Football in the Big South should be exciting for Kennesaw State.
Though it missed several chances to blow out Gardner-Webb, the Owls defeated the Bulldogs 12-7 on Saturday to win their first conference game. Kennesaw State improved to 5-1 in its inaugural season behind an excellent performance by quarterback Trey White and an outstanding performance by its defense.
Victory was assured when Nick Perrotta intercepted Tyrell Maxwell on the 1-yard line with three seconds left.
Coach Brian Bohannon wasn’t interested in trying to minimize the importance of the win as just another game, describing it as huge several times.
“You are talking about a young football team, playing their first conference game, playing a team that just upset the 15th-ranked team and conference champ,” he said. “It was wasn’t pretty, wasn’t perfect, but talk about finding a way to win.”
Here are five things we learned about Kennesaw State’s football team:
It needs to reduce its mistakes: Though Kennesaw State's defense dominated Gardner-Webb in the first half, the offense couldn't capitalize on its advantage in yards (211-38) and time of possession (nine minutes) because of its mistakes with penalties and mental miscues. The Owls scored six points on its three trips inside Gardner-Webb's 20-yard line for its 6-0 halftime lead.
Drives were slowed or stopped because of false-start penalties, a penalty that wiped out what would have been first-and-goal inside the 5 and a field-goal attempt off the upright on the same drive, an underthrow by White and later a dropped touchdown pass by Kennesaw State wide receiver Justin Sumpter on another.
Kennesaw State had done a good job in its 4-1 start of not committing the types of mistakes that prevented it from rolling over Gardner-Webb.
“We had to really grind it out,” White said. “This was our coming-out party, it felt like. We didn’t punch it in the end zone, but we did enough to win.”
Trey White can run this offense. White continued to pad his totals as Kennesaw State's leading rusher against a Gardner-Webb defense that came in with stout statistics.
The Bulldogs, who were allowing 136 rushing yards per game, were gashed by White for 170 yards on 34 carries. The Owls gained 239 yards on 60 carries.
White’s passing wasn’t as sharp, but he made a big completion when needed. Leading 9-7, he connected with Sumpter on a 39-yard pass on second-and-9 at the 40-yard line with 3:23 left in the game.
“We had been seeing the post was open the whole game,” Sumpter said. “Trey just put it in a great spot and connected on it and made a good play.”
The B-backs did as expected. White got a lot of carries because of the reads off Gardner-Webb's looks, and also because the Owls played without starting B-back Micah Reed, who suffered a fractured right fibula in last week's win against Point and likely is out for the season. Trey Chivers started in his place and Jake McKenzie, normally a backup quarterback, moved to B-back. Chivers and McKenzie combined to rush for 62 yards and didn't have a run longer than 10 yards.
Bohannon said he didn’t think that the B-backs were going to get a lot of runs because of the quality of Gardner-Webb’s front seven on defense, which Bohannon described as featuring “grown men.”
Bohannon said Chivers and McKenzie will continue to alternate at the position.
The special teams mostly are good. Kennesaw State's Justin Thompson kicked field goals of 30, 33, 26 and 31 yards, but also missed a 36-yard attempt.
“We’d like to make them all, but he made enough to win,” Bohannon said.
Kennesaw State allowed a 54-yard kickoff return that gave the Bulldogs some hope of overturning a 9-0 deficit with 13:38 left in the game. That return was just eight yards less than Gardner-Webb’s offense generated through the first three quarters. The Bulldogs weren’t able to take advantage of its good field position because Kennesaw State’s defense was outstanding.
The defense should be fine in the Big South. Kennesaw State's defense was tops in the Big South in points allowed (16.2 per game), and second in total defense (286.8 yards per game) before Saturday's game. But those averages came against a schedule that most would consider inferior: another start-up, Division II, NAIA and Pioneer League schools.
But it had no problems against Gardner-Webb and Maxwell.
After allowing 66 yards through the first three quarters, the Owls faced their first test early in the fourth quarter. They passed, stopping Maxwell for a loss of one yard on fourth-and-1 at the 21-yard line.
They also did the job on Gardner-Webb’s final drive with Perrotta’s interception.
“Big deal for our program,” Bohannon said. “Talk about laying the foundation, stuff you can build on. You won the first conference game ever. Shoot, you can’t … it’s a big deal. Ain’t no two ways about it.”
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