Murray State head football coach Joe Pannunzio won’t have to fake one of those Soprano-like accents when he tells you to forget about his team’s inability to win a game on the road. However, Pannunzio will be passionate, but to the point, when he tells you his Racers must beat the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks Saturday. Kickoff is at 1 p.m. in Hardy M. Graham Stadium in Martin.

To the point the visiting Racers still have a chance to claim a share of the Ohio Valley Conference championship. That chance can become reality if the Racers knock off the Skyhawks and then upset league-leading Eastern Illinois. Pannunzio and the Racers won’t take the Skyhawks lightly even though the Racers have won the last nine games and lead the series 13-5 in games played at Martin’s Hardy M. Graham Stadium. Last week’s Skyhawk effort against Eastern Illinois caught the attention of the Racers.

Despite a 55-43 loss to EIU, the Skyhawks put up 30-fourth quarter points and challenged EIU with a tweaked multiple-option running attack.

Skyhawk interim coach Johnny Jernigan said he has not had time to install a new offense since the departure of former head coach Sam McCorkle two weeks ago. “All we did was make a few changes,” Jernigan said. Reporters from around the league were fishing for answers, but Jernigan maintains the Skyhawks simply spread the offense out.

Skyhawk freshman quarterback Brady Wahlberg completed 18-of-24 passes for 198 yards and he scored four rushing touchdowns against EIU. Skyhawk senior Perez Boyd earned OVC defensive player of the week for his eight tackles, fumble recovery, pass deflections and 41-yard interception return. It’s efforts like Wahlberg and Perez showed last week that cause Pannunzio concern. “When Coach McCorkle came into the league, he brought in a bunch of young kids.

Now those young kids are a little bit older, a little bit stronger and a little bit faster. Their maturity makes them a little bit better and lets them play harder,” Pannunzio said.

“When you look at their game against SEMO, it was right to the wire. I don’t think Tennessee State scored a touchdown until the fourth quarter against them (the Skyhawks). For us to think we can do anything different would be just crazy.”

Murray State will battle the Skyhawks with quarterback Stewart Childress who finished last week’s game against Tennessee State with 103 yards of passing.

The Racers will also bring a strong corps of running backs to town. The Racers running game racked up 321 yards on 51 carries against TSU last week and is the OVC’s top rushing team.

“Murray State has a full head of steam going right now,” Jernigan said. “They’ve been playing well these last few weeks and they beat up Tennessee State pretty well (51-27).”

The Skyhawks rank last in rushing defense so they will have to force the Racers to throw more. The Skyhawks pass defense is third in the OVC and it’s allowing only 203.7 yards of passing.

Scoring against Murray State won’t be as easy as it was a week ago against EIU in the fourth quarter. The Racers held TSU to 35 yards of rushing on 36 attempts.

The Racers also had 13 tackles for loss that totaled 51 yards.

The stop squad is tops in the OVC in pass defense and second in total defense.

The last time the Skyhawks and Racers met, the Skyhawks owned a 17-7 lead in the third quarter. Murray State scored four unanswered touchdowns to claim a 35-17 victory.

“I think what hurt us last year was we did not have a lot of depth and we got wore down,” Jernigan said. You start seeing a lot of big runs with the fullback give and stuff like that. That was the big turn around of the second half of last year’s game.”

The Racers have not forgotten last year’s contest.

“We’re excited about where we’re headed and our opportunity to win an OVC championship,” Pannunzio said. “For us to even think of looking ahead to the last game (against Eastern Illinois) would be crazy. We haven’t won a road game yet and Tennessee-Martin has improved.”