By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – With the first year of the Dewayne Alexander era in the books, the Tennessee Tech football team has set its sights on the 2019 campaign. They aren't dwelling on the past as they're hard at work trying to improve on 2018.
"I had a team meeting with our guys this morning," Alexander said, "and I told them the 2019 season has officially started today. Everything they do up until that first ball game matters. For our guys, that's been part of the learning process. You put in a lot of time and work in football to only play a small number of games. It's not a sport with a best-of-three or best-of-five or home-and-homes or a tournament at the end. There's none of that. You play that opponent once, whether it's home or away, rain or snow or lightning delay like we had this season against Chattanooga and Kennesaw State."
The Golden Eagles will open 2019 with a visit from Samford on August 31. A former member of the Ohio Valley Conference from 2003 to 2007, it will be the first time Tech has faced the Bulldogs since Oct. 27, 2007. The Golden Eagles have a 10-12 record against Samford in a series that dates back to 1934 and were 2-3 against them in the OVC.
The Bulldogs are currently under the direction of Chris Hatcher, a familiar face to Tech fans as he helmed the Murray State football program from 2010 to 2014. Samford finished with a 6-5 record in 2018, 5-3 in the Southern Conference.
"It's always exciting to me to be able to open the season at home," Alexander said. "We have a quality opponent in Samford, who I think will be ranked in the top 20, if not the top 15 by the time the season starts."
Tech then hits the road for the first time on Sept. 7, as it takes on Miami (Ohio) out of the Mid-American Conference for its annual foray into the Football Bowl Subdivision. The RedHawks just wrapped up a 6-6 season, finishing 6-2 in the MAC. Head coach Chuck Martin's team has a lot of history behind it and will be an interesting test for the Golden Eagles.
"They're the cradle of coaches," Alexander said. "Going back to all the guys who coached there – Don Shula and rest, Ben Roethlisberger played there. They have an outstanding facility. Coach Martin, who was a coordinator at Notre Dame and a successful coach elsewhere, has done a fantastic job there and it'll be a good trip for our guys. We've had some guys on our team from the Cincinnati area, so getting up there and giving them a game close to home and give fans up there a chance to see our program is an added bonus."
It will be Tech's first game against the RedHawks since Nov. 7, 1953, a 6-4 defeat from back long before the Division I FBS-FCS split.
Tech comes home on Sept. 14 to entertain Virginia-Wise. It will be the Golden Eagles' first game against the team out of the NCAA Division II Mountain East Conference. The Cavaliers finished 4-6 this season.
The final non-conference game of the season puts Tech on the road for three straight weeks as the Golden Eagles make the return trip to Macomb, Ill., to take on Western Illinois on Sept. 21. Tech hosted the Leathernecks in 2017, the only time the two teams have previously met. WIU won the game 41-14.
Tech opens Ohio Valley Conference play on Sept. 28 with a visit to Eastern Illinois, then at Southeast Missouri on Oct. 5, before coming home to host UT Martin on Oct. 12 for the first game of the Sergeant York Trophy race before the Golden Eagles take their open date.
The Golden Eagles resume their slate on Oct. 26 as they host Austin Peay, then alternate home and away games for the remainder of the regular season as they travel to Murray State (Nov. 2), host Jacksonville State (Nov. 9), travel to Eastern Kentucky (Nov. 16) and host Tennessee State (Nov. 23) in the season finale.
"The OVC is the OVC," Alexander said. "One of the best things about the 2019 slate is that the Sergeant York games against our in-state opponents – Austin Peay, Tennessee State and UT Martin -- are all at home. That's a good thing, because we'll get to compete for the trophy on our home field, and that's a neat opportunity.
"The OVC, looking back at my first season competing in the league, is the same as it was when I was an assistant coach. You can't make sense of scores from week to week. You better be ready to play week to week and be ready to put your best foot forward. You have to be prepared for a great ball game, no matter what the record is. It's not just rivalry games where you can throw the records out, you can do that in every OVC game as well. You better be ready to play, because any team can win on any given Saturday."
Special events and promotions for each home game in the 2019 campaign will be announced at a later date.
