Before Kennesaw State took the first plane ride in team history, coach Brian Bohannon tried to calm the nerves of his players who had never before taken a flight.
"We had a lot of guys that were obviously anxious and nervous about what was going on," Bohannon said. "As I told them in the team meeting, 'We're going to fly out of Chattanooga, we're going to take off, and then we're going to land in Pittsburgh. Then we're getting off the plane. It's that simple.'"
He couldn't reach everyone on the team.
For at least 25 players, this was the first flight of their lives, but for freshman linebacker Keagan Jordan it was too much too handle.
"Before the plane took off, a lot was going through my mind," Jordan said. "I honestly didn't think that we were going to make it to our destination and that the plane was honestly going to fall out of the sky."
While some of the first-time fliers put in headphones and closed their eyes, Jordan was unable to take his mind off what he said was the team's impending doom.
In the video, Jordan screams and freaks out as the plane prepares for takeoff, and then passes out as the plane goes into the air.
"After the clip was finished online, I say probably 30 to 45 seconds afterward I gained consciousness again," he added.
After Jordan came back to, his teammates took no time to mock and ridicule him for his now-famous freakout and passout. The leader of the bunch was the cameraman, sophomore receiver Xavier Harper.
"Keagan the whole time he was sweating and complaining, even the week before saying he did not want to fly," Harper said. "We sat down in the chair, his hands sweating, he's shaking, he's gripping (sophomore defensive back Nicolas) Snowden's thighs, terrified about it. So right when we started to takeoff I was messing with him the whole time saying, 'We're only going to be like 30,000 feet in the air, it won't be too bad. We're just going to be above the clouds, if we fall you'll live.' So I was just egging him on, making it worse and worse, and finally we got off in the air and I just had to take my phone out and record him."
What was initially supposed to be just a joke within the team ballooned into a viral sensation. Harper said he was forced to turn off his notifications because of all the attention the video was getting and that he's been asked by everyone from MLB Network to ABC to use the clip.
Harper said the video immediately started to blow up, picking up 50 retweets within the first minute, and Jordan wanted him to remove the video until he learned what people were saying.
"At first he was kind of like, 'No, don't post it,'" Harper said. "And then he started seeing all the comments and all and a lot of girls were messaging saying he's cute, so he was like, 'Ok, nevermind, leave that up there. They like me, so I like this, too.'"
The players said the video served as a bit of comic relief and helped relax them before they knocked off Duquesne 36-28 for just the second road win in program history.
The Owls are back on the road again this weekend to battle Furman, but they will not be flying out for that trip. The next time they will take to the sky for travel is for their Oct. 29 contest against Monmouth in West Long Branch, New Jersey.
Despite successful flights from Chattanooga to Pittsburgh and back, Jordan was reluctent to say he is ready for takeoff again.
"Let's not talk about that one right now," Jordan said.
