July 23, 2007
NORMAL, Ill. -
Illinois State's 21-14 fourth-quarter comeback win over No. 18 Eastern Illinois during the 2003 season has been tabbed as the fifth most memorable Redbird football game in Redbird All-Access' countdown of the best televised games in recent history. The entire broadcast of the game will be available at 1 p.m. today on Redbird All-Access.
The Redbirds fielded four current NFL players in Boomer Grigsby (Kansas City Chiefs), Laurént Robinson (Atlanta Falcons), Cameron Siskowic (Cincinnati Bengals) and Sha-Ron Edwards (Atlanta Falcons) in the game, which was part of Gateway-Ohio Valley Challenge.
EIU jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead when Fred Miller returned a Mike Souza interception 32 yards for a touchdown. Trailing 14-12 heading into the fourth quarter, Illinois State scored a safety when Siskowic blocked an EIU punt out of the back of the end zone to tie the score. On the ensuing drive, Demetrus Johnson gave the Redbirds their first lead of the game with a game-winning 49-yard touchdown run.
Johnson finished with 159 yards rushing on 20 carries. Grigsby led the ISU defense with eight tackles, including a quarterback sack. ISU's Ray Robinson also added three quarterback sacks and finished the season with 14, which was the school record at the time.
After scoring 14 points in the first quarter, the Eastern Illinois offense was shutout over the final three quarters. The Panthers finished with 211 yards of total offense and were 4-for-13 on third-down conversions.
The weekly countdown of the most memorable televised games will continue each week through August 20 on GoRedbirds.com. Each week's game will be announced on Monday morning, with the webcast of the game available later that same day on Redbird All-Access, the premium multimedia service of Illinois State Athletics official web site.
In conjunction with the countdown of memorable Redbird football games, a discount of 25 percent off an annual subscription to Redbird All-Access is being offered. Redbird All-Access provides ISU fans and alums with hundreds of hours of video including live webcasts of football, volleyball, soccer, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball and softball. There is also access to game-day features, season highlights, exclusive interviews and classic games.
