1. SIU is 2-4 this season and 1-2 in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. Youngstown State is 3-3, 1-2.
2. YSU is ranked No. 11 in the Football Championship Subdivision. SIU is 43-72 all-time against ranked opponents. 
3. The Salukis are 1-1 against ranked opponents this season. They beat then-No. 10 Liberty 34-13 on Sept. 26 and lost to then-No. 21 Indiana State 39-36 Oct. 17.
4. The Penguins are first in FCS passing defense, allowing 90.8 yards per game.
5. SIU is ninth in the FCS, throwing for 313.0 yards per game.
6. Youngstown is coming off a 38-8 home loss to No. 7 South Dakota State. Southern Illinois is coming off a 39-36 loss at Indiana State.
7. Youngstown State is the only Division I school whose athletic teams are called the Penguins. Division-II Dominican University of California is the only other NCAA school with a Penguin mascot.
8. There are two accounts of how Youngstown State athletics got its nickname: One in which a spectator at a YSU basketball game at West Liberty State Teachers College compared Youngstown’s players to Penguins with the way they stomped on the floor and swung their arms.The second being that nicknames had been discussed by players and their friends before that game, but heavy snowfall and cold temperatures on the way to West Liberty, W.Va., caused them to settle on Penguins.
9. SIU is the only NCAA athletic program that uses the nickname Salukis.
   
10. SIU adopted the Saluki mascot after a vote by the student body in 1951. “Salukis” beat out “Rebels,” “Knights,” “Flyers,” “Marauders” and the previous nickname, “Maroons.”
11. A Saluki is a breed of Egyptian herding dog. Southern Illinois is nicknamed Little Egypt, after droughts in northern Illinois left farmers with little or no crops, while rainfall in southern Illinois led to plentiful crops. People from the north came to the area seeking corn and wheat, similar to events in biblical Egypt.
12. The Penguins play home games at Stambaugh Stadium. Nicknamed “The Ice Castle,” Stambaugh Stadium has the highest capacity in the Missouri Valley Football Conference at 20,630.
13. The Ice Castle is the tallest building in Youngstown, Ohio.
14. Saluki Stadium is the newest stadium in the conference, having opened in 2010. ​
15. The Penguins have won four FCS national championships. Only Georgia Southern, with six, has won more.
16. Rey Dempsey, who coached SIU to its only national championship in 1983, is the second-winningest coach by winning percentage at both Youngstown State and Southern Illinois.
17. The winningest coach by win percentage at YSU is Jim Tressel. Tressel was the head coach for all four YSU national championship teams. He’s currently the president at Youngstown. 
18. Tressel also won a national championship at Ohio State University as their head coach.
19. Another former YSU football coach left a mark on the game that still seen today; Dwight “Dike” Beede invented the penalty flag after noticing confusion when penalties were marked by whistles.
20. Current YSU coach Bo Pelini is the subject of the @FauxPelini Twitter account, which was named the 2014 Internet Sportsman of the Year by USA Today’s For The Win. 

Thomas Donley can be reached at [email protected] or at 536-3311