Golden Flashes Preview

10 days is a long time in a football season.  Hope everyone had a chance to get healthy, talk to their agent (kidding, maybe.)

Kent is one of the normally struggling teams in the MAC. In recent years, Darrell Hazell had big success one year, and Sean Lewis had some good years.  Then they have complete disasters like the Kenni Burns hiring.  Mark Carney, like Lewis a former BG assistant, took over last year as interim and won the job.  He is 6-7 in MAC play.

Like BG, Kent plays 2 P4 teams to pay the bills.  This year it was Ohio State and South Carolina.  They won their FCS game, but lost 29-2 to South Florida.

In the MAC, they beat BSU and Akron, and lost (narrowly) to OU, and were blown out by WMU and Sacramento State (on the road).

Having said that, Kent has won 6 of the last 10 against BG.  Lewis was 5-0 vs. BG, then Burns was 0-2, and Kent beat BG 24-21 last year in Kent. Lewis hung 60 on Loeffler twice.  BG is a 5.5-point favorite.

MAC Leaders:

• WR Wayne Harris leads the MAC with 102 receiving yards a game.  He's a big playmaker, with a YPC over 17.
• QB Dru DeShields is #2 in total offense.
• Hayden Dawahare is #5 in sacks.

Looking at the stats comparison, what jumps out is:

• Kent is terrible on offense.  BG's defense has to assert control early in this one. If you see Kent running the ball effectively, we are in trouble.  They need to keep DeShields in the pocket.BG's offense is nothing to write home about, but it ranks better than Kent's.  Just for example, KSU scored 3 against SacSTATE.  Kent does play decent defense on the whole.  Hopefully, BG can convert on 3rd down, keep the ball and the defense will play complementary football and provide some short fields.  Note, also, that Kent has a solid pass rush.
• Both teams play poor special teams.  BG has a good FG kicker at least, which Kent does not.

So, nothing on the line.  As Clawson says, we find out who loves football in these games.  No offense to our long-time opponent, but losses to Kent don't sit well with our fanbase.