HOW ARE YOU FEELING NOW?
Did you have these feelings of loss more acutely in the hours before you collapsed?
A heartfelt thank you to HBO Max. Between The Sopranos and our beloved Kennesaw State football team, a couple streaming options kept me entertained last week during newborn duty.
One of those television programs gives us a dark look at a family man controlling an insular organization that keeps taking hits and can’t get out of its own way. Despite some questionable business practices and decision-making, you end up rooting for him most of the time. This story gets pretty depressing as the main character’s associates are picked off one by one and the walls close in on his time as boss. The old ways may not work anymore, and we’re all confused by the ending.
The other show’s about a mobster in New Jersey.
San Jose State took care of business on Saturday almost exactly as expected, covering the 18-point spread with a field goal to spare. Spartans WR Nick Nash and his QB Emmett Brown dominated the night with a two-man game, connecting 17 times for 225 yards and 3 TDs. Kennesaw State falls to 0-3 during a first month that the coaching staff has mostly treated like televised practice.
“We gotta fix some stuff, get out of our own way,” Bohannon told the Marietta Daily Journal postgame. “It’s not really complicated. We just can’t get it done right now.”
Yeah, that’s true. A real “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this” moment as the guy in charge once again talked about preparation and constant miscues. (Brief side note of positivity: It’s very cool that the MDJ covered a game in California. Check out their gamer.)
An 11-play, 27-yard field goal drive (avant-garde brilliance from the offense) in the first quarter took six minutes off the clock and gave the Owls an early lead. Even on cruise control, SJSU took over of the game early in the second, scoring on Nash’s first touchdown grab and racing away in a game that was never really as close as the scoreboard indicated.
Once again, the drive chart was a work of art as KSU tried to find answers on offense to keep up with the Spartans’ Spread and Shred system on the other side.
Suffocating the game only works if you don’t put yourself in a chokehold, too. That’s like the sixth time in the last year that Kennesaw State played one of the most disjointed, confusing games you’ll ever see. Among the highlights:
Six different non-kneeldown different drives lost yardage, and three more didn’t get a first down.
Three fumble recoveries in the first half, yielding three total points.
Failing to outrush (64 net yards) the penalties (11 for 95) as an alleged option team.
Burning multiple timeouts on the same drive due to confusion on offense.
Calling a double pass to scheme up Qua Ashley throwing a deep shot to Connor Finer. Very provocative stuff.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly runs postgame win expectancy numbers weekly, applying statistical context to scoreboards that may be misleading. San Jose State’s PGWE on Saturday night? A clean 100% obviously, but a 36-point expected margin of victory. Connelly’s SP+ power rating now ranks the Owls 133rd out of 134 FBS teams, 26 points worse than a replacement-level squad. Since the start of the season, they’ve already dipped five points in his ratings - a system that already kind of hated them in the preseason. In his combined FBS/FCS/smaller school ratings, you can find the Owls 19 spots behind their Week 5 FCS opponent and both of CUSA’s 2025 newcomers - Delaware and Missouri State.
Via Game on Paper, here’s how some of the other advanced stats looked from Saturday, with the caveat that the final box includes a fair amount of garbage time. I’ll keep plugging this site every week, because there’s not a better free analytics resource for college football. Sadly, I can’t promise you’ll enjoy it.
2.87 yards/play and 25% success rate predictably stirred up online debate as version 2.0 of the Pistol offense continues to misfire under first-time coordinators Chandler Burks and Stewart Cook. Whole lot of takes flying about running it up the middle, where the Owls rushed 19 times between the two B gaps for 45 total yards. One called run went longer than 10 yards the entire day.
Playcalling criticism as a regular fan almost always misses the mark with outcome bias. That run got stuffed; it must’ve been a bad idea. That WR was open; what a genius call. 99.99% of us don’t have enough info to weigh in on the ongoing chess match during a game. I’m certainly in that uneducated category and don’t see the point in critiquing down-to-down calls. It does appear that, much like late last year, Burks and Cook are content to treat some of these games like an inside drill for endless reps running zone. The EPA split on scripted drives vs. other possessions (currently huge) is one factor to watch heading into conference play to see if Burks gets more comfortable calling plays within the flow of the game.
What’s plainly visible: The staff is hiding the full offense, doesn’t feel the personnel is capable, or maybe this is the finished product. None of those options is ideal. Somehow the offense plays every game like they just met for the first time a half hour before kickoff. When one player gets a penalty or doesn’t know his assignment, you can blame that player. When everyone false starts or the team can’t get a play in without burning a timeout, something else is happening.
A lot of talk on injuries during the broadcast - I’ll buy Gabe Benyard as a game-affecting absence. Christian Moss should be a bigger loss, if the WR rotation made sense and the team actually tried to throw. Carson Kent also sat out but you’d be hard-pressed to find any power rating adjustments or books moving the line based on a tight end with 17 career catches. Outside of those three, you were really only missing Nathan Wright on offense, a recent convert to center who’s never started a game at that position. If you’d call Kennesaw’s first-choice lineup the A+ squad (relatively speaking), the group Burks and Cook had available on Saturday was no less than a B group that should be capable of running the full offense.
As for bright spots? RB Qua Ashley (51 yards receiving) and Navelle Dean (2 catches, 38 yards) provided the only explosive plays for the KSU offense on the night. Last year’s WR rotation was developmental malpractice, so getting two wideouts - Dean plus David Cole - into the game from the 2023 HS recruiting class feels like a small victory on its own.
There’s also an interesting development where Seaburn Hines has been the highest-graded OL per PFF (64.1 on the season in duty at both RT and LG) despite Bohannon’s efforts to upgrade in the portal with Bowers, Jacob Kettels, Chevy Trask, and Dodge Sauser, who’s no longer on the roster. Whether or not that’s positive news is a matter of perspective.
Aside from a 31-yard carry from Jabari Bates, the Owls defense held up fine against a disinterested SJSU run game. Kennesaw kept pace on their 13.5% havoc rate, which ranks in the nation’s top 40 and just 0.1% behind Liberty for best in CUSA. Despite some rough patches and glaring weaknesses (pass rush in particular), we’re hitting the bye week with Greg Harris’ defense miles ahead of the offense.
Up next: UT Martin - Saturday, 9/28
An honest question: Has the Kennesaw State program gotten any closer to being competitive at the Group of 5 level since the Conference USA announcement?
Imagine going back to October 2022 and telling yourself the Owls would face a must-win situation as a potential homecoming underdog against an FCS team, while seeking their first D1 win in nearly 700 days. You’d probably ask a few questions about how we got to this point, where UT Martin became a career-defining game for the only coach we’ve ever had.
The central on-field problem with Kennesaw State football: Every coach on staff, including the one in charge, works for the only FBS program that would give him an interview at this level, much less a full-time job. If the program received the death penalty tomorrow, what’s the over/under on how many assistants find a D1 landing spot before the 2025 season? Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is the under.
That seems like a tough way to build a successful team. What does it tell you when Bohannon’s former players are on social media firing off takes about the athletic department’s lack of support, and current players are liking posts about their own coaches not being up to FBS standards?
Should Bohannon take full blame for the state of the program? Of course not. There’s no doubt he’s set up for failure in many ways by an athletic department that lost the plot on fan engagement, ticket sales, and messaging long ago. AD Milton Overton clearly budgeted a small assistant pool while punting on the transition years, and Bohannon took the bait by keeping his coordinator hires in the family. Intentional or not, that decision makes 2024 a referendum on Bohannon.
Overton knows the first CUSA season brings enough natural momentum and reasons for fans to pay attention without requiring immediate wins. If the Moneyball approach to Bohanon’s assistant budget works, perfect - you have a successful coaching staff at a steep discount. If it doesn’t and the lack of results become untenable, Overton saved some money during the lost season. He could then hire his own guy as a defibrillator to jolt the fanbase back to life. The job becomes a whole lot more attractive once the transition is complete and they break ground on the new football facility, plus there’s a couple Power 4 paychecks next season to help the cause.
Results on their own aren’t the issue, anyway. Losing doesn’t bother me as a concept after watching enough truly apocalyptic Kennesaw State men’s basketball in the 2010s to build up immunity to whatever the scoreboard says. The lack of progress is what should concern Owls fans, like Bohannon’s comments at media day about needing a “five-year build” coming into what’s already another lost season. How are fans supposed to react to the Owl Network color commentator using the broadcast booth and his Twitter timeline like a spin room, talking about how it’s delusional to expect better anytime soon?
I’d argue it’s healthy that a typically disengaged, conditional fanbase has started asking questions during a post-COVID downturn in which Kennesaw State produced as many WWE Intercontinental Championships (1) as winning football seasons.
Arguments about money, the transfer portal, and facilities just aren’t very persuasive when every G5 coach faces a tough reality. It’s not like we’ve heard many public comments from Bohannon about fundraising, and blindly dumping donations into a well-meaning but unserious NIL operation doesn’t seem like the best path forward for anyone until there’s proof of concept. Transfers with immediate eligibility have been in place since 2021 and have been a net positive to Bohannon during his tenure. Without a major jump in recruiting success (167th rolling three-year average in the 247 Composite), elite programs poaching talent won’t be an issue anyway. We can also stop relying on the other main excuse about rules to limit cut blocking, circa 2022, if only one flexbone-era OL has played all season.
Compare the first month of Kennesaw State’s FBS debut to the scene Saturday night down at Georgia State, where the Panthers took down a SEC team (OK, it was Vandy). GSU lost their head coach 45 minutes into spring practice and still managed to flip nearly the entire roster and change the culture of a young program. You’re looking at an entirely different Georgia State, a #NewAtlanta as they’ll tell you, after seven months of Dell McGee running the show. In that same timeframe, Kennesaw State couldn’t even install half an offense.
As ugly as the season’s started, there’s still a lot of football left and plenty of chances to salvage the year if the Owls find an extra gear. The optimistic outlook: Regroup during the bye, win an FCS game, then Jacksonville State visits Fifth Third Stadium in the last remaining home game that’s guaranteed to have a good atmosphere. The Owls could figure out a few things against an atrocious Gamecocks defense and manage to surprise a few teams in CUSA. Expectations were already low so “rallying” to 3-9 feels like a modest success. Nothing changes about the program.
There’s also a much more grim version where the Owls struggle against UT Martin and drop the most important game in Bohannon’s career to date. A patchwork coaching staff struggles to keep the locker room together, and players with options start planning their next move before we reach CUSA’s nationally televised October slate. Attendance plummets just as it did during even the most successful FCS seasons. Overton’s forced to make a move, and the real debate would be whether or not Bohannon has enough juice with the AD to use coordinators as a shield.
We all know what would be more fun to watch. What remains unclear: Which version would be better for the long-term health of the program?
I do think expectations need to be tempered a little bit. This program has been around for 10 years and in the grand scheme of things that is nothing... most schools have been in FBS longer than KSU has even been a school let alone a University. I'm pretty sure GA State won 1 total game its first 2 FBS seasons and almost got beat by us (FCS) not long ago.
I completely agree with the coordinators... they don't belong in FBS and this should have been figured out WAY before this season. Running the ball 80% of the time will never work. Our facilities are also a huge issue. They need to get moving on them quickly and once you start constantly selling out 5/3 start thinking about expansion or a new stadium. We're going to have to buckle up for a couple years.
Love the point that we're not the only g5 without good nil. That's probably necessary to contend for anything serious, but that's not what fans seem upset about.
-hooty hoo from the message board.