YSU’s 2012 upset of Pitt based on belief

By JOE SCALZO

scalzo@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The second-leading rusher in Youngstown State history may be best known for a pass.

Three years ago, with YSU leading Pitt 14-10 early in the third quarter of the season opener at Heinz Field, the Penguins faced a fourth-and-1 at the Pitt 23. The grass was soaked — the kickoff had been delayed an hour due to thunderstorms — and YSU kicker David Brown was no sure thing from 40 yards even in perfect conditions, but, honestly, those things didn’t matter.

“We weren’t going to kick it,” YSU coach Eric Wolford said.

So YSU lined up in a goal line set that featured a seven-man front, with tight end Carson Sharbaugh lined up on the right as an H-back, Chuck Lengyel at fullback and Jamaine Cook at tailback. Quarterback Kurt Hess pitched it to the right side to Cook, who immediately pulled up for a pass. Tight end Will Shaw, who lined up on the left, faked a down block on a linebacker, then sprinted past Pitt’s secondary.

Cook lobbed a wobbly spiral to Shaw, who caught it at the 4 and trotted into the end zone.

“It was a bad pass,” Shaw said (half-jokingly) in a phone interview this week from Arizona. “It was terrible. It took forever. I felt like I was catching a punt.”

Said Cook, “I was always confident in my arm. I tell people if I had been six inches taller [than 5-foot-9], I would have played quarterback. It was definitely an underthrown lob. But you can’t throw a bad pass when someone’s wide open. Kudos to Will Shaw and [offensive coordinator] Shane Montgomery for the call.”

While it wasn’t the game-clinching score — that came on David Brown’s 25-yard field goal with 3:02 left that made it 31-17 — it was the most memorable play in the most memorable game of the Wolford era.

“I remember we installed it during camp specifically for Pitt,” Shaw said. “We were really trying to go after Pitt and we really prepared to beat them.

“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting us to run it. But when they called it, I thought it was going to work.”

It was YSU’s first, and only, victory over a Power Five conference team and the most surprising thing was, it wasn’t a surprise.

The Penguins dominated time of possession (35:10-24:50), won the turnover battle 2-0 and looked like the better team from start to finish, a stark contrast from the previous two meetings in 2005 and 2009, which Pitt won by a combined 79-3.

“The week leading up to that game, we had that swagger; we knew we were going to win,” said Hess, who is finishing up his student teaching as a second-grade teacher at Jackson-Milton this fall. “Everyone was counting us out and everything thought they were going to roll over us, but it was one of those games when everyone really rallied together.”

Hess completed 13 of 23 passes for 154 yards with touchdowns to Shaw and WR Andre Stubbs, who had the best game of his career with four catches for 61 yards and six rushes for 71 yards, including a 13-yard TD run with 12:21 left in the fourth quarter that gave the Penguins a 28-10 lead.

“That was a really long drive [10 plays, 75 yards] and that’s when I started thinking, ‘Oh, crap, we might be doing this thing,’” Hess said. “People talk about that halfback pass like we beat them with a trick play. That’s not a huge trick play. A halfback pass is nothing. When Johnny Manziel almost runs off the field and the Browns throw to him at the sideline, that’s trickery. We beat them and dominated them.”

Cook, who added 84 yards rushing on 21 carries, saw the first action of his college career in the 2009 game at Heinz Field, a 38-3 loss.

A year later, YSU scored its first touchdown in a money game (a 44-14 loss to Penn State that was close for most of the first half), then hung tight with Michigan State in 2011 for three quarters before falling 28-6.

When asked why YSU had more success in money games under Wolford than Jon Heacock, Cook said, “This may be a controversial answer, but it was definitely the coaching staff. One thing Coach Wolf did a great job at was instilling confidence in us. We had a chip on our shoulder going into that game.”

Three weeks later, the Penguins snapped an 11-game losing streak to Northern Iowa to improve to 4-0 for the first time since 2000. Then they went 0-for-October , finished 7-4 and missed the playoffs.

But they’ll always have Pitt ...

“Just singing the fight song afterward and being in the locker room, it was awesome,” said WR Christian Bryan, who went to high school about 30 minutes outside of Pittsburgh. “It was one of those moments where you didn’t rush to take your uniform off. You just let it sink in. It was truly and awesome night and something I’ll never forget.”

Added safety Donald D’Alesio, “The first thing that comes to mind is the locker room after the game. I remember how much fun we had and how everyone was so excited. Everyone was just high-fiving and hugging each other.”

D’Alesio, whose five-year career ended after last season, said he doesn’t miss training camp or meetings, but “I’ll always miss Saturdays and being in the locker room with my teammates. That’s the part ex-football players miss the most.”

YSU has a chance to make history again on Saturday when it plays Pitt for the first time since that game. Bryan, a volunteer coach for Bo Pelini’s Penguins, has a good feeling about this year’s team.

“I’m really confident about this team,” Bryan said. “There’s a vibe at practice and an energy that hasn’t been there enough. I think they’re set up for good things to happen and they’ll prove it with their play on Saturday.”

Cook, whose 4,052 career yards trail only Tamron Smith (4,866) in YSU history, now lives in Brooklyn and works in midtown Manhattan at KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms. His specific client is the NFL.

“It’s a really cool gig,” he said.

His previous gig was even better. Cook spent part of the 2013 season on the Browns’ practice squad, where one of his teammates was defensive end Jabaal Sheard, who was drafted out of Pitt in 2011.

“I was able to talk trash to guys like Jabaal Sheard,” he said. “Even though Youngstown State is a small school, I could say, ‘Hey, my alma mater beat your alma mater. We killed you guys my senior year.’

“Obviously, we made history for YSU. That’s not going to be forgotten.”