Ed Puskas: YSU win was all about control

Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

It also was pretty important in the FCS semifinal between Youngstown State and Eastern Washington on Saturday night.

The best way for the Penguins to stop one of the nation’s most prolific passing attacks was to keep the ball themselves for extended periods and, of course, punctuate those possessions with points.

YSU did that well late in the first half after falling behind 24-10 to get within a touchdown at halftime. And the Penguins did it exceptionally well in the second half.

But most of the first half belonged to EWU quarterback Gage Gubrud and All-America wide receiver Cooper Kupp, who dominated an outmanned YSU secondary. Gubrud had 243 yards and two touchdown passes and Kupp had eight catches for 155 yards and two scores by halftime.

But the Eagles’ star players barely got on the field in the second half.

YSU (12-3) dominated second-half possession, controlling the ball for 12:06 of the third quarter and 11:39 of the fourth. The Penguins managed only Zak Kennedy’s 20-yard field goal in the third, but made their fourth-quarter possessions count with the game on the line.

Quarterback Hunter Wells sandwiched touchdown passes of 11 yards to Alvin Bailey and 5 yards to Kevin Rader around running back Tevin McCaster’s 12-yard TD run — his third of the game — as YSU scored touchdowns on each of its last three possessions to stun EWU.

The one everyone will remember, of course, will forever be known as The Catch.

Move over, Dwight Clark. The Catch — at least in Youngstown — now belongs to Rader, who cradled the biggest reception of his life against the back of EWU linebacker Ketner Kupp as both players and the ball met simultaneously in the back of the end zone. The Catch put the Penguins in the FCS title game against James Madison on Jan. 7 in Frisco, Texas.

Rader and the Penguins have been the toast of Twitter and the talk of the sports world ever since.

That play capped an incredible comeback and turned the game into an instant classic. Some are arguing its merits as the greatest game in YSU football history. That’s heady talk for a program that has won four national championships and will play in its eighth NCAA championship game next month.

But if that wasn’t the best game in Penguins football history, it may well have been the most satisfying, especially after the week second-year YSU head coach Bo Pelini and his players had. No matter where the Penguins went, the S-word — suspensions — followed them.

With what ended up being five players — four of them starters — sidelined, few observers gave YSU a chance to beat EWU (12-2) on the Eagles’ red turf at Roos Field in Cheney, Wash.

But I’ve seen “unstoppable” western offenses before and watched teams better built for this time of year beat them.

I saw it in Cheney in 1997, when another underdog YSU team beat another soft EWU team in a Division I-AA semifinal. I saw it in the Rose Bowl in 2010, when Jim Tressel’s Ohio State team dominated a favored Oregon team. Urban Meyer’s Buckeyes did it again to the Ducks in 2015.

The difference in each game — and again Saturday night — was an offensive line that imposed its will on the opposition. The Penguins’ line of Justin Spencer, Gavin Wiggins, Vitas Hrynkiewicz, Brock Eisenhuth and Dylan Colucci controlled the line of scrimmage, gave McCaster (29 carries, 154 yards) and Jody Webb (21 carries, 101 yards) room to run and protected Wells (16 of 24, 244 yards, 2 TDs).

And most importantly, they helped keep Gubrud and Kupp off the field. YSU ran 80 offensive plays to EWU’s 56. When all was said and done, the Penguins held the ball for 39 minutes and 20 seconds, almost twice as long as the Eagles had it. The lack of a competent run game and the inability of its defense to stop the run did in EWU.

But YSU’s defense made some big plays. Safeties Jalyn Powell and Billy Nicoe Hurst — emergency starters — each had an interception. Powell — a Warren Harding graduate — was the Penguins’ leading tackler with nine.

And let’s not forget kicker Zak Kennedy, who missed three field goals and an extra point against Wofford last week. The Cardinal Mooney graduate made both of his field goals and all four PAT kicks in the bitter cold against EWU.

Possession is everything in football and the Penguins possessed the ball the way they had to against EWU.

And YSU, despite adversity on and off the field this season, ultimately possessed a team built to win in the most wonderful time of the year — the playoffs.

It’s almost as if we’ve seen this blueprint before.

Write Vindicator Sports Editor Ed Puskas at epuskas@vindy.com and follow him on Twitter, @EdPuskas_Vindy.