Penguins can’t afford letdown

By Pete Mollica

Youngstown State, coming off a big victory, meets No. 25 Liberty on Saturday.

YOUNGSTOWN — Early this week Youngstown State football coach Jon Heacock called his team together and offered some words of wisdom.

“A couple of weeks ago when everybody was telling you that you were not a very good football team, did you listen to them?” said Heacock, who got a unanimous no. “Well this week when they start telling you how good you are, don’t listen to them again.”

The Penguins surprised a lot of people last week when they posted a 32-24 victory over then No. 2-ranked North Dakota State and evened both their season record (2-2) and their Missouri Valley Football Conference mark (1-1).

This Saturday the Penguins will take on unbeaten and No. 25 ranked Liberty University in their third straight home contest at Stambaugh Stadium. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m.

Heacock said last week’s victory could be a springboard for his team.

“As long as we don’t take a step back,” he said. “We can’t take a step back in preparation or in practice.”

“Right now the belief factor plays a big role,” he added. “No matter what the score we have to believe in ourselves.”

Heacock said last Saturday’s win the offensive line was the big difference. “They played extremely well and they dominated the line of scrimmage,” he said.

He was also impressed with the play of junior quarterback Brandon Summers.

“Brandon will never have high blood pressure,” Heacock said. “He remains cool and calm the whole time he’s in there and that confidence rubs off on the rest of the team.

“There is still a lot of improvement to be made,” he said. “Our confidence is good, much improved. We’re still a work in progress, but we continued to get better and to grow as a team.”

Saturday’s contest is a non-conference matchup against the Flames (3-0), but Heacock said that’s not important.

“It is just important for this team to be playing, practicing and improving right now no matter if it’s a league game or not.”

The Penguins did suffer another loss on the defensive side of the ball when senior cornerback Jarvis Richards suffered a severe knee injury against the Bison and will probably miss the rest of the season.

The Penguins know they have another challenge this week in the Flames.

“They’ve now won eight games in a row since last season and they start 15 seniors,” said Heacock. “They’ve got a running back that the NFL is looking at and they have tremendous special teams.”

Last week the Penguins rushed for 340 yards against North Dakota State and Heacock knows that they’ll have to be successful with the ground game again this week.

Redshirt freshman Kamryn Keys rushed for 146 yards on 21 carries and junior Jabari Scott added 120 yards on 17 tries as the Penguins rushed the football 56 times in the game.

Defensively the Penguins gave up a lot of yards — 474 — but their four interceptions stopped the Bisons almost every time they threatened.

“Last week’s win was a big win,” said Heacock. “But the reality is that you have to win more than one big game in the season.”

Heacock also wasn’t surprised the Penguins didn’t move up in the polls after the big victory, still at 27th in the SportsNetwork and 23rd in the coaches poll.

“I don’t pay much attention to polls during the season,” he said. “We’re 2-2, that’s a reality and we know that we’ve used up our mulligans for the year. Our seniors realize what’s at stake and we need them to lead us from here.”

mollica@vindy.com