The search for a new coach begins
Keith Langford Jr. SPORTS EDITOR
Issue date: 11/24/09 Section: Sports
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Youngstown fans are fanatic about their sports, and YSU football is at the forefront. The heat was turned on a season ago after the dismal 4-8 season. Injuries had a big part to do with the 2008 season but not with this season. Most of the Penguins starters have stayed healthy throughout this season.
When Heacock lost three straight after a 4-2 start, the writing was on the wall. With no playoffs for another season and no championship banner to go with the four banners from the 1990s, it was clear a move had to be made.
A record of 60-44 for most college head coaches would keep a job intact after nine seasons, but YSU is not most places. Because of the four national titles, which ranks them second in Football Championship Subdivision behind Georgia Southern, the fan base expects great things from the football team. If the team does not produce, fans point to the coach, as fair or unfair as it sounds.
Someone had to take the fall for the Penguins only sniffing the playoffs one time in the past nine seasons. Granted, some years the Penguins got overlooked, like in 2001 and 2005. They had eight wins both seasons, but were not selected for the playoffs.
This season was supposed to be one where the Penguins would overcome the injuries and the disappointing 4-8 record from 2008. A two-win improvement was not enough for Heacock to keep his job here. He most likely had to make the playoffs this season for his one-year option to be picked up for the 2010 season. The Penguins play in the FCS and a 6-5 record gets you a long, cold winter to reflect on what went wrong.
Heacock's inability to beat Northern Iowa did not help the cause. Much like Lloyd Carr at Michigan being stifled year after year by the sweater vest after he had done the same thing to John Cooper before Jim Tressel got there, Heacock could not get it done against the Panthers. Heacock did not beat the Panthers one time going 0-9 against them. Not even in 2006, when the Penguins made the playoffs, did they beat the Panthers, losing 23-21 on Homecoming night.
The Penguins had the athletes the past nine seasons to do great things. Under Heacock's watch, the Penguins have had 29 All-Americans. To reach the playoffs one time is a crying shame with all the athletic talent YSU receives from across the country. Heacock had all the resources to get it done, and for the most part, he did. Heacock's not a bad coach, as his record indicates. But the expectations of YSU football and the fan base were too much for Heacock. The constant comparison to Jim Tressel and what he did in the 1990s had to get to him somewhat, as he knew he would never live up to the Tressel name.
The search for the next coach to be compared to Tressel officially begins.
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