YSU FOOTBALL Heacock: Average isn't good enough

YSU will try to build a championship nucleus from a relatively new group.
By JOHN BASSETTI
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
YOUNGSTOWN -- Jon Heacock may use a phrase or two from his predecessor, Jim Tressel, but he isn't a clone.
To wit: "You don't win championships in the offseason or the weight room or spring practice, for that matter, but you can lose them," Youngstown State's second-year football coach said at the outset of spring football drills Wednesday.
That sounds an awful lot like the other guy, but Heacock was human when he declared himself average after his first 14 months at the helm.
"When you don't win the championship in Youngstown, it's not good enough and I know that," Heacock said of last season's 8-3 record and failed bid to make the Division I-AA playoffs.
Brand of play: The words spoken upon emergence from his Stambaugh Stadium lab signal his own brand of Penguin genes and championship blood.
"Our offseason motto was: No excuse," he said of not getting in the playoffs last November. "We can't allow ourselves to put our playoff hopes in somebody else's hands, and give them excuses or whatever it was that kept us from getting in. I think our kids have used that as a positive."
Of the identity of his flock of 73 players that reported for 40-degree weather workouts Wednesday, Heacock said, "I think they're a hungry group because they were very disappointed at what happened last fall.
"But it's a new group, so we're still building a chemistry and still building togetherness and all those things that it takes to become a championship team."
Lack of depth: Areas of concern at this time are lack of depth in the defensive secondary and offensive line.
In addition, YSU has only four or five wideouts this spring, although new recruits will arrive for summer sessions.
When Heacock looks at the squad now, he sees two types.
"We have a group that's been around awhile -- the Jon Tekacs, the Russell Stuvaints and the Nick Roberts.
"Then we've got a group of guys that hasn't been in football games and we've got to get them ready to play. So we've got two extremes.
"There's not a bunch of guys in the middle. They're either real young or they've been here a while. That's our biggest challenge this spring."
Of 73 on the roster, 20 are red-shirt freshmen and 16 are sophomores.
Inexperience at QB: A missing link is quarterback, where there are capable bodies, but no one with appreciable experience.
Heacock said senior Colby Street will concentrate on the classroom during the week, then play on the weekends.
"That also gives our young guys an opportunity to get in there and see what they can do," the coach said of Aaron Marshall, junior college transfer Matt Crivallo and senior transfer Justin Green.
Marshall, a red-shirt freshman, has shown glimpses of being the prime candidate.
"He's athletic, has a strong arm and led his team to the state championship in high school, so he has leadership skills," Heacock said.
"He's young, but the advantage is that, as scout-team quarterback, he's gone against our No. 1 defense every day all year. I feel OK because I've seen him compete against those guys and not back up from anything."
Depending on the eventual starting quarterback, any wide-open offense may be a long way off.
Strong points: "Right now, our strength is a few offensive linemen, our senior tight ends and, obviously, our tailback position," Heacock said. "That would tell me that we'll run plays up the gut a few more times than we've run until those quarterbacks get ready to run the play-action pass off of those."
Among the key running backs are P.J. Mays, Josiah Doby and Mike Burns.
"There's depth and where there's depth, there's competition," Heacock said. "So there won't be many days those guys are going to just come out and practice; they're going to have to compete and that always makes you better."
Heacock may think of his first season's report card as average, but not so with staff and team.
"I appreciate the way our kids and our staff have worked and I don't think they've been average," Heacock said. "I think they've been above average and rose to an occasion and played like crazy at Marshall.
"You judge your teams on whether they got better from the first day to the last day. I feel, that coming out of that Marshall game, we did that," Heacock said.
"Is 8-3 good enough? Is not being in the playoffs good enough at Youngstown? No, and that's why we're out here."