Issue date: 9/21/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Jim Moldenhauer The Redbirds will be tested this weekend when they travel to Columbia, Mo. to take on the Missouri Tigers. Mizzou is currently ranked No. 25.

Media Credit: Alex Reside Rafael Rice (2) avoids two Eastern Illinois defenders last Saturday.

The ISU football team is preparing to take on what may prove to be their biggest challenge of the season this weekend, as they travel to Columbia, Missouri, home of the 3-0 Missouri Tigers.

Coming off a thunderous 52-24 win over Western Michigan, Mizzou is now ranked in the AP polls for the first time this season, clinging to a No. 25 ranking.

The Redbirds are feeling their own sense of resilience after a huge win over state rival Eastern Illinois, moving ISU up to No. 14 in the FCS polls.

Head Coach Denver Johnson acknowledged the fuel behind Missouri's spot at the top of the Big 12, but remained steadfast that the 'Birds still have their eyes on a win.

"Missouri Tigers are an outstanding football team. I've been very impressed watching them on film. It's going to be quite a challenge to go into that kind of venue and play that kind of competition, but a challenge that we very much look forward to. Our focus and concentration remains on our football team, trying to advance our team and improve and those efforts are hampered a bit by injuries."

ISU's defense lost two integral players last weekend in Charleston. Senior defensive end Jarek Thomas is officially out for the season after suffering a spiral fracture to his fibula and a high ankle sprain in the first half of the game. Senior linebacker Bill Hronec had a similar crash in the second half, but his ankle sprain will only require him to miss a couple of games at most. Junior defensive end Adam Blankenship said that the team will miss the efforts of their injured teammates, primarily the permanent loss of Thomas, but that the defense is prepared to step up.

"JT is a great football player, and he's a great part of this defense. I think we're all hurting for him, but at the same time, we can't afford to look back and say 'what if?' We have to be focused on moving forward and playing this next game, and I think we've got guys on the defense who can help us do that."

Besides the injuries on the team, another major factor that will certainly come into play this weekend is the seemingly massive gap between the Football Championship Subdivision team and the Bowl Championship Series team. ISU, whose home stadium seats 15,000 people, will be playing in Missouri's Memorial Stadium, which houses a whopping 68,349.

Fortunately for ISU, many players have already had experience in these bigger stadiums, and Johnson said that these past games will benefit the Redbirds this weekend.

"We've kind of been in a few of those, so it's not something that's totally foreign to our guys, and I think we've handled it relatively well. Missouri appears in the top 25 this week, first time that's happened in quite awhile, they're 3-0, that's the first time that's happened in Missouri in quite a while, so they're obviously at a real high spot in the ebb and flow and kind of cycle of things. They come into this year with a lot of people picking them to be in the Big 12 North, and I'm sure they're fans and students are pretty fired up," Johnson said.

"Our kids enjoy that atmosphere, though. I think all competitors like to be on that kind of a stage, in that kind of a venue, and have a chance to compete against that kind of competition. I think we'll take it in stride."

The rounds of upsets that have already shocked the college football world this season have of course proved that anything is possible in intercollegiate athletics.

"I think our kids have a sense of being able to go in and hopefully be competitive, and if you play well, this game is full of mystery. The ball takes funny bounces and there's all kind of dynamics at play that affect the outcome, so the trick is you have to go in there and play well and see what happens, and that's what we'll attempt to do. We'll try to put our best team on the field and we'll try to go out and play as best as we can, and we'll see how that ball bounces," Johnson said.

"It's hard to say what it would mean if we were to be able to go down there and pull this off. Appalachian, I'm sure, has enjoyed a lot of goodwill and a lot of good publicity going in and upsetting Michigan."

"It's an opportunity to go in there and try on a BCS team and it's probably incalculable what a win would mean to you. I'm not sure you'd even fully realize it until you were to go in there and do that. I'll continue to say again that I'll never coach a game nor ask our kids to play one that I don't fully intend to win, so we're going to try and get ourselves a good plan, we're going to put our best team that we can on the field, and ask those guys to go in there and play their hearts out, and I'm sure that's what they'll do," Johnson said.

Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.

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