Penguins gave it their all
I'd rather have no luck than the Youngstown State's football team's luck, but then the Penguins don't really have any luck either.
Saturday's heartbreaking loss to Northern Iowa was so disheartening to coach Jon Heacock that he could barely talk at the postgame press conference.
To lose the game on the field is one thing, but to lose it on a penalty after the game had ended is really too much to take, especially the way this season has gone.
Five losses in seven games is not what the Penguins expected this season, nobody really did. I still feel that the Penguins are a better team than their record.
Penalizing a young man for playing too hard is really hard to understand.
YSU senior Herb Jones has had a difficult time this season. First he had to battle back from a series of injuries that kept him idle for most of the season.
He finally has returned to the defensive secondary and what happens, he gets called for roughing the kicker on the final play of the game and the Penguins end up losing 22-20.
Inches frommaking play
Now Jones was just inches from making the best play of his career. He was diving to try and block the last second field goal by Northern Iowa's Brian Wingert.
He was in mid-air and just narrowly missed the ball and there was nothing he could do but fall and hit the ground. Unfortunately Wingert was under him when he did, thus the penalty.
Senior defensive tackle Nate Baston was also airborne at the time and he did get a piece of the ball. Had Baston hit Wingert after touching the ball there would have been no penalty. It's amazing that the officials could tell that closely who did and who didn't touch the ball and it's even more amazing that they threw the flag that quickly.
It was an amazing comeback by the Penguins, and it could have even been more amazing had they scored when they were down at the Northern Iowa 3-yard line coming up a foot short on fourth down.
It wasn't a totally super effort by the Penguins, they really didn't play all that well for most of three quarters, but they never gave up.
Zetts, Caysonspark comeback
Redshirt freshman quarterback Tom Zetts came of age during that final quarter of play. He kept his cool, ran all the right plays and moved the team up and down the field for the final two scores.
Junior Josh Cayson always knew he could carry the rushing load for the Penguins if he was called upon and he did it Saturday with 91 yards, 70 of them when they really counted.
Sophomore tailback Monquantae Gibson is a good running back when he's healthy, but that's only been for three of the team's seven games and he went down again early on Saturday. Cayson hasn't missed a beat for two seasons and he's only 165 pounds and gets hit just as hard.
With four games remaining the Penguins have to take that final quarter effort, bottle it and open it up each week for the next four weeks.
Unfortunately three of those final four games are on the road, but after seeing the YSU faithful in the stands on Saturday, maybe playing away will be a blessing.
Poor crowdfor homecoming
For a homecoming crowd, Saturday's attendance was disgraceful. There couldn't have been 10,000 in the stands and when the Penguins made their comeback that was down to maybe two or three thousand.
I know it was a bad day, cold and wet and I know the team hasn't given much to really get excited about this year, but it hasn't been because they're not trying.
Without a doubt the Gateway is the toughest conference in I-AA this year from top to bottom, unfortunately the Penguins are now at the bottom.
Cayson put it all into words after Saturday's game.
"This team will never give up, we didn't last year and we're not this year, we'll give it all we have right to the end," he said.
XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.