By MONTE DUTTON

I have spoken many times with Steve Englehart about getting Presbyterian College football over the proverbial hump.

The issue may be the majority of our conversations. The issue still burns. When a coach says his team has to learn how to win, it seems redundant.

Duh.

It’s obviously not a simple matter. Englehart came to Clinton with the program at rock bottom. The first year’s record was 1-10, and the average score was 43-16 in the negative. The second team was 4-7 with an average of 25-22.

This year it’s incomplete and still skewed from a 63-10 loss to Mercer, still undefeated, in the opening game. At the moment, the Blue Hose are 2-5 and the average is 30-26.

“The last two years it’s been a similar situation where we’ve got to find ways to win games we find ways to lose,” Englehart said Monday. “There are a lot of different reasons why, and every week you’re searching for those reasons, and trying to fix those reasons, and as soon as you plug one hole, another hole appears.”

In Saturday’s 14-7 loss at Morehead State, the culprit was turnovers, five of them. Two were on fumbles on quarterback/running back exchanges, which ought to be second nature by now.

“I think the big thing for us is us,” Englehart said. “A lot of the time we’re playing really good, but I think, in critical times and situations, we tend not to have the fundamentals, the technique, the attention to detail that we need to have.

“It’s on us as coaches to make sure we get it fixed. Our defense played really well. There were a lot of good things to take away from it. The last two weeks we played really well.”

Presbyterian took San Diego into overtime and lost on a nightmarish fumble return. Two fourth-quarter turnovers, one highly controversial, doomed the Hose in Kentucky. Running out of downs at the one-yard line didn’t help.

Before that, they lost on a Sunday at Davidson in a game supposed to have been on a Saturday in Clinton.

The Blue Hose are 0-3 in the Pioneer Football League with its top team, Drake (4-1, 3-0) arriving in Clinton from Des Moines, Iowa, to play at Bailey Memorial Stadium on homecoming at 1 p.m. Saturday.

It’s going to get better. It has to.

According to Englehart, the team has advanced to the opponent’s 20-yard line 27 times and produced 14 touchdowns and three field goals.

On the other hand, the opposition has visited the “red zone” 22 times and scored 21 touchdowns.

“Obviously, the red zone is a big issue for us right now,” he said. “We’ve got to do a better job.”

Both ways.

Saturday would be a great time to shore up the failures and catch up to the law of averages.

“We’re playing a really good Drake team that doesn’t beat itself,” Englehart said. “We’re right there, and I’m just waiting for that light switch to finally kick on.

“We started off the first year, and it was all about getting them to compete. In year two, we got them to compete, and found a way to win a couple close games and to get games close. We’ve got to find a way to get over the top here.”

“We have to stop hoping we’re going to win. We have to expect to win and go out there and do the things we need to do. We need to execute and have the mental intelligence. … Sometimes it seems like they’re trying too hard.”

There’s an old NASCAR saying: Sometimes you gotta slow down to go fast.

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