RICHMOND, Ky. - A battle of two of the three Ohio Valley Conference teams who have gone undefeated in league play thus far is on tap Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. CDT in Nashville's Adelphia Coliseum, home of the National Football League's Tennessee Titans, as the 3-0 Eastern Kentucky Colonels square off with the 3-0 Tennessee State Tigers. Tennessee Tech leads the league with its 4-0 mark.

Eastern ran its winning streak to five games in a row with last Saturday's 54-7 Homecoming victory over UT Martin to go 6-1 on the season. Tennessee State, meanwhile, got a late fourth quarter TD pass from backup quarterback Chris Perkins to defeat Western Kentucky 28-21 and remain undefeated at 7-0.

"I was proud of the way our team came back and played after not playing the week before," said Roy Kidd who guided the Colonels to their 200^th NCAA Division I-AA victory, the most wins by anyone in I-AA football since the division was created in 1978.

"We were focused on UT Martin and that's the way it should be. Now we can look at Tennessee State, who could be the most talented team on our schedule. They have big and quick athletes with great skill kids. This will be a real test for our young team."

Once again for Eastern, it was a balanced offensive attack, which featured the running of tailbacks Derick Logan and Corey Crume and the passing of quarterback Waylon Chapman, which proved too much for the Skyhawks' defense last Saturday.

Logan moved into first place in OVC rushing stats with his 96.6 per game average by running for an Eastern career high of 160 yards against UTM, while scoring twice on runs of two and 31 yards. Crume added 113 yards on the ground last Saturday, marking the third time this season the duo has gone over 100 yards in the same game. He is just behind Logan in second place in the conference in rushing with his 94.4 mark.

"Both these guys are running the ball great, but I've always said 'any runner is only as good as that line and fullback blocking in front of him'," Kidd said.

The EKU passing game also continues to click as junior Waylon Chapman hit 10-16 passes for 148 yards and two touchdowns vs. UT Martin, one a nine-yard scoring strike to Tyrone Browning to open the game and the other a 45-yard bomb to Alex Bannister.

Chapman is second in the league and eighth in the nation in pass efficiency with his 155.8 rating. He has now thrown at least one TD pass in all seven games and has 13 scoring tosses on the season as he has completed 90-144 passes for 1,184 yards with just four interceptions.

His top two targets were busy again Saturday as Bannister hauled in six more passes for 115 yards and two TD's, while junior wideout Tyrone Browning added three catches for 55 yards and three rushes for another 50 yards. On the season, Bannister ranks third in the league in pass receptions with 33 catches for 504 yards and six TD's, while Browning is eighth in the conference in pass receiving with 26 catches for 323 yards and four scores.

Defensively, Eastern came within four minutes of recording its first shutout of the season as everybody that dressed got to play in the UT Martin contest. On the year, senior roverback Scooter Asel, senior tackle Terry Thomas and senior linebacker Brad Folke are the leading tacklers with 63, 60 and 52 hits, respectively.