Brungard, Gilbert post career days as YSU crushes Indiana State
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After winning its third straight game on Saturday, the Youngstown State football team's confidence level is getting higher and higher as it gets deeper into the season.
Beau Brungard did it with his arm, while Jaden Gilbert did it with his legs, as both players had career-best days for the Penguins, which crushed Indiana State 57-24 at Memorial Stadium in Terre Haute, Ind.
"I think the importance of going 1-0 and being able to go on the road two weeks in a row and get these wins, I think that gives you confidence," YSU head coach Doug Phillips said in a phone interview. "It's October. We want to be playing our best football in November, and in October, you gotta go earn it.
"It's great getting this momentum the last three weeks. I still believe games are won by what you do Monday through Friday, and we gotta continue to do that. We'll learn from this, we'll put it behind us and we'll get ready for the next one. But we're going to enjoy this for the seven-hour bus trip back home."
Coming off an uncharacteristically sluggish performance last week, YSU's (5-2, 3-1 MVFC) offense lit the Sycamores (2-5, 0-3 MVFC) on fire, racking up a season-high 696 total yards.
Gilbert got it rolling early on the ground, rushing for 150 yards and three touchdowns in the first half alone, which included a 65-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. He finished with a career-high 163 yards on 15 carries.
"It just started throughout the week during practice," Gilbert said. "The word that we had was 'urgency.' The practice execution that we had and the preparation, it was good. We went day-by-day, practiced hard and it showed out here Saturday being able to just come out [the way we did]."
After Gilbert got it started on the ground, things opened up in the passing game for Brungard and the receivers.
Brungard completed 25-of-34 of passes for three touchdowns and a career-high 386 yards. He also added two rushing touchdowns, which broke the school's career record of 55 rushing touchdowns set by Adrian Brown in 1999.
Lynn Wyche-El also had his third 100-yard receiving game of the season, hauling in 10 receptions from Brungard for 118 yards and a touchdown.
"It feels good anytime you see your guys having success on the field," Phillips said. "It takes those five interior guys on that offensive line to do their jobs, the perimeter blocking maybe to allow an explosive play. So a lot goes into it. Sometimes an individual reaps the rewards, but it's a collective of people that put them in that situation and help them achieve those personal bests."
Early on, with how Indiana State was throwing the ball, the contest had the makings of a shootout. But the defense eventually settled in.
Midway through the second quarter, Sycamores' backup quarterback Brady Allen had already thrown for 234 yards. He had just 65 passing yards the rest of the afternoon.
"I feel like we just had more focus," YSU linebacker Mike Wells said. "We emphasized our focus. It wasn't there at the beginning of the game, and we can't afford a start like that in the game, no matter who we're playing. So I really just wanted to emphasize that to the guys that we can't keep doing this, and we gotta get better at that."
YSU took away the Sycamores' run game early. Outside of a 37-yard touchdown run by Max McCool in the third quarter, ISU finished with minus-8 rushing yards on 27 carries.
"Defensively, they had enough film on us and saw certain areas that they wanted to attack passing the ball. But it's hard to be one-dimensional, and I was proud of our defense in stopping the run. But we can't give up that many explosives," Phillips said. "In the third and fourth quarters, are we finishing games? So again, it wasn't pretty and it wasn't perfect. But I thought the effort was there, and when you go on the road in the Missouri Valley, sometimes you gotta grind it out and walk away with a win, and I thought we were able to do that today."