KSU football and CPJ

jacket67

jacket67

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KSU will kick off their inaugural season of football soon with a number of connections to GT.

Head Coach Brian Bohannon coached under CPJ at Tech, Navy, and GSU.

OC Grant Chestnut was a OL player at GSU in the 90s.

LB Coach, Shane Bowen, played LB for Tech and coached BBs with Bohannon.

DL Coach/Recruiting Coordinator, Liam Klein, was a GT graduate assistant.

Ryan Godhigh (Robbie's brother) will be a RB.

I'm hoping these guys can make some noise in the Big South this year.
 
Is KSU Div1?

Since they now have an engineering program, it's conceivable we could even get some transfers from them. Use them as a farm school.
 
I don't understand why Kennesaw State

1) Needed a football team

2) Absorbed SPSU.
 
JJacket said:
I don't understand why Kennesaw State

1) Needed a football team

2) Absorbed SPSU.
Click to expand...

A1) politics
A2) politics

One of the board of trustees of KSU is on the Board of Regents, and he makes more money the bigger KSU gets. The member of the BOR from SPSU retired the year before KSU absorbed them.
 
JJacket said:
I don't understand why Kennesaw State

1) Needed a football team

2) Absorbed SPSU.
Click to expand...

Can't say about #1, but as for #2:

At its November 2011 meeting the Board of Regents adopted six “Principles for Consolidation” that were then used by University System staff to assess if any campus consolidations would further the USG’s teaching, research and service missions in a more fiscally prudent way. At its January 2012 meeting the Board of Regents approved four consolidations among eight USG institutions. These consolidations were finalized and approved by the Board in January 2013.

Under the Board’s new Strategic Plan adopted in August 2013, increased efficiencies and effectiveness throughout the System to better serve students and the states is a priority. Consequently, the potential for additional consolidations remains an active policy.
Click to expand...

http://www.usg.edu/consolidation/
 
No noise will be made. KSU will do about as good or worse than GSU. GSU has had some pretty good coaches on their staff but has had serious attrition issues. They've had several really good transfers from big programs but even that hasn't helped.

GSU might be doing better had they not jumped to DIV 1 FBS so quickly. I guess GSU figured better to jump into the ring with the big boys before actually getting their feet under them as a brand new program.

Dangerous gamble because IMO they have greatly sacrificed a solid fa base due to their losing records. But winning cures all and I guess they figure eventually they'll get the talent to compete and winning will come and help bring the fans.
 
Neither GSU or KSU should ever have had a football program. If it loses money, they should abandon it immediately. When football isn't a revenue sport, it is stupid to have a team.
 
KSU sold a bunch of season tickets and they have an enrollment of about 30K. They're setting themselves up for success - their own field, their own facilities, etc. They have a much better plan than State did for launching football, because they have their own field.

I talked to Bohannon earlier this summer. He told me they've sold out every home game and they had about 7K for their spring game. He said their plan is to compete for championships in five years. Bo told me they had been talking about football at KSU for about 20 years before he got there.

KSU has support and backing. They have sold naming rights for their stadium (Fifth Third Bank Stadium). They are in a better position right now than Georgia State is five years into it.

KSU has a chance to be the next Georgia Southern. I think they're content with being FCS for a while, since they'll have the resources to compete at that level. That jump from FCS to FBS isn't just 22 extra scholarships to play with. It's a huge financial undertaking.
 
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swampsting said:
KSU sold a bunch of season tickets and they have an enrollment of about 30K. They're setting themselves up for success - their own field, their own facilities, etc. They have a much better plan than State did for launching football, because they have their own field.

I talked to Bohannon earlier this summer. He told me they've sold out every home game and they had about 7K for their spring game. He said their plan is to compete for championships in five years. Bo told me they had been talking about football at KSU for about 20 years before he got there.

KSU has support and backing. They have sold naming rights for their stadium (Fifth Third Bank Stadium). They are in a better position right now than Georgia State is five years into it.

KSU has a chance to be the next Georgia Southern. I think they're content with being FCS for a while, since they'll have the resources to compete at that level. That jump from FCS to FBS isn't just 22 extra scholarships to play with. It's a huge financial undertaking.
Click to expand...
 
swampsting,

Why I think it will fail is for the same reason GSU's will fail. In 2013, 86% of students lived off campus. Georgia Southern, on the other hand, drew students from all of south Georgia. The vast majority of KSU students come from three surrounding counties, meaning on weekends, most of them are going out with their new friends.

I do agree with you that they're taking a more sensible approach, but I think Southern was a special situation where you had a captive student fan base as well as a lot of community members who didn't want to go to Atlanta or Athens for a football game. Kennesaw is in the Atlanta market and is still largely a commuter school.


http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandr...s/kennesaw-state-university-1577/student-life
 
The excitement of having a team will wear off as soon as the first few losing seasons are in the books.

I did ask some questions about the consolidation in an open online forum months ago. Never could get an answer out of anyone. They are just proud to have a new rec center and KSU and football team. There was absolutely no pencil put to paper when it came to consolidation of the two schools. It was basically do it "just because" and those at the two schools were left to figure it out. I do know it was supposed to be a merger of the two schools but SPSU folks appear to be getting run over in the deal.
 
The housing stats are a little misleading for KSU. There are dozens of apartment complexes within a couple miles of campus which are serviced by the KSU bus system. Some of these are committed to students as they are rented on a room by room basis, not by leasing the full apartment. There are not enough dorms to house more than a fraction of the student body, so the off-campus apartments function as dorms but statistically suggest the students are commuters. Many of the apartments are an easier walk to the stadium than the dorms.
 
JJacket said:
The excitement of having a team will wear off as soon as the first few losing seasons are in the books.

I did ask some questions about the consolidation in an open online forum months ago. Never could get an answer out of anyone. They are just proud to have a new rec center and KSU and football team. There was absolutely no pencil put to paper when it came to consolidation of the two schools. It was basically do it "just because" and those at the two schools were left to figure it out. I do know it was supposed to be a merger of the two schools but SPSU folks appear to be getting run over in the deal.
Click to expand...

This. GSU actually had a great first year of play winning 6 games and losing two to good teams at that level in overtime. Then reality hit the next few years and the fa base has trickled out. They used their good first year attendance records to support moving up and it worked but they just suck now.
 
jacket67 said:
The housing stats are a little misleading for KSU. There are dozens of apartment complexes within a couple miles of campus which are serviced by the KSU bus system. Some of these are committed to students as they are rented on a room by room basis, not by leasing the full apartment. There are not enough dorms to house more than a fraction of the student body, so the off-campus apartments function as dorms but statistically suggest the students are commuters. Many of the apartments are an easier walk to the stadium than the dorms.
Click to expand...

I still don't think it has a strong enough identity. They have a 41% graduation rate and it has an awful number of fans of other schools who couldn't get in them or couldn't afford them. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't know that a fan base that makes.
 
GT1992 said:
I still don't think it has a strong enough identity. They have a 41% graduation rate and it has an awful number of fans of other schools who couldn't get in them or couldn't afford them. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't know that a fan base that makes.
Click to expand...

I don't have a strong opinion as to whether KSU football will succeed or fail. The real question might be whether the college football market is so saturated now that most new programs will just be a burden on their schools. Will students go to the games when they can watch FBS games in high-def at home? Will prospective students prefer to go to colleges with football programs, even if the team is playing Charleston Southern and Point College. The whole college marketplace is changing now with declining enrollments and decreasing ticket sales, so it does seem like a risky venture. Despite all that, I think KSU is starting out with modest enough goals and sufficient planning and strategy that they can probably be successful.
 
Kennesaw is trying to become "legit"- in all areas. And they are. As the academics have improved, so has the campus, and so has the campus life, and so has the student's perception of their own school. This is a big deal to a university. If you have students that love their school and all that it has to offer rather than being a "ehh, I guess I'll just go here" school, that's a big deal. Football is a big part of that in the South. So is Greek life, which is also somewhat improving. Students want to go to a "real school".
 
EastboundJacket said:
Kennesaw is trying to become "legit"- in all areas. And they are. As the academics have improved, so has the campus, and so has the campus life, and so has the student's perception of their own school. This is a big deal to a university. If you have students that love their school and all that it has to offer rather than being a "ehh, I guess I'll just go here" school, that's a big deal. Football is a big part of that in the South. So is Greek life, which is also somewhat improving. Students want to go to a "real school".
Click to expand...

I've seen many schools try to become legit, but the truth is that KSU's student body is full of students turned down by UGA, GT, Auburn, Clemson, et al. It will take at least a generation for it to become the first choice for most of the students. Georgia Southern went through that decades ago, but they aren't in the Atlanta market.
 
And KSU could never beat GT in a major sport, like basketball.

I consider gsu, ksu, gs, mu, ugag as competition for fans & $.

I consider it a daily battle to be fought - year round.

Those that do not are most likely hanging on to Dodd's epic words - "We will always sell our 35,000 season tickets and sell out our games."

The la de da attitudes have öööö near killed us before.

Reminded of one of Rommel's commanders saying " I am optimistic", to which Rommel said, "you can afford to be, I can't." Hope we have some leaders who will fight the total battle 24/7/365.
 
And KSU will lose their first game ever against the East Tennessee Buccaneers, another team that is starting(restarting actually) a program in 2015,
I will be there!
Go Bucs!
(Tech fan first, but 5 hour drive to ATL for Alcorn State or 15 minutes to Johnson City for first ever game...- by the way_ season ticket holder at both)
 
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