Saluki defense chasing its best 60 minutes of football

CARBONDALE, Ill. — SIU defensive coordinator Lee Pronschinske believes the Saluki defense has not yet played its best 60 minutes of football. It would be perfect timing if that top performance came this week against a high-powered Youngstown State offense.

The No. 21-ranked Penguins are coming off a 30-point scoring output at No. 1 North Dakota State. Quarterback Beau Brungard not only leads the conference in passing, but he’s already rushed for 1,041 yards and 16 touchdowns.

Southern’s defense, meanwhile, has held its last two opponents — Northern Iowa and Murray State — to 300 yards of offense or less. Even more impressive, the Salukis forced four turnovers in those games and held UNI and Murray to 6-of-23 on third-down conversions.

To qualify as SIU’s best 60-minute performance, the defense need not even match those numbers against a YSU opponent that averages an impressive 34 points per game.

StrongDawgs Conversation with Lee Pronschinske

SD: A lot to like at Murray State, allowing seven points and forcing three turnovers. What was your overall analysis of the defensive effort?

LP: I think it all stems from a really good week of preparation. Practicing in a hard rain on Wednesday, the guys didn't flinch, just went about our business with a workmanlike mentality. At this point of the season, it comes down to fine-tuning and being really good at your process. I still don't think we've played our best 60-minute football game yet, so we’re still chasing our best performance.

SD: Impressive how they really embraced the ugly weather.

LP: When you're a defensive guy, this weather is built for us. It's not gonna be an extremely clean operation, potentially, from an offensive standpoint. When you play one of those type of games, it's about being able to control the line of scrimmage and create some takeaways.

SD: How do you adjust your play sheet when the game starts out with somewhat decent conditions, but then just rapidly deteriorates into a downpour?

LP: You do have to change your thought process a little bit. There's a call on third down I’d like back and to better understand what we were going to get from the offense’s perspective because of the weather. When you're up in the box, you might not fully understand how bad it’s raining, but then when you come back after halftime, you're like, oh, it's a torrential downpour out there. It does change what they’re able to do offensively, and so defensively, you cross some things off the sheet and narrow the focus.

Cejai Parson had two INTs at Murray State last week.

SD: Last week, you got Chris Presto back and he had a big game. This week, you get Cejai Parson back and he has two picks. Nice having Cejai back?

LP: Awesome having Cejai back. The way he prepares, the way he practices, the energy and the effort he brings, he’s an extremely football-savvy, high IQ player. That first interception he made in the red zone is all him being instinctual and understanding matchups, where teams are trying to attack us. They were slipping a wide receiver in the backfield to try to isolate a linebacker, and he read the quarterback’s eyes and jumps it. As a coach, it makes you smile, because it's a guy understanding how offenses are going to try to attack us and then him capitalizing in a big way.

SD: We’ve talked about the incredible season Jeremiah McClendon is having at cornerback, but what about the development of redshirt freshman Gavin Shepard, the opposite-side corner?

LP: I think it’s a compliment to him that, at times, I forget that he's a redshirt freshman, just by the way he's playing. When it's time to focus and play football, he's extremely savvy, another guy with a high-football IQ. Coach (Eriq) Moore has done an awesome job with that room all year. Gav is making plays and he’s a really efficient tackler, too, making good tackles in space.

SD: Where does Beau Brungard rank among the top quarterbacks in your estimation?

LP: Beau is right there among the best in the Missouri Valley, which means he’s in the Walter Payton conversation, along with Cole Payton, obviously DJ Williams, Jerry Kaminski, and Chase Mason before his injury. Beau does a really good job of throwing the ball in the hashes, and he’s got a talented wide receiver in Max Tomczak, an Illinois kid who had a big game against us last year. Beau is obviously a talented runner, and he's smart too. He finds opportunities to get out of bounds, go down, avoid taking big hits. He can feel when pockets are collapsed and escape, extend. I think Beau’s an extremely talented player.

SD: Brungard’s obviously the focal point of their offense, but he has an excellent supporting cast, too.

LP: I think Youngstown does a really good job of getting the best out of the pieces around him. I’m really impressed with Jaden Gilbert and Ethan Wright, the two running backs. Tomczak is a first-team all-conference guy but the other wide receivers, Ky Wilson and Mike Solomon, when those guys touch the ball, they run really hard. They're fighting for yards after contact. Those guys are extremely dynamic skill pieces.

SD: Defending their offense all points back to your process, doesn’t it?

LP: It's cliche, but it doesn't matter who's going to be a Walter Payton finalist and who's not. It doesn't matter what Bracketology's saying. We have a game on Saturday against a really good opponent that also wants to win as bad as we want to win. And this is what you sign up for as a coach, as a player, as a fan. This is awesome. This is November football in the Missouri Valley. Each year, it's a wild finish down the stretch.

SD: What’s your overall message to the defense this week?

LP: So for us, continuing to chase putting our best 60 minutes of football on tape and having fun. This group makes it really fun to show up to work, to practice, to watch film. There's a genuine love for one another. You have a group of 11 guys out there and it doesn't matter to them who makes the play, who's having a good game, who's having a bad game. It’s all about a cohesive unit having a really good day. We're living in the moment and making sure this is a November we all remember.