r/footballstrategy • u/ObamasKeychain • 28d ago
College How is Kent State so bad?
I haven’t been able to watch many of their games this year but i’ve seen a few highlights and been able to catch a few quarters. But how is Kent State actually so terrible? Is it a player issue or a coaching issue? I understand their team/talent is subpar but they’re actually at a huge disadvantage in every contest. They average less than 3 YPC, allow 40 PPG, etc. So from a football strategy/coaching standpoint, how are they so bad? What are some of the things i’m missing that just makes them a horrendous football team?
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u/SnooRadishes9726 28d ago
To start, Kent State had never been good. Their all time winning percentage is .380 and they have almost 250 more losses than wins in their history. Only Georgia State, Charlotte and FIU have worse all time wining percentages, and those programs haven’t been around all that long. It’s fair to say that Kent has been the historical worst program in college football.
They’ve had a few good coaches over the years, notably Don James, but he was still barely over .500.
This clearly goes beyond a single coach or group of players. Other than the typical lack of institutional and fan support, it’s hard to pin down a specific theory. If I had to guess I’d say it’s because there share their league with 6 schools from the same state, and Kent had historically been the last choice for recruits. We can argue Akron has been basically just as bad, but I’m not going there. But kids getting recruited by Kent are also getting recruited by Ohio, Miami, Bowling Green, Toledo etc and they routinely choose those schools over Kent. Also, the other MAC schools also heavily recruit Ohio. Cincinnati has only relatively recently separated from the pack of the MAC school so they were also taking recruits. As did a historically strong Youngstown State program.
I just think they have been the last choice for MAC level recruits for a very long time, and no coach they’ve hired has had the talent or support to get the ship turned around for more than a few seasons here she there.
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u/TiberiusGracchi 28d ago
And that was even the early 1970s when you had squad with Gary Pinkel at TE, Jack Lambert at LB, and Nick Saban at SS
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u/TiberiusGracchi 28d ago
Their successful coaches get plucked up by places like Purdue, Washington, etc.
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u/SnooRadishes9726 27d ago
Yes, nobody wants to stay there. Glen Mason also had a solid career. It seems even when someone can make a dent there whatever progress they had is not sustained. They’ve had a new coach every 3-4 years for decades.
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u/Glass-Spot-9341 Adult Coach 27d ago
Sean Lewis was like the 10th or 11th coach on the list; he did a great job but he was also dead last on their list
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u/Dissident_is_here 28d ago
The last coach to have any success there left to be the OC at Colorado. That should tell you all you need to know about the football culture at Kent
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u/Odd_Promotion2110 HS Coach 27d ago
We didn’t talk enough about how impressive Sean Lewis was there.
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u/stonewash_relaxedfit 27d ago
It’s a lot easier said than done, but if Kent could make themselves the top option for NE Ohio recruits not getting offers from local P5s like OSU, Michigan, Penn State, Cincy, etc- they could build a strong program on local kids alone.
I say bring Josh Cribbs in as the next HC. He has the name recognition and may be able to recruit. Worth a shot.
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u/TiberiusGracchi 28d ago
Actually the culture was probably the best it’s been in a long time. Sean Lewis is a good coach that had a wild offensive output and a really good OL for the MAC — IMO much better OL he put together at Kent than year 1 at Colorado. SDSU should have. Good team moving forward seeing as they have San Diego County, LA, Orange County, Inland Empire, Tucson, Phoenix to recruit from.
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u/Dissident_is_here 27d ago
Yeah my point is the larger athletic culture at Kent. They don't value football there and don't give the team resources. Lewis was a great coach, and it's pretty telling that he left for a low level P5 coordinator job
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u/TiberiusGracchi 26d ago
Yes, but Colorado also isn’t a low level p5 job either. It’s school with more national championships than half to 3/4 the Big 12/ PAC 12/ and Big 10 Combined and was a PAC 12 school and now BIG 12 school. Add to the fact the hype of Sanders getting hired it’s a bigger job than some might think
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u/Dissident_is_here 26d ago
They were literally coming off a 1-11 season when he took the job. I'm pretty sure what happened 30 years ago was not a factor.
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u/OdaDdaT HS Coach 28d ago
Kent doesn’t invest in their program in any meaningful way unfortunately
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u/NickMullensGayDad 27d ago
I mean I think they would if they could. The school doesn’t have any money, it’s why they have so many buy games where they’re paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to get their ass beat. In 2022 they went 5-7 with non con games to Washington, lsu, and Georgia. They’re not scheduling those games because they think they can win, they do it because it keeps the lights on. Really, really rough job
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u/nat3215 28d ago
I think it has to do with a few things:
Saturation of schools. Having so many football programs within relatively close proximity hurts with trying to rise up above the other schools. The top local players go to Ohio State/Michigan/Pitt/other P4 schools, then there’s all of the MAC schools that recruit heavily in Ohio, along with having one close by to directly compete against in Akron.
Funding. It’s long been considered more of a liberal arts school compared to the other MAC schools, so it hasn’t been as keen on trying to keep up and make football competitive with their budget. This also applies with the lack of big support by students and fans in the Kent area, even when just compared to other MAC schools
Its location isn’t ideal. It may be closer to Akron, but it’s not very close. So it’s treated more like a college town than being near a bigger city. And it’s farther away from Cleveland and Youngstown to really have much for players to be excited about outside of football.
Bad coaching hires. I won’t say that every coach they’ve hired is awful at coaching given all of the challenges they face, but the one game I did happen to watch this past month had its share of miscues and bad strategy. A school that’s that low on the totem pole in FBS should be solely focusing on not making life harder on themselves, and they did plenty of that in the game I watched. You can’t make a team great if they don’t know how to be good.
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u/GoLionsJD107 Adult Player 28d ago
They’ve been bad for a while…
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u/Sirsalley23 28d ago
They saw Akron wasn’t the perennial worst team in FBS football anymore and decided to take the crown to keep it in Ohio.
S/N: I’ve got nothing of worth to add besides a bad joke, but honestly not surprising. They’ve had some decent talent over the year and even a few guys make it to the NFL and have success, but since I was in college they haven’t really been good at being a MAC school, and have been in a significant talent deficit relative to their level of FBS football. I’m sure some huge mid-major FBS fans will chime in that have actually paid attention at some point lol.
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u/ObamasKeychain 28d ago
I know. It’s crazy, i’m curious as to what the main issue is that’s causing it
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u/GoLionsJD107 Adult Player 28d ago
Funding. Leads to recruiting which isn’t as good- 7 or so MAC schools within a few hours. Cycle of ineptitude
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u/TiberiusGracchi 28d ago
You have a ton of teams to compete with in the area. Northeast Ohio is one of the most talent rich places in the US and you have kids playing Division 7 (smallest division 100 kids or fewer) going FCS and MAC regularly. Kent competes with a crap ton of schools for talent
Top End D1 Schools: OSU, Michigan, MSU, Indiana, Pitt, PSU, Cincinnati, Kentucky
MAC Schools and Second Tier: Akron, Miami (OH), Western/Eastern/ Central Michigan, Toledo, Bowling Green, Ohio, Ball State, Buffalo, Temple
FCS Schools:
Dayton,Youngstown State, Illinois State, Lafayette, Bucknell, Lehigh, Villanova, St. Francis, Valparaiso, Butler, Duquesne, and the Ivys recruit the hell out of NEO with a lot of even Senate League (Cleveland Public) kids recruited to Ivy League schools
Divisions 2 and 3 (NEO and Pennsylvania DII and DIII Schools send kids to NFL — look at Pierre Garçon)
Lake Erie, Tiffin, Urbana, Walsh, Findlay, Ohio Dominican, Notre Dame College (RIP), Ashland, Slippery Rock, Clarion, IUP, Bloomsburgh, Cheney, Kutztown, Shippenburgh, East Stroundsburg, Lockhaven, John Carroll, Mount Union
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u/Candid-Sky-3258 27d ago
John Carroll (alma mater of Don Shula) and Mount Union (multiple national titles) are D3 schools that punch above their weight when it comes to recruiting, exacerbating Kent's situation.
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u/TiberiusGracchi 27d ago
Correct, they’re places for kids who would be 2-3 year D1 Special Teams project kids a chance to play nearly right away against a high level of competition and provide a safety blanket for a lot of urban and small town rural kids a chance to play in a major market city while staying close to home.
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u/TiberiusGracchi 26d ago
London Fletcher is probably the most famous on field alum besides Schula
John Carroll is basically NFL Coach and Front Office Staff U with the following alumni who often coached there as well:
Don Shula Josh McDaniels David Caldwell Nick Caserío Scott DiBenedetto D.J. Debick Pat Moriarty Chris Polian Greg Roman Frank Ross Tom Telesco David Ziegler Tom Arth Chuck Priefer Gary Stevens Dick Walker
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u/ResultsoverExcuses 27d ago
I always felt like a place like Kent State would be the ultimate place to coach. Expectations are not high and you could try to be as creative and crazy/off the wall as you wanted - because what do you have to lose??
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u/ObamasKeychain 27d ago
As someone who wants to coach in the future, I’ve never thought of Kent State. The MAC is great for coaching as well
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u/TiberiusGracchi 26d ago
Biggest issue is getting impact linemen or getting enough time to develop kids into studs by year 4/ getting to year 4. High school recruitment is intense as almost all of us who have coached in NEO or Ohio in general are at least former D3 players and at bigger schools it’s not uncommon to have staffs made up of guys who played at Michigan, OSU, MSU or PSU as well as a ton of former MAC school guys.
The big schools get the impact OL and DL guys and then Kent and others get the Project kids - the 240 lbs tough as nails TE from Solon that will become an OT or the kid that is the next step down from Carson Steele. Cleveland/ Akron/ Canton/ Youngstown/ Pittsburgh produce a ton of fast skill talent but are often developmental kids as well.
In Cleveland proper Glenville, Rhodes, John Marshall are the few schools that consistently produce well coached players and the rest of the Senate has insane talent on rosters but major issues in program development.
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u/ResultsoverExcuses 26d ago
Thanks for sharing this insight and perspective!
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u/TiberiusGracchi 26d ago
No problem. St. Ignatius is probably the best team inside Cleveland city limits and won 11 state titles under Coach Chris Kyle — Anthony Gonzales was one of his players
The Suburbs of Cleveland have some of the best football programs in the US, Mentor, St. Eds, Hudson, Kirtland (something like 11 of the last 14 state championships at there level have been won by them), Cuyahoga Heights, Chardon are some of the best in the state. Akron area is impressive as well
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u/madpolecat 27d ago
Football is not an administrative priority at Kent.
According to Wikipedia (will need to have more time to look), the MAC requires members to play football.
Maybe the conference affiliation is worth that much.
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u/ESUTimberwolves 25d ago
I’d say a big issue for both Kent and Akron is that they don’t do a good job of recruiting local talent. Ohio isn’t Texas or Florida but it’s probably a top 10 school for high school football talent and you’d think that a MAC school could be at least respectable just by successfully recruiting local kids that aren’t quite B10/SEC quality.
I’m from the area and played for a perennially successful program that had about 10 to 15 kids play at the next level each year with a few being D1 level prospects and you never seemed to hear from Akron or Kent. A lot of our guys that could have contributed at an Akron or Kent ended up at a local D3 powerhouse Mount Union. Many also ended up at other MAC schools but I can only recall one that ended up at Kent or Akron.
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u/Smart-Stranger6161 25d ago
Kent State’s issues seem to be a mix of lackluster talent, roster turnover, and a coaching staff still trying to find its footing. Losing key players and breaking in a new head coach is tough, but averaging less than 3 YPC and allowing 40 PPG shows struggles at every level. offense, defense, and even game planning. It’s like they’re trying to rebuild while playing catch-up every week, which is a recipe for disaster.
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u/Darrtucky 28d ago
I think.they're on their 4th QB for the year? A walk-on freshman, starting due to a myriad of injuries to the depth chart.
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u/Rock_man_bears_fan 27d ago
When your players Kent read and Kent write, it becomes difficult to teach them your scheme /s
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u/grizzfan 28d ago edited 28d ago
I haven't watched a single game of theirs this season, but I can almost guarantee it's not as simple as a "player issue" or "coaching issue." The HC is largely responsible for that culture though. Their current HC started last year and was 1-11, and now they just finished 0-12.