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Finish Line: Wolford seeks better closers
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Jamaine Cook (35), stretches during the first practice of Youngstown State’s spring football practice at Stambaugh Stadium. Cook, sophomore Nick Liste and offensive lineman Dan Radakovich, were named to the Missouri Valley Football Conference preseason all-conference team Monday.
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Youngstown State sophomore Nick Liste practices kicking during an April practice. Liste, Jamaine Cook and offensive lineman Dan Radakovich, were named to the Missouri Valley Football Conference preseason all-conference team Monday.
Staff report
Youngstown State football coach Eric Wolford has spent a lot of time since the 2010 football season being unhappy.
Granted, there’s not a lot of positive moments to take from a season that ended with just three wins, but Wolford’s discomfort has come from trying to figure out how those eight losses happened.
Specifically, Wolford wanted to find out why, exactly, the Penguins started games playing so well, only to falter at the end.
He’s gone so far as to check with pro teams who have to travel across several time zones, dissecting everything from what they eat to when they practice.
Last season, the Penguins finished 1-7 in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, and the seven losses came by a combined 39 points.
“Obviously, we’ve got to finish better,” said Wolford at the MVFC’s annual media day on Monday.
“Basically, we were in every game last year. But we need more manpower and more physical strength so we can finish games.”
Wolford noted 32 players have left the program since the end of the 2010 season — that’s in addition to the players who graduated or used up all of their eligibility.
“Our work ethic has completely changed,” said Wolford.
“A lot of our returning players are going to be sophomores, and one’s a junior.”
One of those juniors, tailback Jamine Cook, was named to the All-MVFC preseason team.
Cook (5-foot-9, 200 pounds), from Midpark High School, is on the watch list for the Walter Payton Award and was a third team preseason All-America pick by The Sports Network.
Cook rushed for 1,276 yards and scored 11 touchdowns last season and was named second team All-MVFC.
“Cook is probably the hardest worker on our football team,” said Wolford.
Also named to the league’s preseason team were junior offensive tackle Andrew Radakovich and sophomore punter Nick Liste.
Radakovich (6-3, 315), from Steubenville, will anchor the offensive line and be the main protector for quarterback Kurt Hess.
Liste (5-10, 185), from Niles, averaged 41.4 yards per punt last season and was named honorable mention all-league.
Wolford said Liste will also likely handle most of the kickoff duties this season.
No YSU defensive players were named all-league preseason; not surprising, considering the Penguins allowed 411 yards and 31.5 points per game last season, second-to-last in the MVFC.
“We need some more defensive leadership right now,” said Wolford. “But we signed 25 players [in the off-season] on defense, so that’s encouraging.”
The Penguins went winless in five road games last season, and opponents averaged 38 points per game. But YSU’s largest margin of defeat, other than the opener at Penn State, was by 10 points.
Which is why Wolford is searching for ways to get better.
“What’s intriguing for us is that all of our [conference] travel is more than six hours,” he said. “Most of the other schools are more centrally-located.
“So we’re looking to do some things a little different as far as our travel. We’ll try to leave a little bit earlier, and do some things at the hotel the night before to increase blood flow.”
Wolford said he talked to some contacts in the NFL to see what they did when traveling across the country.
“We’ll look at how and when we eat, and our rest, things like that,” he said.
“There’s a lot of factors to that, but we were happy with how we got out of the blocks early. We just have to learn to finish.”