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YSU keeps poise under bright lights
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown State University football team played 47 players on Friday night against Michigan State.
Of those:
Eleven made their first starts for YSU.
Of those 11, only two had played a down for YSU in their careers.
Overall, 21 players played their first down in a YSU uniform.
With those kinds of numbers — and considering the Penguins were playing a Big Ten program on national TV in front of 75,000 fans — Penguins coach Eric Wolford expected to see some wide-eyed players on the sidelines.
He didn’t.
“I kind of expected them to get caught up in the limelight but they didn’t get big-eyed; it wasn’t a big deal to them,” Wolford said. “They acted like they’d been there before.
“That’s a good thing.”
After watching Friday’s film, Wolford came away encouraged by the play of his defensive line — “We matched up pretty well,” he said — and with the relative health of his team considering the Spartans’ size and strength advantage.
Senior WR Pat White suffered a dislocated shoulder and will miss a few weeks but that was the only “significant” injury, Wolford said.
“That’s pretty good, coming out of a game like that, against a pretty good team,” he said. “Them boys are big.”
He was frustrated by his team’s four penalties — two of them false starts — and with his team’s lack of points, particularly after moving the ball so well for most of the game.
“We’ve got to do some little things better,” he said. “Against a team like that, you have to do everything perfect.”
That won’t be the case this weekend as the Penguins welcome Horizon League member Valparaiso in the home opener.
The Crusaders, a non-scholarship FCS team, have lost 21 straight games, including Saturday’s season-opener against Division III Franklin, 49-35.
Valparaiso and Butler are the only other Horizon League members that play football and both are non-scholarship. YSU beat Butler 28-7 in last year’s Week 2 home opener.
“One of the things we always talk about is being good at home,” Wolford said. “That’s what our conference is known for — 80 percent of the home teams win.
“We need to win all our home games but we’ve got to take it one week at a time. Our focus this week is being 1-0.”
YSU opens Missouri Valley play in Week 3 when it hosts Illinois State.
The MVFC went 3-6 last week, with Northern Iowa throwing a scare into Big 12 member Iowa State before falling 20-19.
“That didn’t surprise me at all,” Wolford said.
Overall, the league went 0-4 against BCS teams in Week 1, with Indiana State falling to Penn State 41-7 and No. 15 Arkansas drubbing Missouri State 51-7
The three wins all came against FCS competition: North Dakota State beat Lafayette (Pa.), South Dakota State beat Southern Utah (29-28) and Southern Illinois beat Southeast Missouri State 38-10.