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YSU’s goal: extend its roll
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
On Friday afternoon, Youngstown State athletic director Ron Strollo stood outside the Holiday Inn in Mt. Vernon, Ill., reminiscing about the past and expressing hope for the future of his football program.
As for the present? Well ...
“We need to find a way to win a football game,” Strollo said.
Since the beginning of the season, Strollo has talked about the need for the program to show some momentum, to add a few wins to last year’s 3-8 record, to keep the players believing and to sell recruits on the program’s future.
“Momentum is so important for recruiting,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to say, ‘Look, we’re going in the right direction.’”
That could come one of two ways, he said.
Making the playoffs. (After a 2-3 start, that seemed unlikely, although not impossible.)
Nabbing a “signature win.”
In Strollo’s mind, Jim Tressel had three signature wins en route to the 1991 national title.
The first came in 1986. After losing eight of his first nine games, Tressel’s Penguins upset Akron, 40-39, in the season finale, which turned out to be the beginning of the program’s turnaround.
The next came in 1987, again against Akron. YSU was 7-3 entering the season finale at Akron and pulled out a 10-6 victory that clinched a playoff berth.
The third came in 1991 season, when a 4-3 YSU team won on the road against two-time defending national champion Georgia Southern. It was the start of an eight-game winning streak that ended with a title game victory over Marshall.
“The way I see it, we have 21/2 more chances to get a signature win,” said Strollo. “And I count Southern Illinois as the half.”
Coaches always talk about taking one game at a time, but the feeling before this season was that YSU had a good chance to go 6-0 at home and win one or two road games, most likely against Indiana State and/or Southern Illinois.
That would give the Penguins a 7-4 or 8-3 record and a chance at the playoffs.
But when YSU lost to Indiana State, then followed it up with a home loss to South Dakota State, the program took a step backward and the season looked lost.
And when the Penguins fell behind 17-7 on Saturday, it looked really lost, especially since it was the offense (aka the team’s strength) that was the culprit for the deficit, fumbling the ball away on what looked like two possible touchdown drives.
“We played like crap in the first half,” said true freshman WR Christian Bryan, who is too young to speak in cliches. “We had our heads up our behinds.”
Then, the offense started clicking, scoring three third quarter touchdowns to take the lead. And the defense started to mix up its coverages and blitzes, stymieing Southern Illinois’ offense and giving up just one score in seven second-half possessions.
When the game ended, there was a feeling on the sidelines that this was just the beginning, that “hopefully we’ve finally turned the corner” as coach Eric Wolford said.
Of course, last year’s win over the Salukis looked like a signature win, too. Then the Penguins lost their last seven and turned over half the roster.
Not wanting a repeat, Wolford sounded cautious in his postgame interview, saying, “I never get too excited about anything around here. We’re going to celebrate this win and move on.”
It’s too early to tell whether this was a signature win — or even half a signature win — but it gives the fans reason to keep coming, especially since the Penguins head home for winnable games against non-scholarship St. Francis (which shouldn’t be close) and Missouri Valley foe Western Illinois.
If they can win those two, they’ll enter November with a 5-3 record, then head to the road for back-to-back games against the MVFC’s two best teams, UNI and North Dakota State.
A win over either of those would give YSU a full signature win. And a win over both would guarantee something more — a trip to the FCS playoffs.