Improved Penguins start well

YOUNGSTOWN -- One down and 10 more victories to go.
OK, I'll settle for nine, maybe even eight, but at least the Youngstown State University football team is off to a good start.
The Penguins scored a 44-14 win over Slippery Rock last Thursday. While it won't satisfy a lot of fans, it still was a pretty darn good opening win for this still relatively young football team.
Yes, Slippery Rock is a Division II team and the Penguins will get no I-AA poll recognition for the victory, but it was still an important start to an important season.
And yes, Western Kentucky played a Div. II team (West Virginia Tech) and plastered them 63-3, while Sam Houston State beat some team (Bacone College) 77-7. So what?
Slippery Rock, which is not a very good team, saw about less than one-third of the Penguins' offensive plays in Thursday's contest.
Starting quarterback Tom Zetts and starting tailback Monquantae Gibson played about half the game. Eight other would-be starters didn't even play.
Too classyto run up score
YSU head coach Jon Heacock learned most of his football from Jim Tressel and Tressel never ran up the score on anybody, especially not a class-act team like Slippery Rock, coached by a class-act head coach in Dr. George Mihalik.
Could YSU have posted a score like 63-3 or 77-7? I really don't know, but I know one thing for sure, we'll never find out.
Vince Gliatta is an excellent backup quarterback, but he wouldn't have played half the game against a Gateway Conference opponent unless Zetts was hurt.
Heacock had an opportunity to give the sophomores a lot of snaps and it will only help the team down the road.
The YSU starting defensive unit played a lot more than the starting offense, but for a reason. They have a lot more to learn to become the unit that the Penguins need to pull off a winning season and possibly end up in the playoffs.
The Penguins started 13 underclassmen against Slippery Rock and 19 more were listed as backups. Six of the eight regulars who did not play in the contest are underclassmen.
Playoffs might bea year away
Many believe the Penguins are still a year away from being a playoff team. Heacock and his staff believe otherwise.
A year ago, Slippery Rock rushed for 199 yards and had 315 total yards. That same backfield accounted for just 83 yards rushing this year and 236 total yards. In addition, the YSU offense scored six of eight times it reached the red zone on Thursday.
Zetts was on target against The Rock, hitting 11 of 14 passes for 107 yards and a touchdown. He wasn't sacked and was never really pressured, a big plus for the patched-up offensive line.
The Penguins rushed for 287 yards. YSU wins more than 80 percent of its games when it rushes for more than 200 yards.
Injuries force YSUto plug in players
Junior Justin Reams accounted for 122 of those rushing yards on 14 carries. A week ago, Reams was playing in the Penguins' defensive secondary, but when senior tailback Josh Cayson suffered a shoulder injury (he'll miss seven to eight weeks), Reams, who started at tailback as a freshman, stepped in.
He'll still probably be at least No. 3 in the rotation and maybe No. 4 if junior transfer Marcus Mason returns this week, as expected, from his ankle injury.
The offensive line will probably be without junior tackle Pat Walker and sophomore guard Josh Tanner for a couple more weeks, but during that time several others will be getting some much need snaps.
The defense also showed improvement from a year ago (but, then, they only had one way to go).
They stopped the run last Thursday. If they can do it against a couple of I-AA teams like Northeastern this Saturday and Liberty on Sept. 17, they just might be ready for the rugged Gateway schedule.
There's still a long way to go, but at least the Penguins are headed in the right direction.
XPete Mollica is a sportswriter for The Vindicator. Write to him at mollica@vindy.com.