YSU opens MVFC play with top-10 showdown at South Dakota State
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YOUNGSTOWN -- Through three games, the Youngstown State football team has seen both positives and negatives on all three sides of the ball.
In the opener against Mercyhurst, YSU's offense shined, while special teams fell short at times. In the road trip to Kentucky, the defense struggled to produce stops, while the offense couldn't complete drives. Then last week vs. Duquesne, the Penguins showed significant growth in all three facets.
As YSU prepares for a top-10 showdown in its Missouri Valley Football Conference opener, the Penguins will need to put it all together to be at their best in all three phases if they hope to spring the upset at 7 p.m. (ESPN+/570 WKBN) on Saturday night in Brookings, S.D., at No. 2 South Dakota State.
"Can you do it against the best? And we have an opportunity to do it against the best," head coach Doug Phillips said. "It comes down to the work that you put in starting in January. Season ends, you come back in January, you have these goals you want to achieve, and now those opportunities are here. I still think we're going to get better defensively each week, and I've seen improvement from our special teams.
"It comes down to the execution we've been working on for the last seven months, and now we get to put it in action. So that sense of urgency, we say pressure, good. I hope there's pressure on them because that means there's an expectation that we have to play a certain level, play to a certain standard. And you're playing against the best team in our league probably over the last six years."
Both YSU and SDSU have had similar starts to the season, with two wins against fellow FCS opponents and one road loss to an FBS foe.
In two games against FCS foes, the Jackrabbits averaged 63.5 points per game, while the Penguins scored 56.5 points per game. Defensively in that span, SDSU allowed 10.5 points compared to 11.5 for YSU.
"[Special teams] Coach [Thomas] Fletcher always talks about the hidden yardage, so whether that's on special teams or the defense getting off the field fast, we're going to have to work as one in order to win this game," fifth-year defensive back Raleigh Collins III said. "They're not going to make mistakes, so we can't really beat ourselves.
"Playing Kentucky, we saw a lot of holes in our defense. I think if we can fix those and correct those now, playing South Dakota State and starting with them in conference play, I think it really gets us an advantage further into conference [play]."
This week's matchup against the Jacks kicks off what promises to be a daunting conference slate. Over the next eight games, YSU will face five teams that are ranked in this week's Stats Perform FCS Top 25 rankings, four of which are ranked in the top 10.
With former league power North Dakota State now in the Mountain West at the FBS level, the MVFC is more wide open than it has been in a number of years, and the Penguins hope they can be the ones to rise to the top and challenge for the league title.
But that magnifies the importance of each conference matchup, and YSU is faced with what could be its toughest MVFC contest of the season in a night-game environment at SDSU.
"Every week, we look at the opponent the same," Collins III said. "We just want to go 1-0 every week, no matter what the logo is. The Missouri Valley is the best conference in FCS football, so we're not going to take any week lightly. We're just treating everybody the same and just playing to our standards."
Just like last week against Duquesne, YSU is approaching this week like it's a "get-back game," according to senior center Matt Keeley.
For the older players on the team, the Penguins' 63-13 blowout loss to the Jackrabbits in 2024 during its last trip to Brookings is still in the back of their minds. Plus, YSU blew a 10-point halftime lead to SDSU during last year's meeting at Stambaugh Stadium.
"They could've easily put 70 on us, and I think the guys that played there remember that," Phillips said. "It wasn't pretty. We got a lot of new players, so we've gotta teach them what the MVFC looks like. Every week is important. Every week is a battle [with] the physicality, the great football that you're going to see and the great coaching that you're going against.
"So for us, it's a great challenge and we've gotta rise up. It's Week 4, starting league play against the No. 2 team in the country. It's at their [house] in a night game, and I think they said it's a whiteout. So we've gotta have our guys ready to play and play fast when it comes to Saturday night."