The college football season is inching closer. Before you know it, a new era of Kentucky football will open up the 2026 season under Will Stein. There will be a lot of new that day on the turf on Labor Day weekend. There will also be some star power on the visiting sideline.
Youngstown State will travel to Lexington for the second time in five years to kickoff the 2026 college football. The Penguins were shutout in the only previous meeting between these two programs on a day when Mark Stoops became the winningest head coach in Kentucky history. A shutout seems unlikely to occur this time around. The Penguins have some real star power on offense. It starts with the best quarterback in the FCS.
The Walter Payton Award is handed out yearly to the best offensive player in FCS football. This award has been dubbed the βFCS Heismanβ by many. Trey Lance, Duck Hodges, Tony Romo, Taylor Heinicke, and Jimmy Garoppolo are some NFL quarterbacks who have won this award. Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp brought home the hardware in 2015 when he was running routes for Eastern Washington. Kentucky will see the 2025 winner in Week 1.
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The highest offensive honor in FCS football belongs to our Beau Brungard π§π#GoGuins pic.twitter.com/m0ozliUnY5
β Youngstown State Football (@ysufootball) January 4, 2026
Beau Brungard is entering his third year as the starting quarterback at Youngstown State. The Youngstown native took a notable jump in year two after posting 2,141 passing yards, 1,106 non-sack rushing yards, and 28 total touchdowns in 2024 when new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich arrived at YSU in 2025.
Brungard finished the award-winning season with a 68.7 percent completion rate, 3,234 passing yards, 1,106 non-sack rushing yards, and 53 total touchdowns. The quarterback won Missouri Valley Offensive Player of the Year, was named a unanimous FCS All-American, and brought home the Walter Payton Award as the most outstanding offensive player in FCS. Youngstown State has a star quarterback who is a true dual-threat (56 broken tackles) that only threw four interceptions last year. Yurcich was a former offensive coordinator at Penn State who helped guide an electric YSU offense that put up 36.6 points per game on 6.92 yards per play.
The shotgun, no-huddle spread offense asked Beau Brungard to carry a big load in 2025. That will likely remain the case in 2026. QB run became a huge part of Youngstown Stateβs offense last season and the passing game exploded as defenses were constantly put in some difficult conflicts. That led to some video game numbers for Brungard on an FCS playoff team. With North Dakota State moving to FBS this season, YSU will be considered by many as a dark horse national title contender out of the Missouri Valley. Brungard is a major reason why.
Defensive coordinator Jay Bateman and his first Kentucky defense will face a dynamite offense with a star quarterback in Week 1 to start this new era.
Early Scouting Report series returns to KSR+
The college football preseason has unofficially arrived. How do we celebrate? By taking a deep dive look at all of Kentuckyβs opponents before Labor Day weekend arrives.
This marks my ninth year providing in-depth football breakdowns for KSR. The scouting report series is one of my favorite things to write all year. This is the start of that exercise. We simply cannot do those during the season without the research. This is the pre-work.
Not familiar with these? They are jam-packed features that drop every week during the season. The scouting reports include advanced stats, program history, betting nuggets, film cut ups, and matchup analysis. The summer series is an abbreviated deep dive to help you know more about the opponent.
Youngstown State is up first. Found only at KSR+.