Heacock: More work to be done
The coach likes the progress of the YSU football team so far.
YOUNGSTOWN — With just over a week remaining before his team opens the season, Youngstown State football coach Jon Heacock is happy with his team — sort of.
“Is it where we need to be for the opener? Probably not,” said Heacock.
“We have some experience, but we are still a very young football team,” he added. “There will be a lot of sophomores and redshirt freshmen who will counted on this season.”
Heacock said after viewing films of last Saturday’s jersey scrimmage he came away pleased with the outcome.
“It was unusual for us to have two jersey scrimmages in camp like we did and the second one probably wasn’t as crisp as the first one, but again when you’ve got 100 plays in two sessions like that it tends to wear on the kids a little,” he said.
“Still the offense didn’t turn the ball over, which was good,” he said. “The defense didn’t get a turnover, although they did have a couple of chances and overall I thought that we accomplished what we set out to do.”
Heacock has been especially pleased with his 12 senior players.
“They’ve been working so hard ever since last December and they haven’t let up a bit,” he said.
Senior quarterback Brandon Summers was impressive in Wednesday’s passing scrimmage which definitely caught the eye of Heacock.
“He was really clicking out there,” Heacock said. “He just keeps working hard and is getting better and better, like all of the seniors have been doing.”
Summers connected on several big pass plays with his talented wide receivers, led by senior co-captain Donald Jones. He also fired a perfect touchdown pass to senior Aaron Pitts on a play that covered over 70 yards and was hardly off the mark on any of his throws.
Sophomore quarterback Marc Kanetsky of Hubbard also looked impressive in the session and he had a long touchdown pass to sophomore Josh Lee.
Heacock said several youngsters will get so see some action this season led by redshirt freshman Taylor Hill of Cardinal Mooney, who will start at one of the linebacker spots.
“Like I said we are going to be a very young team,” said Heacock. “We’ve got some experience, but we are still very young and it’s going to be up to our seniors to carry us through.”
Heacock also said freshman linebacker Sylvester Gibbs has left the team, the second of the Penguins’ 2009 recruits to pack it in. Girard’s Kyle Stadelmyer left last week. Overall the Penguins have had six players leave the team this fall.
The others were seniors Rashod Simons and Ty Campana, sophomore Kamryn Keys and sophomore Marcus O’Hara, although O’Hara has returned since school has been in session.