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Focused, prepared
By charles grove
youngstown
A much more focused and prepared Youngstown State football team finished up their final spring practice in full pads on Monday in preparation for Friday night’s Red and White Spring Game.
After what everyone called a poor practice offensively on Saturday, the YSU offense looked much crisper, trading big plays with the defense inside the Watson and Tressel Training Site.
“It was a different mindset from everyone,” wide receiver I’Tavious Harvin said. “Both the offense and defense made big plays instead of just the defense. The O-line, running backs and receivers were all connected today.”
The Penguins will be in just helmets for Wednesday’s final tune-up before Friday night at Stambaugh Stadium.
Quarterback Trent Hosick said the upcoming practice should help him focus for the Spring Game since he knows he won’t be scrambling away from defenders.
“A helmet-only practice forces me to make the right reads,” Hosick said. “It’s kind of what I’ve been doing all this spring. I don’t want to rely on my running ability because I’m trying to learn this offense.”
Hosick led the offense during scrimmages with a balanced offensive attack. Hosick lasered a slant pass to Tre’von Williams on third-and-5 and then found tight end Anthony Parente over the middle for a large gain a few plays later.
Tailback Sidney Sandidge looked strong as well, ripping off a nice draw play on a third down before finding the end zone from 11 yards out to cap off the scoring drive.
Hosick was quick to praise the work of the offensive line for the successful drive.
“Anytime you find success, you find your offensive line with success,” Hosick said. “We were able to dig in and the offensive line gave us great protection on that drive.
“I feel like I can make plays and our receivers and running backs can, too. But whenever the offensive line executes the entire offensive line executes.”
Offensive line coach Carmen Bircillo said the scrimmages and the second- and third-down-and-long situations the team worked on were especially important as the offense has just about learned the entirety of the playbook.
“As a staff, the installs are, by and large, over so at this point you want them to start thinking situationally since the game of football is all situation based,” Bircillo said. “I like to call it reading the greens.
“It’s important for us to not only do situational things but now we can talk about it in the film room, too.”
Bircillo said even though there won’t be much contact Wednesday, there’s still plenty for the offensive line to do wearing just helmets.
“We’ll do some fundamentals and something I call ‘chasing ghosts’ where I’ll put in every defensive look and we’ll just run a million plays just with the O-line with all the blitz permeations as well,” Bircillo said. “We’re paying a price for the day so we better get something out of it.”
Running back Jody Webb, who left Saturday’s practice after taking a hit, was back out on the field Monday, appearing to be at full strength.
Harvin, who missed much of the spring schedule with a hamstring injury said he’s now “100 percent” and said the situational practices today will be a big help getting ready for Friday’s game.
“It helps so much,” Harvin said. “Everything is faster, your mind has to think more. And with the tempo you just don’t want to mess up.”
Hosick said the added focus on Monday really helped not replicate Saturday’s mess.
“Our bodies were feeling a little better after the day off yesterday and everyone’s getting fired up about Friday night,” Hosick said. “We knew this was our last shot to do everything.”
YSU’s helmet-only practice will take place Wednesday from 4-6 p.m. in either Stambaugh Stadium or WATTS, depending on the weather. YSU’s Red and White Spring Game will be at Stambaugh Stadium on Friday at 7:30 p.m.