Tight ends as targets are franchise guys

By PETE MOLLICA

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

OUNGSTOWN STATE
senior quarterback Tom Zetts refers to them as “the franchise.”

Penguins head football coach Jon Heacock expects them to be much more involved in the team’s offense this year.

YSU’s tight end duo of senior Louis Irizarry and junior Derrick Bush are bringing a lot of excitement to the Penguins’ offense this season.

Those two, plus the rest of the offense that included several youngsters, made a big difference Saturday in the team’s only jersey scrimmage of the fall practice session.

Offense keeps red

The offense, which has held the red practice jerseys for almost two full seasons, will continue to wear them for the rest of the 2007 season following a 43-26 victory at Stambaugh Stadium.

Irizarry, the 6-foot-5-inch, 250-pounder from Ursuline and Ohio State, caught four passes for 47 yards, including a 27-yard reception.

He also appeared to make a great catch on a ball thrown from Zetts for a 13-yard touchdown, but the pass was ruled incomplete.

Bush, 6-4, 270 from Circleville, only caught one pass, but it was a picture-perfect 29-yard strike from Zetts who said his tight end ran just a perfect route and got behind the linebackers.

The offense scored three touchdowns: One by freshman tailback Josh Lee of 13 yards; one by junior fullback Ben Lane of 1 yard; and the third by senior tailback Tim Dewberry on a 32-yard scamper up the middle.

Lee also had a 37-yard score late in the scrimmage, but it wasn’t included in the final team totals.

Heacock said that he wants to take a good look at the films before he decides on how things went on both sides of the ball.

Pros and cons

“There were some good things and bad things, especially when you are playing against yourself,” Heacock said.

“There were a couple of great ball-strippings by the defense, especially the one by De’Angelo Wilson on Louis Irizarry, but then the defense was hurt by several long runs,” Heacock said.

“Missing two field goals was disappointing, especially from a veteran,” he said, referring to misses by Brian Palmer. “That’s just not acceptable and the offense put the ball on the ground a few times which we just cannot afford to do.”

“I told our kids today that pretty good is just not going to be good enough this year,” Heacock said. “Pretty good is not going to cut it in our conference. We need to get much better.”

Zetts, who completed 6-of-9 passes for 81 yards, agreed.

“There were some good things out there today, but we are no where near where we need to be to open the season,” Zetts said.

But he likes throwing to his two big tight ends, referring to them as “the franchise.”

Experience a plus

“They are both veteran players and know the offense,” he said. “On the one pass to Derrick, Coach [Brian] Wright, at least I’m blaming it on him, called the wrong formation, but Derrick knew just where to go, got behind the linebackers and was wide open.”

Irizarry likes the YSU offense and his getting more involved in the action.

“I look for us to be involved a lot this year, but we still have a lot of things to improve on and hopefully we’ll get them straightened around these next two weeks.

Junior transfer Ferlando Williams has stepped in to take over as the No. 2 quarterback since sophomore Todd Rowan is expected to miss a couple of games with a leg injury.

Williams finished 2-for-2 passing for 39 yards and ran eight times for 18 yards.

The offense’s top rusher was Dewberry who had 10 carries for 48 yards and the touchdown.

The team’s top two tailbacks are junior Joe Nicholson who was 6-for-21 and sophomore Jabari Scott who was 6-for-20.

Mernedakis busy

The defense was led by redshirt freshman Nick Mernedakis with 10 tackles, two for losses, 11⁄2 sacks, a fumble recovery and a pass breakup.

Dorian Chenault had six stops and Luke Matelan added a fumble recovery.

Senior linebacker James Terry, who had five tackles, said that the defense is coming around.

“We did pretty good for just using our basic defense,” Terry said. “We’ll be added some more things these next two weeks.

“We still have some things to take care of and hopefully after we see the films tomorrow we’ll know just where we need to improve,” Terry said.

The Penguins will workout today at 2:30 p.m. The rest of the week’s schedule will be released today as some changes have been made.

mollica@vindy.com