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YSU looks to finish strong vs. ISU
Penguins have made steady progress
By Steve wilaj
YOUNGSTOWN
It got overshadowed last Saturday by the pass interference call and Bo Pelini’s late-game tirade. Then it got buried by what ultimately turned into a crushing three-point loss to North Dakota State.
But the reality is that — against arguably the best FCS team in the country — Youngtown State took another step in the right direction.
All throughout his debut season, Pelini has tried to instill his desired culture into the YSU football program. With just one regular-season game remaining — today at 1:05 p.m. at Indiana State (4-6, 2-5 Missouri Valley Football Conference) — the Penguins (5-5, 3-4) are buying into the culture change more than ever.
“We’ve definitely made progress,” junior running back Jody Webb said. “That’s all we were trying to do all year. It’s a starting point. All coach Bo talked about was getting better each week and that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”
With the playoffs all but out of the question, Pelini simply wants his team to take one more positive step in Terre Haute, Ind. as it finishes the 2015 season.
“Yeah, I do,” Pelini said when asked if he believes YSU is a playoff-caliber team at the moment. “But what are you gonna do? You don’t know. Who knows how things are gonna go? All you can do is control what happens Saturday. All I’m concerned with is playing a good football game, being a better football team and going from there.”
The light seemed to click for the Penguins after an embarrassing 38-8 home loss to South Dakota State on Oct. 24. They played much better the next week in a devastating 38-31 overtime defeat at Southern Illinois, before a couple impressive wins the following two weeks (at Western Illinois and vs. Missouri State).
Then last week against the defending-champion Bison, YSU looked like the better, sharper team for three-and-a-half quarters prior to its meltdown. NDSU coach Chris Klieman even offered, “We beat a really good Youngstown State team,” after the game.
“Some things didn’t go as planned, but our team has come together,” said Webb, YSU’s top rusher with 800 yards and eight TDs on 115 attempts. “That’s what we wanted all along. We wanted to bring each other together.
“We’re brothers — a brotherhood. We’ll all fight for one another and put it all on the line for each other.”
Freshman kicker Zak Kennedy — who graduated from Cardinal Mooney early to join the Penguins in the spring — also said the team has come a long way in its transition from previous coach Eric Wolford’s regime to Pelini’s.
“I feel at the beginning of the season, there wasn’t as many guys bought in as to what coach Pelini was trying to do,” Kennedy said. “I feel throughout the season more and more guys have been trying to incorporate what coach Pelini’s been saying.”
This afternoon against the Sycamores, the Penguins have one more chance to prove how far they’ve come in one season. A strong showing would mark YSU’s fifth straight of the type and send Pelini’s program into the offseason with some momentum.
“It’s tough that this can be our last game,” Webb said. “But we’re not gonna go in there thinking, ‘Aw, this is our last game and we don’t care.’ We’re gonna go in it being prepared because they’re a good team. We know they’re gonna swing, so we have to swing back.”