Getty Head coach Bo Pelini of the Youngstown State.
Both Youngstown State (5-4) and South Dakota (3-6) have struggled this season, but are still in the FCS playoff hunt as they face off on Saturday at the DakotaDome.
The game (3 p.m. ET start time) will be on Midco SN locally, but anyone in the US can also watch it live right here on ESPN+, the streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage of dozens of college football games and other live sports every week, all the 30-for-30 documentaries and additional original content (both video and written) all for $4.99 per month.
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Youngstown State vs South Dakota Preview
After being blown out 56-17 by North Dakota State last week, Youngstown State needs to rebound in a hurry if they want to keep their FCS playoff hopes alive.
However, head coach Bo Pelini isn’t worried about looking ahead just yet. His Penguins are taking it week to week.
“I don’t worry about that,” Pelini said during his weekly press conference. “You have to win football games. At this point we want to finish 8-4, that’s what our goal is. What I’m worried about is today and getting better and giving yourself an opportunity. In the end that’s out of your hands. You win football games and let the chips fall as they may.”
As the score against the Bisons a week ago indicates, Youngstown failed to get much going offensively. The team used two quarterbacks — Mark Waid and Joe Craycraft — but neither was too effective. Each finished 5-of-10, with Craycraft tossing the lone passing TD of the afternoon. Waid led the team in rushing with 8 carries for 79 yards and a score.
South Dakota had similar struggles against Western Illinois, especially in the second half, falling 38-34. The Coyotes allowed 31 second half points, including a trio of touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
“We left a lot of points on the board in the third quarter,” South Dakota Coach Bob Nielson said. “We had a couple drives deep in their territory and all you do is come out of it with a field goal. Then when they got a touchdown they got a little momentum coming back.
“We make a couple mistakes defensively and all of a sudden it’s a ball game. We responded to it, came back offensively to score twice and take the lead and then just couldn’t hold on the last minute like we needed to.”
It was the first win of the season for the Western Illinois Leathernecks, which made the loss sting just a little more for South Dakota.
I thought we defended them well in the first half but they came out and started throwing the ball a lot more in the second half,” Nielson said. “We gave up too many yards through the air and too many conversions when we had opportunities to get off the field. That part of the day was certainly disappointing that we didn’t some stops in the second half when we needed to.”