GET MACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY
Kennesaw State books a Rocky Top payday for 2026.
Owl Navy, let’s ride. Please don’t scroll back a couple days, but I’ve always said to fully trust the Kennesaw State athletic department to make money and provide top-notch fan experiences.
Milton Overton and Co. delivered on both fronts with a 2026 road trip to face Tennessee, the highest-profile opponent in program history. One of those “wouldn’t that be cool” type of weekends we’ve been fantasy booking since Owls football existed.
Jerry Mack’s former employer — where he coached RBs from 2021-2023 — announced the game Wednesday in a two-piece combo, slipping the Owls into a press release about a home-and-home against Georgia Tech. KSU was quick to follow with a post of their own confirming the matchup for September 19, 2026.
The all-important Owl Enhancement update: Kennesaw will receive a guarantee of $1.05 million for the trip, according to a copy of the game contract. FB Schedules was first to report the guaranteed payday. Hat tip to the pros - just couldn’t get to my Gmail quick enough.
A buyout of the full million and change is due in the event of cancellation, unless it’s in relation to the SEC schedule expanding to nine games. In that case, a “good faith” effort to reschedule to another season is all that’s required. From what I can tell, Kennesaw, Georgia Tech, and Furman are Tennessee’s only OOC games at this point, so that shouldn’t come into play.
As revenue sharing comes into play and further drives up the cost of doing business in college football, four of the Owls’ next five seasons already feature at least one power conference buy game. They’ll see both Wake Forest and Indiana this fall, but 2026’s trip to Rocky Top will be the program’s first-ever SEC matchup. If you’re going to sign up for these necessary paycheck games, the circumstances here are tough to beat: Quick road trip up I-75, a historic, massive venue at Neyland, a legitimately insane opposing fan base (compliment) that will still show hospitality, and some added personal history for the coaches. Outside of finally getting UGA on the schedule, this would’ve been at the very top of my wishlist — especially now that the Vols are such an influence for KSU, both on the field and in recent business moves.
Mack, Mitch Militello, Aston Walter, and Kyle Blocker all spent time on Josh Heupel’s staff at Tennessee before making their way to Kennesaw. How much motivation will Heupel have to run up the score or send the house up big against a bunch of his former guys? Especially Militello, who basically served as his QB consigliere at every stop from Missouri onward. Both offenses might combine to run 150 plays, but at least nobody has to waste any time teaching the scout team to run the Veer and Shoot. It’s essentially a mid-September week of spring practice for both sides, only with a massive point spread and 100,000 people yelling about telephone bills.
The weird part: Both programs signed the game contract prior to last season, so the Mack connection is just a strange coincidence. Kennesaw’s signature is dated May 31, 2024, and Tennessee’s reps list 8/11/24 as the day they made it official after a few months of ghosting. Playing hard to get, apparently.
Elsewhere in the contract, there’s about as much interesting info as you’d expect from a document mostly about ticket allotment — 2,500 total between a comped batch of 750 and a consignment to sell — and other thrilling topics like parking spot usage. My favorite part of the agreement comes in the Force Majeure section: We may not cancel this game to Own the Libs without the express written consent of the Southeastern Conference.
Exception. Refusal of either team to participate in the GAME due to political preferences or ideological reasons shall be considered a breach pursuant to Section 13 of this AGREEMENT. Such a refusal will not be categorized as an unforeseen catastrophe.
Following the Vols addition, Kennesaw’s 2026 schedule now features three non-conference games with a couple interesting G5 matchups and our now-public million-dollar SEC paycheck:
Saturday, September 12 — Georgia State
Saturday, September 19 — at Tennessee
Saturday September 26 — at Arkansas State
Just pencil in generic FCS Southeast for that fourth OOC slot, and we’ll figure out the details later. Mack played at Arkansas State, and obviously coached at Tennessee, so maybe we will stumble into another connection with our head coach.
NC Central would be a perfect fit in that spot, right?