DURANT, Okla. - The 2008 season opener for the Southeastern football team is at hand and the squad will be looking to kick off the season in strong fashion when it travels to Stephenville, Texas, to face Tarleton State at 7 p.m. on August 28.

The game will be broadcast on KLBC, 106.3 FM, with JB Connoley and Joey McWilliams on the call. Pregame coverage starts 30 minutes before kickoff.

To listen to the game, please click here, and for live stats, follow this link.

Southeastern enters the contest looking for a measure of revenge after the Texans handed the Savage Storm a 41-17 defeat in the second game of the 2007 season.

TSU leads the all-time series with an 8-5 record. SOSU won the first ever meeting between the schools, 33-17, in 1976, as well as the next three contests before the Texans put together seven-straight wins before the Storm snapped the streak with a 37-30 win in 2006.

Tarleton returns its leading rusher from a season ago in Roderick Smith who collected 684 yards, as well as the number two rusher, Travis Evans, who was right behind at 582 yards. The duo combined for 11 touchdowns.

TSU also returns its quarterback, Scott Grantham, who tossed for 2,882 yards and 24 touchdowns while completing 60.4 percent of his passes.

Defensively, the Texans will be looking to replace nine of 11 positions on the defensive side of the ball. Their top returning tackler finished ninth on the squad with 40 stops last season.

The Savage Storm will be looking to take advantage of its experience on both sides of the ball to make big plays. SOSU returns six starters on offense and seven on defense, as well as kicker and punter.

Offensively, despite six returning starters, Southeastern will tap a pair of players who did not play in 2007 to fill the backfield. Brandon McCain will lead the offense at quarterback, while Baylen Laury will step in at running back. McCain spent 2007 as a student assistant and used the time to immerse himself in the offense, while Laury sat last year after transferring from Northern Iowa.

The Storm does, however, return key offensive line spots in center with Sean Taglialatela, and left tackle in Jarrod Anderson, as well as all its starting receivers from last season.

Daniel Nichols hauled in a team-best 59 passes last season for 818 yards and seven touchdowns, leading the Storm in all three categories. As a group, SOSU returns 176-of-197 receptions from 2007 and every player that had a receiving touchdown is back.

On defense the squad will look similar to the 2007 group with the addition of two newcomers to the starting lineup in defensive tackle Patrick Kay and cornerback Cedric Robinson.

Despite some new additions, SOSU returns its top two defenders in Bernard Daniel, who had 95 tackles and three interceptions, and Noe Lopez, who had 59 stops.

The defense returns seven of its top 10 tacklers from last year's squad and will see more depth on defense than last season.

"I'm hoping we execute extremely well," said head coach Ray Richards, "I think we covered a lot of situations and got most of our playbook in on offense and defense."

To hear the rest of coach Richards interview, please click here.

Click here for Southeastern versus Tarleton State game notes.