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Smooth sailing
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The YSU Penguins will hold their 15th and final spring practice tonight with the coaches emphasizing off season workouts. For the defense, that means working on fundamentals, said sophomore linebacker Travis Williams (6).
Youngstown State football staff is confident the foundation for a playoff team is in place
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Less yelling. More gelling.
Thanks to the arrival of scream-first defensive coordinator, Joe Tresey, and more roster stability than in any time during his 21/2 year tenure, Youngstown State Eric Wolford said this was — by far — his smoothest spring with the Penguins.
“Oh yeah,” he said Friday following the annual Red-White game. “I didn’t have to yell nowhere near as much.
“My first spring, I had a headache so bad Advil and Aleve couldn’t help me.”
Despite of a rash of injuries — more than a dozen players missed at least part of the spring session — and the inevitable growing pains that come from learning a new defensive system, the Penguins will break camp confident they’ve built the foundation for a playoff team.
“We’ve really grown as a team,” junior quarterback Kurt Hess said. “The offense and defense, we have our battles during the spring and we kind of like to pick at each other, but coming out here now, we’re gelling as a team.
“I like where our team chemistry is at.”
YSU will hold its 15th and final spring practice tonight with the coaches emphasizing offseason workouts.
Sophomore linebacker Travis Williams said the defense needs to work on fundamentals.
“It’s the little things that hurt us,” he said. “Little plays here and there that open up a big play for the offense.
“We’re going to work on the right technique.”
With 11 returning starters, the offense has a lot less to worry about.
When asked it needs to work on, Hess paused for a moment and finally said, “Oh, shoot. I don’t know. I don’t know. I think we can be really good in all aspects of the game.
“The way I think of it, we’re 100 percent at everything so we can’t be satisfied with where we’re at until we’re at the end of the year and we have that national championship.”