JERRY MACK'S STRESS TEST
Fixing bars is easy. Fixing people is tough. Previewing Kennesaw State's season opener at Wake Forest.
Even if you’ve never melted into the couch during a hungover Bar Rescue marathon, you’re familiar with the formula: Jon Taffer takes over a struggling business in desperate need of a culture change. His experts come in to shock the system, bringing new ideas, technology, and a televised rebrand.
That sounds a lot like Kennesaw State’s football coaching change, to be honest. Taffer’s preferred crowd control method — the Butt Funnel — is really just running the damn ball up the middle and meeting someone in the A gap.
As much as the new boss would like to duplicate real-world scenarios behind closed doors, you need to open up for public scrutiny to see the cracks in the new foundation. Welcome to the stress test, an electric portion of every episode where Taffer packs the bar to capacity before his crew has fully mastered the base concepts. Is the bartender sneaking drinks to his degenerate friends? Will anyone receive their food order from a swamped kitchen? Will the rebuilt offensive and defensive lines hold up?
Everybody does what they can until Taffer runs in to Shut It Down™️.
We’re stacking the odds against ourselves to find the pressure points. This incredible 2.5 hour supercut isn’t much different than how paycheck games operate for new G5 regimes. 40% of bars that go on the show fail eventually, and plenty more abandon the Taffer-inspired changes, anyway. Thank you to Bar Rescue Updates dot com for allowing me to back that up with analytics. That’s just the nature of the industry, in the same way that most college football programs are sorta doomed when you really think about it.
Why do the bar owners keep trying? Why do I attend every KSU buy game? The belief, I guess. The idea that some outsider and his mixology experts uptempo offense and power conference mindset can come in and fix us. Roaches were all over the kitchen, but one failed health inspection or 2-10 season doesn’t ruin you forever. We’re all counting on the idea that everyone’s only one portal class or game-changing QB from turning it around.
After a coaching change of their own, Wake Forest’s rebuilt roster is a living, breathing testament that the idea of the Power 4 has died out as the SEC and Big Ten consume more and more oxygen. I’m not going to try to sell you the idea that Kennesaw’s roster is better top-to-bottom than what the Demon Deacons brought in; that would be an insane lie to tell. I’m only saying that the gap is not unmanageable in the chaos of two brand-new staffs figuring it out on the job. Are they a more overwhelming physical presence than UTSA to open last year? That’s a genuine question that I had when perusing the depth charts.
Perfect timing: Let someone like
, who’s much more intelligent than me, lay it out in visual form. He posted this Team Talent Composite/Power Rating scatterplot just as I was finishing up my preview.
Depending on which preseason power rating you believe, Jake Dickert’s first squad would rank second in CUSA behind Liberty or just narrowly edge out the Flames as preseason favorites. The resources, fan bases, and history are in a different tier, sure, but these days Wake’s a whole lot closer to the Owls than the true heavyweights of the sport. Let’s call them a welterweight.
On the other sideline, Kennesaw’s hyping a new era under Jerry Mack. If that sounds familiar…
Even if you don’t fully give in to the repackaged optimism and predict a win, what’s the goal for Friday night? For me, let’s find a moment or two that prove this is a different era, not just a new one. How about a fast-paced drive that shows off the potential horsepower of the new offense? Just asking for one. Militello won’t show all his cards on Friday, not even close, but count on the staff cooking up a deep shot from DWII to Benyard or Moss. That play, whenever it comes, will be as close to a religious experience as a hardcore Owls fan can have outside a house of worship.
All we need is a little proof of concept, then you can Shut It Down if Mack realizes Friday’s stress test broke contain. I don’t want to write off the possibility that it will work for us, though, both on Friday night and in year one as a whole. Vibes are still way too high.
On that note, I’m firing legal wagers on Owls +17.5 and moneyline as soon as I hit the North Carolina state line this afternoon. This is not financial advice or even a good idea, for the record. It just feels necessary.
Here’s what an assortment of computers and actual smart humans say about the opener:
SP+: Wake 34, KSU 16
FPI: Deacs by 11.6
Kelley Ford: Deacs by 15.8
Sagarin: Wake 38, KSU 10
Vegas (implied totals): Wake 34.5, KSU 17
Pregame media diet
A whole Kennesaw delegation jumped on the CUSA Insider Podcast for a couple wide-ranging conversations to gear up for the season.
Slow Mesh, rest in peace. Wake’s new OC Rob Ezell will bring his Power Spread offense to Winston Salem after turning South Alabama into one of the G5’s best attacks. Blogger So Dear introduces the rising coordinator, who has a pretty famous Saban impression in his bag, too.
Inside the Forest’s Cam Lemons Debro joined Cover 3’s Summer School series to break down the Demon Deacon’s ahead of Dickert’s first season. I’m in the tank for C3 but I find it’s the best way to get a realistic temperature check on a program.
In a precarious time for the Owls in Atlanta’s media market, only the student-run Sentinel logged in for Mack’s Week 1 virtual presser. Always a good sign when a school can’t even drum up enough interest to host something IRL. Anyway, Kai Millette checked in with a preview that’s not about Bar Rescue at all.
What else to watch
War will hit a little different on Friday. Back in 2017, Mack’s last game as North Carolina Central head coach happened about 30 miles down the road against NC A&T. Mack — and a couple current Kennesaw assistants — had to listen to the Blue and Gold Machine Machine sing about how he didn’t want to go to war as he watched NCCU’s “ancient rivals” clinch an outright MEAC title in his face.
Mack took the Rice OC job a few weeks later, understanding the unfair route most HBCU head coaches have to take to get a shot at the FBS level. After six seasons as an assistant in CUSA, the SEC, and the NFL, it’s a little poetic that Mack’s back in the Piedmont region to kick off his opportunity to lead an FBS program.
And the Marching Owls will play War for him this time around.
Don’t be surprised if the high-speed Veer and Hoot does some restrictor plate racing. Dexter Williams will take the keys to the new offense, an attack that promises to run at NASCAR speeds once the unit reaches its full potential. We’ll see glimpses, but if the Owls stumble early on, there’s not much use in chasing the game at that tempo and adding to the workload. I’m not expecting a massive blowout, but if the Vegas number is spot-on, you have to assume Militello will reluctantly go into fuel-saving mode.
To lead a Demon Deacons defense that returns four starters — DT Zach Lohavichan, LB Dylan Hazel, plus safeties Nick Andersen and Davaughn Patterson — Dickert brought in journeyman DC Scottie Hazelton. There’s a lot of mystery on both sides when Kennesaw has the ball, with a couple restocked units working in new systems.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly previewed Wake’s outlook on defense:
Former Kansas State and Michigan State coordinator Scottie Hazelton takes over a defense that -- surprise! -- will consist mostly of transfers. Ends Gabe Kirschke (Colorado State) and Langston Hardy (UConn) were nice gets, and safeties Ashaad Williams (North Alabama) and Sascha Garcia (William & Mary) were both smaller-school ballhawks. Led by Hazen, this could become a solid-tackling, make-them-beat-you defense pretty quickly. But it's still fair to question the overall talent level on both sides of the ball.
Hazelton described his philosophy in a recent interview with GoDeacs.com: “We're a 4-3 team. We have to end up playing a lot of nickel because of all the 11 personnel stuff. We just rally to the ball. The basics are: you play Cover 1, Cover 2, Cover 3, mix in a little quarters, and add pressure.”
OK, thanks coach. That clears it up. Demon Deacons Digest posted this Hazelton breakdown when Dickert hired him away from his “special assistant” role at Texas. Hearing Tampa 2 and understanding how important Patterson is to this defense, I wonder if Dickert and Hazelton will just put him out there as a de facto MLB, like how Ohio State used Caleb Downs in the playoff beatdown of Tennessee. That depends on how much Hazelton trusts the other slot coverage options.
Patterson’s battling a recent knee issue, but Dickert said his starting nickel should be “probable” for Friday night. Garcia’s out with an injury suffered during spring ball. Otherwise, there doesn’t appear to be any lingering injury trouble in Winston-Salem.
Call me crazy, but I do love getting two buy games out of the gate in terms of what it means for the offense, assuming you can escape the first two at full health. Even if things go as expected (17-ish point underdogs Week 1, about double that the following game, and a below-average FCS team in the home opener), Mack’s team should get to Arkansas State without much tape out there in tight games. Yeah, we might get the equivalent of coachspeak on the call sheet. That’s fine — there’s probably a lot of value for a new offense in working the basics without any expectations. Run your two or three key run concepts a million times and treat it like inside drill.
Can Mattioli’s defense get the Demon Deacons off schedule? Wake’s first down success rate will tell you fairly quickly about the validity of Kennesaw’s upset hopes. Dickert and Ezell opted for an elite running threat at QB with Robby Ashford to pair with returning 1,000-yard rusher Demond Claiborne. Ashford spent last season backing up LaNorris Sellers at South Carolina, after serving as a spot starter for Auburn.
By all reports, the choice came down to Ashford or Charlotte transfer Deshawn Purdie. Using another CFBNumbers creation — his QB radar chart tool — take a look a comparison between Purdie with the 49ers last season, and Ashford’s most full body of work from Auburn’s ‘22 campaign. I’d make the same call as Dickert to start the year.
Nobody will gasp in fear looking at Ashford’s career passing numbers, but the run game contributions are special. Over the course of 500 career snaps, all of which came in the SEC, he’s tallied 1,332 career sack adjusted rushing yards. About a quarter of Ashford’s carries go for 10+ yards, as he’s capable of hitting the jets and punishing undisciplined run fits and pass rush lanes.
Using a near 8 yards/carry QB in Gio Lopez, Ezell’s South Alabama offense ranked in the 99th percentile of early down EPA/play and #6 in rushing success rate last season. Combining the rushing success with an RPO/play action rate in the 40% range, you’d expect Mattioli to beg the Demon Deacons to put the ball in the air and rely on the career 51.8% passer. Easier said than done when Ashford’s paired with a guy like Claiborne. Owls will have a lot of trouble if the backfield tandem can consistently get Wake into 2nd and 3 type situations that keep the entire playbook available.
Donelius Johnson’s potential absence looms large in this one if the team’s most reliable tackler is unavailable, as 70% of Claiborne’s career yards come after contact. To that point, some of the misdirection and designed QB run game from Ezell looks very Tyler Huff/Rich Rod-esque at times. Sorry, I’m trying to delete that. Forget I said anything. Johnson’s missing from the depth chart, as is boundary corner Tyler Hallum — who appears to be fresh out of knee surgery.
Will Wake Forest receiver Karate Brenson, a former teammate of Owls TE Gerard Bullock, line up in the slot as much as he did at Tennessee State (80.7% of passing snaps) last season? If so, I’d look to his matchups with nickel Kody Jones as a deciding factor in the passing game. A physical presence at 6’2”, 215, Brenson posted a 1,000-yard season last year on 3 yards per route run. That’s the kind of dude Kennesaw had a ton of trouble covering with safeties in 2024.