By: by Mike DeGeorge
Head Coach Brian Bohannon (Audio) | Jake McKenzie & Izzy Sam (Audio)
KENNESAW – Riding high on a five-game winning streak, Kennesaw State hosts Gardner-Webb Saturday night on Homecoming. The game at Fifth Third Bank Stadium can be seen on ESPN3 or heard on ESPN Radio 1230 and 106.3 The Fan 2. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m.
Head Coach
Brian Bohannon, along with junior RB
Jake McKenzie and senior LB
Izzy Sam, met with the media Wednesday afternoon to preview KSU's matchup with the Runnin' Bulldogs.
Below is a transcript of selected questions and answers:
Head Coach Brian Bohannon
Opening Statement
I appreciate you guys being here, looking forward to being back home, looking forward to homecoming and a great crowd, excited about being at Fifth Third Bank Stadium. I want to start out telling you a little about Gardner-Webb. You see their record and you see 1-5. But let me explain to you a little about this team. They've been beat by four nationally-ranked FCS opponents. Ranging from 4 to 25, nationally ranked. Another loss to an FBS opponent in Wyoming. They have the preseason All-Big South Player, All American Candidate, all the awards you can imagine at quarterback in Tyrell Maxwell, who is a heck of a football player. A team that we barely won with two fourth down stops a year ago and they tallied roughly five hundred yards worth of offense. We got our work cut out for us, and we've got to do a great job of preparing this week. I told our kids, the script has been flipped. We were 0-2 versus Liberty going into their Homecoming. Gardner-Webb is 0-2 versus Kennesaw State coming to our Homecoming. There's a lot of things right now lined up for this football game and if we don't do a great job of preparing, a great job of getting ready to play like it's the Super Bowl, then we'll embarrass ourselves in front of our home crowd on Saturday. Our kids understand that, our coaches understand that, we gotta continue to prepare that way, but that's kind of where we are. It's a good football team, they're better on defense than they were a year ago, they were missing a couple kids that did not play against us last year on defense. We've got to go get ready to play a heck of a football game to give ourselves an opportunity to continue to build on some really good things that have happened the last few weeks, continue to build on that. And we're looking forward to that opportunity especially the opportunity to play at home.
Q: For the second consecutive week, special teams has played really well. Can you speak to the progression of that and how it's gotten better?
A: Well we definitely made improvements there, there's no question. I thought our kick coverage was really probably as good as it's been. We had a lot of guys flying to the ball that were reading their keys, playing with a lot of effort. I thought that was a real positive. We really didn't have anything in the kickoff return game, it was just one of those games we didn't have anything. The blocked punt, you know we were in punt safe, we weren't trying to block a punt. Shoot,
McKenzie Billingslea, in all honesty, he's just playing with unbelievable effort, and went and blocked it. Now if he wouldn't have gotten the ball, he could've jogged to the other sideline at that point in time because he would've roughed the kicker and it'd have been first down. Luckily, he got a piece of it, but he was just playing with great effort because that really wasn't our intention. He was really playing with great effort and made a play. I've been encourage by our play on special teams, much more consistent from a kicking game. I'm not talking about just a coverage but,
Jordan Genovese did a great job kicking off Saturday. We asked him to squib it a couple times and we told him where to squib it, and he was on point. We said "Hey, we want you to squib it to this guy." And he was on point with it. And he had, I think, three touchbacks, which makes your kickoff coverage really good.
Justin Thompson has been really consistent with the field goal game and extra point game. There's been things so much better that has made the flow of the game a lot easier for all of us and we've got to continue to do that because that's made a huge impact on us winning ball games.
Q: Sumpter's catch got a lot of national recognition, where were you when you saw the catch and did you know it was going to be a touchdown?
A: The odds are pretty good when you get the ball near 15, he makes plays. Obviously we ran it the first time and the ball got batted down and we came back, had another opportunity at it. He made a heck of a catch and the official was right there, and he had a clear sight on it and called it a touchdown, so we thought it was. I'm trying to figure out how, with eight seconds to go in the half that a fade was seven seconds. On average, you lose three or four seconds on a fade. So I'm trying to figure out with the official, while they're replaying, I'm down there talking to him, I'm saying "If they overturn this, how are we going to get time back on the clock to try it again?" So I assumed it was a touchdown, but in the same time, I'm going "How in the world does a fade route account for seven seconds?" And the official was over there agreeing with me. But luckily it was clearly in, it was an unbelievable catch, a huge play in the game. Again when you look at how things unfolded a little bit in the second half, huge play in the game. We kid with the quarterbacks, "Man, get it close. Give the kid a chance, cause the odds are pretty good he's going to find a way to come down with it." But it was a heck of a catch and it was obviously great exposure for our program. With him being on Sportscenter and all the things that came with that, with NFL as well, I think that's great exposure for our program and our university.
Junior RB Jake McKenzie
Q: What are some of the things you're picking up now that you didn't pick up originally?
A: A big thing is, knowing where my second level help comes from, such as, the tackles blocking the linebacker from this way, knowing which way to cut off of him if you get to the second level. I think a lot of it is just me just finally calming down and just being a runningback and not being so tight if I have the ball. I know what to do, I know where to run. I just have to do it, not worry about messing up, making the wrong cut, making the wrong step. That's where having the fundamentals in the right place, you don't have to worry about it, and you can just go play. And I feel like I've improved on that, and I'm obviously not where I need to be, but I feel like I've improved on enough where I can just worry about being a ball carrier when I do have the ball.
Senior LB Izzy Sam
Q: Talk about the importance of getting teams off the field on third down.
A: Credit to Coach Newberry first, we focus on third down a lot. We have a mentality when it's third down, there's blood in the water we're like sharks trying to get that blood. When that third down comes, we're just doing whatever we can to make a play. When we're on the field, we're just trying to get the ball back to the offense and third down is the way to do it. If we have a motor, our biggest motor is on third down.
Q: They ran an up-tempo offense, how difficult is it to prepare for that next play?
A: We have checks for hurry up offenses and it's not really difficult because we've worked with hurry up offenses before. We weren't really expecting them to do the tempo that they had, but after that first drive we were able to go to the sideline and get with our coaches and adjust to it pretty well.
Fifth Third Bank is the Official Bank of Kennesaw State Athletics. Fifth Third Bank Stadium, the signature athletics landmark on the Kennesaw State University campus, is a world-class facility that has been recognized as one of the premier multi-use outdoor athletics venues in the country. In the fall of 2015, it become the official home of Owls football team and is home to Owls soccer and lacrosse as well.
Keep up with Kennesaw State Athletics by following KSU on Twitter @KSUOwlNation and or by liking Kennesaw State Owls on Facebook. You also can follow Kennesaw State football at @KennesawSTFB and The Owls fund on Twitter at @TheOwlsFund.
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