29 pts.

Me and Stephanie East here. A little help on baby names? Pretty sure it’s a girl

Let the locals chime in . . .

I'm looking forward to the new era under Randale Richmond, Kent State's new athletic director. If Richmond is as good as Candice Storey Lee, Vanderbilt University's athletic director, I will be very happy.

So what are the 7 Essential Traits of a Successful Athletic Director?

1. Strong Sense of Character Judgment – The Right People in the Right Places
2. Excellent Communication Skills – Ready to Speak for the Program
3. A Passion for Athletics – Demonstrating What Sportsmanship Means
4. Leadership – Modeling Tenacity and Heart to the Organization
5. Prioritization and Problem Solving – Making the Tough Calls
6. Vision and Inspiration – Guiding the Program in New Directions
7. The Ability to Keep it All in Perspective – Not Forgetting to Have Fun

From my perspective, Candice Storey Lee has demonstrated she has all these traits. Only time will tell whether Randale Richmond has these traits as well.

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In March 2016, Joel Nielsen announced his intention to make men's basketball the vehicle for revenue generation and national distinctiveness. Nearly four years later, the Flashes not only lack national distinctiveness, but aren't even a serious contender for the MAC East title. Currently, three games back behind Akron and Bowling Green, with a 7-6 conference record, and only five more regular-season games remaining, time is running out on the Flashes. And the look of Flash fans is now beginning to take on the appearance of the Trump cult after witnessing the real effects of Trumponomics. So it seems that commonality between Joel Nielsen and Donald Trump appears once again. It would be funny if it weren't so sad. But who knows, perhaps the Flashes will make a run in the MAC Tournament. With all of the funding Nielsen has poured into men's basketball, he should finally have something to show for it, right?

Dustin Crum and twelve other seniors from last season who were eligible to return in 2021 have recommitted. Seven of the thirteen seniors were recruited by Paul Haynes and the other six were recruited by Sean Lewis.

Crum is by far the best recruit of Haynes' 2017 recruiting class and Mandela Lawrence-Burke and Adam Gregoire are from the 2016 recruiting class.

Crum, a First Team All-Mid-American Conference quarterback, is the key to the success of the FlashFast offense, and once he is gone, one has to wonder how effective the hurry-up offense will be without him.

That said, I'm convinced Coach Lewis will be gone after the 2021 season because he knows this will be his best chance to move up to a better conference. And he knows a FlashFast offense without Crum will more than likely look like the Syracuse offense without quarterback Eric Dungey.

Kent State is scheduled to open the 2021 season at Texas A&M, and will play road games at Iowa and Maryland.

With a new AD, Kent State may get away from scheduling three money games every year in the future, but so far the 2022 schedule has the Flashes playing at Washington and Georgia, and at Arkansas in 2023 and 2024.

I don't know if Eric Mansfield wrote the above headline for his news release, but if he did all I can say is Joel Nielsen must have a cult following the same as Donald Trump.

And just like the case with Trump, the damage done by Nielsen will take a long time to heal.

I found the following comment on Flash Fanatics interesting:

"Somewhat off topic, but is anyone else as bored as I am with the top of the college football pyramid? I mean, the way a handful of programs have practically cornered the market on recruiting? If I never see Alabama or Clemson or OSU again it will be too soon. You have those three, and to a slightly lesser extent Georgia and LSU (who had an off year) Even Notre Dame's last two games show that they are on the outside looking in. Oklahoma is a step behind. Texas A&M, too. Florida MAY climb back in, as may Auburn. But the trio of Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State have managed to become the super-elite. The cream of the cream."

Personally, I never get tired of seeing Alabama in the national championship game because it validates the notion that hard work is rewarded, and individuals succeed and fail due primarily to their own efforts.

The truth is Nick Saban is hated by many fans because he wins all the time. But why does he win? In the article, "Nick Saban: Sympathy for the Devil," the author explains why Saban always wins. And considering it was written in 2013, after Saban led the LSU Tigers to the BCS National Championship in 2003 and the Alabama Crimson Tide to BCS and AP national championships in 2009, 2011, and 2012, but before the College Football Playoff championships in 2015 and 2017, you can be sure what the author said about Saban then is still valid today.

The following is an excerpt from Nick Saban: Sympathy for the Devil:

A few days after Alabama beat LSU to win the 2012 national championship, Rumsey and Saban were on the phone together. Most of their conversations take place precisely between 7:12 A.M. and 7:17 A.M., when Saban calls as he drives to work. But this call happened to be in the afternoon. The two men almost never discuss football—Rumsey is the rare Tuscaloosan who doesn't know or care much about the game, which, he suspects, has something to do with why he and Saban have become friends. But given that his golf buddy had just won the national championship, Rumsey figured he ought to say a few words of congratulations. So he did, telling Saban his team had pulled off an impressive win.

"That damn game cost me a week of recruiting," Saban grumbled into the phone.

Rumsey at first thought he'd misheard. He asked for clarification. Saban repeated himself. He just knew that while he was preparing for the title game, enduring all the banquets and media ........ that came with it, some other coach was in the living room of one of his recruits, trying to flip the kid. The thought was making him crazy.

Rumsey pointed out that Saban and his team had just been on national television before millions of people—including, most likely, every high school recruit in the country—and reminded Saban that they had won the national championship.

"I said, 'I'm not sure, but I think that helped you,'" Rumsey recalled. "And he said, 'I just don't know. Maybe. Maybe that was good.'"
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One can argue that Saban always wins because Alabama has the #1 recruiting class. But why does Alabama have the #1 recruiting class? Because despite winning six National Championships and being the wealthiest college football coach in the nation, Saban still outworks everyone else. He doesn't rest on his laurels, even after winning his fifth national title with the Tide and putting himself in position to win his 7th National Championship on January 11 against Ohio State.

Obviously, Alabama has inherent advantages over Kent State, and for that matter, most of the Power 5 schools. As of today (January 2), Alabama is ranked #1 in the country and Kent State is ranked last in the MAC according to Rivals. I understand Kent State's ranking maybe skewed because of its low number of recruits compared to nine other schools in the MAC. But if this is going to be a quality recruiting class, why is there only one 3-star recruit compared to Miami's six 3-star and Buffalo's four 3-star recruits?

If you look at Dino Baber's two recruiting classes at Bowling Green, you will see the Falcons had the #2 recruiting class in the MAC in 2013 and the 5th best recruiting class in 2014. Since Babers became the head coach at Syracuse on December 5, 2015, the 2016 recruiting class at BG was not his, but you know he was responsible in getting most of the recruits to commit to Bowling Green before he became the head coach at Syracuse. And since the 2016 recruiting class at Bowling Green was ranked #8 in the MAC, this may indicate the Falcons lost some of Baber's verbal commits after he left for Syracuse.

If Coach Lewis wishes to follow the same career path as Babers and become the head coach of a Power 5 school, he may want to produce similar results. And regardless of what people say, recruiting has a lot to do with success in college football.

The early signing period began on December 16 and lasted until December 18, 2020. High school recruits were able to sign their national letters of intent to lock them into the colleges of their choice. This was the fourth year in which college football has held an early signing period. Previously, the only national signing day was on the first Wednesday in February.

Hopefully, Coach Lewis will be able to sign some graduate transfers, but will it be enough to make that much of a difference in the overall rankings? We will just have to wait and see.

But if Kent State's 2021 recruiting class remains at the bottom of the MAC, I don't want to hear anymore grumblings from Flash fans about not wanting to see Alabama playing in national championship games just because Saban chooses to outwork everyone else. Saban is not going to change his work ethic so unless he decides to retire after winning his 7th National Championship, you better just get use to it.

Miami's defense had an outstanding effort against Akron holding the Zips' running attack to just 4 yards. I realize Akron is a very poor football team, but holding the Zips to 4 total yards for the game is impressive given that Dollard ran for 200 against the Flashes. If Miami can prepare its defense to diminish the Flashes' passing attack, I believe Kent State could very well have another unexpected result next Saturday.

Offensively, if hapless Akron can score 35 points against the Flashes, then how many points will the RedHawks score against Kent? One could spend a lot of time looking at statistics, but the game could very well be decided on turnovers. The team that makes the fewest mistakes will most likely win.

My comment, "Offense wins games...defense wins championships," has once again been validated with Ball State's impressive win over Buffalo. Congratulations Cardinals, you are the MAC champions!

Every time both Dino Babers and Sean Lewis have had an efficient quarterback, their up-tempo offense has produced exceptional results. On the other hand, when the quarterback was not efficient, the offense produced less than stellar results. At Kent State, Lewis has been blessed to have Dustin Crum at quarterback. And Dino Babers was blessed to have Jimmy Garoppolo at Eastern Illinois, Matt Johnson at Bowling Green, and Eric Dungey at Syracuse as his quarterback.

The up-tempo offense implemented by Babers and Lewis are very similar, yet the effectiveness of their systems almost exclusively depends on the efficiency of the quarterback. So this begs the question. Is it the quarterback or is it the system?

Should Crum decide not to come back next year and tries his luck in the 2021 NFL Draft, we just might find the answer.

Dustin Crum

2020 Passing Stats

83 completions
113 attempts
73.5 completion %
1,181 yards
12 touchdowns
2 interceptions

2019 Passing Stats

216 completions
312 attempts
69.2 completion %
2,622 yards
20 touchdowns
2 interceptions


Jimmy Garoppolo

Played football for the Eastern Illinois Panthers from 2010 to 2013. In his first year, he started eight games, passing for 1,639 yards and 14 touchdowns and earning All-Ohio Valley Conference Newcomer Team honors playing under head coach Bob Spoo. He went on to start every remaining game during his time at Eastern Illinois, passing for 2,644 yards and 20 touchdowns in 2011, 3,823 yards and 31 touchdowns in 2012, and 5,050 yards and 53 touchdowns in 2013, breaking the school record for career pass completions previously held by former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.

In 2013, Garoppolo, playing his senior season in head coach Dino Babers' up-tempo no-huddle offense, won the Walter Payton Award, given to the most outstanding offensive player in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision. He was also named the 2013–14 OVC Male Athlete of the Year and the 2013 College Football Performance FCS National Quarterback of the Year.


Matt Johnson

As a redshirt sophomore in 2013, he passed for 3,467 yards and 25 touchdowns. Johnson was named the MVP of the 2013 MAC Championship after he led the Falcons past the undefeated and nationally ranked NIU Huskies. His 2014 season was cut short by a broken hip in the first game of the season against Western Kentucky. As a senior in the 2015 season, he completed 383 passes of 569 passes for 4,946 yards with 46 touchdowns and eight interceptions.


Eric Dungey

Dungey played eight games in 2015, completing 105 of 176 passes for 1298 yards and 11 touchdowns. He suffered a concussion in game 3 of his freshman season. During his sophomore season in 2016, Dungey completed 230 of 355 passes for 2679 yards with 15 touchdowns in nine games before suffering a season-ending head injury.

During his junior year in 2017, Dungey completed 225 of 377 passes for 2495 yards and 14 touchdowns in nine games. He threw for 276 yards and 3 touchdowns in an upset victory over No. 2 Clemson. He later suffered a season-ending leg injury against Florida State.

During his senior year in 2018, he completed 226 of 371 passes for 2868 yards, 18 touchdowns, and nine interceptions. During the 2018 Camping World Bowl, he threw for 303 yards and a touchdown against West Virginia and won MVP. He broke a school record previously held by Ryan Nassib for most passing yards in a career during the bowl game.

In the article, "College football takeaways: In a twist, undefeated Notre Dame is avoiding the hype this season," Pete Thamel writes, "Don’t expect Babers’ job to be in jeopardy. He has at least four full years remaining on his contract this year, and the most conservative estimates of his buyout are that he’d be owed at least $17 million if he was fired after this season. That number would scare a well-heeled SEC athletic department, and Syracuse is decidedly not one of those."

I have stated before I love Dino Babers, and still do. The other reason I still follow him is because he is Coach Lewis' mentor and believe Coach Lewis converses with Babers on a regular basis and values his advice and insight. That said, I wonder what advice Babers would give Coach Lewis regarding his best path to a Power-5 coaching job.

When a Power-5 head coach makes that kind of money, he can afford to retire early even if things don't work out for him. But putting yourself in a position to get a Power-5 head coaching gig has to come first.

Before coming to Kent State, Lewis had been with Babers since 2012 when they were both at Eastern Illinois. It was at EIU that Lewis learned the up-tempo offense from Babers and knows the success of it is predicated on the quarterback being a threat to pass or carry the ball himself.

At Eastern Illinois, Bowling Green, and the first three years at Syracuse, Babers was blessed with an efficient quarterback. But ever since Eric Dungey graduated, Syracuse has struggled on offense.

Thamel writes, "The most glaring evidence of the recruiting deficiencies is the lack of talent in Syracuse’s quarterback room, as Babers has yet to recruit and develop a proven ACC-level starter, and the lack of depth in that room has always been glaringly thin. He inherited Eric Dungey, and injured redshirt junior quarterback Tommy DeVito has yet to live up to his billing."

Although Coach Lewis developed Dustin Crum, he did not recruit him. So like Babers, you can say he is very fortunate to have inherited Crum because neither Woody Barrett nor Collin Schlee have shown much development under his tutelage. I realize Schlee is only a redshirt freshman, but last season Miami's Brett Gabbert was very impressive in his first season for the RedHawks. As the first true freshman quarterback to start a season opener in program history, Gabbert threw for 2,411 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2019, winning MAC Freshman of the Year. Schlee redshirted last year and this season completed 7 passes on 13 attempts for 113 yards and 2 TDs late in games against second teamers.

So the success of next season could hinge on the return of senior Dustin Crum. In one televised game this year, one announcer stated he thought Crum would not return next season and try his luck in the NFL draft. WalterFootball.com currently lists Crum as the 13th best quarterback prospect for the 2021 NFL Draft.

On 11/21/2020, RokFin wrote the following regarding Crum as an NFL prospect:

"The Kent State QB could arguably have the strongest arm in this year's 2021 NFL Draft and has recently popped onto the radar of many top NFL executives. Through only three games, Crum has completed 61 out of 81 passing attempts and thrown 838 yards, while tossing 9 TD's and only one interception. Dustin has shown dual-threat capabilities and also has added three touchdowns on the ground for the Golden Flashes offense. But what is most impressive about Crum, is the rate of speed that his football zips from point A to point B when threading the needle of zone coverage. When throwing darts up the seam, he allows no time for the safeties to break out of cover two zone and can visibly be seen making the defense shift out of position by looking them off, only to come back his intended target. I know the Patriots are always finding diamonds in the rough late in the NFL Draft and are masters at trading top picks away, only to wind up getting the best players in the NFL Draft down the road. We will see how Dustin's finishes out the season, but right now, I believe he has elite arm talent for NFL front offices to fight over in the late second to mid third round."

If this is the consensus among other NFL draft analysts, I would have to agree that Crum won't be returning next season and will take his chances in the NFL draft. And if that happens, I will be happy with his decision, but at the same time will be less optimistic about the 2021 FlashFast offense.

09/04 - at Texas A&M
09/11 - VMI
09/18 - at Iowa
09/25 - at Maryland

Texas A&M is currently ranked #5 in the country and Iowa is ranked #16. Maryland is currently ranked third in the Big Ten East behind Indiana and Ohio State.


Future Kent State Football Schedules | FBSchedules.com

I know that Sean Lewis has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the Vanderbilt job, but the truth is there are a number of coaches who have a much better chance of securing the head coaching position at Vanderbilt than Lewis.

A win at Miami could have bolstered his resume, but with the game declared a no contest due to COVID-19, the home game against Ohio remains the only telling game remaining for the Flashes unless they play in a bowl game.

If Coach Lewis hopes to get a P-5 gig, he better win the Ohio game or hope that Dustin Crum decides to return as a graduate player next season. Given that the Miami game has been canceled, a loss to Ohio would make his regular season record 3-2 with the three wins coming from teams that are currently winless.

Kent State's chances of winning against Ohio could be predicated on the extent of Kurtis Rourke's injury he sustained in the Bowling Green game. The redshirt freshman performed well in the first half. At halftime, he was 10-for-11 with 63 passing yards, one touchdown, and 43 yards on the ground. But after completing a pass to Ryan Luehrman, Rourke went down on his left shoulder and didn’t get up. He was soon taken off the field, and Armani Rogers was subbed in as quarterback. It appears Rourke will be ready to play against the Flashes, but even if he isn't Rogers is more than capable of leading the Bobcats to victory.

Without Crum directing the FlashFast offense next season, I'm afraid Lewis' fourth year as head coach will begin to look like Dino Baber's seasons without Eric Dungey at quarterback.

However, as young as he is, I believe Lewis will eventually move on to a better conference, but until the Flashes are able to play a much stronger defense, his name will only be mentioned as a possible candidate for his offensive prowess.

Certainly a win against Ohio could enhance his chances, but the defense will have to greatly improve for that to happen.

I have mixed emotions regarding the MAC reconsidering its position on playing football in 2020. I realize the MAC could be the only FBS conference not playing football since the Mountain West and the PAC-12 are reportedly in the early stages of considering a return to football this fall, but I still have concerns with COVID-19 testing.

The MAC, unlike the SEC, does not have the financial resources to test its players as frequently as Alabama and other financially blessed schools. If some players test positive for COVID-19, how will that impact the rest of the team?

On Wednesday (9-16), Coach Eli Drinkwitz told reporters Missouri will be without 12 players for its season-opening game against Alabama on Sept. 26 due to COVID-19.

When the SEC made the decision to play football this fall, some fans were curious if the SEC would force teams to play if they had a lot of starters out, or if they would cancel or postpone the game. From the article, "Missouri Tigers will be without 12 players against Alabama after COVID-19 testing," it appears the SEC is making Missouri play even though the Tigers have 12 players out against Alabama.

In the article, Nick Saban states that Alabama is testing its players daily now, starting this week. Given that this will probably cost Alabama $250,000 a month, that is a huge advantage over schools not in position to test daily.

When you have the level of surveillance as Alabama, you have a much easier time of contact tracing. For example, if a player was negative on Monday and positive on Tuesday, you ask the player who he has been around in the last 24 hours (when he was contagious enough to register positive on a test) and you limit the number of isolations. Then you keep testing the player's position group.

If you have a super spreader on your team as in the case of Missouri, daily testing would head off any potential for spreading COVID-19 throughout the team. But Missouri isn't Alabama and doesn't have the finances to test every player every day.

So if Missouri is struggling this much with the spread of COVID-19, what would make anyone believe the MAC would not have similar problems?

With Alabama's daily testing, I'm confident the Tide won't miss a game this year and will actually steamroll its way across the SEC.

But MAC schools aren't Alabama, and could very easily be plagued with the same problems that Missouri is experiencing with the pandemic. Sure the MAC could play this fall, but I'm concerned how legitimate it will be if halfway through the season some teams will be playing with a lot of second-and third-teamers because of injuries and COVID-19.

No one knows how the season will play out if the MAC decides to reverse its decision and play this fall, but if the scenario is like the one described above I just can't get too excited about the possibility of a MAC championship decided by attrition.

The Buffalo Bulls may have a really nice football locker room, but the Flashes have the highest paid athletic director in the MAC. Buffalo's AD only makes $260,000, but Kent State's AD makes $461,560. So it's just a matter of priorities. Lol.

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I like to see an explosive offense as much as anyone, but not at the expense of a strong defense. While watching the Flashes give up 70 points to Buffalo yesterday, I couldn't help wonder what Jack Lambert would think of Kent State's porous defense. From watching the Buffalo highlight video of Jaret Patterson scoring eight touchdowns, you can see with the exception of one touchdown, the Flashes never really had a hand on him. And when Patterson looked like he was going to go down on his 8th TD, he powered his way through tacklers and scored.

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It would be nice to see a Kent State team with both a competitive offense and defense. The 1978 Kent State defensive unit, nicknamed the Banshees after screaming demons in Gaelic folklore, were led by All-MAC first team players Mike Zele (81), Jack Lazor (40), and Mike McKibben (89). I loved watching "The Banshees" play defense! If only the 1978 Flashes had an offense to complement the defense the team could have won a lot more games.

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I can't say I was surprised that Buffalo scored 70 points because after a hapless Akron team scored 35 against the Flashes, I said to myself, Buffalo will score 70 and the Bulls did. How will the defense fare against Miami and Ohio? With COVID affecting the season the way it has, I'm not really sure. We will just have to wait and see.