We’re on the downslope to football now. Rosters are mostly locked in thanks to the single portal window, spring ball wrapped up last month, and the preview magazines are starting to hit newsstands. That means Talkin’ Season is right around the corner, and the planning has begun.
Kennesaw State announced Tuesday that Jerry Mack will bring OT Nikola Milovac and MLB Baron Hopson for this year’s edition of the CUSA Kickoff, set for July 20-21 in Arlington, TX. The two-day event will consist of a live ESPN+ show on Monday, followed by the traditional press conferences on Tuesday.
The rest of CUSA’s main characters heading to media day this year:
A few more notes from the CUSA Kickoff release:
This marks the first CUSA Kickoff since 2022 without a new school joining the league. That won’t stop the big-picture palace intrigue about realignment and questions, both about recent departures and who might be next into the conference. No expansion news has trickled out of spring meetings, so Judy MacLeod’s presser will be interesting in that regard.
Mack’s selections of the two returners tracks with how the second-year coach treated his first media day experience when he brought Christian Moss and JeRico Washington. In a transfer-heavy environment, it pays dividends to use guys like Milovac and Hopson to pitch the vision after coming in from elsewhere and finding a multi-year home. This is a political rally, after all.
That focus on returners is also how most CUSA coaches treat the event. FIU quarterback JJ Kohl, formerly of App. State, will be the only newcomer among the 20 players in attendance. You can count on this list of players being a pretty good indicator of who won’t be in the league next year, though, whether through graduation or portal poaching.
Nine of ten head coaches are returners, with only Missouri State’s Casey Woods stepping into the league as a fresh face. Are all those coaches good? Absolutely not. But that feels like a step in the right direction when the conference is desperate for any sense of continuity.
MTSU is sending the punter. I’m not as down on Derek Mason as some, but that’s a legit hilarious football program. Let’s hope the Blue Raiders braintrust scripts a better preseason narrative than We Saved Money on Helmets from last season.
Jacksonville State’s bringing back enough that this budding rivalry will have even more juice this year. Out of all the players making the trip, Caden Creel would be my number one draft pick to say something provocative and get the people going.
No mention of the prestigious Bowl Confidence Index so far. Nothing about Nebraska Furniture Mart’s signature style and premium furnishings either. Trouble in paradise? Pretty subtle Loews Hotel spon con, though. I love this conference.
I understand that all of the Live! variants exist as actual businesses and are probably well-equipped to host events like the CUSA preview show. It’s just hard for me to separate the horrors I’ve seen at our version in
AtlantaCobb County. One example: I saw a man buy a full tray of plastic cups filled with straight vodka for himself and then pay $100 cash so that the live musical act would perform the national anthem. We can only hope nobody gets injured riding the bull.
We’re really just sitting and waiting until CUSA kickoff to get any further real updates about this Owls team. In the meantime, we’ll get overloaded with the recruiting aggregators pumping out BIG MACK MEGA CAMP posts and offers. As far as offseason content goes, I’ve enjoyed the Film Room series from KSU’s own in-house production crew - the latest episode breaks down the jet package the Owls used last year. An interesting look at a key concept, and also a reminder that slot receiver is the most important non-QB job opening on the team this season.
Mack also jumped on the Bunch Formation podcast at the Athletic, spending almost an hour with Chris Vannini and David Ubben. There’s not much new info here but I think this might be the most complete appearance of Jerry Mack on a national CFB pod. That emerging genre - and lack of corresponding local attention - is probably worth talking about more in-depth at some point this offseason, in terms of how it fits into the broader strategy. It’s possible to find a cynical take on this national media carwash, but for now I will just appreciate the opportunity to hear from our coach at length.
Preseason magazines have also started to hit newsstands and help us keeping churn clock toward real football. Phil Steele remains the gold standard, but Athlon was first to market this year with a KSU preview written by (I think) Stan Awtrey from the AJC. That explains a lot, because I could not make sense of these projected starting lineups until figuring that out - enough awareness of the program to get all the chalk picks right, peppered with some outright hallucinations in terms of position.
The non-Steele mags mail it in for the most part, particularly in the G6 ranks where contributing writers often write blindfolded. I do find Athlon’s coach gossip section in each profile to be fairly interesting and almost worth the price of admission to see what competitive staffs think across the board. A year ago, Athlon found a guy willing to say “I don’t think [Kennesaw] is doing anything different with this new staff.” Oops. This time around, I think the defensive is a little slept on with the talk about flipping “their entire roster.”
For the league-wide picks, Athlon sent KSU to the New Orleans Bowl against West Virginia and slotted the Owls third in the projected standings. Mateo Guevara (C), Marcus Patterson (DL), and Baron Hopson (MLB) all earned first-team All CUSA honors.
WKU
Liberty
Kennesaw State
Jacksonville State
Delaware
FIU
Missouri State
New Mexico State
MTSU
Sam Houston
Tony Soprano once said “Remember When” is the lowest form of conversation. On a similar note, so is "We’re [Insert Player’s Jersey Number] Days Away from Football Season!” Anyway, We’re Nasir Smith Days away from the home opener against West Georgia.
Smith came to Kennesaw from Georgia Southern and played 31 snaps last season (via PFF) with limited duty at both tackle and end. An intriguing development: Has he really gotten back above 270 since the 2025 weigh-in? That’s close to his listed playing weight as a three-star recruit at Grayson and his redshirt year at Southern, but he dipped down to 255 for his first season in Kennesaw. Not many Owls can boast a high school offer list this strong, with reported options from every power conference. We’re only a couple years removed from that recruiting pedigree, for what that’s worth.
Currently he’s right in the tweener zone that Mattioli loves for the hybrid defensive linemen. Marcus Patterson’s hovering around 270, and that’s who subbed out when Smith came into the spring game on the opening drive. Smith matched up against Milovac a few times on passing reps and ended with a record of 1-1-1 in the eyes of this amateur blogger.
Assuming we write Patterson’s name in sharpie as the starter, can Smith win the backup role over Ugonna Nwoha or the true freshmen? That position - with a job description that expands well past just DE - is a pillar of Mattioli’s hybrid defense and a large reason why the Owls are able to play three-down and four-down fronts in equal measure. Nwoha wasn’t suited up for the spring showcase scrimmage, giving Smith a chance to gain ground against the redshirt senior who spelled Patterson last year and actually graded out a little higher according to PFF.
There’s also the possibility that Awtrey is correct in Smith being in the picture at the DT role opened up by Tylon Dunlap’s departure, though that would require a lot more time in the weight room - and The Commons.
