Flash time: first thoughts on Kent State

Let me preface this by saying I haven’t seen a single minute of Kent State football this season.  All I’ve got to go on is stats, schedule and others’ takes on the team, so take this post for what it’s worth.

• General impressions.  Steele, in his Preview, picked them to finish second in their MAC division.  That being said, he only lists two of their players on his preseason MAC team. Some of that is no doubt due to the fact that they only have ten returning starters.  One of the departing players, quarterback Dustin Crum, was the conference’s player of the year last season.
• Scheme.  The offense is much more run-heavy this season; their 221.33 rushing average ranks 21st nationally.  (They’re 20th in rushing attempts and 56th in yards per carry.)  Schlee, this year’s quarterback, has led them in rushing in two games and is the team’s second leading rusher on the season, with a respectable 7.38 yards per rush.  He will be Georgia’s first real test for defending a true running quarterback.  Defensively, Kent State runs a 3-3-5 scheme.
• Approach.  They apparently run a hurry up sort of offense.  They’re also pretty decent converting third downs.  That being said, they’ve run the same number of plays that Georgia has.
• Scheduling.  Saturday marks the end of a brutal run for these guys, having already traveled to Washington and Oklahoma.  At a minimum, they’re used to playing in front of large, hostile crowds.  And, to their credit, they led Oklahoma until the final minute of the first half.  (As you can probably imagine, though, turnovers were problems for them in those two games.  They were -2 in each of them.  Schlee threw four interceptions.)

Look, I don’t think there are many deep insights to take away here.  Kent State, contrary to what Kirby Smart says (a “really, really good football team” capable of knocking them off), is a relatively inexperienced MAC squad with the primary goal tomorrow of not getting beat up physically as they enter conference play.  In short, look for more of the same of what we’ve seen from the Dawgs in the first three games.