YSU’s first contact not too impressive

By Pete Mollica

The Penguins have a lot of new faces, including center and quarterback.

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State head football coach Jon Heacock got the first real look at his 2008 football team Sunday afternoon and he wasn’t overly excited about the outcome of the team’s first full contact session.

The Penguins scrimmaged for about 20 plays at the end of the session and Heacock saw about what he expected to see.

“If this was next Sunday then I’d probably be concerned,” Heacock said. “We’ve got three new quarterbacks and three new centers in there and it’s going to take time for them to get adjusted. There was some good hitting on defense and some hard running on offense and there were a lot of good things that we’ll see later on film of the scrimmage.”

Heacock was missing a few players on the defensive line due to illness.

“We need to get them back soon, but overall I though things went pretty good,” he said. “They’re a little tired, especially since we’ve gone three straight days of practice and they haven’t done that since the end of last season.”

The Penguins will not practice today.

“They aren’t even allowed to be thinking about football, just academics,” he said. “The same goes for the coaches. Tuesday we’ll come back and watch the films of today’s scrimmage and then get ready to go back at it on Wednesday afternoon.”

The Penguins’ 20-play scrimmage was geared toward the running game. YSU appears to have quite a bit of talent returning at tailback.

There are five or six running backs who have been sharing the workload. Returnees junior Jabari Scott, senior Kevin Smith and senior Brandon Nicholson all saw action along with redshirt freshman Josh Lee, junior transfer Dana Brown, and redshirt freshman Kamryn Keys.

“It’s good that we have both depth and competition at tailback,” Heacock said. “We’ve got the same situation on the offensive line.”

All three quarterbacks — junior Todd Rowan, junior Brandon Summers and redshirt freshman Paul Corsaro — took part in the scrimmage. Sophomore Andre Elliott picked off Rowan and redshirt freshman Adam House intercepted a pass thrown by Summers.

Senior defensive tackle Mychal Savage was a standout on the front line, causing havoc most of the session in the Penguins’ backfield.

The best hit of the day was by senior cornerback Tom Krupko as the 5-7, 165 pounder from Homeworth, made a big hit on a Penguin receiver during one of the passing drills.

Senior placekicker Brian Palmer was perfect on his only field goal attempt of the scrimmage as he split the uprights on a 33-yard attempt. Sophomore kicker Stephen Blose wasn’t as fortunate as he missed from 40 yards and again from 35 yards.

The Penguins also spent a half hour working on special team drills.

The team will hold workouts Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week. Saturday’s session will be at 9:30 a.m. while the others are slated for 3:30 p.m. They will hold a special team’s kicking scrimmage on April 9 and the one and only jersey scrimmage on April 12 at 10 a.m.

The team’s annual Red and White Spring game will be held April 18 at 7:30 p.m. at Stambaugh Stadium.