Head Coach: Mark Carney is entering his interim season as the head coach of the Golden Flashes. He takes over in a challenging situation amid a 21 game losing streak, one of the worst FBS seasons for any program ever and previous head coach Kenni Burns was fired in April. This is Carney’s first head coaching job of any kind and no he is not also the Prime Minister of Canada.
Program Outlook: Times are tough for Kent State currently, and overall this is a program that’s hard to win at. Their history shows a lot more losing than winning and it won’t get easier in this new revenue sharing era, similar to their rival Akron, Kent State has a proud basketball tradition and putting most of their resources toward that can help them invest near the level of the best programs in the sport. That doesn’t leave a lot leftover for football, even with all the buy games they’ll do each season. That being said, success isn’t impossible to find. People forget that in 2012 Kent State played NIU in a winner goes to the Orange Bowl MAC championship game, the Golden Flashes lost in a double OT classic, they were that close! The Golden Flashes were in the MAC championship as recently as 2021.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Kent State ranks 119th in the country returning 38% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Following last year everything on this roster is a question mark, but let’s dive in. The QB will be a key factor they got a nice transfer in former Fordham QB CJ Montes, he was incredible in 2023 throwing 26 TDs and only 1 pick, something wasn’t right last year he struggled to find success and his season ended due to injury in the 3rd game, if he’s in his 2023 form he will be dangerous. If not, Devin Kargman will try his hand at the position again he started last year but eventually was benched. Kent State’s best receivers from last year are gone, Juco transfer Da’Realyst Clark on name alone is someone to watch but he could emerge as their best target, Jay Jay Etheridge is their most experienced returner with 14 catches last year. Kent State had the worst running game of any team that made an actual attempt to run (Colorado had less yards but didn’t attempt to run much) so they could use Minnesota transfer Jordan Nubin to add some punch to the ground game, Nubin showed some flashes in 2023 but got buried on the depth chart last year. The offensive line is starting over, which isn’t bad considering how overwhelmed they were at the position, it’ll be up to some transfers to get more out of it. The defense has a little more experience back for what it’s worth. LBs Mason Woods, Canaan Williams and Semaj Cross are all back to add some leadership to this unit. S Tevin Tucker is another leader who returns and CJ Young might be a promising player next to him. It was a tough ask to be a corner in this defense last year because opposing QBs had all day to throw, the defensive line was truly overwhelmed. Now they need former backups to step up and start, and this line is very undersized.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: This schedule provides some opportunities for Kent State. The opener against Merrimack is critical to get a positive off the bat, Merrimack won’t go easy but Kent State needs that one. The rest of the non-conference is brutal as always with trips to Texas Tech, Florida State and Oklahoma this time around. The MAC schedule provides winnable games against UMass, Rival Akron, and teams that are breaking in a new head coach in Central Michigan, Ball State and Bowling Green. This is actually one of the easiest schedules in the MAC.
Final Thoughts: There’s two ways to look at this year. There’s the hopeless perspective but I want to look at it this way. Mark Carney needs to just let it rip, they’ve done all the losing already and he is the interim coach so there’s literally nothing more to lose at this point. I want to see the Golden Flashes be the most aggressive team out there, run lots of fake punts, go for every realistic 4th down and run a ton of trick plays. Give the fans something entertaining and see what happens from there.
Welcome to Updog Sports Talk 
Leave a comment