The Jackal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 02, 2023 10:46 pm
I attempted to look at Kennesaw's personnel, and left somewhat confounded.
They have a roster posted.
https://ksuowls.com/sports/football/ros ... t=position. I think you then have to cross reference that roster with their 2023 signees, which is located elsewhere.
https://ksuowls.com/sports/football/ros ... t=position
Even then, it's hard to get a flavor for what the Owls have. For instance:
- Their current roster lists only two WRs, one of which is the coach's son. They appeared to sign three in the 2023 class, but even for a historically option-based team, having only 5 WRs on the roster is pretty thin.
- As you might expect from a historically option-based run game, there are 14 players on the roster listed as "running back."
- Again, as you might expect, the offensive line favors the option game - linemen are a little shorter and on average more slender than you might ordinarily see.
- The Owls signed 6 offensive linemen, which included a few transfers, in the 2023. That might give you at least some insight into how they feel about that group going into 2023. One of the signees, Al Hogan, was a starter for Wofford the last few years.
- It appears outside of one 2023 signee, their biggest linebacker is 215 lbs.
- They signed a lot of defensive linemen in the 2023 class, including a number of transfers. Again, perhaps some indication of where they feel about that position group going into the season.
- Former Paladin Joshua Agbenou appears on the roster. Not entirely sure what happened to Agbenou, but from his KSU notes, he hasn't played since 2020.
Reading some of their fan forum stuff, it seems a lot of the Owl fans are expecting a type of rebuild/restart year - new OC, new DC, a 9 game schedule, and a transition to the FBS leads one to think they'll be looking to 2024 and use 2023 as almost a spring/COVID type season.
Yeah - that's the 94 what they gots on theys roster right now. Sure there will be a few tweaks, but they aren't gonna 'cut' 30 that went thru Spring and bring in 30 from some place unknown....don't know how they could/would do that.
Coupla things FUBeAR noticed....
Star QB (who ‘ran hot & cold’ last year), Xavier Shepherd, hit the portal ... and is still available
Other QB - who picked up when Shepherd was faltering & had been their starter previously, Jonathan Murphy, is still on the roster
Both of those guys were option guys....heavy duty option guys...KSU fans thought Shepherd was a Passer...he wasn't.
They have 7 other QB's on the roster. 1 is another of Coach Bohannon's sons (6-1 180) and they brought in 3 new ones. Don't know anything about them, but none of them are gonna awe their opponents when they get off the bus. New ones average 6-0 188 and they 6-0 182 overall at the QB spot. Just tells FUBeAR, they may 'hybrid' their way thru this season as they transition away from Double Wang option. We saw how well that worked for Woffy. They'll be doing some form of pistol, with a lot of QB running / zone-read and TRY to develop some semblance of quick game passing....FUBeAR would expect. Maybe the owlets will have more success with stronger leadership in their 'executive office.'
13 'Old' OLmen avg 6-2 268
6 'New' OLmen avg 6-3 301
So...they're preparing to go away from their option...obviously, but likely won't have any NFL 1st round Left Tackle draft picks in the 2024 draft.
11 'Old' and 7 'New' DLmen 'sets' both average 6-2 260 - don't have them split out by inside / outside - so difficult to tell, but they seem pretty small and were unable, for whatever reason, to get much bigger up front on D.
They're OK-sized at LB...6-1 204 for the 7 'old' ones and 6-0 215 for the 3 'new' ones...6-0 208 overall. If you look @ FU's LB's (including "Spurs," but not "Bandits")....we average 6-1 215 ... they (LB's) are all mostly basketball players now anyway...except the guys who put their hands on the ground...and the guys who do that, but are now being called "Edge" players these days could probably be fine going out there in tank tops and their Chuck Taylor's also.
You're right about having few WR numbers....and heavy on RB's...but they have 5 RB's @ 175 pounds or less ... would imagine those small cats will be hybrid-type retrievers in whatever hybrid-type Offense the owlets are gonna try to play with in 2023.
Back to the RB's - their 2nd leading Rusher last year (behind the Transferred out QB) is a 255 bruiser - he's back. He had close to 10 attempts/game last year, so he can handle more of the load than that...one would think. If we count QB Murphy as a RB (which he might become in the 'transitional' KSU Offense), they have 7 of their top 10 rushers returning and those 7 combined for 42 attempts/game and about 200 yds rushing.
Best thing going for us, as has been mentioned, they'll need to show the Mocs what they got the week before we step up to the Order Here window at the Burger Chef off Big Shanty Road.
