Brian Bohannon stood in front of more than 150 high school football players Friday and said, without the slightest bit of self-importance, “Today, you are part of history.”
Though they won’t sign their first recruits until February or play their first game until August 2015 at the earliest, Bohannon’s fledgling football program is picking up momentum.
Bohannon and his staff hosted their first camp this week at Fifth Third Bank Stadium. Nine different high schools, bringing 20 kids each, attended one of the three days.
The camp was the first official football activity on campus since the Board of Regents approved the program’s funding in February. Bohannon was hired a month later. In attendance were several members of the athletic department and other curious visitors eager to see something related to football on campus.
“The enormity of football is different when you haven’t been a part of it,” Bohannon said. “As coaches, this is what we do all the time, and I don’t think we realize the magnitude of what’s going on.”
Quite a bit has happened and is scheduled to happen as the program evolves. More than 70 high school players have unofficially visited the campus. More than 50 scholarship offers have been made — with three players committing.
New dorms featuring four-bedroom units with full kitchens have opened and have been a focal point during those unofficial visits. Bohannon said the tour guide for the dorms has been the busiest person on campus. Offensive coordinator Grant Chesnut said the dorms are nicer than what he and his wife lived in during their first seven years of marriage. There are 3,500 beds on campus.
Season-tickets sales are brisk, with 25 percent of the approximately 4,000 seats available in Fifth Third Bank Stadium committed through a letter-of-intent purchasing program that started in April.
Athletic director Vaughn Williams hopes to debut the team’s new helmets this fall.
Chesnut said the biggest challenge has been raising the school’s awareness around the state with high school football players. To that end, teams from metro Atlanta and elsewhere in North Georgia attended this week’s camps, which were held Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
“Branding Kennesaw State is the No. 1 priority,” he said.
Two important things have yet to happen: The Owls don’t know in what conference they will play, and they haven’t finalized any nonconference games. The Atlantic Sun, Kennesaw State’s current conference, doesn’t offer football.
Bohannon knows the type of schedule he hopes to put together. He said the Owls won’t play any “money” games its first season against more-established FBS schools. He said most of the players on the roster will be freshmen or redshirt freshmen.
“We want to give our kids a chance to compete,” he said.
Lastly, the coaches should move into a complex near campus this fall that will include a weightlifting facility as well as indoor practice field big enough to host seven-on-seven drills.
It’s all part of the history being made at Kennesaw State.
“It’s been going 100 mph,” said Liam Klein, an assistant coach and recruiting director. “We’ve hit 90-95 percent of the high schools in the state. We’ve had a lot of kids buy into what we are doing. It’s been unbelievable.”
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