AJ Howard, Sentinel Staff Writer
Kennesaw State’s head football coach doesn’t generally last far enough into the night to ceremoniously kick off the New Year, but 2015 is different. Brian Bohannon actually stayed awake to see the Times Square Ball drop this New Year’s Eve because midnight, Jan. 1 signified the year had arrived for his Owls to begin play.
After nearly two years, Vince Dooley and the Football Exploratory Committee announced KSU’s football program, gridiron excitement is still a booming resource in Kennesaw. Milestone after milestone–recruiting, practices and scrimmages–came and went with varying levels of fanfare, but the simmer toward actual gameplay has never been this normalized. With the young team back on campus after winter break, the Owls are finally on the same schedule as their peers in preparation for the program’s inaugural game against East Tennessee State on Sept. 3.
“That’s the first thing I told the team about,” Bohannon said. “Man, I can’t tell you how excited I am that it’s 2015, and y’all know what that means.”
Photo by Matt Boggs|The Sentinel
KSU football’s first chance to channel that game-year excitement comes in the form of the team’s offseason conditioning regimen, a five-day plan that incorporates both weight room work and running exercises at the Perch. Along with 6:30 a.m. breakfast checks, classes and study hall, the Owls will both run and lift on Mondays before alternating between the two for the other weekdays.
Strength and conditioning director Jim Kiritsy, the man largely in charge of the exercise routines, called his role “a strength coach’s dream” upon accepting the position in April 2014, speaking to the potential that a startup program provides. A side effect of the nearly endless possibility, however, is the challenge of imparting upon players the discipline of college strength training.
“Are they in the best shape right now?” Bohannon said. “I would say not. But that’s not completely uncommon with a long break and a bunch of young kids who do not know how to handle that break and what’s ahead of them.”
Such is the need for constant reminders that a workout plan, featuring a brutal set of Olympic lifts, even scrolls by on the flat screen in the lobby of the football offices. The players might not always be in the weight room, but it’s tough for them to ever truly distance themselves from the preparation.
“I think it’s been interesting since we’ve gotten back and there’s been some new guys here,” Bohannon said. “I think the reality for some, where things are and what’s going on, has set in a little bit.”
A need for mature talent turned the Owls toward junior college and transfer players to find those new guys this recruiting cycle. Five players have already been cleared to join KSU’s team mid-year, including four junior college players considered juniors in terms of eligibility: offensive linemen Leigh Comfort and Malik Letatau, and defensive backs Derrick Farrow and Chance McNulty. Stockbridge native Dustyn Moore, a transfer linebacker from Kent State, has also joined the team and will begin his KSU career as a redshirt sophomore.
After eight weeks of training, the newcomers and the returning Owls, who practiced 34 times in the fall, will have their first football-specific action of 2015 when spring practice begins on March 2. Time limitations and the need to have the roster at 95 players before fall camp will place a certain premium on what is achieved.
“We’re going to have to turn it up a notch, because we can’t go as slow as we did in the fall,” Bohannon said. “What you’ve done in a three-week segment, we’re going to put in a day.”
NCAA regulations allot the Owls 15 total practices for the spring, the most prominent of which will be the program’s first spring game on March 28. Even the logistical aspects of the day will give the team teaching moments. From field entrances to how they’ll spend halftime, the Owls will use the scrimmage as a “mock game day” that goes a step further than last fall’s public scrimmage.
“We’re trying to knock out as much of that as we can so that things can be smooth as possible,” Bohannon said. “There’s going to be some hiccups with something like this. It’s not going to be perfect, but we’ll make it the best we can.”
