Another favored son comes home to Youngstown

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngstown State football team got one of its biggest wins in history this morning.

And like so many of the previous ones, Jim Tressel was involved.

Former Nebraska coach Bo Pelini, a Cardinal Mooney High graduate, agreed to become the seventh coach in school history, a move that invigorates a program that has made the playoffs just once since Tressel left for Ohio State after the 2000 season.

“It is with great passion and enthusiasm that I become the head football coach at Youngstown State University,” Pelini said in a statement released by the university. “This is an exciting time for my family and me as we return to the Mahoning Valley. [Wife] Mary Pat and our children are anxious to get involved in the Youngstown State and local communities. I am looking forward to getting to know a tremendous group of football student-athletes who are currently part of the program.

Pelini, who played safety at Ohio State from 1987-90, has never coached at the Football Championship Subdivision level, spending nine years as a NFL assistant with the 49ers, Patriots and Packers from 1994-2002 before returning to the college ranks as Nebraska’s defensive coordinator in 2003.

After one year at Oklahoma with fellow Mooney graduate Bob Stoops, he spent the next three seasons as Louisiana State University’s defensive coordinator, helping the Tigers beat Tressel’s Buckeyes in the 2008 national championship game.

Nearly seven years later, Tressel — now YSU’s president — helped bring Pelini back home.

Read more of the story in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.