Sam Eddy
Assistant Head Coach | Running Backs
16th Season
(Taylor, 1978)

    Assistant Head Coach and Running Backs Coach Sam Eddy keeps coaching running backs who churn out impressive numbers.
    The past two seasons, Youngstown State has not a senior tailback carry the football, but his unit continues to turn out impressive results. And last year, when the Penguins switched to the spread last year, Eddy coached the fullbacks and tight ends into a group called the "Superbacks".
    In 2008, YSU's running backs combined for 1,651 yards and 12 touchdowns. Leading the way was freshman Kamryn Keys who rushed for a school freshman record 804 yards. For his efforts, Keys was selected as the Missouri Valley Football Conference Freshman of the Year.
    After losing All-America tailback Marcus Mason in 2007, the Penguins' four primary running backs combined for 1,410 yards and 15 touchdowns. Junior college transfer Kevin Smith led the way with 610 yards and a team-best 10 touchdowns. Smith was named to the Gateway's All-Newcomer team for this efforts.
     The 2006 season was especially gratifying for Eddy as he was named the American Football Coaches Association FCS Assistant Coach of the Year.
    It was a pretty good year for the running backs as well so the timing couldn't have been better.
    Tailback Marcus Mason rushed for a school-record 1,847 yards, averaging a school-best 153.9 per game. Mason was a consensus All-America for his efforts during a year where he rushed for more than 100 yards 10 times, including a 265-yard performance at Western Illinois and 249 against Southern Illinois.
    Reserve Monquantae Gibson had his own impressive performance with 236 yards on 43 attempts at Western Kentucky. Mason and Gibson combined for 2,387 yards and 31 touchdowns on the year.
    Mason was the Gateway Offensive Player of the Year, a first-team all-conference pick and finished fourth in the Walton Payton Award balloting. In just two seasons, he scored 31 touchdowns while rushing for 2,719 yards.
    Since the Penguins joined the conference in 1997, Eddy has had five backs reap a total of 10 all-conference awards, including two Offensive Players of the Year. He has coached seven first-team All-Gateway selections, one second team and two honorable-mention picks.
    In 2005, Mason earned second-team all-conference honors while being named the league's Newcomer of the Year while for the second straight year, fullback Demetrius Ison was named first-team all-conference.
    Eddy's first-team backs are Mason (2006), Ison (2004 and 2005), P.J. Mays (2001 and 2002), Adrian Brown (1999) and Jake Andreadis (1997). Mason was the first to be named to the second team in 2005, while Brown was a two-time honorable-mention pick (1997 and 1998).
    Eddy has been a member of the staff since 1994 and has been a collegiate coach since 1978. Since coming to YSU in 1994 he has helped tutor some of the best running backs in school history.
     Mason, Mays, Brown and Andreadis all rank in the top six in school history in career rushing yardage. Including playoff games, the group has rushed for more than 13,000 yards and scored more than 130 touchdowns.
    In 2005, Mason, took the league by storm as YSU's top three tailbacks tallied 1,761 yards and had 17 touchdowns for the year. In 2004, he worked to improve the talents of tailbacks Josh Cayson, Gibson, Regis Edgerson and fullback Ison. The "sons" combined to finish with 1,714 yards rushing and score 14 touchdowns. In 2003, the Penguins' three tailbacks -- Cayson, Mike Burns and Josiah Doby -- finished with 1,387 yards and scored 10 times.
    Mays concluded his outstanding career in 2002 rushing for 1,284 yards. The second-team All-America had 45 career touchdowns setting a then Gateway Football Conference career record. In 2001, Mays was named the Gateway Conference’s Offensive Player of the Year rushing for 1,446 yards and scoring 21 rushing touchdowns. Mays had 3,511 yards rushing in his three-year career.
    In 2001, YSU’s rushing attack had success averaging 280.3 yards per game ranking as the third-best rushing offense in the country.
    Before Mays' success, Brown finished his four-year career as the school’s all-time touchdowns leader and the school’s second-leading rusher with 3,978 yards. Andreadis finished with 2,650 yards to rank sixth in school history behind Mays.
    The top three single-season’s rushers in school history have come with Eddy at the helm of the running backs. Mason had a record-shattering 1,847 yards in 2006, while Shawn Patton had 1,626 yards rushing in 1994 and Brown had 1,589 in 1999.
    Since Eddy has been a member of the coaching staff, YSU has appeared in the playoffs five times, including winning the 1994 and 1997 National Championships. The Penguins have had winning seasons in all but two seasons since he joined the staff. In 2005 and 2006 Youngstown State was the Gateway Football Conference champions.
    Eddy came to YSU prior to the 1994 season after spending five years, including two as the offensive coordinator and one as assistant head coach at the Virginia Military Institute. At VMI, Eddy coached the running backs for five seasons and was behind the scenes in forming an extremely successful wishbone attack that ranked first in the nation in rushing among Division I-AA teams in 1991.
    Prior to his five-year stint at VMI, Eddy was the running backs coach at Northeastern for six years and also served as the defensive backs coach at Wisconsin-Platteville from 1980 through 1983.
    In 1980 while at UMass, he earned his master's degree in sports management and physical education. For the Minutemen, he spent two seasons as a graduate assistant coach in 1978 and 1979.
    A native of Beloit, Wis., Eddy is a 1978 graduate of Taylor University in Upland, Ind. He graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Computer Science. Eddy was a standout tailback and baseball player and was inducted into his alma mater's Hall of Fame in 1989.
    Sam and his wife, Connie, have two children, Jessica and Andrew. Connie works in the YSU Athletic Department as an assistant in the business office.