YSU has tough road ahead

The Youngstown State football team really has its work cut out for itself the rest of this season.
Saturday's 24-14 loss to Western Kentucky really hurt the Penguins. It all but killed their chances for the Gateway Conference championship and an automatic berth into the playoffs and it really made things tough if they hope to qualify for the playoffs as an at-large team.
The Penguins are 6-2 overall and 4-2 in the Gateway. Northern Iowa, which was routed by Illinois State 42-14 on Saturday, holds a slim lead in the standings with a 4-1 record and is 6-2 overall.
Western Kentucky, 6-2, 3-1, appears to be in the driver's seat. The Hilltoppers have three games remaining, all conference games. They are at Illinois State this week, then play host to Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois. But that's no easy road to follow.
Hilltoppers' coach Jack Harbaugh said that when he saw Illinois State on film last week against Youngstown State he couldn't believe that team was 0-7. They aren't now after crushing Northern Iowa and could give the Hilltoppers some problems.
Passing is key: It's going to take a good passing team to beat Western Kentucky, because, as YSU found out on Saturday, they aren't going to give up a lot of yards rushing the ball.
David Elson, the Hilltoppers' defensive coordinator, said that if there is one thing the defense needs to improve on it's the pass coverage.
Don't tell YSU's Jeff Ryan that as he was intercepted twice by them and should have had a third one picked off. But Ryan was throwing on the run the entire game. He rarely had a chance to set up and throw and was sacked three times.
Youngstown State probably has to win out this season to have a chance at making the playoffs and they probably won't have an easy time this week traveling to Southern Illinois although the Salukis are 1-6 overall and 1-3 in the Gateway.
The Penguins will get a needed week off after Southern Illinois and then come back home to play Elon on Nov. 17 before traveling to Marshall in the regular season finale Nov. 24.
If the Penguins lose to Marshall and finish the year 8-3 they might not make the playoffs. The Gateway is probably not going to get three teams into the playoffs and it's unlikely that either Western Kentucky or Northern Iowa will lose twice in their last three games. Of course, anything is possible.
The Penguins are going to have to finish second in the Gateway to get a bid, unless a lot of teams ranked ahead of them finish the season poorly.
It's probably going to come down to several teams with 8-3 records vying for the last couple of spots and the Penguins won't get much consideration since two of their wins came against Division II teams.
Things to work on: But before all that happens the Penguins need to do some work at home on the practice field and get their act together.
The defense gave up 265 yards on the ground against the Hilltoppers and the Penguins knew they were going to do nothing but run the football. Western Kentucky threw just three passes.
The offense wasn't much better, getting just 71 net yards on the ground and every time Ryan went back to pass he was running for his life.
Concerning the playoffs, YSU coach Jon Heacock said that is no longer something the Penguins can control.
"The only thing that we can control now is what we do from here on out," Heacock said. "We have to get ready to play again this week and take it one game at a time."
Everybody knew that last Saturday's game was a big one, probably the biggest on the schedule. "It was a playoff game from start to finish," Heacock said. "They made more big plays than we did."
Now the Penguins have three more big games ahead of them.
XPete Mollica covers YSU football for The Vindicator. Write him at mollica@vindy.com.