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Hess leads YSU at Indiana State
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
When Mark Pratt took his official visit to Youngstown State last winter, his campus host was quarterback Kurt Hess.
“I didn’t know he was a freshman,” Pratt said. “If they wouldn’t have told me, I would have never known.”
That maturity has carried over to the field, where Hess earned freshman of the year honors last fall in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. He’s been even better this season, developing from an efficient game manager into one of the best quarterbacks in the conference.
He’ll need to play like it today as YSU takes on Indiana State and its talented quarterback, senior Ronnie Fouch.
Fouch has completed 40 of 65 passes for five TDs and three interceptions for Indiana State (2-1), which snapped a 13-game losing streak to the Penguins in last year’s finale at Stambaugh Stadium. The former backup to Jake Locker at Washington is the biggest reason why the Sycamores are no longer the league’s cellar dwellers.
“Ronnie Fouch and [Illinois State’s Matt] Brown are as accurate as anybody in the league and anywhere I’ve been,” said YSU coach Eric Wolford. “Those two guys are special football players.”
Does Hess belong in that conversation?
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” Wolford said. “I think Kurt’s a great quarterback but we don’t really ever talk about that because we’re a team. We just kind of let everyone else talk about everyone else’s individuals.”
Indiana State quarterback Trent Miles was happy to do so.
“I see a quarterback playing extremely well,” Miles said of Hess. “He’s confident and he knows where to go with the ball.”
Hess is third in the conference with a pass efficiency rating of 160.3, completing 50 of 77 passes (64.9 percent) with seven quarterbacks against just one interception.
“To me, seeing how he steps up, he plays like he’s a senior,” Pratt said.”