With their inaugural season under their belts, the Kennesaw State Owls are fighting the complacency that plagued the second half of their 2015 season ahead of Saturday’s season opener against East Tennessee State University.
In their second straight season opener against ETSU, the Owls could easily become cocky and ride their 56-16 victory from 2015.
Coach Brian Bohannon instructed his team that their 40-point win means nothing in 2016.
“I’ve told (the players) I don’t care what happened last year — this is a 2016 football team,” Bohannon said. “They’re different. We’re different.”
Like any football team rebuilding in the offseason, ETSU made some roster moves and restructured after finishing their season 2-9 and losing all five away games.
Despite the Buccaneers’ “revamped” offensive line and the change in personnel from transfer students and new starters, Bohannon is confident in the Owls’ preparation from last season’s matchup because the core coaching staff remains the same.
“You’re going to have an idea schematically what they’re trying to do based off last year,” Bohannon said. “They’re just like us, they’re not going to go wholesale change. They’re trying to build a program.”
To go beyond last season’s 6-5 record, Bohannon encouraged his team to not be overly confident on the field on Saturday, but execute and finish games better than they did last season.
“It’s a new year, and yes, we’re older, yes, we’ve been through it,” Bohannon said. “That does help. There’s no question about it. But that word of ‘complacency’ shouldn’t exist with our football program right now.”
The Owls of 2015 began their season going 4-1 in their non-conference schedule, but in the second half of the season, the Owls ran out of steam, losing 4 of their 6 conference games and finishing the season 6-5.
Although the Owls have more depth and a year of experience in their favor, youth still a factor.
Out of the 50 players two-deep in the depth chart, Bohannon said 33 are redshirt sophomores or younger, and several still have never played in a college football game.
One of the Owls’ 15 upperclassmen on the depth chart, quarterback Trey White is heeding Bohannon’s advice about being being overly confident on the field.
“Complacency kind of depends on you got to walk that line of confidence or cockiness and you definitely don’t want to be cocky,” White said. “One thing this team is for sure is we’re a confident football team.”
White, the redshirt senior, rushed for 964 yards last season, threw 49-of-103 and a completion percentage of 47.6.
Safety Derrick Farrow acknowledged the Owls didn’t finish their 2015 season like they wanted because of the inexperience of the team and the lack of depth in several key positions.
"(The) last few games you could feel like guys were trying to fight through (fatigue and) kind of physically drained," Farrow said. "We have gotten a lot better, you know. We are stronger and in every position we have more depth. Going into the season, we want to execute."
As a senior wearing a college jersey for the last time this season, Farrow is focused the defense on preparing mentally to finish games well and personally putting everything he has “on the line for Kennesaw.”
As for the offense, White sees the depth the Owls built over the summer, offseason conditioning and extensive film sessions as an advantage when they play under the lights at Fifth-Third Bank Stadium on Saturday night.
“Last year I thought as an offense, we were successful just because we played really hard,” White said. “I think this year we still need to play with that effort and intensity, but if we can execute better with that effort and intensity, we could be dangerous.”
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