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DEFENSE RULES
Both offenses struggle to score points
By charles grove
youngstown
Defense prevailed as the Youngstown State football team’s spring season culminated with the annual Red and White Spring Game Friday at Stambaugh Stadium.
Scoring was at a premium as many Penguins fans got their first glimpse at this fall’s upcoming football team. Neither team lit up the scoreboard as the Red team beat the White team, 10-7.
The first quarter had almost elapsed before a first down was registered. The play that finally keep the punter on the sideline was a pass from Trent Hosick that was thrown behind a tight end over the middle that receiver I’tavious Harvin caught off a deflection.
First-year defensive coordinator Carl Pelini said his players have really embraced his new style of defense that encapsulates the entire unit and blending younger players with returners helped the defense flex their muscles.
“We really push these guys to learn multiple positions and understand it conceptually and so they almost become interchangeable,” Pelini said. “Communication was great tonight because we had guys playing even though we had guys playing out of position the guys handled it great.”
Head coach Bo Pelini, Carl’s brother, said this year’s defense is much farther along than last year’s defense. He thinks this fall’s defensive unit could be one of the best around.
“It’s not even in the same ballpark [as last year],” Bo Pelini said. “We’re miles ahead of where we were a year ago with the defensive side of the ball and I think we have a chance to be very, very good on the defensive side of the football,”
Wide receiver Darien Townsend went out after taking a hit in the first quarter. Pelini said he may have broken his collarbone on the play but hadn’t confirmed yet. Even with a broken collarbone, Townsend would still be able to go for the regular season, according to Pelini.
As far as the quarterbacks, all four were given almost exactly the same amount of playing time. Hosick and Hunter Wells did little throughout, but Ricky Davis started moving the Red team’s offense during the second quarter, mostly with his legs.
Davis ran much more often than he threw. He scampered for an 11-yard gain his first snap and guided the offense to the 3-yard-line before the offense failed to punch it in, settling for a 22-yard Zak Kennedy field goal.
Davis continued to impress later on with another first-down rush on third and 10 before finding Kevin Rader on a crossing route to move the sticks again.
In the fourth quarter, Davis hit Isiah Scott deep for a 67-yard touchdown strike — the first touchdown for either team.
“I saw [Scott] one-on-one and I’ve been working on timing with him all offseason so when I saw that matchup I took it,” Davis said.
The time the receivers have been putting in with the quarterbacks on off days paid real dividends on that play, according to Davis.
“The no-days-off mentality is what we’ve got and we need it because receivers aren’t our biggest strength right now,” Davis said. “The fact that those guys are willing to go out on their days off and want to get better says millions to me.”
The white team erupted for a quick answer after the Red score with Nathan Mays under center. Mays found Joe Alessi for a 35-yard completion on the opening play and then Mays took it himself for a 40-yard touchdown run the next play.
Pelini said the quarterback competition will likely go down until the final week before the regular season kicks off.
“I think all the quarterbacks had a good spring,” Pelini said. “We played a lot of receivers and moved guys around and that’s not always the best case scenario for the quarterbacks. The competition will likely go down until the week before the first game and then we’ll be able to name a starter.”
Despite the lack of forward progress on offense for the majority of the evening, Pelini said his team still has plenty of time to get healthy and improve.
“We have 29 more practices before we play a game for real and we’ll have guys coming back healthy and some other guys coming in,” Pelini said. “We had five offensive linemen on both sides so we stayed fairly basic on both sides.
“We didn’t have a full compliment of tight ends on either side so we were limited in what we could do.”