With Marshall, YSU is winner

Aaron Marshall, Youngstown State's redshirt freshman, is the Penguins' present and future quarterback.
The 6-foot-3, 208-pounder from Detroit has gotten better each week since he took over the starting position Sept. 28 against Southwest Missouri State.
Saturday, in the Penguins' 24-17 victory over Illinois State, Marshall probably played his best game. While his overall statistics were not sensational, the freshman made a lot of good decisions at the line of scrimmage, something that he has been working on hard over the past seven weeks.
Winning record
The Penguins are 5-2 with Marshall at quarterback, 1-2 without him, and their 6-4 overall record assures the team of its seventh straight winning season with only one game remaining, Nov. 23 against Samford at Stambaugh Stadium at 1 p.m.
You have to wonder how far Marshall might have progressed had the Penguins decided to go with him right from the start, instead of using seniors Colby Street and Justin Green, who were the starters in the first three games.
Marshall, who came out of spring practice as the team's top quarterback, was moved to wide receiver the first week of summer practice and wasn't moved back until the Penguins were 1-2 and struggling to stay alive in the Gateway Conference race.
YSU assistant coach and offensive backfield coach Sam Eddy said last week that the staff has often discussed what might of happened if Marshall had been the quarterback all year.
"We've talked about it, but we also feel that his time spent at wide receiver was helpful to him," Eddy said. "It gave him an idea of where he was with this team and he got to see another aspect of the offense, which could only help him at quarterback.
"What a lot of people don't know is that Marshall really only started six games as a high school quarterback," Eddy said. "When he was a freshman in Detroit at Brother Rice High, he was having problems academically so his family sent him to Chicago with relatives to attend Mt. Carmel High."
Sitting out
Mt. Carmel had a rule that if you weren't living with your immediate family and going to school there you didn't play your first season, so Marshall was just a scout team player through most of his junior year.
As a senior Marshall still wasn't a starter as Mt. Carmel was rolling along unbeaten, but the team was struggling on offense, so the coaches gave him a chance to start and he was outstanding. He started the last six games of the season and led the team to the Class 5A state title and a 13-1 record.
"He's really come a long way this season," Eddy said. "He really didn't have a great spring, but he was really the only one we had with Colby missing most of the session."
Eddy said that how far Marshall goes from here is up to him.
"If he wants to continue to work hard all winter and through the spring, he's just going to be that much better," Eddy said. "We know he works hard when the coaches are around, now we'll see just what he wants to do when he's on his own."
Support
One thing about Marshall is he brings a lot of fans to the games. Saturday, his family chartered a bus in Detroit, then stopped in Chicago to pick up more family and friends and drove to Normal, Ill., with a bus full to watch Aaron and the Penguins.
The Penguins took Sunday and today off as most of the YSU coaching staff is on the road recruiting. Coach Jon Heacock plans to meet with the team on Tuesday and it will practice Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, then take Saturday off.
They will then begin preparations for the season finale against Samford, which will also be Senior Day as 18 seniors will play their final game for the Penguins.
XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.