Jerry Mack concluded his first signing class as head football coach at Kennesaw State, featuring 33 new faces, 13 of which were announced on Feb. 5.
National signing day on Wednesday solidified KSU football’s 2025 signing class, one Mack said he hopes will lay the foundation for his tenure and help contribute immediately.
“I told those guys, I see them as the foundation of what we’re trying to lay in the new era,” Mack said. “We feel like some of those guys will be able to add weight, and continue to play maybe in year one hopefully, but some of them hopefully year two or even year three. But the guys that are able to contribute right away, we’ve identified so of those guys as well.”
Of the 33 signees, 18 are transfers with previous experience at the college level, while the remaining 15 will be true freshman.
The class includes three quarterbacks in freshman Skyler Williams, Wofford transfer Amari Odom and Georgia Southern transfer Dexter Williams II.
“We’re going to run a little bit of different style of system, we’re going to do some different things and we needed guys we felt like were talented as passers and also who can move and are athletic enough to make plays,” Mack said.
Williams II is arguably the prize of the class with playing experience at the Power Four level at Indiana, and Group of Five level at Georgia Southern.
“All three of those guys first of all, they’re here right now going through spring football with us,” Mack said. “It’s going to be fun and exciting to go see those guys go out there and compete. Dexter, obviously coming from the University of Indiana, then also Georgia Southern, he’s played in major football games — that was one of things that appealed to us more than anything else.”
Shifting into a new era has brought KSU new selling points for recruits. Mack said the size of the university and proximity to Atlanta took many recruits by surprise.
“I think when they get on campus I think everybody is shocked,” Mack said. “A lot of the guys we had brought into visit, some of them had never even been to campus because some of them were out of state guys who weren’t getting recruited to Kennesaw at first and they had no idea what to expect. They thought it was going to be a small school with 5,000 to 8,000 students. I do think being so close to the Atlanta area, they really didn’t know exactly where Kennesaw was on the map as in proximity to Atlanta, and when they come here we take them down to the battery sometimes, and they see this is a lot bigger and a lot more going on than I previously thought.”
A headliner signing of the class was Jamari Harold, who played wide receiver in high school but plans to convert to tight end.
“When you watch his film, the ball skills are really impressive,” Mack said. “But also too, as we looked at his size and we looked at his size-speed combination, probably not quite as fast as some of the other receivers we’ve signed here through the portal or through high school, but as we grow that position we’re looking for those guys we feel like can get up to 220 lbs. plus and stil, have a skill set to go catch the ball.”
The class is ranked 135th in the country by 247sports.com and 167th by On3.com.
Additional information including the full list of signees can be found at https://ksuowls.com/news/2025/2/5/ksu-football-inks-13-on-february-signing-day-brings-2025-class-to-33.aspx
