Nearly 15 months had passed since Kennesaw State last played a football game. The Owls didn’t forget its winning formula, but the time off was made obvious Saturday in their inability to hold onto the ball.
Despite three turnovers, Kennesaw State beat Shorter 35-3 on Saturday afternoon at Fifth Third Bank Stadium. A strong defense and rushing offense propelled the No. 8 Owls to a season-opening win over the Division II Hawks.
The Owls’ triple-option started slowly, struggling to advance the ball in the first quarter. Two lost fumbles and an interception made matters worse, but the defense balanced that with three fumble recoveries of its own.
Kareem Taylor’s recovery in the third quarter set up Kyle Glover’s 10-yard touchdown to increase the lead to 21-3. Taylor returned the ball 17 yards but was chased down before he could reach the end zone.
“I was just trying to get a block and get to the edge,” Taylor said. “It is what is. I knew we needed that coming off a couple turnovers and the offense was struggling.”
Glover led the Owls with 87 rushing yards. Quarterback Tommy Bryant rushed for three touchdowns and passed for 27 yards, all on his only completion (in two attempts). Isaac Foster had the team’s longest rush, for 27 yards in the third quarter.
Shorter took an early 3-0 lead on a field goal by Nick Pope. Quarterback Aeneas Dennis extended the Hawks’ first drive with a 21-yard scramble on a third-and-18.
The Hawks relinquished their lead early in the second quarter. Bryant scored the Owls’ first points with just over nine minutes left in the first half. His four-yard rush capped a 10 play, 61-yard drive. He then added two more rushing touchdowns, one before halftime and another in the final 10 minutes of the game.
When Kennesaw State is in the red zone, it usually can count on Bryant to punch it in. His performance Saturday continued a trend from the 2019 season, when Bryant finished second in the FCS in rushing touchdowns among quarterbacks. He made only three starts at the position.
“You try to eliminate where the ball goes (in the red zone), minimizing the ability to turn the ball over,” Bryant said. “Your chances of that happening become a lot slimmer when you keep it in the quarterback’s hands.”
Bryant and his teammates couldn’t eliminate turnovers in other areas of the field. Bryant recovered his own fumble and threw one interception.
Jonathan Murphy, Bryant’s backup quarterback, fumbled twice. Running back Preston Daniels added another fumble.
Kennesaw State finished with 338 yards of offense compared with Shorter’s 160. The Owls averaged 422 yards in 2019 while outscoring their opponents by almost 20 points.
Shorter, a Baptist university in Rome, went 1-10 in the Gulf South Conference last season. Its only other game against Kennesaw State also resulted in a loss. The Owls’ first-ever team in 2015 beat the Hawks in that game 18-10.
This year’s team endured a summer and fall without normal competition. While the coronavirus pandemic shouldn’t be an excuse, coach Brian Bohannon said it upended routine, which in turn affects performance. After so much time away, the players’ excitement wasn’t the issue.
“They were amped up and ready to go,” Bohannon said. “We all were. Shoot, I was. I love this stuff. Win, lose or draw. … With all that we’ve been through, (the football field) is a sacred space for us. That’s it, man. Out there is where we can go do our thing and get away from all the things that are going on.”
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