On Saturday, the Bulldogs will play the No. 15 Youngstown State Penguins in Ohio in the first round of the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.
Brody Gilkison
3:48 pm, Nov 28, 2025
Staff Reporter
Liza Kaufman, Photography Editor
Team 152 will make program history on Saturday as the first Yale squad to play in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs and as the first Ivy League team to take part in the postseason since the Ivy athletic conference was formed in 1945.
Yale (8–2, 7–1 Ivy) will be traveling to Ohio to take on the 15th-seeded Youngstown State Penguins (8–4) in the opening round of the playoffs. Last weekend, the Bulldogs secured the Ivy League’s first-ever automatic qualification to the playoffs with its win over Harvard in the 141st playing of The Game.
“At this point in the season, the defense is still just trying to stack plays, stack days, and stack weeks,” cornerback Brandon Webster ’27 wrote to the News. “Honing in on that has been our top priority, and has led us to make the plays we should make. We just have to keep doing what we do well, worry about ourselves, and have an elite week of preparation.”
An unfamiliar opponent
Youngstown State and Yale have never faced each other in football, so both teams will be entering unfamiliar territory on Saturday. Youngstown State University was founded in 1908 but did not field a football team until 1938 — 11 years after Yale won its 18th, and most recent, national championship.
The Penguins are led by their quarterback Beau Brungard, who is a finalist for the Walter Payton Award, which recognizes the most outstanding offensive player in the FCS. Yale’s star running back Josh Pitsenberger ’26 is also a finalist.
Brungard has been one of the most explosive players in all of college football this season, throwing for nearly 3,000 yards while putting up over 1,300 yards on the ground. He has been an extremely efficient passer, completing 69 percent of his passes, while throwing only three interceptions all year.
His prolific play has been highlighted by his 23 touchdowns through the air. Running the ball, Brungard has 24 touchdowns to his name, and he averages just over six yards per carry. Brungard has been impressive both on tape and on the statistics sheet, and he will surely be tough for the Bulldogs to contain this Saturday.
On the receiving end, senior Max Tomczak has been Brungard’s favorite target this season. He has hauled in 916 receiving yards and five touchdowns, while averaging more than 14 yards per catch. Ky Wilson, a speedy slot receiver, has also caught his fair share of passes this year, bringing in 550 yards and six touchdowns with an average of 10 YPC.
While there is no shortage of talent on the offensive side of the ball, the Penguins could be concerned about their defense heading into the playoffs.
Youngstown State has given up exactly 30 points per game defensively, while allowing an average of 136.8 yards per game on the ground and over 250 per game through the air. Furthermore, they have just sixteen sacks all season and have allowed an astonishingly high redzone conversion rate of 93 percent on the year.
Considering Yale’s high-octane offense, the Penguin defense’s hands will be full heading into Saturday’s matchup.
Keys to victory
The main focus for Yale and head coach Tony Reno on Saturday will be containing Brungard. The Bulldogs’ strong pass rush proved to be effective against Harvard’s dual-threat offense, and Reno will rely on playmakers like Ezekiel Larry ’26, Zairion Jackson-Bass ’27 and Mack Johnson ’28 to apply pressure to Brungard and hurry his reads.
Yale’s defensive backs will also have to play to the highest level in order to take away big plays through the air and prevent Brungard from escaping the pocket and picking up first downs with his legs. Ivy League defensive player of the year Abu Kamara ’27 and linebacker Phoenix Grant ’27 will be tasked with spying on Brungard, while the cornerbacks will look to continue to bring their best against Youngstown State’s elite receiving corps.
While stout defense will be critical for a Yale win, the Eli offense will still need to put up points against this Youngstown team.
Yale’s offensive stars Pitsenberger, Nico Brown ’26 and Dante Reno ’28 — each coming off of a career game against Harvard — will need to be in sync to take pressure off the defense. Look for Reno and Brown to target Youngstown State’s weaker secondary and go for the big play early on in the game as a way of stealing the momentum.
As always, if all else fails, Pitsenberger will look to continue to eat up yards and punch a few scores in, regardless of how the passing game is progressing.
Yale kicks off against Youngstown State at 12 p.m. on Saturday in Youngstown, Ohio.
Brody Gilkison covers Yale football and has previously written about tennis and golf. Originally from Cedar Rapids, IA, he is a third-year student in Davenport College.
