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Hess eager for a chance to redeem himself
Photo
Kurt Hess
By JOE SCALZO
YOUNGSTOWN
The low point for QB Kurt Hess in Saturday’s loss to Missouri State came with two minutes left in the third quarter, as Bears linebacker Adam Beachamp intercepted his pass at the 40, cut to the right sideline and ran through a Hess tackle en route to the end zone.
Sprawled out on the turf, Hess banged the ground with his hand.
“Terrible, terrible,” he said of his tackling. “I have to bring him down.
“Fundamentals. That’s fourth-grade stuff.”
For Hess, this week is about getting back to fundamentals — not so much with his tackling but with his reads, his footwork and his decisions.
After four solid starts to his career, Hess completed just 13 of 33 passes for 165 yards and two interceptions against the Bears as the offense went scoreless for more than 25 minutes from the beginning of the second quarter to the end of the third.
“I knew there was gonna be adversity,” said Hess, a redshirt freshman from Dayton. “I was trying to prevent it as much as I could, but adversity happens to every quarterback, every young player, every old player.
“The biggest thing is how we respond.”
Hess gets his first chance at home on Saturday against North Dakota State, a physical team that looks to stop the run first and force opposing quarterbacks to beat it.
While Hess knows he needs to play better, YSU coach Eric Wolford said his teammates need to do their part, too. Saturday’s performance was plagued by unnecessary penalties, dropped passes and missed assignments.
“You’ve got to be able to give your quarterback confidence in his ability to set his feet and throw the football,” said Wolford, whose staff did not name an offensive lineman of the week for the third time in five weeks. “If you’re always feeling pressure and people are constantly coming down on you and caving in around you, you kind of get antsy and rush things and make decisions you wouldn’t normally make.”
When asked if he was worried about Hess, Wolford shook his head.
“He’ll be fine,” he said. “I got a lot of confidence in Kurt and he’ll learn from his mistakes. I believe that he knows the right decision to make and he obviously knows that he could have made better decisions a couple times.
“We’ve got to help him out, too.”
Hess has spent extra time watching film this week, both before and after practices, and said he’s working extra with his receivers after practice. He developed some chemistry with No. 2 receiver Juilian Harrell (five catches, 65 yards) against MSU but his other receivers combined for just three receptions.
“The biggest thing for me is I have to work on my fundamentals,” Hess said. “I got away from them a little bit the past few games.
“I have to get back to what I know how to do.”
The Penguins also need to get back to what they do best, which is running the football. The running game sputtered after the first quarter against MSU and Hess isn’t far enough along in his development to win games by himself yet.
Fortunately for YSU, he is far enough along to know how to put bad games behind him, something he learned at Chaminade-Julienne.
“I think I had this game, where it was against a big Division I or II team early in the season and I think I threw two or three picks,” he said. “I felt like I was out of it but I had to keep my team up and had to keep pushing on.
“We ended up not winning that game but that experience helped me in this experience. We still had a chance to win the game [Saturday] and that will help in the future.”