Editor's Note: The Marietta Daily Journal is currently running a three-part series on the start-up of football at Kennesaw State University. The series will provide features on head coach Brian Bohannon, Director of Athletics Vaughn Williams and KSU President Daniel S. Papp. In Thursday's (Apr. 11) edition, MDJ sports editor John Bednarowski caught up with Bohannon as he entered his third week as head coach. Kennesaw State Athletics will post each part of the series on KSUOwls.com.
By John Bednarowski
Marietta Daily Journal Sports Editor
KENNESAW —
Brian Bohannon starts each day with a to do list in hand, but just under three weeks into his job as Kennesaw State’s new football coach he is already finding that getting to the end of the list can be a challenge.
“I have had a lot of speaking engagements,” Bohannon said. “But the reception for KSU football has been unbelievable.”
In between speaking engagements he has tried to return phone calls and emails congratulating him on being the Owls first coach. Bohannon said one of the first calls he got was from Georgia coach Mark Richt, and another was from Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.
Just in the first few days, Bohannon received more than 150 calls, emails and text messages. Most of them came from people offering him congratulations. Some came from coaches offering their services, and a few from prospective players wanting to find out more about the fledgling program.
This was all in addition to trying to set up interviews for potential coaching hires, and preparing a plan for recruiting the players for the first team in Kennesaw State history.
The first recruiting window, called an evaluation period, will be mid-April to the end of May and Bohannon will try to maximize it by having a Kennesaw State football staff member make a stop at every high school across Georgia. To do that, he hopes to have three assistants hired by the time they are ready to hit the road on April 22.
“We want to get out there and educate coaches of what is going on at KSU,” Bohannon said. “We want to tell them about our first recruiting class in 2014, talk about the location of the school and its benefits, and we want to let them know what the school has to offer academically.”
One of the biggest messages Bohannon will convey is with the Owls being a start up program, there won’t be a lot of time for players to be sitting on the bench.
“It will be a great opportunity for young men to get a chance to play,” he said. “They will red shirt their first year, but after that they are going to get to play.”
Bohannon said he and his coaches, when they are hired, will split the state into quarters, but the new head coach will be making all the stops in Kennesaw State’s home base of Cobb, Cherokee and Paulding Counties.
Once he has visited all the high schools to meet the coaches, it will be time to try and bring the high school coaches to KSU. Bohannon said he was trying to put together an outing to bring all the coaches from Cobb, Cherokee and Paulding to Fifth Third Bank Stadium and get them on campus.
“We want to go fast and as hard as we can in recruiting,” he said.
Bohannon also wants to make sure prospective recruits find their way to campus this summer.
“We are shooting for a 7-on-7 camp this summer,” he said. “It an attempt to get the most kids (and parents) on campus.
“We’re not sure if the general public (outside Kennesaw) knows what this place is all about. We think they will be impressed once they get here.”
Bohannon also wants to spread the word about the Owls in other ways.
“I’d like our staff to be part of other (summer) camps,” he said. “It’s just another way of getting our name out there and recognized.”
By the time football season rolls around, Bohannon said the goal is to have his entire coaching staff and his director of football operations in place, and while recruiting will be the main focus, he wants to find additional opportunities for them to get better.
“I flipped though my calendar and for the first time since I was 8 years old August is not already planned out for me,” Bohannon said. “But that will be a chance for me and my staff to go to other schools and get a feel for how they do things.”
Kennesaw State is celebrating 30 years of intercollegiate athletics during the 2012-13 academic year.
