SEMO is thinking football (and a big-money opener)

The slow evolution of SEMO's football schedule -- which was first updated on SemoSportsWeb.com in early February -- appears to finally be complete, although still unofficially.

The Southeast Missourian said on Sunday that SEMO's final remaining date (Sept. 8) is likely to be be filled by Southwest Baptist, a Division II school in Bolivar. So far that appears to be the only game not yet sealed by contract. As reported here several days ago, SEMO will not play Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech this season, but it added last season's bottom two Gateway Conference teams -- Indiana State and Missouri State -- plus BCS bowl qualifier Cincinnati, a Big East school that will play this season with a new coach and new quarterback. That game will be worth more than $200,000 to Southeast.

SEMO isn't the only OVC team going for big bucks this season against the NCAA's newly named FBS (Football Bowl Series) schools. The others in the '07 football season: Murray State at Louisville, Eastern Illinois at Purdue, Eastern Kentucky at Kentucky, Samford at Georgia Tech, Tennessee Tech at Auburn and Tennessee-Martin at Southern Mississippi.

Other items of interest over the weekend:

• Josh Sain of Jackson (Tenn.) Liberty Tech said Saturday that SEMO is still one of his final three college choices, even after a personal visit last week from Alabama coach Mike Gottfried, who flew to Jackson and offered Sain a scholarship in person. Sain, a 6-foot-5 senior foward, scored 14 points at the TACA East-West boys all-star basketball game in Nashville last week, and he was the Class AA tournament MVP a week earlier after averaging 25 points in three tournament games. He said he will choose Bama, SEMO or Middle Tennessee State.

• Lauren Scannell, who spent two seasons on the SEMO volleyball team and graduated last year, will coach the first-year boys varsity volleyball program at her alma mater, Belleville (Ill.) Althoff. Her team's season begins this week.

• Rick Christophel is the new football coach at Austin Peay, SEMO's newest football opponent in the OVC. Christophel was the Govs' quarterback from 1971-74 and spent the past 13 seasons as an assistant coach at Alabama-Birmingham. The announcement came Friday.