Penguins a surprise guest in title game

By Charles Grove | December 19, 2016 at 12:05a.m.

cheney, wash.

This is not a Youngstown State football team that anyone expected to be making the trip to Frisco, Texas this January to play for a national championship.

With a come-from-behind win over Eastern Washington in the semifinals of the FCS playoffs in the coldest game YSU has ever played in, the Penguins are now one step away from immortality.

The hope may have been there, the belief that it could happen may have been there. But you’d be hard pressed to find a YSU fan who expected the Penguins to be in the position they now find themselves.

The goal of a national title is something this team has brought up in interviews all year long. Every team says they want to win a national title, but this team often brought up the idea of a national championship nonchalantly, as if it isn’t that big of a deal.

“It’s been the ultimate goal from August,” YSU quarterback Hunter Wells said. “It was just a matter of bringing it together.”

The Penguins should’ve lost at Illinois State before the defense made two goal-line stands and the offense scored 17 fourth-quarter points to pull out a victory.

They should’ve lost against Northern Iowa when offensive coordinator Shane Montgomery had to rush down from the upstairs booth to give the hand signals for last-resort quarterback Nathan Mays in what turned to out to be a 14-10 win with Martin Ruiz scoring a last-minute touchdown.

YSU should’ve lost on Homecoming against Indiana State when the offense could not string together a touchdown drive and it took Darien Townsend’s fourth-quarter, 79-yard punt return to give the Penguins another come-from-behind win.

This is a team that did lose, pretty handily, to both South Dakota State and North Dakota State, not putting up much of a fight in either game in pretty hostile environments.

The Penguins were supposed to blow it the final two weeks of the season when a playoff berth was still not quite solidified. But wins over Southern Illinois and Missouri State ended the nightmares of Penguin fans who had seen their team slip up the last few weeks of so many seasons before when the playoffs fell just out of grasp.

YSU was supposed to lose to the third-seeded Jacksonville State Gamecocks with their highly-touted defense and electrifying quarterback in Eli Jenkins. But Hunter Wells had a field day with the JSU secondary throwing for 290 yards as the Penguins ran away with it and moved to the quarterfinals.

The Penguins were supposed to lose against Wofford when kicker Zak Kennedy went one-for-four from field goal attempts and the Terriers were knocking on the door in overtime. But a gutsy fourth-down call by Wofford came up snake eyes and YSU held on to get the win in double overtime.

YSU was supposed to lose to Eastern Washington. The Eagles were the two seed, they had the most prolific passer the FCS has ever seen in terms of yardage in Gage Gubrud and one of the best wide receivers the FCS has ever seen in Cooper Kupp.

The Penguins were also playing without five pretty significant skill-position players. Darien Townsend, Jameel Smith, LeRoy Alexander, Robert Byrd and Martin Ruiz were all not with the team. YSU was putting two-second string safeties up against the best passing attack in the FCS.

YSU should’ve lost when EWU was up 31-20 midway through the third quarter when Billy Nicoe Hurst, one of the second-stringers filling in for Alexander, came up with an interception at the goal line as the Eagles looked to be sealing the game and cruising to a date against James Madison.

The Penguins should’ve lost when they gave up their fourth-quarter lead against EWU just over two minutes after taking a 34-31 lead on one of Tevin McCaster’s three rushing touchdowns.

To Wells, those weeks just show the determination of this team that seemingly can’t be stopped.

“It just shows the will we have where we want to get better every week,” Wells said. “We don’t stop. We find a way to win. We’re never too high or too low.”

Even perfect defense can’t stop YSU.

“I knew going off the line if he threw me the ball I had to come down with it,” YSU tight end Kevin Rader said of his astounding one-handed catch with a second to go to give the Penguins the win in Spokane. “The defender walled me off and played me perfectly.”

And now, the Penguins are a team that — perhaps on paper — shouldn’t beat James Madison. The Penguins are the unseeded team while the Dukes are seeded fourth. The Dukes just went into the FargoDome and handed it to the Bison where the Penguins waddled home on the short end of a 24-3 defeat.

Coaches and players love to throw the phrase “overcoming adversity” around. It’s a safe thing to say to reporters that has some meaning to it yet it’s just vague enough to apply to nearly every team in the country.

But it’s not really meaningless in this case with the Penguins. This team has gone through four quarterbacks this year and the one leading them now was asking for his release just a few weeks ago.

This is a team that is now dealing with how to get around not having some of their best playmakers on both sides of the ball.

So what’s one more game of adversity?

If YSU can get this far overcoming this much adversity over most of the season, it’s clear this team isn’t easily fazed.

“It speaks for itself,” YSU head coach Bo Pelini said. “It’s been that way all year long.”