Last fall, the Southeast Missouri State football team made the FCS playoffs for the fourth time since 2018 and also collected its third OVC-Big South Conference Championship in six seasons.
In the conference’s annual coach’s preseason poll that was released two weeks ago, the Redhawks were selected to finish third behind Tennessee Tech and UT Martin, respectively, this season.
For the 2025 campaign, SEMO will be without two of its star players in 2024 All-American linebacker Bryce Norman and former OVC-Big South Offensive Player of the Year quarterback Paxton DeLaurent, who have both now graduated from the program.
While those are two big holes to fill this fall and with the Redhawks picked as underdogs in their own conference, 12-year head coach Tom Matukewicz is looking forward to the challenge ahead as always.
“At the end of the day, it’s going to be interesting to see where are we at as a program,” Coach Tuke said at OVC-Big South Media Day. “Are we going to be inconsistent and rise and fall as players do, or are we going to reload with great players and keep winning football going?”
Coach Tuke went on to describe this year’s team as “nobodies” since nobody is talking about SEMO or any of the team’s individual players. However, Tuke said he’s more excited for this season than he has been for any other in a long time.
“There’s been a lot of really, really talented guys that haven’t had that opportunity in games yet, and they’ve put some really good film out in the last sixth months,” Coach Tuke said. “We’ve also had some great players be injured and didn’t have the season they wanted to have, so hopefully they get that opportunity to do that this year.”
Along with being picked to finish third in the conference, the Redhawks landed eight on the OVC-Big South Preseason Players to Watch List: four on offense, three defense and one special teamer. Two offensive players put on this list for SEMO were running backs senior Brandon Epton Jr. and sophomore Payton Brown. The two only combined for 791 all-purpose yards and a total of 8 touchdowns last fall, but they also each missed considerable time (Epton Jr. seven games; Brown five).
As a freshman, Brown, who is a Hillsboro native, led the Redhawks rushing attack with 314 yards (4.9 yards per rush) and 5 touchdowns on 63 carries. With two less carries, Epton Jr. rushed for 241 yards and scored once. These two will hopefully take the pressure off SEMO’s first-year starting quarterback junior Jax Leatherwood, who transferred from San Diego Mesa College and is tasked with replacing DeLaurent under center.
In his final year with the Redhawks, DeLaurent threw for 4,087 yards, 33 touchdowns and 15 interceptions and finished as SEMO’s all-time leader in passing yards and touchdown throws.
The duo of Brown and Epton Jr. will be crucial for taking pressure off Leatherwood in the backfield as the lack of a running game in last year’s FCS playoffs was ultimately SEMO’s downfall in a 35-27 first-round loss to Illinois State. Under what is now the team’s former offensive coordinator, the Redhawks threw the ball a heedless 85 times in the game, resulting in 5 turnovers.
Outside of SEMO’s two running backs, junior wide receiver Cam Pedro was also selected to the OVC-Big South watchlist after leading the team in receptions with 84 for 897 yards and 4 touchdowns as an underclassman.
The Redhawks lost their leader in touchdown catches Dorian Anderson, who had 12 and also notched 1,011 receiving yards off 67 catches, to graduation. SEMO’s receiving corps also fell victim to the transfer portal as it saw Tristan Smith (76 catches, 934 yards and 6 touchdowns) go to Clemson.
The fourth and final conference watchlist player on offense for the Redhawks was senior offensive lineman Rashad Turner, who will be in his third year as a starter.
Unfortunately for the offensive line, SEMO lost what would’ve been another returning starter to the ACC in Carter Guillaume, who is now at Louisville.
Moving to the Redhawks defensive OVC-Big South preseason players to watch, two of them are in the front seven in senior defensive lineman Nasim Cairo and outside linebacker McCoy Casey. Casey finished second in both sacks (5) and tackles for a loss (11) for SEMO last fall while racking up 61 tackles.
Cairo paced him with 4 sacks of his own, 5 1/2 tackles for a loss and 40 total stops. These two Redhawks also combined for 20 quarterback hits (Cairo 11, Casey 9). The third SEMO defender to be named as a player to watch in the OVC-Big South this season was senior cornerback Justus Johnson, who was an all-conference selection last year.
Johnson, who hails from St. Louis, recorded the second-most interceptions (two) for the Redhawks last season. He also came up with 4 pass deflections, blocked a kick, recovered a fumble and finished with 20 tackles.
Another key returner on defense for SEMO will be senior inside linebacker Jared Pedraza, who produced 49 total stops, 5 1/2 tackles for a loss and 1 sack with 1 forced and 1 recovered fumble.
Redhawk fans may also look out for another player in the front seven like redshirt freshman outside linebacker Trey Lisle, who had an impressive performance in SEMO’s spring game with two sacks. Helping Johnson in the secondary should also be other spring-game standouts like junior cornerback David Jones, junior safety Angel Munoz and sophomore safety Landon Sylvie.
Jones transferred to the Redhawks from Grambling State, where he recorded 49 tackles, 2 interceptions and 5 pass breakups as a sophomore. As for a safety like Munoz, he spent his last two seasons at New Mexico State of Conference USA.
The eighth Redhawk named to this year’s OVC/Big South players to watch list was senior long snapper Judd Cunningham from Farmington. Cunningham has played in 33 games over the past three seasons.
On special teams, the Redhawks lost their All-American kicker DC Pippin to the transfer portal as he is now at Ball State. However, SEMO picked up a transfer player to likely replace Pipen in senior Justin Keller from Coastal Carolina. While Keller didn’t play a snap for the Chanticleers, he served as Missouri Valley College’s kicker during his sophomore and junior years
The Redhawks will kick off the season at FBS program Arkansas State on Aug. 30 and will host North Alabama for their first home game of the year Sept. 6. On Sept. 13, SEMO will travel north to face one of the best FCS programs in history in North Dakota State. The Bison are the winners of 10 national championships and have produced three first-round NFL Draft picks since 2016.
