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Penguins’ recipe for success is avoiding costly turnovers
Gallery
YSU had four in last week’s 17-7- loss to conference rival Missouri State.
By PETE MOLLICA
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State football coach Jon Heacock says he’s going to find out what his football team is made of this week.
Last Saturday Heacock’s Penguins suffered a disappointing 17-7 loss to Missouri State in a Missouri Valley Football Conference game at Stambaugh Stadium.
The Bears were a preseason pick to finish eighth in the nine-team league and had never beaten the Penguins in six previous games at Stambaugh Stadium. It was a game the Penguins were expected to win and a home game they needed to win.
But the Penguins turned the ball over four times and had a field goal blocked, falling to 3-2 overall and 1-1 in the MVFC.
This Saturday the Penguins are home again as Western Illinois (1-3, 0-1) comes to Stambaugh Stadium for a 6 p.m. kickoff and another conference matchup.
“We’ll fine out what they’re made of on Saturday,” Heacock said.
“We went into last week’s game leading the conference in turnover margin and then go out and turn it over four times to their one,” he added. “You aren’t going to win in this league turning it over four times.”
Once again the Penguins started out slowly giving up an early touchdown for the fourth straight week. They had rallied from behind to win the previous three contests, but couldn’t repeat the magic last week’s.
“Sometimes if something different happens in the game, like a blocked punt or a punt return or in last week’s case a long pass play, it just changes your whole thinking,” Heacock said. “When something bad like that happens early you kind of take a deep breath.”
When asked if the Penguins need some kind of spark to get them going, Heacock answered quickly.
“We’ve had some sparks, but we need to so something with those sparks,” he said.
“We prepare to win every week, that doesn’t change, but now you have to prepare just a little better,” he said. “There is still a lot of football to play and you don’t know just what’s going to happen down the road.
“We actually played pretty decent last week,” he added. “We had a 17-play drive and for 16 of those plays we were really good, but then the turnover on the 17th and you are back to square one.
“In this league you can’t look at anything but the next game,” Heacock said. “Anything that we want to do is still there as long as we go out and play the best that we can every week.”
Heacock said Western Illinois is a big, strong physical team.
“They are going to run the ball and they are physically gong to try to beat you up,” he said. “They’ve gotten away from the two tight end sets and now stretch out the field. They have a couple of outstanding wideouts, but their starting quarterback [Matt Barr] went down with an injury last week and we don’t know if he’ll be back this week.”
Heacock said turnover margin will again be a critical part of the game.
“Our kids know that they have to take care of the football, something that we didn’t do last week,” he added.
The Penguins have to get the offense in gear and early this week. They don’t need for senior quarterback Brandon Summers to have to throw the football 39 times in a game.
The Penguins will be without junior offensive tackle Chris Gammon this week. The 6-foot-3, 300-pounder from Akron is nursing a knee injury and waiting for test results. He has been on crutches this week at practice.
Following Saturday’s contest the Penguins will have an open date before resuming play on Oct. 24 with a road contest at Southern Illinois.
mollica@vindy.com