Penguins becoming good team

It's too bad that this isn't the start of the season instead of the end of it for the Youngstown State football team.
The Penguins are finally playing up to the expectations that I had for them early in the season.
I guess that the one factor that I never took into consideration was experience, and it took the Penguins eight games to play themselves into a football team.
Saturday's 34-9 victory at Western Illinois was a big win for the YSU program. Granted, the Leathernecks are not having a good season, but to win at Macomb, Ill., and win decisively like they did was a giant step forward for this young team.
In the last two games, both YSU wins, red-shirt freshman quarterback Tom Zetts has really become of age. He still makes a mistake or two, but his improvement over the second half of this season has been tremendous.
No longer does he try to force the ball to a receiver when the latter's well covered, and Zetts is starting to make some decisions at the line of scrimmage, something that offensive coordinator John Klacik was reluctant to have him do early in the year.
Nobody outside of coach Jon Heacock has taken more heat this season than Klacik, a former Chaney High standout. He's said often he had to take things slowly with a young, inexperienced quarterback like Zetts.
Klacik has openedthe offense recently
The last two weeks, Klacik has really opened up the offense, and once he did that the running game came back into full gear, and the results were two straight wins, more importantly a road victory, something the Penguins hadn't been able to do since Indiana State a year ago.
Probably even more importantly was the performance by the YSU defense, against a pretty talented Western Illinois offense.
Shutting down one of the league's premier tailbacks like Travis Glasford took an outstanding effort, and it was also the first time since the McNeese State game that the Penguins had held anybody under 300 total yards.
There is only one game remaining on the schedule, Saturday's contest at Southwest Missouri State, a team that almost pulled off a major upset over Western Kentucky last Saturday before falling 28-24 in Springfield, Mo.
The Penguins have had major success in Springfield, winning all four times they played the Bears there. YSU has also won all four meetings in Youngstown and is 8-0 overall against them.
Strollo trying to completenext season's schedule
YSU athletic director Ron Strollo has been hard at work trying to complete next season's football schedule.
Strollo has 10 of the 11 games set, while he expects to have the final game nailed down this week.
The Penguins again will open the season against Slippery Rock, their only Division II opponent.
They were scheduled to play Florida International is a return game in Miami, but that game has been canceled at the request of Florida International in order that they can begin scheduling games in their new conference.
Strollo said that the Penguins will travel to Lynchburg, Va., again next year to play Liberty University, while one of the new additions to the schedule will be Northeastern University in Boston.
YSU inks contractto play Northeastern
The Penguins have signed a home-and-home contract with Northeastern, playing in Youngstown next season.
The final non-Gateway Conference opponent still is to be determined, but indications are that it will be another school from the Atlantic 10 and more than likely on the road.
The Penguins will play four home Gateway games next season against Western Kentucky, Illinois State, Western Illinois and Southwest Missouri State. They will play Southern Illinois, Northern Iowa and Indiana State on the road.
The start of the YSU basketball season is less than two weeks from now. The men open the season Nov. 21 against Lock Haven at Beeghly, while the women open on the road on Nov. 19 at St. Louis.
XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.