For the first time since 2013, the Southeast football team has started its season with an 0-4 record. After a close loss of 16-19 to Eastern Illinois University last Saturday, the Redhawks are looking to turn their season around.

They have also dropped nine of their last 10 games dating back to the 2016 season.

Senior quarterback Jesse Hosket said there is still plenty of time to turn this season around.

“We have seven more games left in the season,” Hosket said. “We can still have a great year. We have a lot of potential on this team, we just have to get better every day.”

After close losses to both Eastern Illinois and University of Dayton by a combined five points, Hosket said the players try not to get down on themselves.

“Those are tough games. To know you are in those games and maybe you should have won those games is obviously pretty hard to keep coming out here and working every day,” Hosket said. “The team has done a great job. There’s been good energy, and everyone has been out here working hard, trying to get better.”

Hosket believes their opponents have still yet to beat Southeast this season.

“Against [Southern Illinois University], we had 150-yard rushing penalties, a couple turnovers and last week, defense plays a great game. Offense couldn’t capitalize, we had some turnovers in some critical situations,” Hosket said. “I don’t think anyone has beaten us yet, we’ve been in every football game. We just need to put a whole game together as a team.”

Southeast’s head coach Tom Matukewicz said he’s trying not to focus too much on the winning and losing with his players, but more about getting better.

“We try to make it here about the process, so you just try to reset and make it about the process,” Matukewicz said. “If you just make it about winning and losing, it’s pretty hard to talk about, so we just talk about getting better.”

Matukewicz said the major thing they are working on at the moment is to not turn the football over so much during games.

Turnovers and penalties have been hurting the Redhawks so far this season. During the game against Eastern Illinois, the Redhawks only had five penalties for 60 yards but ended up turning the ball over three times.

Matukewicz said he is telling his players to be prepared for turnovers against Eastern Kentucky as they have forced their opponents to turn the ball over five times.

“If we turn the ball over five times then we’ll lose, so we have to take care of the football,” Matukewicz said. “Offensively we have to trust each other. We haven’t found our rhythm and we have to find that this week. Defensively, we have to stop the run. They have a powerful running attack.”

Matukewicz also said they will have to stop the deep passes Eastern Kentucky will make. Even though they won’t stop all of them, they’ll have to stop at least half of them.

Hosket added as well that he and his teammates need to start trusting each other.

“We have to learn to trust each other. That starts with the whole line of protection and me trusting receivers being where they need to be. We just need to get better all around,” Hosket said.

Southeast is looking to attack Eastern Kentucky out of the gates once kickoff comes around Saturday night.

“We’re just going to come out and do what SEMO does. We’re going to run the ball downhill and try to get some play action going,” Hosket said.

Hosket said the team is looking forward to playing on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. against Eastern Kentucky with all of the positive energy during practices.