Fire Pelini

[ysubigred]

No money game this year and basically not one next year, so I do not see having two money games as a doable thing. Although it would allow us to buy out Bo.

Seems we should have put more stock into the fact that Nebraska was willing to pay that much money to get rid of Bo.

How tight can money be if we are adding sports?

Yea there probably is some fat that could be trimmed in the AD Dept as is true with most schools.

 With that said I can see where the powers to be would take a chance on Bo, big-time name, seemingly great resume, yadda yadda yadda, now the inevitable BUT.  Disappointed that the folks in charge did not or could not see the direction of the program and gave an extension.

Sometimes when you mess up the best thing to do is suck it up, fix it and move on.

I feel bad for the seniors, they will be looking at empty seats for their last home game.

Why feel bad for the seniors? Looks to me like they quit playing and don't give a sh**. Empty stadium is what they want. Yeah the coaching staff sucks but when you quit as a player that tells me a lot about the character and culture they came from.

[gbs20]

Enrollment is down and has been.  Adding sports is a way to increase enrollment.  The new mens swim/dive team is a perfect example.  Few if any of the 25 man team are on full scholarship.  Most if all would not be at YSU were it not for the new team. So they basically give a partial, probably funded by the Foundation and the student pays the rest.  The cost of the program is minimal because the facilities are in place. Its actually a money maker and an enrollment generator.

[Wick250]

Some DIII schools actually offer many more sports than we do.  They have found that high school athletes that play relatively fringe sports will actually pay for the privilege of continuing their careers on the college level.  GBS20 is absolutely correct.  Adding low scholarship sports helps more than it hinders.  Another example is the new lacrosse program.  In a radio interview, the coach stated that she has more than 20 commitments for next year from players all across the country.

[IAA Fan]

I would not say it is related to enrollment, as much as it is a part of scholarship & title-IX. The NCAA requires a certain number of scholarships, at a DI university, be for women. A school must also have have a fair balance between men's and women's scholarships. Swimming & Diving is not a head-count sport like men's Basketball or FBS/IA football. We can use equivalents & get a higher scholarship count with less money being spent. I think it also has to do with increasing the demand for housing, which will allow us to more rapidly expand the campus.

[gbs20]

The statement was made that the Athletic Department cant be in too much financial difficulty because they are adding sports, implying that they could have the resources to buy out Pelini. My point is that adding sports adds revenue/enrollment  to the university because the fact that they funded by partial scholarships. IAA fan is right, it will also help to fill up student housing. They may also incentivize developers to continue to build new apartments. Pelini's contract may also have a buy out clause in it that is defines a fixed amount if terminated. It may also have a clause that negates any buyout if he gets another job because that job will likely pay more than what he makes at YSU, unlike what happened when he came to YSU from Nebraska. In other words, a buyout of Pelini is likely not to cost YSU much if anything unless he decides to sit and do nothing until the contract expires.

[guinpen]

No money game this year and basically not one next year, so I do not see having two money games as a doable thing. Although it would allow us to buy out Bo.

Seems we should have put more stock into the fact that Nebraska was willing to pay that much money to get rid of Bo.

How tight can money be if we are adding sports?

Yea there probably is some fat that could be trimmed in the AD Dept as is true with most schools.

 With that said I can see where the powers to be would take a chance on Bo, big-time name, seemingly great resume, yadda yadda yadda, now the inevitable BUT.  Disappointed that the folks in charge did not or could not see the direction of the program and gave an extension.

Sometimes when you mess up the best thing to do is suck it up, fix it and move on.

I feel bad for the seniors, they will be looking at empty seats for their last home game.

Why feel bad for the seniors? Looks to me like they quit playing and don't give a sh**. Empty stadium is what they want. Yeah the coaching staff sucks but when you quit as a player that tells me a lot about the character and culture they came from.

Maybe your correct but I am not willing to paint with a wide brush, yes some may want an empty stadium to prove a point but I doubt all do.

[guinpen]

The statement was made that the Athletic Department cant be in too much financial difficulty because they are adding sports, implying that they could have the resources to buy out Pelini. My point is that adding sports adds revenue/enrollment  to the university because the fact that they funded by partial scholarships. IAA fan is right, it will also help to fill up student housing. They may also incentivize developers to continue to build new apartments. Pelini's contract may also have a buy out clause in it that is defines a fixed amount if terminated. It may also have a clause that negates any buyout if he gets another job because that job will likely pay more than what he makes at YSU, unlike what happened when he came to YSU from Nebraska. In other words, a buyout of Pelini is likely not to cost YSU much if anything unless he decides to sit and do nothing until the contract expires.

I was not suggesting that the money being spent on a swim team was equal to what we pay Bo. My point was that in my life, at a time when money was tight, we cut back in all areas and new spending was out of the question. I would expect any public entity to use the same thinking.

[ytownchief22]

The players have quit, Bo has run out of answers. Time for a new voice.

[Double ET]

Questions surround collapse of Penguins

YSU SPORTS
NOV 13, 2019

JOE SIMON
Sports Reporter
jsimon@tribtoday.com
 
 
YOUNGSTOWN — There are plenty of fingers being pointed by followers of the Youngstown State football team on what’s going wrong.


Defense. Offense. Coaches. Players.

Fans have taken to social media to call out the litany of issues and who’s to blame. The Penguins are pointing fingers as well — right at themselves.

Coach Bo Pelini admitted that losing five of the last six, including back-to-back lopsided losses, falls squarely on him.

“I apologize to everybody associated with this program,” said Pelini about YSU’s 56-21 loss to South Dakota last Saturday, which came after a 56-17 loss the week prior. “That’s unacceptable, and I’m responsible for it. I’m sick about it, and we’ve got to come out and play well Saturday and get some things fixed.”

Pelini isn’t the only one accepting blame.

No one knows the struggles of a defense that has given up 112 points in the last two games much better than Kyle Hegedus. The starting free safety is at the apex of a secondary that has been picked apart for much of the season. The senior also is the man who makes most of the calls to get the defense aligned, and thus he must take the wrath of Pelini when things go wrong.

They’ve gone wrong a lot lately.

“Point blank, we’re just not executing as a whole,” Hegedus said. “The way our defense is built, all 11 guys need to do their job. You have one guy who doesn’t do their job or isn’t aligned correctly, fits a block where they’re not supposed to, it messes up the whole defense.

“Overall, it’s just a lack of execution,” he added. “The coaches do a great job, I think it’s more communication on us players. That’s really where it lies. It’s not that they’re not teaching us correctly or not teaching us the right things. They’re putting us in the best position that they can, we’re just not executing up to our standards right now.”

YSU fell to 5-5 after Saturday’s loss, but more importantly the Penguins dropped to 1-5 in the Missouri Valley Football Conference and out of the FCS playoff picture.

Pelini understands that “playing for pride,” as he put it, isn’t what anyone expected, especially after a 4-0 start, but the Penguins have regressed as the year has gone on. The offense has lost its physical, run-first identity (rushing for 62 yards last week), and the defense has been shredded through the air and on the ground (two players ran for more than 100 yards, and the quarterback threw for four touchdowns last week).

The defensive-minded Pelini is mystified by it all.

“We didn’t do anything well the other day,” he said of the defense. “We lined up wrong in just basic calls. I had to call three timeouts in the first half because we weren’t lined up. The one time we were getting ready to blitz, and we weren’t even covered down (to compensate for the blitz), so I ran over and called timeout. We had 22 missed tackles. So, it was a comedy of errors, and it’s unacceptable.

“… We’re trying to turn over every stone, and we’re doing everything we possibly can to get this thing turned around.”

The Penguins travel to face another team looking for answers.

Indiana State is 3-7 and 1-5 in the MVFC. The Sycamores have lost four straight. Much like YSU, they were expected to contend for a playoff berth before losing their starting quarterback (ISU in Week 4; YSU in Week 9) and both teams’ only league win came against lowly Western Illinois.

Indiana State has played some of the conference’s better teams closely the last two weeks, while the Penguins have been outscored 112-38. Pelini said he’s considering giving younger players more playing time, but he said he must be careful not to put them in a position they’re not ready for.

“In all three phases, we’re also trying to weigh the possibility of playing some younger guys where possible,” he said. “You also don’t want to put them in there when they’re not ready. They’re on scout team in some cases. You have to weigh the benefits of putting them in there to get some experience, or do you wait until spring ball to get them going?

“This freshmen class we have is really talented,” he added. “It’s probably our best recruiting class from top to bottom. You don’t want to do it at the expense of them and of giving yourself the best chance to win.”

It’s a position Pelini and the Penguins never envisioned they would be in.

[FOOTBALLFEVER]

WE LINED UP WRONG IN BASIC CALLS? Coach time to start recruiting football IQ and disciplined players. If you have to give up some talent and athleticism so be it. Out of the 7 cardinal mooney players on the active roster does anyone know how many are under scholarship? Seems like a high number for a Division 4 program that has been mediocre at best for several years. Most schools that size are lucky to send 1 student athlete to a Division 1 football program every 5 years

[peteonastick]

WE LINED UP WRONG IN BASIC CALLS? Coach time to start recruiting football IQ and disciplined players. If you have to give up some talent and athleticism so be it. Out of the 7 cardinal mooney players on the active roster does anyone know how many are under scholarship? Seems like a high number for a Division 4 program that has been mediocre at best for several years. Most schools that size are lucky to send 1 student athlete to a Division 1 football program every 5 years

Recruiting??  Bo doesn't recruit!  He relies on his assistants to do that.  Just what I had stated before.  Start recruiting athletes..not just football players!!  Track, wrestling, baseball, basketball players that play football.  Multi sport ATHLETES!  Competitive kids..not football players.  We never recruited the DelGarbino kid from Girard who was a state champion and runner up in wrestling at heavyweight and ended up wrestling at Princeton.  Don't care if he was not FCS lineman material..he could have played eventually at YSU because he was an ATHLETE. DEVELOPMENT OF PLAYERS IS DEAD AT YSU!  THEY NEED TO LEARN FROM MOUNT UNION!!  Another one is Jake Esarco from Canfield.  Multiple state placer in wrestling at 220lbs at Canfield and football lineman.  Went to Colgate to play football but was never offered at YSU.  Started 4 years at Colgate at D line.  Another smart, hard nosed kid who we didn't even attempt to offer him.  Football IQ, hard nosed, local talent, ATHLETES!  Never offered or looked at. 

[The YO Show]

The best part is pelini said the current group of freshman on the team was his best recruiting class yet. I really hope it is actually really good but I'm not sure...

[Kandrase]

WE LINED UP WRONG IN BASIC CALLS? Coach time to start recruiting football IQ and disciplined players. If you have to give up some talent and athleticism so be it. Out of the 7 cardinal mooney players on the active roster does anyone know how many are under scholarship? Seems like a high number for a Division 4 program that has been mediocre at best for several years. Most schools that size are lucky to send 1 student athlete to a Division 1 football program every 5 years

Recruiting??  Bo doesn't recruit!  He relies on his assistants to do that.  Just what I had stated before.  Start recruiting athletes..not just football players!!  Track, wrestling, baseball, basketball players that play football.  Multi sport ATHLETES!  Competitive kids..not football players.  We never recruited the DelGarbino kid from Girard who was a state champion and runner up in wrestling at heavyweight and ended up wrestling at Princeton.  Don't care if he was not FCS lineman material..he could have played eventually at YSU because he was an ATHLETE. DEVELOPMENT OF PLAYERS IS DEAD AT YSU!  THEY NEED TO LEARN FROM MOUNT UNION!!  Another one is Jake Esarco from Canfield.  Multiple state placer in wrestling at 220lbs at Canfield and football lineman.  Went to Colgate to play football but was never offered at YSU.  Started 4 years at Colgate at D line.  Another smart, hard nosed kid who we didn't even attempt to offer him.  Football IQ, hard nosed, local talent, ATHLETES!  Never offered or looked at.

Esarco is not really the best example though... Just because a kid could start for Colgate doesn’t mean he’s MVFC material. I’m not defending the YSU recruiting efforts I just know if I buy your Athletes over football players argument. I do agree that player development plays a huge role (or lack of) in the failure

[IAA Fan]

I cannot agree with the multi-sport athletes at the DI level. Don't get me wrong, having down linemen that can wrestle is always nice because they learn to use their hands and maybe some foot skills. That is about it. We are not a D-III school so we cannot pattern anything off of any D-III program. They need multi-sport athletes as they do not have scholarships for football. YSU is a DI program that has 63 scholarships that are just for football players and that is what we need to be recruiting ...and we are not doing so right now. I am not excited about a 220lb DL from Canfield unless he is playing in the Ohio/PA all-star game at defensive-end and rotated into the offensive backfield. I would rather spend my DL money on a kid that has a chance of getting to 320lbs. There are very few scholarships at wrestling & if he went to Princeton, he is solid in wrestling and in the classroom. Probably not a Penguin football candidate.

I hate to say it, but as Heacock found out, there are not too many quality local kids that are not going to larger programs. The days of finding real talent in the 2nd & 3rd string local players is certainly gone by now. Just how many DI schools are in the Valley these days?

[goodnews]

Therr are 30+ kids from Hudson to Salem on the roster.  I did not count Western Pa or Akron.  If u have an 80 man roster and thats how u want to fill the holes its obvious it gets u 1 to 3 wins in the MVFC.  In addition, its done nothing for attendance.