Brian Bohannon believes that football teams make the most improvement between their first and second games.
As well as his Kennesaw State team played in dismantling East Tennessee State 56-16 in its inaugural game Sept. 3, there are still many areas in which it can improve.
“Focal point since we set foot on this campus is we are building something to win a championship,” Bohannon said. “I’ve seen it first hand on the FCS level. I’ve coached it. We will keep pushing the envelope until we get there. I don’t know when that will be. But we will be better (Saturday) than we were in the first one.”
What a stage it will be for the Owls to show how much better they can be when they host Edward Waters on Saturday at a sold-out Fifth Third Bank Stadium. A crowd of at least 8,660 is expected for the inaugural game.
“No better way to make history than to win ballgames,” Bohannon said.
Bohannon has worked the team hard during practices this week. He said the players probably thought he was crazy Monday — and wide receiver Justin Sumpter confirmed that belief — and then probably thought he was even more insane Tuesday.
The extra helping of crazy eyes is because Bohannon said each player is being graded on two areas after each game: efforts and assignment.
Players who fail to go all-out on every play receive an “effort,” which he later said might better be described as a “loaf.” Bohannon said there were 147 missed efforts on 139 snaps in the game against East Tennessee State. There were 111 by the offense and 36 by the defense. He said good teams should have less than 20 each game, and great teams less than 10.
The team also missed too many assignments, some of which it was able to overcome. Jae Bowen’s second touchdown, in which he picked up a fumble by Trey White and ran it in from two yards out, occurred because Bowen missed an assignment. He wasn’t supposed to be where he was.
“If we can go out and cut those things in half in Game 2, then we’ve made a lot of progress,” Bohannon said. “As good as we played, we made a ton of mistakes. In a ballgame that’s a little bit close, we would have gotten beat.”
There are other areas Bohannon wants to see improved.
He said the team didn’t get the B-back involved with the offense as consistently as he would have liked. Bowen had only five carries for 23 yards and two touchdowns because the Owls had trouble running up the middle. Instead, the team amassed most of its 416 rushing yards with plays on the perimeter.
He said the team also had numerous breakdowns inside the 20-yard line. White’s fumble and Bowen’s recovery was an example.
“Fumble for a touchdown is not like you wanted it to be, but at the end of the day it was six points,” Bohannon said.
Bohannon is trying to keep the players focused on improvement by pointing out that Edward Waters, an NAIA school from Jacksonville, Fla., could improve its name recognition by beating the Owls and ruining what will be an historic day.
“We will get one chance to make a first impression in front of our home crowd,” Bohannon said.
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