays was quarterback Paul McIntosh. After throwing just his second interception of the season, the Army transfer promptly led the Salukis on a 66-yard, six-play scoring drive. McIntosh capped the drive with a 3-yard run.

McIntosh finished the game with 101 yards rushing and three touchdowns, as well as 181 yards passing.

"Paul McIntosh had a good game," Lennon said. ""He made the one mistake with the throw, but other than that he definitely got out of a couple situations with his feet.

"He does a very good job managing the game. He doesn't make many bad decisions. We're happy with the way he led our team today."

"We were just taking what the defense gave us," McIntosh said. "A lot of times it wasn't really my number being called. I'd drop back to pass, and they're create lanes for me up front, so I'd take advantage of that."

The SIU offense put together a solid performance, piling up 475 total yards.

Deji Karim, who set up McIntosh's final touchdown with a 30-yard run, had 155 yards rushing. It was his eighth 100-yard game of the season. He has 1,512 yards on the season. Karim also had a 70-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.

The Salukis struggled offensively for much of the first half. It was still a 7-0 game with just over three minutes left in the first half. SIU got two quick scores at the end of the half, a 10-yard Karim run and a 10-yard McIntosh to Bryce Morris pass.

The offense got untracked in the second half.

"My offensive line works really hard," Karim said. "I apologize to them right now. There were a lot of holes out there, and there are probably a lot of yards left out on the field because I wasn't reading right at the end of the game."

The offense began flowing when Karim took the time to let plays develop.

"I feel like I was rushing things, not giving myself a chance," he said. "The second half, I just calmed myself down and my offensive line made me look really good as well."

In the meantime, the Saluki defense struggled at times against the Redhawks' offense. SEMO won the time of possession battle 34:04 to 25:56. In addition, the streak of creating a turnover 19 games in a row came to an end.

"I think we played a pretty good game, but we didn't play great ‘D'," said senior linebacker Brandin Jordan. "It might have been a great game for us to have the last game of the year because it shows us that a team that really doesn't have a great record can come out and really do some things."

"The time of possession was something we struggled with," Lennon said. "We couldn't get the ball back to our offense soon enough and that gave us some problems. They made us fight for the game at the end.

"You have to give Southeast Missouri a lot of credit. Their record didn't look impressive, but they played everyone tough, and that's exactly what happened to us. We knew they had a good running game, and they did a good job executing that against us."

The win closed the book on the regular season. The Salukis await their playoff fate today. The NCAA Selection show will be at 2 p.m. on ESPNews.

les.winkeler@thesouthern.com / 618-351-5088

 

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