YSU looks to past for help

The Penguins are remembering a 2000 game to gain incentive to beat SIU.
By PETE MOLLICA
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
YOUNGSTOWN -- Maybe a little incentive will help the Youngstown State football team turn around a disappointing season.
The Penguins, 5-5 on the year, 2-3 in the Gateway Conference, are coming off two very embarrassing losses and face the No. 3-ranked team in all of I-AA football Saturday in Southern Illinois.
There is still a bunch of seniors on this team who remember the 2000 season when the Penguins were rolling along to what appeared to be their first Gateway championship.
The Penguins needed a victory over Southern Illinois to clinch a share of their first conference title.
That day, Nov. 11 to be exact, the Penguins jumped out to a 20-0 halftime lead, but completely collapsed in the second half and lost a 21-20 decisions to the Salukis. The Penguins finished 4-2 in second place.
Recall game
Those YSU seniors who remember that game are doing a lot of talking about it this week, and trying to get the Penguins thinking about a little pay-back to the Salukis.
"I wasn't here then," said senior defensive back Scott Thiessen, who transferred to YSU in the 2001 season. "But I've been listening to the other seniors talk about it and just maybe we can get a little pay-back this week."
YSU head coach Jon Heacock remembers that game well.
"How can you forget watching them score 21 unanswered points in the second half to knock us out of the title?" he said. "Certainly we're thinking about that, but it won't do much good if we don't come out an execute properly on Saturday."
Not in contention
The Penguins have been completely out of their last two games against Illinois State (a 35-25 loss) and Northern Iowa (a 47-9 defeat).
What's even more depressing to the Penguins is that they allowed more than 600 yards of offense to each of those teams.
When asked just what he's planning on doing to break the team out of their doldrums, Heacock laughed.
"Sometimes I think that you guys [media] think that we're not trying to get something going," Heacock said Tuesday. "We're trying, believe me we're trying."
"We're probably working harder right now then we've ever worked at Youngstown State," Heacock said.
Injury factor
Heacock and the players feel that the rash of injuries that has hit the Penguins this year has been the key issue to the team's performance of late.
"We've had too many starters out right from the start of the season, especially on the offensive and defensive lines," Heacock said.
According to Heacock, many of the players have been playing hurt and most of them missed valuable practice time during the week trying to get healthy for the games.
"Last week, I don't think we had one player on the defensive front that wasn't with some sort of injury or another, yet not one of them ever asked to come out of the game," Heacock said.
"We normally have a good rotation of players going in and out of the game, but lately that's not been possible and guys are having to play more and more," Heacock said. "Normally these players would be getting 25 to 30 snaps a game, but now they are taking 60 snaps and it is starting to wear on them."
Recruiting focus
Heacock said that more and more Gateway teams are going the way of junior college and major college transfers whereas YSU, although they have some of those, has relied on bringing in more freshmen than transfers.
"Thus we have a lot of young kids playing their first season of college football," Heacock said.
"I expect us to work very hard as we have been and I expect our coaches to prepare very hard," Heacock said. "I expect us to travel with class and I especially expect us to play as well as we can."
Kickoff for Saturday's contest in Carbondale, Ill., is set for 7 p.m.