Squad fine with 7 a.m. practices

By Pete Mollica

“If it was sunny and 70 degrees in the morning, I wouldn’t mind it one bit. But cold and rain is a whole different matter.”

Kevin Smith, Senior tailback

Youngstown State head football coach Jon Heacock has always been a firm believer that a team needs to practice under all different weather conditions because you never know what the conditions will be on game day.

Already this spring, the Penguins just missed an opening day snowstorm, but has had two of its three sessions under rainy conditions. But with a new 7 a.m. starting time, the weather hasn’t made things easy for the Penguins.

Heacock said he feels that the early start is good and healthy for his players.

“You ask around to any weight trainers or lifters and they will tell you that the best time to workout is in the early mornings,” Heacock said. “You are freshest at that time and your muscles are the freshest.

“Honestly, I wish we could workout at a later time, but we are not doing it every day and that’s one of the reasons that I wanted to workout today even though we knew it would be raining,” Heacock said. “We just didn’t wasn’t to change up the schedule any more than we have.

“It’s been working out well and the kids have handled it very well,” he said. “I’d be concerned it we hadn’t been doing this all winter, but I also don’t want to do it every day. Right now, they still have days when they can sleep in.”

Senior tailback Kevin Smith, a California native, says that he doesn’t have a problem with the early start, but the weather is another matter.

“If it was sunny and 70 degrees in the morning, I wouldn’t mind it one bit,” Smith said. “But cold and rain is a whole different matter.”

Senior offensive lineman Brian Mellot, a native of Austintown and a Fitch High graduate, loves the morning workouts.

“I’m a morning person and I’m always up early and these early practices get you going and ready for class,” Mellot said. “I just love it.

“The main thing is that we have everybody here every practice,” Heacock said. “We have a few guys with 10 a.m. classes who might have to leave early. But for the most part, everybody has been here every day, and it’s nothing like what we went through with the afternoon sessions.”

Heacock was pleased with the first spring practice in pads, even though it was a day when no real contact was allowed.

“It was a little sloppy out there at times and I’m sure the weather had a lot to do with it, but over all the enthusiasm was good,” he said. “We’ll get to see a lot more tomorrow [Saturday] when we begin to hit a little bit.”

“With the weather and all today. we didn’t want to get real crazy out there and you have to have so many practices without tackling,” he said.

Heacock and his staff have also been tossing around the idea of holding a second jersey scrimmage in place of the Red and White Spring game on April 24.

“We’ve talked about it, but as of right now we haven’t made any decision about it,” Heacock said. “With our new defensive staff and a lot of new young players, it just might be to our benefit to hold a scrimmage.

“But I know how much our kids enjoy the game, but they also like the idea of playing for the red jerseys also,” he said. ““Right now, nothing has been decided.”

The Penguins have a little big of international flavor on this year’s roster in the form of Obinna Ekwerembua, a redshirt freshman from Orlu, Nigeria.

The 6-foot3, 240-pound defensive end is a walk-on who never played football before.

“He was a soccer player who came here and wanted to play football, said Dan Kopp, YSU director of football operations. “I know that he has great feet and he’s anxious to learn the game.”

The Penguins have moved the start of today’s session back to 9:30 a.m. because of more rain that is expected. The team was scheduled to practice at 8:30 a.m. They then will be off until Tuesday at 7 a.m.

mollica@vindy.com