Kennesaw State’s chances of playing its first football game in 2014 seem less likely because the university isn’t on the schedule for the State Board of Regents meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
To start football, Kennesaw State needs the regents to approve its business plan, which includes a fee increase already approved by students. The regents aren’t scheduled to meet in December, so KSU may not be able to present its plan until the next meeting in January, if it can get on that month’s agenda. Athletic director Vaughn Williams said school officials will do everything they can to present the plan to the regents as soon as possible. KSU wants to start football on the FCS level.
Even if the regents approved Kennesaw State’s plan at next week’s meeting, the Owls would face a challenge trying to hire a coach who could put a recruiting class together in slightly less than three months. Signing day occurs in February. The team likely would need at least two signing-day classes to field a team by 2014.
But Williams isn’t giving up on the possibility of the first game in 2014.
“We are going to do everything we can do to have football as soon as we possibly can,” he said.
The university announced in September 2010 that after a committee chaired by former Georgia coach and athletic director Vince Dooley spent months examining the possibility, it was going to move ahead with adding football and hoped to field the first team by 2014.
Since that time, the school has hired Williams, who has worked on building the financial base for the program.
Getting the regents approval isn’t the only hurdle remaining for the Owls. While the team will play in the KSU Soccer Stadium, which is two years old, it doesn’t have a conference. The Atlantic Sun, the Owls’ home in current sports, doesn’t offer football.
Funding for the potential team will come from the student body. Students approved in November 2010 a $100 increase in fees per semester to support a football program and anything else needed to meet Title IX requirements. That fee was recently re-approved by a student-fee committee. The increase wouldn’t go into effect until the regents approve the plan.
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