Youngstown State had an opportunity to make an early statement in the Missouri Valley Football Conference race, but the Penguins let it slip through their fingers.
No. 2 South Dakota State overpowered YSU in the trenches, and despite losing its starting quarterback to injury, held on to down the ninth-ranked Penguins 27-20 on Saturday evening at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium in Brookings, S.D.
“There’s no consolation prize. There isn’t. We gotta learn from this. We gotta get better,” YSU head coach Doug Phillips said in his post-game press conference. “The one thing about Missouri Valley football, you gotta be ready to go on Monday and clear it, learn from it and make the adjustments. I always say you gotta learn and you gotta apply it in practice. Apply it next Saturday and continue to press forward, and I know our young men will do that.
“I thought the effort was there for four quarters tonight. Just the fundamentals and execution, we gotta get a lot better.”
YSU had no answer for Jackrabbits tailback Josiah Johnson, who carried the ball 30 times for 238 yards and two touchdowns.
SDSU starting quarterback Chase Mason went down with an injury on the Jacks’ last offensive possession of the first half. He went to the locker room early before halftime, and even though he came back out on the field in the second half, he never re-entered the game.
With backup Josh Holst in the game, SDSU turned to Johnson, who had 182 of his yards in the second half after scoring the Jacks’ first touchdown on their opening possession of the game.
“We weren’t able to get the run game going. They were able to get the run game going. We gotta figure that out because they just ran the ball,” Phillips said. “We gotta figure out how to stop the run, and we will. We’ve been in this position before.”
Offensively, YSU had to play from behind most of the night after Johnson and the Jackrabbits went right down the field to start the game.
The Penguins never got the run game going and finished with just 76 yards on the ground.
That forced YSU to take to the air to move the ball, as quarterback Beau Brungard completed 27 of his 35 passes for 292 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Lynn Wyche-El continued his strong start to the season with his second 100-yard receiving game. He finished with 114 yards and a touchdown on seven receptions.
“They did a great job. We felt off-rhythm the whole game, and I give them credit,” YSU head coach Doug Phillips said in his post game press conference. “Our offense, I just felt like we were off. Not what you would imagine, and it still was a one-possession, two-possession game. I just felt like we weren’t working on all cylinders, and they had a lot to do with that. Good team, great team. For us, I wanted to see better execution from our offense. We knew field goals weren’t going to win. You gotta score touchdowns.”
Early on, SDSU looked to be on the verge of taking a 14-0 lead in the first quarter. The Jacks drove all the way to the goal line, but a fumble into the end zone was recovered by the Penguins for a touchback.
That gave YSU new life. Brungard guided the offense down the field and the Penguins got on the board with a 39-yard field goal by Andrew Lastovka.
After a defensive stop, YSU drove 94 yards, scoring on an 11-yard touchdown pass from Brungard to tight end Alex McDonald to take its first and only lead of the night.
SDSU answered with an 18-yard touchdown run by Mason to retake the lead, and the Jackrabbits added a field goal before halftime after an tipped interception by Brungard.
Trailing by seven at the break, YSU got the ball to start the second half, but failed to score. SDSU turned to Johnson and went up 14 soon thereafter.
“You want to come out in that third quarter, and we gotta score,” Phillips said. “You defer to get that ball. 17-10 ballgame, and we got to midfield. I felt like they did a great job getting pressure on the quarterback. [Brungard] doesn’t get sacked often. I thought they did a great job of containing him. But you gotta score touchdowns on that first drive and tie the game up and make it a 60-minute game and not keep fighting from behind.”
With about two minutes left, YSU made a decision down by 10. With the ball in the red zone, the Penguins elected to kick a field goal to make it a one-possession game and play the clock game to try to get the ball back.
But Johnson gashed YSU with two chunk runs to put SDSU in the red zone and put the game on ice as the Jacks ran out the clock.
“We needed two possessions, you know that, and to get three points there with the chance to get the ball back and have an opportunity to score,” Phillips said. “Regardless, you need the ball twice. So with time on the clock, I thought, let’s kick the field goal there with two timeouts, try the onside kick and try to get a steal of possession. … So, end of the game, when you need two possessions, you take the quickest thing.”
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