Bucs having a blast playing spring football

Randy Sanders says his players are taking advantage of what is shaping up to be a memorable football season.In a unique year with Southern Conference football being played in the spring, East Tennessee State is in the championship race. And they seem to be enjoying themselves."I told them they may be the luckiest players ever in the history of college football," Sanders said Saturday, after ETSU beat Western Carolina 24-17 to improve to 3-1 in the SoCon. "You get to play potentially eight games in the spring and then 11 more games in the fall. Who plays football just for practice? Who plays football just to go to the weight room? Who plays football just to run? We get to play and right now we're having a blast playing football.One of the highlights of a memorable day was Tyler Keltner's school-record 54-yard field goal."The only thing I really said to him was 'Are you good from here? Can you make it?' " Sanders said. "He said 'Yeah, I got it.' I'm glad he didn't lie to me and I'm glad it wasn't one yard further."The ball practically scraped the back of the crossbar as it cleared the goal post. The kick should not have been that long, either. ETSU had the ball at the Western Carolina 18-yard line, where the field goal would have been around 36 yards.But a negative running play, a false start and a holding penalty back the Bucs up."To go from what should have been a chip shot to having a kick one that long was disappointing, but it's nice to have a kicker that can make it," Sanders said.Keltner earlier missed from 49 yards out and had another attempt go awry after a bad snap left holder Garrett Taylor scrambling for his life and a 17-yard loss. That kick would have put the Bucs up by 10 points in the closing minutes and they wouldn't have had to sweat out the end."If we just get a good snap, good hold, good kick right here, it makes it a two-score game and it's not nearly as exciting in that last couple of minutes in the fourth quarter."ETSU debuted a new starting quarterback and although Brock Landis only passed for 55 yards, he flashed the ability to run, something Sanders stressed afterward."We've got two pretty good backs then we added a quarterback that can run it," Sanders said. "I'm excited about adding him into the mix with the run game as well as how he can throw it."The Bucs play at VMI on Saturday in what will be the biggest SoCon game of the week. The Keydets are the only team with a perfect conference record and would clinch at least a share of the league championship with a win.An ETSU win would put the Bucs into a tie for first place in the loss column."We're definitely excited," said Quay Holmes, who moved into third place on ETSU's career rushing list with 197 yards Saturday. "I think everybody knows that VMI, this is big game week. Just seeing some of the final scores from around the conference, we know that this is a big game. We control our own destiny, but we have to go out there and take it. You can't go out there expect it to be handed to us. We can't go out there hoping that they have an off game. We've got to go out there and take it." Conf. Overall VMI 5-05-0 ETSU3-13-1 Chattanooga 3-1 3-2Furman3-2 3-2 Mercer3-2 3-5 Samford3-3 3-3 Wofford 1-31-3 W. Carolina1-5 1-8 The Citadel 0-5 0-9Saturday's gamesETSU 24, Western Carolina 17Mercer 35, Chattanooga 28VMI 36, Wofford 31Samford 55, The Citadel 7Saturday, April 3The Citadel at Wofford, 1 p.m.Chattanooga at Western Carolina, 1 p.m.ETSU at VMI, 1:30 p.m.Furman at Mercer, 3:30 p.m.