MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Youngstown State is not a run-of-the-mill FCS opponent coming to Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday.

 

No. 1, the Penguins have had a long tradition of championship-caliber football teams going back to the early 1990s when Jim Tressell was guiding the program.

 

No. 2, Youngstown State’s head coach is a familiar name in college football circles, former Nebraska coach Bo Pelini, who won nine or more games each year he was in Lincoln before his forced departure following the 2014 season.

 

No. 3, the Penguins have had some success when stepping up a level, beating Pitt in Pittsburgh in 2012 and playing competitive games against Big Ten opponents Michigan State and Illinois in recent years.

 

And finally, Youngstown State has 13 Western Pennsylvania players listed on its two-deep roster, and 18 hailing from Florida where West Virginia recruits very heavily, meaning there will be lots of familiarity when the two teams hook up inside the stadium on Saturday afternoon.

 

“Youngstown State is a good football team and everyone understands that just being in this part of the country what Youngstown has done,” West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said. “It’s a winning tradition. They have won four national championships, they’ve had lots and lot of good players and lots of wins. Their players walk by their national championship trophies and conference championship trophies every day.”

 

Pelini’s first season in Youngstown saw the Penguins struggle through a 5-6 record that included a 3-5 record in Missouri Valley Conference play, but they have a number of key players returning and a handful of four-year transfers from Power 5 Conference schools to supplement their roster this season.

 

Offensively, first-year starting quarterback Ricky Davis passed for 187 yards and three touchdowns and ran 10 times for 74 yards in Youngstown’s season-opening 45-10 victory over Duquesne. Davis, a Middletown, Ohio resident, has nice size, standing 6-feet-3 inches and weighing 215 pounds, and he beat out last year’s starter, Hunter Wells, the team’s top active career passer with 3,747 yards and 27 touchdowns heading into Saturday’s game.

 

Youngstown State also is one of the few football programs in the country to boast two career 2,000-yard-plus rushers - Jody Webb reached the plateau with his 96-yard performance last week against Duquesne and now shows 2,013 career yards, while senior Martin Ruiz has 3,242 yards after running for 89 yards and scoring a touchdown against the Dukes.

 

The Penguins were one of the most balanced offenses in the country last year averaging 199.8 yards per game on the ground and 192.5 yards per game through the air, although last weekend it was skewed more toward the ground game (394-to-216) because the Penguins were clearly much more dominant up front with all five starting offensive linemen weighing more than 300 pounds.

 

Youngstown State has several new pass catchers in its receiving corps, headlined by Florida transfer Alvin Bailey, who had three grabs for 32 yards last weekend against Duquesne, and junior college transfer Stefan Derrick, who produced three receptions for 26 yards and a TD last Saturday.

 

This is an offense that West Virginia is expecting to huddle, uses tight ends and fullbacks and run down the play clock before snapping the football.

 

“It’s going to be night and day from what you saw last week where Missouri was spreading it and doing it really, really, really fast,” Holgorsen said. “That’s not what Youngstown State does. They’re big up front. They’re experienced up front. They have a dynamic running back in Webb who is fast and has made a ton of plays and their quarterback is a different guy than the guy they played last year. This Davis is a really good player.”

 

It is on the defensive side of the ball where Pelini earned his national reputation, and the Penguins appear to fit the Pelini defensive mold of stopping the run and producing negative yardage plays. Duquesne managed to run for just 34 yards on 21 carries and the Dukes were also sent backwards four times for minus 15 yards.

 

Pelini has a deep secondary, including last year’s 11-game starter Leroy Alexander at free safety, 10-game starter Jameel Smith at strong safety, and eight-game starter Eric Thompson at nickel back.

 

Jaylin Kelly, a 6-foot-1-inch, 245-pound senior middle linebacker from nearby Washington, Pennsylvania, led the Penguins with seven tackles last weekend against Duquesne.

 

Derek Rivers, a senior corner from Miami, Florida, had two tackles for losses and returned a fumble 11 yards last Saturday.

 

“Defensively is what coach Pelini’s expertise is and I’ll tell you it’s as sound as it gets,” Holgorsen said. “They have seven, eight returning starters and they have good players across the board.

 

“They don’t give up a ton of big plays and it will be another challenge for us,” Holgorsen added.

 

West Virginia, meanwhile, is looking to build upon last Saturday’s season-opening 26-11 victory over Missouri at Milan Puskar Stadium.

 

The Mountaineers jumped out to a 13-3 halftime lead, and then tacked on a touchdown at the beginning of the second half to take a commanding 20-3 lead against the Tigers.

 

West Virginia’s margin swelled to 26-3 before the Mountaineers began substituting freely in the fourth quarter and the Tigers were able to push across a late touchdown and convert the two-point conversion.

 

Junior college standout Justin Crawford was impressive in his WVU debut, rushing for 101 yards and scoring a touchdown on 21 carries, while senior running back Rushel Shell III added 90 yards and a score on 16 totes.

 

The Mountaineer ground game accounted for 241 yards against a Missouri defense with eight starters returning from a unit that ranked sixth in the country, allowing just 302 yards per game. Also, quarterback Skyler Howard completed 65.7 percent of his pass attempts for 253 yards - eight of those going to senior wide receiver Daikiel Shorts Jr. for a career-high 131 yards - as the Mountaineers accumulated 494 yards of total offense.

 

Junior Mike Molina came in and converted all four of field goal attempts in place of suspended kicker Josh Lambert, while Morgantown’s Billy Kinney averaged a solid 45.4 yards per boot with one landing inside the 20 as the team’s new starting punter.

 

This is just the second time Youngstown State has made an appearance in Morgantown, the first coming in 1938 when the Penguins were getting their program started. WVU defeated the Penguins 27-6 using primarily backup players that afternoon.

 

“If you look back, with the exception of getting booed my second game here against Norfolk State at halftime - and deservedly so - we came out in the second half and took care of business. Other than that we’ve been motivated to play (against FCS teams),” Holgorsen said. “We played a good James Madison team over (in Landover, Maryland) that was really well coached and played well.”

 

Holgorsen said he is expecting another very competitive football game on Saturday.

 

Saturday’s game will have the unusual kickoff time of 2 p.m. and the contest will be televised locally on Root Sports (Rob King, Marc Bulger and Meg Bulger). Out-of-market DirectTV users will be able to watch the game on channel 359, while Dish network subscribers can find the game on channel 428.

 

Go to Root Sports’ website to find out if the game is also available in your area.

 

The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s radio coverage begins with The Go-Mart Mountaineer Tailgate Show at 10:30 a.m. (Dan Zangrilli, Dale Wolfley and Jed Drenning) leading into regular game coverage of 1 p.m. with Tony Caridi and Dwight Wallace on stations throughout West Virginia on online through Tunein and leanstream.

 

Prior to Saturday’s game, country music superstar Brad Paisley kicks off his Country Nation College Tour, presented by Frontier Communications, with a free concert on the College of Law hill on Friday evening beginning at 7:30 p.m.

 

On Saturday morning, West Virginia University will officially induct its newest class of WVU Sports Hall of Fame enshrines inside the Caperton Indoor Practice Facility beginning at 11 a.m.

 

This year’s class features two Mountaineer gridders - consensus All-American linebacker Grant Wiley and longtime player, assistant coach and administrator Donnie Young - as well as men’s basketball standouts Don Vincent and Damian Owens, rifle standout David Johnson, men’s tennis All-American Joby Foley and All-American runner Charity Wachera.

 

There are tickets still available for Saturday’s game and those can be purchased by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com.