Blowing a halftime lead, a phrase all too familiar when talking about North Alabama football and it was on display again to begin 2024. Good evening and welcome to Sports U and A opened its 2024 campaign in front of a national TV audience for the second year in a row. Last night, the Lions took on Southeast Missouri State in the F CS kickoff down in Montgomery and for about 15 minutes of game time, they looked like an improved UN A squad. The Lions are racing early first quarter deficit led 15 to 7 around the four minute mark of the second quarter. The problem is UN a failed to score a single point more as Simo rattled out 30 unanswered to win the game 37 of 15. After the game, North Alabama head coach Brent Deerman said his team needs to learn how to finish games and pointed out that in more than 60% of his games at UN A, the Lions have had a lead yet. There's just three wins to show for it. I think this is probably the first time my, my career that we had 15 points but only punted three times. Um, four turnovers. Yeah, 2/4 down turnovers as well. So all together being six there, I think now eight games and 13 games of me being here, we had a lead probably going into halftime. Um, we've got to learn how to come out of the half. Well, week one doesn't get any easier for the Lions. North Alabama travels to Memphis next week to play. The Tigers. Memphis beat you in a 59 to 0 when these programs faced off in 2022. And now we're less than a week away from our other teams kicking off their regular seasons. Bama host, we Kentucky on Saturday at six Alabama A and M and Auburn face off on the planes at 630.