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| SportsTuesday, October 23, 2007 11:26 PM CDT |
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ISU football notes: Few tickets available for WIU game
NORMAL — Reserved seats are sold out and 600 standing room only tickets have been purchased for Illinois State’s 1:30 p.m. Family Day game against Gateway Conference rival Western Illinois on Saturday at Hancock Stadium. Standing room-only tickets remain available at the ISU ticket office at Redbird Arena. According to associate athletic director/external operations Aaron Leetch, the university will not allow more than 16,500 into Hancock Stadium for the contest. The listed stadium capacity is 15,000. While the student section known as “The Zoo” is sold out, those tickets still must be picked up this week. Any of those tickets not claimed will be available at the gate on Saturday. Patrons with standing room-only tickets will be allowed on the grass areas on both ends of the visiting team’s bench area as well as beneath the main scoreboard on the north end of the field. If there are empty seats in “The Zoo,” some standing room only ticket-holders will be allowed to sit in that section. ISU does not plan to add temporary bleachers for the game. Partly because of Hancock Stadium’s new retaining wall, Saturday’s crowd will not be allowed to reach the 17,000-plus that attended the Southern Illinois game in 2006. Drone, Rice practice Quarterback Luke Drone (shoulder) and tailback Rafael Rice (knee) both practiced Tuesday despite injuries suffered in last Saturday’s 27-22 win over Youngstown State. “Luke is a little sore, but we expect him to be OK,” Coach Denver Johnson said. “Rafael is a little more wait-and-see.” Mordis’ first reception It was a rather ordinary pass, an 8-yard completion from Drone to Dave Mordis in the Youngstown State game. But it represented another step in Mordis’ inspiring comeback from a torn knee ligament suffered in August. Mordis delayed season-ending surgery and rehabilitated the injury until he was able to play. “It’s amazing to me that he’s playing and playing as well as he is. He has great determination to go out there,” said Johnson. “It’s remarkable how he’s been able to cross that mental hurdle and play without inhibition without an ACL. I’ve always thought a lot of Dave, but I’ve really got to tip my hat to him now.” 2008 schedule Football Championship Subdivision teams are allowed to play 12 games in 2008, but ISU will likely stick with its current 11, according to senior associate athletic director/internal operations Larry Lyons. “We have not discussed actually scheduling that 12th game right now,” Lyons said. “We would consider it, but we haven’t heard anybody out there looking for a game, particularly to come here.” The Redbirds currently have five home and six road games scheduled for next season and would only add a 12th if a team was willing to come to Hancock Stadium. ISU, which has Marshall on the 2008 schedule, will not add a second Football Bowl Subdivision team, according to Lyons. ISU and Eastern Illinois have agreed to extend their rivalry into 2012. The current agreement between the schools expires after 2008. Novel inspiration Former Redbirds Andrew Papoccia and Mike Souza are mentioned in the author’s note of John Grisham’s latest novel “Playing for Pizza.” The characters in Grisham’s book are fictional but are based on his experience with the Parma Panthers, an Italian football team. Papoccia remains a player-coach with Parma and Souza was the team’s quarterback at the time. Grisham calls Papoccia’s assistance “invaluable. When it came to football, these Americans answered all my inquiries. When it came to food and wine, they were even more enthusiastic.” Get area high school sports scores and statistics at Varsity Sports. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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Great news! wrote on Oct 24, 2007 11:00 PM:
Re: Milorad wrote on Oct 24, 2007 9:03 PM:
Leatherneck Pride wrote on Oct 24, 2007 7:22 PM:
Milorad wrote on Oct 24, 2007 2:41 PM:
Re: Milorad wrote on Oct 24, 2007 2:08 PM:
Milorad wrote on Oct 24, 2007 12:51 PM:
MatthewPaulLyons wrote on Oct 24, 2007 10:29 AM:
To Not The Best Way wrote on Oct 24, 2007 8:54 AM:
Not the Best Way wrote on Oct 24, 2007 6:36 AM:
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