Photo Courtesy of KSU Athletics
The Jerry Mack era of Kennesaw State football took stage for the first time during an open practice and scrimmage at Fifth Third Stadium on Saturday.
Fans filed into Fifth Third stadium for free on Saturday morning to get a glimpse of some of the Owls’ newcomers, as well as showcased returners.
From 10a.m. till roughly 11:20a.m., fans watched players compete in positional drills for both the offensive and defensive side of the ball.
At 11:30, the team rallied at midfield before splitting into offense (white) and defense (black) to scrimmage.
Georgia Southern transfer Dexter Williams II took the first snaps for the offense, and just a few plays into the scrimmage delivered a strike to Gabriel Benyard for a 70-yard touchdown completion.
“(The experience) It’s been great,” Williams II said. “Getting adjusted with these new guys, I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to do this with. Spring was all about for myself and I had a goal for the whole offense to just grow from day one. From January when we first got here to today, I think we’ve taken a step, but like coach said we still got steps to take.”
Freshman quarterback Skylar Williams was the next to get signal calling reps for the offense, and led a scoring drive that capped with a 20-yard touchdown completion to Christian Moss.
Wofford transfer Amari Odom, sophomore Lucas Scheerhorn and walk-on Preston Clemmer each took snaps at quarterback during the rest of the contest, while running backs Coleman Bennett and Channing Canty each found the endzone once.
With all five rostered quarterbacks making an appearance, Mack said he was pleased with the results.
“I think the (quarterback) unit has continued to impress,” Mack said. “I think back to really our fist time we got a chance to line up 11-on-11 at the beginning of March to as we get into today, the operations were a lot faster moving up and down the field as we transitioned from play to play – I was really pleased with some of those things we did.”
The scrimmage concluded shortly before noon.
“That was a pretty good spring game for the most part,” Mack said. “Tried to limit some of the reps to take some of that wear and tear off the guys’ (bodies). They’ve been doing a great job these last 14, 15 practices making sure they’re taking care of each other.”
