YSU’s defense hurting

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times — “defense wins football games.”

Now sporting a 2-8 record, Youngstown State’s defense obviously hasn’t been winning many games this season.

Saturday’s 54-44 loss to Illinois State just might have been the real topping to a very disappointing season.

The Penguins’ defense has been torn apart this year by injuries. At times, there have been less than seven of the team’s original starters on the sidelines.

In Saturday’s contest, the Penguins opened the game with only one senior in the defensive starting lineup.

What really hurt against the Redbirds was that the YSU offense played well enough to win the game, and that hasn’t happened a whole lot this season.

Anytime you can score 44 points and pile up 544 yards of total offense, you are supposed to win the football game.

But the Penguins didn’t win.

Penguins’ defense just didn’t have it

The big reason they didn’t was because the defense gave up 513 total yards and 54 points, and failed to get a turnover against a team that had been giving them up at a rapid rate all season. The Penguins also turned it over twice. For the first time in eight games, the Redbirds won the turnover margin.

Even as poorly as the defense played, the Penguins still had a chance to win if they had been able to make a tackle on the Redbirds’ late kickoff return.

The Penguins took a 37-33 lead early in the final quarter after junior quarterback Brandon Summers threw his third touchdown pass, a 28-yarder to Derrick Bush.

On the ensuing kickoff, the Penguins allowed Illinois State’s Chris Garrett to run 93 yards for the touchdown. Within 14 seconds, the entire momentum of the contest was changed and the Penguins could never regain it.

Summers tied a school record with four touchdown passes and 347 yards passing, but he also threw two interceptions. However, those pickoffs were not what cost YSU the game.

It was the 230 rushing yards the Redbirds put up including 225 by tailback Walter Mendenhall, who was making his first start of the season.

YSU head coach Jon Heacock has said many times that you have to be able to stop the run to be successful in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. The Penguins didn’t do that, which brings me to another observation.

Three key injuries hampered the team

It’s only my opinion, but of all the injuries that have hampered the YSU defense, the three really key ones were to defensive linemen Mychal Savage, Torrance Nicholson and Luke Matelan.

I firmly believe that if the Penguins had those three players the entire season that they would still be contending for the Missouri Valley Football Conference title and a postseason playoff berth.

But they didn’t have them and that’s why they are 2-8, and now the second team in YSU history to have lost six straight games in a season.

Getting back to Summers, he’s proved that he’s a pretty good quarterback, but he’s also thrown seven interceptions to go along with his 13 touchdown passes this season.

Heacock will be the first one to tell you that when Summers gets into trouble, it is usually because he’s trying to make something out of nothing. Instead of throwing the ball away or taking a sack, Summers tries to salvage something out the play and usually throws into coverage and the interceptions pop up.

This Saturday, the Penguins are back at home and taking on winless Indiana State (0-9) in a 1 p.m. kickoff at Stambaugh Stadium.

It will be the final home game for the YSU seniors, even though many of them will still not be dressed for the contest because of injuries.

It might also be the last chance for a Penguins’ victory this season.

XPete Mollica covers YSU athletics for The Vindicator. Write him at mollica@vindy.com.