Big South Media Day notebook: Kennesaw State ready to make Big South debut

While all of the Big South football coaches were busy Thursday at the conference’s annual media day event, Kennesaw State coach Brian Bohannon was especially eager and willing to sit down and talk about his program.

Bohannon had come to the conference’s media day last year, but he didn’t have a season to preview at that time – or really a team, for that matter. But with Kennesaw State ready to debut its football program this fall as the newest member of the Big South, the vision is nearing reality for the Owls.

“A year ago I’m at this event, I didn’t have any players, didn’t have a team,” Bohannon said, as the league convened at the Atlanta Marriott Northwest at Galleria hotel. “To come full circle and here we are sitting inside of 35 days before we play the first ever game in the history of the school, the excitement, enthusiasm and energy in this community and in our kids and everybody involved is probably through the roof right now.

“Now come day six of camp, they may be looking at me a little differently, but we’re excited about the opportunity to go play. The program has put a lot of energy into getting to this point. It’s time to go do what we enjoy doing.”

Kennesaw State, a school of 32,500 students based less than 30 miles from Atlanta, is working its way up to the FCS limit of 63 scholarships and will only have 45-46 players on scholarship this season.

But Bohannon said he’ll nonethless have 90-plus players at preseason camp, including 25 redshirt-freshmen, a few transfers and about four seniors in all.

A number of those guys went through practices last fall in preparation for 2015 as Bohannon and his staff put the players they did have last year through three sets of three-week, four-day-a-week practice sessions.

Now, they have actual games to work toward, starting with the Sept. 3 season opener at East Tennessee State.

As for results, sure he’d like to win games this fall, but Bohannon says that it will be a process – and each step in that process is important.

“You don’t go into this thing without expecting to win, but I think we have to understand who we are a little bit, where we’re trying to go as a program,” he said. “We have to continue to grow and build on the things that we started. There’s an identity that’s going to be associated with Kennesaw State football. When people say it, what does it mean? And we’ve got to build on that. ...

“At the end of the day, we’re going to learn from a win and we’re going to learn from a loss. We’re going to Coastal, we’re going to Liberty – [and] that’s where we’re trying to go. We’re trying to compete to be in the playoffs so what better way to find out what it’s all about than to go do it. That may not end in a win, but can we learn from that, can we build on that?”

Big South commissioner Kyle Kallander believes Kennesaw State has the potential to quickly develop into a challenger in the league.

That was part of the appeal in adding the Owls as an associate football-only member, with an initial four-year agreement. Kennesaw State is a member of the Atlantic Sun, which does not sponsor football, for its other sports programs.

“There’s a number of benefits, certainly. No. 1 is just the program and their leadership,” Kallander said. “They’re great people, they’re building the program the right way, they’re putting resources into their program so they’re going to be successful in FCS football. They certainly bring the Atlanta market, which is a plus. That’s not the only reason we did it, but certainly that helps – the exposure down there is important.

“But more than anything, it’s a program we feel fits well within the conference and is really going to compete for championships, I think, in a fairly short period of time.”

The Big South has been an ever-changing football conference in recent years with associate member Stony Brook and full member VMI leaving while Monmouth joined last season as an associate football member.

The league is now back to seven football members with its latest addition.

But with Coastal Carolina now in discussions with the Sun Belt Conference and Liberty very public in its desire to move up to the FBS level, Kallander acknowledged the league continues to look to add more teams down the road if the fit is right.

“We give it constant thought. It’s been an ongoing priority for us to expand our football membership,” he said Thursday. “We talk about it almost every meeting, we explore options on a regular basis.”

He wasn’t offering any hints or timelines, though, as to what else may happen down the road.

“I don’t think I would say imminent, but there’s conversations taking place so we’ll see where it goes,” he said.

Big South’s take on CCU-Sun Belt talks

The big story last week was the acknowledgment that Coastal Carolina has been contacted by the Sun Belt Conference and continues to have discussions with the FBS league.

In speaking Thursday, Kallander said he hasn’t had any further dialogue with the leadership at Coastal Carolina since the news broke.

“I haven’t had any more discussion with them,” he said. “Clearly that’s something we are aware of, and obviously any time there’s some talk about that there’s some concerns, no question. Liberty has been very public about what they’ve been doing so we always understand that. Membership movement is just a part of our business these days. We understand that. That’s one reason why we are always talking about what’s the future look like and what are our possible moves. It has to be a part of the dialogue, but we try to be as creative as we can in thinking about different options.”

Gaining respect?

Speaking at the league’s kickoff dinner Wednesday night at the College Football Hall of Fame, Kallander touted that the Big South finished as the second-rated conference in the FCS last season, according to the Gridiron Power Index.

That was spurred by Coastal Carolina earning a final No. 5 national ranking and reaching the third round of the FCS playoffs while Liberty reached the playoffs for the first time in program history and scored a win over James Madison.

Kallander said he feels the national respect for the Big South is growing as a result.

“It’s probably hard to quantify, but I see it across the country when I’m working with other commissioners or media or others,” he said. “I remember the days when we were in a position to really have people selected for the playoffs but weren’t because we didn’t have the automatic bid and just didn’t have the respect nationally. People didn’t really look at us as being a legitimate contender. That’s much different now.

“People understand the quality of football we play in this league. They’ve given us that respect. We had to earn it, we’ve known that all along. You’ve got to go out and beat people and beat people on a big stage, and we’ve done it. So I’ve noticed that in how the Big South Conference in football is being received nationally.”

Big South TV package

The conference announced its television lineup for the 2015 season and Coastal Carolina will have two of its games air on the American Sports Network and two on ESPN3.

The two games to air on ASN have new start times, as the Chants’ home game with Gardner-Webb on Nov. 7 will kickoff at 3:30 p.m., and their road game at Charleston Southern on Oct. 31 will start at 7 p.m.

Meanwhile, the Chants’ Oct. 10 home game with Presbyterian and Oct. 24 road game at Monmouth will be available on ESPN3, which is available online, on smartphones and tablets or streaming on televisions via devices like Amazon Fire, Apple TV or a linked internet connection.

This story was originally published July 30, 2015 at 8:38 PM with the headline "Big South Media Day notebook: Kennesaw State ready to make Big South debut."