Since losing their season opener to Ashland, the IUP Crimson Hawks have won three games in a row by a combined score of 152-47, outgained their opponents 1,558 to 609, and never trailed for a single second.
So head coach Paul Tortorella’s main task these days is keeping his players from becoming complacent.
That’s because, although it’s nice that his Crimson Hawks have rebounded so well from that 13-9 opening-night loss to the Eagles, those three wins, over Lock Haven (42-10), Millersville (70-24), and Seton Hill (40-13), don’t guarantee IUP of anything.
So if Tortorella and his staff see something that needs correcting, they’re not going to let it slide.
At his weekly meeting with the local media on Tuesday, Tortorella said there are two main areas in which he’d like the Crimson Hawks, who host Edinboro on Saturday (2 p.m.), to improve upon as quickly as possible: penalties on both sides of the ball, and turnovers by the backups late in games.
In Saturday’s demolition of Seton Hill, there were two penalties that had Tortorella seeing red with anger.
The first was a personal foul on safety Noah Johnston in the third quarter. It happened after a play in which Johnston tackled the ball carrier by pushing him out of bounds. And in doing so, he wiped out a handful of Seton Hill players and coaches along the sideline. When the dust had settled, Johnston said something to the Griffins’ bench, drawing the yellow flag for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“He took out a couple of players, a couple of coaches, and a guy with a water bottle,” Tortorella said. “It looked like bowling pins. He hit him in bounds, so there was no penalty. But then he stood up and said something to them, and the ref threw the flag. I mean, why? Why say anything at all? You just took out their whole team like you were bowling, and you have to stand there and say something? There’s nothing to say. Just get out of there. We have to be smarter in those situations.”
The other penalty was a weird one. In the second half, IUP was driving into Seton Hill territory, and on a run by Tavian Banks, right guard Tanner Fuchs lost his helmet, but kept blocking on the play. According to a recent rule, it’s a personal foul penalty for continuing to play after losing your helmet. Banks’ gain was wiped away, and IUP was sent back 15 yards.
Tortorella isn’t upset with Fuchs for staying with the play. He just doesn’t like the rule because it doesn’t make much sense.
“I just think that’s a dumb rule,” he said, “but I guess we have to be smarter than that. Their guy grabbed his facemask and ripped his helmet off. What’s he supposed to do? Just stand there and let his quarterback get killed? I even told the (ref) that he had his helmet ripped off, and they said they didn’t see it. But he did. And the rule says it’s a personal foul if you keep playing with your helmet off? I mean, these guys are coached to play to the whistle. There was no whistle when he got his helmet ripped off. So, they expect him to just give himself up and let the defender run after the quarterback? I don’t like that rule at all. I get it that it’s about player safety, but it’s not right to penalize a guy like that.”
The Crimson Hawks have been penalized 35 times for 299 yards this season. Only East Stroudsburg and Clarion have more of either stat, and both, like IUP, have only one loss.
So it seems the penalties are a problem, but nothing to sound the alarm about.
“Penalties are part of the game,” Tortorella said. “I get it. And the ones like holding or (pass interference), which are physical kinds of penalties, I can live with, as long as there aren’t too many of them, and there haven’t been.”
The other issue the Crimson Hawks need to clean up is the turnovers by the backups who play late in the game. Against Seton Hill, backup quarterback Zayd Etheridge threw one interception and lost a fumble, and both were turned into touchdowns.
“When our twos and threes go in there, they can’t turn it over like they’ve been doing,” Tortorella said. “They did it twice in the fourth quarter, and Seton Hill scored off both of them. We gave them their 14 points; they didn’t have to earn them.
“Our ones have been pretty good since Ashland about turnovers. But the other guys have to learn to take care of the ball. I know Seton Hill left their starters in on defense, so I get it that these turnovers were given up by our twos and threes against their ones, but we still have to get better at that.”
If you’re one to look at stats and see that IUP is last in the 15-team Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference in rushing, and you’re concerned about that, be aware that the Crimson Hawks’ coach is not.
Plus, if a defense wants to worry about stopping the run, that leaves things open for IUP’s passing game, which is the best in the PSAC by far, averaging 397 yards per game, which is 147 more than No. 2 Clarion.
“I’m not worried,” Tortorella said. “Like, look at some of our plays. When we hand that jet sweep to (WR Devin) Whitlock three times a game, it counts as a pass because he tosses it to him. But if (QB Matthew Rueve) handed it to him, it would be a run. We have that toss in the flat to (RB Leon) Parson out of the backfield. That’s basically a running play, but it counts as a pass because he throws the ball, but everything about that play is a run. I’m not sitting here worried about running the ball. Teams have tried to take that away, and when they play that way, we’re fine with throwing the ball.”
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