BO KNOWS SUCCESS

By Charles Grove

cgrove@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

This is the kind of season Youngstown State University hoped to get when it hired Bo Pelini in December 2014.

Last year’s 5-6 campaign can be chalked up mostly to a team getting used to a new coaching staff and vice versa.

This year, the stars appear to be aligned.

“The public measure of a coach is wins and losses, but sometimes when you’re in positions like mine, the measurement is what your kids ultimately think of the head coach and how much they enjoy playing for him,” said Ron Strollo, YSU athletic director.

“Clearly, our players are committed to him and are following him. They’re feeling good about their experience here, and ultimately that’s what’s important.”

The Penguins are feeling good at 10-3 this year and with a win over Wofford today, YSU would be just two wins away from its first national championship since 1997.

“[Bo] is doing well at Youngstown State, and I think many expected him to do well there,” said Zach Barnett, college football writer at FootballScoop.com.

Pelini had a bit of a roller-coaster past at his last head-coaching position at Nebraska where he coached from 2007 until November 2014. He never won fewer than nine games in a season, but didn’t win a conference championship, and many fans felt he never won the “big” games.

Nebraska let Pelini go, but they’re now on the hook until February 2019, paying Pelini $150,000 per month as part of the separation package.

That made him affordable on YSU’s salary of just $213,894 a year as a base salary for a head coach.

Pelini was also known for his temper tantrums, and many speculated that had as much – if not more – to do with his firing from Nebraska than his lack of “big” wins.

During a game in November 2010, Pelini was seen screaming at officials and his quarterback on the sideline. Leaked voice recordings on two occasions of Pelini making profane comments only further heaped scorn from many Nebraska fans.

That same Pelini temper showed up last season when Youngstown State narrowly missed upsetting North Dakota State at home.

After a questionable pass-interference call against the Penguins set up a Bison touchdown with seconds to go, Pelini drew two personal fouls on YSU’s last possession that effectively ended any chance the team had of a miracle comeback.

Pelini’s postgame comments drew more than 121,000 views on YSU’s YouTube channel, where more typical games like YSU’s win over Southern Illinois this year drew only 630 views.

Strollo believes the media sometimes uses a broad brush when painting the picture of Pelini.

“I think Pelini gets portrayed in the media in a way like Youngstown,” Strollo said. “Youngstown always gets portrayed as abandoned steel mills and abandoned houses. Maybe that’s what we were in the ’70s, but it’s not what we are now.

“Bo gets painted as this guy always yelling and screaming, but that’s not him on a day-to-day basis at all. There’s often times at practices you don’t even realize he’s there.”

Whatever the portrayal, wins cure all, and this year Pelini is doing exactly that. This is YSU’s first double-digit-win season since 2006, the last time the Penguins made the playoffs.

Still, a quick Google search of Bo Pelini brings up a seemingly endless supply of rumors from college football websites all commenting on where the Cardinal Mooney High School graduate could land next.

Barnett believes Pelini isn’t going to leave for just any job. He was rumored to be interested in the Purdue vacancy during this season, but that came and went. That position was filled by now-former Western Kentucky head coach Jeff Brohm.

“I haven’t heard [Bo’s] name really pop up much recently,” Barnett said. “I don’t know if that means nobody is really pursuing him or if the schools that are available don’t really fit his profile.

Currently, there are six coaching vacancies in the FBS, the level Nebraska plays in and one level above where YSU plays.

Cincinnati, South Florida, Temple, Florida Atlantic and Western Kentucky all are in need of coaches, and if you dig deep enough in the internet, you’ll probably find someone linking Pelini’s name to each of those jobs.

“He’s probably not leaving for a [Mid-American Conference] job since he’s already home at Youngstown,” Barnett said.

Brian Towle, a manager and writer who covers recruiting on CornNation.com, a Nebraska Cornhuskers website, covered Pelini during his time at Nebraska and thinks his reputation may have faded since his departure.

“I think he’s been a little forgotten since he left Lincoln, but only because he didn’t do a whole lot last year at YSU,” Towle said. “As time has gone on, it seems like folks remember him here less and less.”

Towle believes Pelini is best suited for the type of job he has now. A smaller school where more time can be spent on game-planning, like YSU, is where Towle believes Pelini can really flourish.

Barnett believes if Pelini were to leave for a bigger job, it would be up to him to dictate his national narrative.

“I think it would depend on how Bo plays it,” Barnett said. “Would he be the same Bo that blows up at refs, media and fans at the first sign of trouble or would he play it differently? We know he has personality and a sense of humor.”

But if Pelini did wind up in the Big 10 again, it certainly would create an interesting narrative if Nebraska was on his schedule.

“I think, especially if the job was in the [Big 10] West Division, there’d be some interest in how Pelini would do with lesser talent than he had in Lincoln for sure,” Towle said.