KSU got its first look at football in the newly-named Fifth Third Bank Stadium Friday night when North Cobb High School defeated Kennesaw Mountain 55-13 in the 2013 Civil War Classic. Kennesaw State University announced the creation of its football program earlier this year, but the program doesn’t officially kick off until 2015. Friday night’s rivalry offered KSU the opportunity to see what football looks like in the 8,300- seat stadium. Marty Elliott, the executive director and general manager of Kennesaw State’s Sports and Recreation Park said the meeting between the two high schools at Fifth Third Bank Stadium was the idea of Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews.
“Mayor Mathews was excited about the idea of bringing a classic rivalry to the stadium and of course we thought it would be a fantastic idea,” Elliott said Thursday, “sort of a community opportunity as well as an opportunity for us to practice since the stadium has not been used for football before.”
Thousands of excited high school football fans entered the stadium Friday just before kickoff. The Kennesaw Mountain Mustangs (1-2) were listed as the home team so their fans filled one side of the stands while The North Cobb Warriors’ (2-1) fans occupied the other.
North Cobb’s junior quarterback Tyler Queen stole the show. Queen, who is committed to Auburn, finished the night with six touchdowns – three passing and three rushing. He scored the game’s first points just 30 seconds into the first quarter as he ran the ball in from 18 yards out on a quarterback draw. This set the tone for the rest of the game as the Warriors picked apart the Mustangs’ defense, scoring at will.
The Warriors caught the Mustangs off-guard on their second play of the game when wide receiver Cam Albright picked up the ball on a reverse and heaved it 32 yards downfield to a wide open Torrance McGee to set up Queen’s first score. “I don’t think they were expecting it at all, really,” Queen “We practiced it all week and it was just fun to come out here and do something different for the first play.”
Queen, who is the son of North Cobb’s head coach, had an incredible 52-yard touchdown pass on North Cobb’s second drive when he found a wide open McGee to put the Warriors up 14-0 less than four minutes into the game. Kennesaw Mountain rush-heavy offense proved to be no match for the Warriors’ powerful defensive unit. The Mustangs attempted to move the chains by pounding the ball for 3 and 4-yard gains, but struggled to find gaps in North Cobb’s defensive line. They moved the chains well early on but couldn’t seem to find their way into the red zone.
Kennesaw Mountain’s senior running back Jamari Carter split carries with quarterback Nigel Hayes for the majority of the game and the duo had one rushing touchdown apiece for the Mustangs’ only scores. The Mustangs turned the ball over on downs in the third quarter and Queen broke a 53- yard run on the first play of the drive to score his sixth and final touchdown during a possession that lasted exactly 12 seconds.
The Auburn-bound quarterback sat out the entire fourth quarter, a quarter in which the game clock never stopped counting down. The “continuous clock rule” serves to bring high school contests to a timely end if the game is a blowout.
“I felt like I played pretty well but the score has nothing to with me,” Queen said modestly. “It was just an all-around great team effort.” After the game, Elliott said she was very pleased with the way football looked in KSU’s stadium.
“There were so many things that went really right,” she said. “I liked the fan atmosphere, the scoreboard looked amazing. The enthusiasm, the way it looked under the lights, the music – everything, in my opinion, went as smooth as it could for our first time.”
“What a great crowd,” said North Cobb head Coach Shane Queen. “For the first game ever here, I couldn’t have asked for a better crowd and just a great experience all around.”
