Lincoln football scores season-high 32 points in finale vs. McKendree

From left, Lincoln's Justin Korakakos, Daveon Adams, Eric Brice and Tylan Oglesby lead the Blue Tigers onto the field before Saturday's kickoff against McKendree at Dwight T. Reed Stadium. Lincoln lost 50-32 to the Bearcats in the regular-season finale.
From left, Lincoln's Justin Korakakos, Daveon Adams, Eric Brice and Tylan Oglesby lead the Blue Tigers onto the field before Saturday's kickoff against McKendree at Dwight T. Reed Stadium. Lincoln lost 50-32 to the Bearcats in the regular-season finale.

A common goal for sports teams is to be better on the last day of the season than they were on the first day.

Lincoln's offense can say it accomplished that goal, even in a 50-32 loss to the McKendree Bearcats on Saturday afternoon in the Blue Tigers' regular-season finale at Dwight T. Reed Stadium.

"I see the progress in what we're doing," Lincoln coach Steven Smith said.

In Lincoln's season opener against Lane College, the Blue Tigers totaled just 142 total yards of offense, albeit in a 10-7 win.

On Saturday, Lincoln had 239 rushing yards and finished with 383 total yards of offense. That's significant improvement, and it came against a tougher opponent.

"As a whole, offensively, they did a good job, everybody: receivers, running backs, quarterbacks," Smith said. "I thought they all did a good job."

Running back Kimbo Ferguson, who took over the starting job after Hosea Franklin suffered a season-ending knee injury four weeks into the season, finished with a career-high 157 yards rushing on 27 carries against the Bearcats.

Ferguson posted four 100-yard rushing games in his seven starts and led Lincoln with 619 yards rushing.

"I thought he came out and ran hard," Smith said. "He understood exactly what we were asking him to do. He had the little read option at the beginning with the fumble, and we got him back on track.

"The (offensive) line, I thought they did a good job of coming down off the ball, giving him an opportunity to see the holes."

Lincoln had little going for itself in the first half, scoring on just one of its first six possessions. However, the Blue Tigers advanced the ball 57 yards down the field in the final 27 seconds of the first half, getting a 25-yard field goal from Fernando Ramirez as time expired to trail 27-10 at intermission.

The Blue Tigers received the opening kick in the second half and scored a touchdown to pull within 11 points. Lincoln then had a pick-six from Edwin Durassaint on McKendree's ensuing possession to make the score 27-24 midway through the third quarter.

"It made a big difference going into halftime," Smith said of Lincoln's hurry-up offense. "It set the momentum for us to come back out and do what we did."

For Saturday's game, Smith turned over the offensive play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Malik Hoskins. Smith was previously an offensive coordinator for four years at Albany State before coming to Jefferson City.

"Coach Hoskins made some great calls," Smith said. "He put us in a great position and he wanted to run the ball. I thought he did a great job of managing the game and putting us in a position to do what we needed to do."

Lincoln's 32 points was its highest point total of the season. In the past three seasons, Lincoln only scored 30 or more points on one other occasion. That came in last year's lone win, 49-19, against Lincoln (Pa.).

"Coach Hoskins is more of an 'open it up, spread it out' type guy," Smith said. "When I call it, I'm more of a 'conservative, run the ball, manage the clock, play-action' type. When I gave it to him, I told him, 'I just want the offense to be explosive. Just go do what you do.'

"He's been a coordinator before, he knows exactly what he wants to do. As you can see, he did a great job today. It's his offense, he's going to run it and I'll be there if he needs my assistance."

The safety on the field-goal block that occurred with 5:15 remaining in the game prevented Lincoln's offense from getting another chance to pull any closer to McKendree.

"Right there, we didn't use our football intelligence, to know to go out of bounds and to let our offense get back on the field," Smith said.

Lincoln returns 10 of Saturday's 11 starters on offense. The lone loss will be Blake Tibbs, who was one of the top wide receivers this season in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

"I think the GLVC is glad that we're not coming back," Smith said with a laugh.

Now the Blue Tigers are looking ahead to prepare for a 2019 schedule that will feature games against only Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association opponents. Lincoln last played in the MIAA in 2013, posting a 3-8 record that season and 2-8 in the conference.

"It's important that we have to excel at winning," Smith said. "This year, we played 10 times better than we did last year. Now it's time to go get the Ws. It's not about playing better now. It's time to beat the guys in the MIAA."

Going from one win in Smith's first season to three wins in his second is noticeable growth. The Blue Tigers were also competitive in four of their eight losses in 2018, three of which were by 10 points or less.

Smith said he's learning to grow alongside his players. But progress, he said, has to show up in the win column, not just on the stat sheet.

"I don't want to look to stay the same. Next year, three wins is not good enough, 1-9 is not good enough," Smith said. "I don't care if we're in a new conference or not, it's not good enough. We have to progress.

"The only way we're going to progress is we've got to get even better. We have to work even harder, work harder than we did last season, to be even better next year. We have to push ourselves to get to where we need to go, and we have to be even better next year than we are now."