Wideout Zion Booker will miss the rest of the season after going down with an injury as the first-half clock expired against Arkansas State. Mack confirmed the news during his weekly press conference, mentioning that the Tulsa transfer already underwent surgery for an otherwise unspecified injury that happened deep in KSU territory.
Before we talk about what comes next at the WR position, I would like to exonerate Jerry Mack for running the ball in that position. Out of curiosity, I used College Football Data’s play-by-play info to look up every similar snap taken at the FBS level since 2024 - first down between your own 10 and 20-yard line with less than :10 on the clock in the first half. Roughly 41% of coaches elected to run an actual play in that position instead of kneeling, including both teams that played for the national title last season. Brutal roll of the dice for Booker to get hurt like that, but we can’t really blame Mack for a near-coin flip decision that hundreds of coaches have made with zero impact.
No matter how bad his luck is, Kennesaw State still needs to replace the production lost in the absence of Booker, who had become Rickie Collins’ most reliable underneath option for a passing attack that hasn’t quite found a rhythm downfield. I feel like I’ve already hit my quota on cross-sport comparisons, but Booker’s injury calls to mind the Simeon Cottle situation from last basketball season: Can the Owls bench the most productive volume shooter, even if a change is needed? Probably not, but sometimes outside circumstances give you an accidental spark.
Nobody’s going to argue losing Booker makes the WR room - or the offense as a whole - more talented. Swap a federal indictment for a season-ending injury, though, and we might have a reset button that forces the Owls to rethink the passing game and shake up an offense that feels out of sync.
Check out the current situation at wideout, where the 5’10”, 186-pound Booker was the only KSU receiver to get more than 15 targets on the season.
