Favorable schedule ahead

I said a week ago that the Youngstown State football team needed to get a whole lot better and quickly as they get set to take on the Missouri Valley Football Conference opponents this season.

They really didn’t do that on Saturday afternoon against Indiana State University, a team that hasn’t won a football game in three years and is probably the worst the Penguins will meet all season.

Yes the Penguins won 28-0, but they led only 7-0 after three quarters and if it wasn’t for the play of the defense, very possibly could of found themselves trailing a team they should have been dominating once again.

The defense did play well, showed definite improvement, and played well enough to win. It was the reason the Penguins were able to hang on to the 7-0 lead throughout the first three quarters.

The offense for three quarters was terrible and this was against a team that was giving up more than 30 points a game and 369 yards of total offense per game. This team held the Penguins without a first down in the entire third quarter.

But give the offense credit, it came back and dominated play in the final 15 minutes as it should have over the first 45 minutes. It also helped that the Sycamores, who have now lost five straight this year and 31 straight since the 2006 season, just kind of ran out of gas in that final quarter also.

The Penguins, who are now 3-1 on the year and 1-0 in the MVFC, have been fortunate with their schedule.

After opening the season against Football Bowl Subdivision Pittsburgh, the Penguins have played three pretty weak opponents in Austin Peay (38-21), Northeastern (38-21) and Indiana State (28-0).

Now that the Penguins have nothing but conference games ahead of them, they are blessed with some good scheduling once again.

They began conference play Saturday with probably the weakest team in the league in the Sycamores and will go up against possibly the second-weakest team in the conference this week in Missouri State (2-2 0-1), a 35-7 loser to Northern Iowa on Saturday, when YSU returns home to Stambaugh Stadium.

Kickoff Saturday is 6 p.m.

The Penguins will remain at home on Oct. 10 when they entertain Western Illinois, again a team that is not ranked in the top three of the conference.

So what this all means is that the Penguins still have a couple more weeks to hone their game before they have to tackle the meat of the conference schedule.

The Penguins also have an open date right before they get set to take on the “Big Three” of this year’s conference race.

YSU will then face Southern Illinois (2-1, 1-0), South Dakota State (3-0, 2-0) and Northern Iowa (3-1 1-0) in succession including road games at Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa, while the Jackrabbits will come to Stambaugh Stadium on Oct. 31 for a Halloween meeting.

Realistically, the Penguins should be 5-1 going in their week off and before they hit the meat of the schedule. Those next three games will also probably determine whether they will have a chance to make the playoffs or not.

YSU is going to need to win one of those games just to stay eligible for the postseason, and of course that is providing there are no other upsets along the way.

Anybody that has seen the Penguins knows that this team is much better than it has shown thus far and everybody is just waiting for them to take that next step forward.

YSU Athletic Director Ron Strollo also said over the weekend that the university is now very close to owning all the property that they have been seeking across the street from Stambaugh Stadium on Fifth Avenue.

Strollo said the university has only one or two more houses to secure before they own all of the property behind the gas station and McDonald’s and that although nothing has been determined as to what will be built there, the property will definitely be used for athletic purposes.

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