North Dakota State defeats Youngstown State 48-7

[IAA Fan]

FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- Marcus Williams returned an interception 98 yards for a touchdown Saturday to help North Dakota State blow open a close game and crush Youngstown State 48-7.

Williams stepped in front of a Kurt Hess pass at the NDSU 2 midway through the second quarter as the Penguins were driving for a possible tying score. That made it 21-7.

The defending Football Championship Subdivision champions tacked on two more touchdowns to go ahead 35-7 at halftime.

Ryan Smith and John Crockett each scored two touchdowns for the Bison (5-0, 2-0 Missouri Valley). Smith caught a TD pass from Brock Jensen and returned a punt 76 yards for a score, while Crockett ran for 103 yards.

Youngstown State (4-1, 1-1) was saddled with three turnovers, all in the first half.

The game was played before a record crowd of 19,065 at the Fargodome.



                       YOUNGSTOWN ST     NO DAKOTA ST
First downs                       12               21
Rushed-yards                   30-94           40-164
Passing yards                    117              200
Sacked-yards lost                1-8              1-6
Return yards                       0              185
Passes                       11-21-2          15-23-0
Punts                         3-52.3           2-34.0
Fumbles-lost                     1-1              1-0
Penalties-yards                 2-25             4-38
Time of possession             26:48            33:12


Individual Statistics

RUSHING: YOUNGSTOWN ST-Jamaine Cook 9-43, Torrian Pace 6-35, Adaris
Bellamy 3-8, Andrew Williams 1-5, Demond Hymes 1-3, Andre Stubbs 2-1,
Patrick Angle 1-1, Kevin Watts 1-1, Kurt Hess 6-MINUS 3. NO DAKOTA
ST-John Crockett 25-103, Derrick Lang 7-22, Deveon Dinwiddie 2-15,
Ryan Smith 1-9, Brock Jensen 3-8, Matt Jones 2-7.

PASSING: YOUNGSTOWN ST-Kurt Hess 11-20-117- 2, Patrick Angle 0-1-0- 0.
NO DAKOTA ST-Brock Jensen 15-23-200- 0.

RECEIVING: YOUNGSTOWN ST-Kintrell Disher 3-34, Nate Adams 1-24, Andre
Stubbs 1-21, Andrew Williams 2-15, Christian Bryan 1-9, Will Shaw 1-7,
Jamaine Cook 1-6, Carson Sharbaugh 1-1. NO DAKOTA ST-Ryan Smith 7-82,
Zach Vraa 3-53, Trevor Gebhart 4-50, Derrick Lang 1-15.

[HLecter]

Our defense and Special Teams  are so so bad.  can't tackle.  can't reach the QB even when we blitz.  DL did an OK job early with a pass rush-----at least they got within a yard of Jensen.

OL messed up on pass pro today as well.

too bad stupid mistakes basically took us out of our running game, we could run on them.  Something to keep in mind if we meet again.

Looks like we have to score in the low 40s every game to win it.

[Pita]

My opinion

The better team won TODAY.  Hurts me to say it.
Talked with road warriors from YSU who travelled
to Fargo.  Right after the "STAR SPANGLED BANNER"
everything went wrong.

We'll see what Illinois State tells us next week.

GO PENGUINS

[HLecter]

Again I post:  Why can't we cover and tackle?  Why are the special teams so bad.  40 a game from here on out Montgomery, or we are going to lose a couple more.

[pen4life]

And they didnt have to lie through their teeth to do it.

[ysufan0505]

The pick 6 turned the who.e game around. We score there and it's a new ball game. Hess was greedy, had a man wide open for the first. That's the worst game I've seen Hess play. Can't win on the road when you turn the ball over, just can't. Bad tackling, bad special teams again. But I know this team WILL bounce back next week.

[IAA Fan]

Hess is not greedy ...he simply does not have he ability to see any other receivers ...other the one he is supposed to throw to. Up until today, I really thought he made some huge progress this year ...but clearly this team is to ready to play against "the big boys". This is year-3 Strollo ...count them this time. This team has made absolutely no progress in 3-years ...other than what coach M has given us on offense. Now that collapsed today & could we count on any kind of defense to keep us in the game? I mean, no disrespect with what he did to us today ...but Jensen is not even close to the best QB we have faced this year.

FYI, SIU is looking good. Ripped ILS today. We will get the revenge next week. SDSU is going to "take us to the cleaners" as well.

[ysufan0505]

Hess is not greedy ...he simply does not have he ability to see any other receivers ...other the one he is supposed to throw to. Up until today, I really thought he made some huge progress this year ...but clearly this team is to ready to play against "the big boys". This is year-3 Strollo ...count them this time. This team has made absolutely no progress in 3-years ...other than what coach M has given us on offense. Now that collapsed today & could we count on any kind of defense to keep us in the game? I mean, no disrespect with what he did to us today ...but Jensen is not even close to the best QB we have faced this year.

FYI, SIU is looking good. Ripped ILS today. We will get the revenge next week. SDSU is going to "take us to the cleaners" as well.

Ok ok calm down. It was just a bad game overall. Forget this one and move on. Your overreacting a little too much. Our defense had no chance today. Regroup and move on. Gotta get ready for Ill St.

[Wick250]

There is a very good possibility that this NDSU team is special, as in the special Georgia Southern team that crushed us in the 1999 championship game or the special Appalachian team that whipped us in the 2006 semis.  They might steamroll everybody in the league and beyond through the playoffs.  Of course, I shall retract that statement if Indiana State gives them a game next week.

We have six games left: six very winnable games.  Illinois State and SDSU have good records but they have played soft schedules so far.  Indiana State has Bell but no quarterback and Southern Illinois has no offense.  South Dakota and Western Illinois are very poor.  I expect our team to "man up," get their act together, and shake off this debacle.  This advice applies to the fans too, despite how angry and betrayed we feel this evening.

[penguinpower]

Betrayed is a good word to describe how I feel about this game.  I expected that a week of preparation would have given us the advantage.  We made NDSU look better than they were, but the thing that bother's me is that we didn't play defense well enough to turn that game around for us.  We had to rely on the offense again and after the pick 6 we packed it in.....That is the part that I am pissed about. 

Special teams play is horrible.  With the explosiveness of Stubbs, Hymes, Bellamy, and Cook we should have had a least a few kicks run back this year.  Special teams are not special when they give up field position all the time, but giving up punt returns for TD's is unacceptable.  This is an area that can get you back into a game quickly or get you out of a game quickly, and it appears to be an afterthought.

No one is going to sway me in thinking otherwise: Defense wins championships.  It was on display for the coaches to take note but on the other team.  Offense is nice, really, but DEFENSE wins championships.

We supposedly have the athletes to have a good defense, but why don't we have a good defense?  We get ZERO pass rush and the LB's are a NON FACTOR.  What doesn't add up for me is that we stop the run well with our interior D linemen, but we can't get a pass rush?  Can someone explain that?  Is that not really odd? 

I thought that the secondary played better in this game.  Except for the safety giving up the flea flicker.  How difficult is it for the safety to understand that he has to play back as far as the farthest guy and as wide as the widest guy?  Or better yet, don't let anybody get behind you..  Overall, I have to give the secondary credit, they covered NDSU well otherwise, but with no pass rush, we gave their QB all day to throw and it put a lot of pressure on them which consistently put them in a bad position.

The defense is unproductive because it rarely forces TO's.  I think I have only witnessed 1 INT all year (against Div1 level competition).  It is a big deal for us to get a 3 and out.  There I said it.  Sad but true.  At the end of the day I can't honestly say that I have the confidence as a fan that the defense is going to find a way to get the ball back for us, limit the other team's scoring, and change the game.  I know that Coach is hell bent on scoring points, and I understand that teams score more today, but we are one dimensional without a bad ass defense and you will not win a title with an average defense.  I can't say that I have ever seen a team with an average defense win a title.  I expect more here.  I don't like the philosophy that we need to play defense so as not to give up more points than the offense can score.  There is a certain mentality you have to have on defense and it is:  You are not going to move the ball on me let alone score, and I am going to make you pay for any mistake you make.  Finally I am not going to let you beat me.

We certainly did not play like a national title contender.  We looked slow too.

I don't blame Hess for the INT's.  The protection broke down all day long and that caused a good QB to look average or even poor.  They rushed only 4 and caused problems.  That is something new, because it hasn't happened all year.

NDSU's game plan was simple.  Be patient, keep everything in front of you an try to force TO's to keep our prolific offense on the sidelines.  We were unable to get off the field on D and time after time they converted 3rd and a mile.  That is the real issue here.  The defense was not able to get timely stops necessary to give the ball back to the offense.  The defense was unable to force any turnovers, and the 3 possessions we fell behind killed us because the defense was unable to turn the game or even get a defensive TD for that matter.

Just ugly.  We were exposed.  We looked like an average team with an excellent offense, poor special teams, and an average defense.

[penguinpower]

I have a new word to describe that game.

Suckticated

Go ahead and feel free use this word to describe this debacle now and in the future.

For example: "The worst losses that I can remember at YSU are against Ga Southern in 1999 when Adrian Petersen had 'The run' and the 2012 regular season game against NDSU where YSU "suckticated" in a devastating regular season loss that occurred on a national stage with national title, playoff, and conference implications." 

[penguinpower]

Again I post:  Why can't we cover and tackle?  Why are the special teams so bad.  40 a game from here on out Montgomery, or we are going to lose a couple more.

I don't know. 

[IAA Fan]

You people defending this coach are clearly NFL fans. "Offense is all we need". I expect solid O, solid D, and solid special teams. We have 1/3 of that ...NOT good enough. No signs of improvement. The only thing that saved our special teams coverage today was the fact that we played indoors & the ball carried out of the end-zone a couple of times. As to coach M as head-coach. Are you seriously saying you would not hire coach M as head-coach of the Penguins? With his resume? My jaw hit the ground when I found out he was becoming our OC 3-years ago.

Also "one bad game" for offense maybe, but the 4th bad game in-a-row for the defense and special teams. That is just this year. Sorry, but I am sick of the hype, sick of the presses ignorance of the game. Sick of hearing how bad the team was before he got here. Sick of watching him try to pump up the fans when he just gave up a first-down on 3rd and 99 ...or let the opponent return the ball from the back of the end-zone out to the 49-yard line. We want to win so bad, we just ignore how this staff is playing the game. To be honest, I did not expect to win today ...but I never expected to be toyed with like a little school-girl. I expected to, at least, compete. When the offense drops the ball, I expect the defense to recover for us. 48-7 is not just a bad game. If it was not for coach Bohl, they could have put up 100-points against us. I am sure that I am over-reacting, but I feel it needs said.

[Wick250]

On the matter of the defense, there is one thing that we should keep in mind.  Joe Tresey was hired before spring ball but after recruiting season.  Is that correct?  If so, he had no input into the selection of any player on the field, including the jucos.  He is merely playing with what he inherited.  Asking him to mold this bunch into an effective, hard-hitting defense might be like asking John J. McGraw to win with the current roster of the Cleveland Indians.  Not possible.  One thing is abundantly clear.  Wolford must allow Tresey to select each and every defensive recruit: high school, juco, or transfer.  Recruiting "athletes" that can not tackle must end.

[penguinpower]

On the matter of the defense, there is one thing that we should keep in mind.  Joe Tresey was hired before spring ball but after recruiting season.  Is that correct?  If so, he had no input into the selection of any player on the field, including the jucos.  He is merely playing with what he inherited.  Asking him to mold this bunch into an effective, hard-hitting defense might be like asking John J. McGraw to win with the current roster of the Cleveland Indians.  Not possible.  One thing is abundantly clear.  Wolford must allow Tresey to select each and every defensive recruit: high school, juco, or transfer.  Recruiting "athletes" that can not tackle must end.

You make an excellent point.  I guess I am as bad as any other fan when it comes to patience.  Something I will  need to keep in perspective.  The real question is how do we turn the roster over on defense at this point.  The liability of hiring Kravits is revealing itself now.