COLUMN: The roller coaster ride that is the rebuilding SEMO football program

You know that moment when you're waiting in line for a roller coaster when you start to wonder if it'll all be worth it?

Sure, you were excited to get to the amusement park and look forward to the thrill of the ride, but after 40 minutes of scooting forward two feet at a time behind a pack of teenagers Snapchatting their precious lives away, you start thinking less about getting an optimal seat and more about if you're wasting your day off.

Then you know how inevitably 15 minutes later you strap in, take off, scream in terror, panic that you'll be tossed from your seat, laugh in delight, throw your hands up, cheer when you come to a stop and race out the exit to gleefully enter the next line as fast as you can?

That's what it's like to follow the Southeast Missouri State football team right now.

As I sat watching my final Southeast game from the press box this season -- I'll become the online sports editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune later this month, but that's a topic for another day -- I came to the conclusion the last three weeks have been a perfect microcosm of the the current state of the Redhawks program.

There was the near-upset of a ranked team, the cringeworthy loss to a Division II opponent that entered the contest on a nine-game losing streak and a convincing victory over Murray State to open Ohio Valley Conference play on Saturday.

If you add in the victory over SIU at home and the boring loss to Missouri to start the schedule, the season has been filled with enough climbs, free falls and twists to make even the most enthusiastic rider a bit queasy. And we're only five games in.

As I prepare to make my exit from commentating on the team, my hope is that Southeast fans in growing numbers will embrace and find ways to enjoy the ups and downs as coach Tom Matukewicz rebuilds the program.

He and I haven't always agreed on everything -- from the stories I or my staff have written to the number of times Paul McRoberts should be targeted each game this season -- but we're both certain the other is good at what they do.

I believe he'll continue to wade through the process of improving as a head coach -- not because he's a poor head coach but because wading through the process of improving is what good coaches do -- figure out how to win here and eventually put an end to the roller-coaster ride quality of his team's seasons. I don't think anyone will be happier than him when that happens, although he'll need help from the community and the administration to reach the level of consistent winning that he envisions. If you want to know what the needs are, all you have to do is ask him. A plan is ready to be executed.

From the day he was hired, Matukewicz has pin-pointed the third year of his tenure as when he thought it was reasonable to expect the team to be competitive in the conference. A few years later, he has said many times, the goal is to compete nationally.

It's a reasonable, if not optimistic, timeline for a program weighed down by decades of losing and apathy even if that's not what some people want to hear, but that's a topic we've covered many times.

Mistakes will be made by coaches and by players on and off the field, and I hope they'll continue to be faced with the same grace that winning is expected to be.

Expectations will become higher and therefore heavier to carry, and I hope that will be viewed as a privilege and not a burden.

The cheers will become louder but so maybe will the boos someday, and I hope that will be met with the understanding that making people care comes with unwelcome consequences -- and that some people are just mean and there's nothing you can do about that.

And if sometimes the wait seems too long or the ride too rough, I hope coaches, players and fans will find a way to work and wait that little while longer.

You can mock me or get mad if I'm wrong, but I think it'll be worth it.