After time with Coach Prime, Baron Hopson carrying load at Kennesaw State

Kennesaw State’s Baron Hopson has successfully made the transition from Coach Prime to prime time.
The linebacker from Leesburg began his college career with Deion Sanders at Jackson State before transferring to Kennesaw State in 2023 when the Sanders family took their show to Colorado.
Hopson will make his prime time network debut as a major player at 7 p.m. Thursday when the Owls (3-2, 1-0 Conference USA) host Louisiana Tech (4-1, 2-0) on ESPNU.

“It’s going to be a fun experience,” he said. “I mean, all eyes will be on this game. No one else is playing, so it’ll be great.”
Chances are good that many of the eyes will be on Hopson. The 6-foot-1, 215-pound redshirt senior finally is injury-free and making a big difference on the defense. He is the team’s leading tackler (46 total) and has had double-digit tackles in three games. Hopson had 11 stops in the most recent game, Sept. 27 against Middle Tennessee.
Hopson was an two-time all-state player at Lee County, where he won two state titles. When it came time to choose a college, he gladly joined the effort to help Sanders establish his brand at Jackson State.
“It was a great experience playing for Coach Prime, and the staff he put together was riddled with NFL talent, and from coaching and player-wise, it was great to be able to absorb how to be a professional in the game,” Hopson said. “That’s probably the biggest thing I took from that experience, just the professionalism behind it all.”
Hopson played eight games as a freshman and played in all 13 games as a sophomore in 2022, when he had 51 tackles, 7½ tackles for loss and four sacks.
When Sanders left Jackson State, Hopson began to look for an opportunity to play at the FBS level and gravitated toward Kennesaw State.
“I didn’t want to make a lateral move,” he said. “I was hoping Power Four, but that didn’t turn out for me, but this was an opportunity to be close to home; I’ve got a lot of family within an hour, so I’ve got people coming out every game.”
When Kennesaw State opted to move into FBS competition, the staff chose to redshirt some of the better recruits — including Hopson. He played four games and had 24 tackles. In 2004 he dislocated his right shoulder three times and was limited to four games and received a medical redshirt.
“It was not fun,” Hopson said. “As soon as it happened the first time, they knew my labrum was torn and I would need surgery. It was just a matter of whether we could play with it. When it happened the third time I decided to shut it down.”
A difficult six-month rehab ensued, and Hopson was declared fit for preseason camp. Now he’s fully healthy and showing why he was such a highly regarded transfer when he arrived on campus.

“I knew I had a lot more to give to my football career, no matter how long that lasts,” Hopson said. “I know I’ve got a lot more left in the tank. I felt like my time at Kennesaw was kind of lackluster, in my opinion. I really haven’t had the chance to show well, and I was just waiting for the day that I could finally be free and healthy and be able to show what I could do.”
Hopson made faster strides when he accepted coach Jerry Mack’s challenge to change his body shape.
“We wanted him to lean up. We wanted him to drop some pounds, some body fat,” Mack said. “He heard us and went into the summer, dropped some pounds. It has allowed him to move around better. The football IQ and football knowledge was already unique. We really didn’t know how instinctive he was until we started to get into fall camp.”
Hopson cleared any doubts in the first game when he 11 tackles against Power Four opponent Wake Forest.
“He’s just been progressing the right way,” Mack said. “The way he dissects things and the way he flies around, (I’ve) just been impressed with those things.”
This week the Owls face one of the top teams in Conference USA. Louisiana Tech is coming off an impressive 30-20 win over Sun Belt Conference-foe Southern Miss. The Bulldogs are 4-1 for the first time since 2019.
Kennesaw State is uncertain about who will play quarterback. Amari Odom was shaken up toward the end of the game against Middle Tennessee, and Dexter Williams was unavailable because of injury.