The new Kent State blogs

With the launch of a revamped www.kentstatesports.com today, we are also introducing an updated blog experience for fans.

Hopefully you all enjoy it. We want to be more interactive, so please ask questions and comment. I missed some of that contact with Kent State fans last season with the limited blogging ability we had on the old website. Now that we've incorporated the Blogger format, we can do a whole lot more. 

This blog, "the Press Box," will include both a traditional format, similar to the blog I had when I was a reporter at the Record-Courier. I'll also be posting video blogs. I've spent quite a bit of time learning how to use our new HD cameras and to edit footage using Final Cut ... so darn it, I'm going to put those new skills to use.

The good news is I have more access to the Golden Flashes' teams as a Kent State employee than I did when I was a reporter. That means I'll be able to provide an inside look into what goes on behind the scenes in this blog. Unfortunately, it also means there are some things I have to avoid. I'd love to be able to talk about recruiting, but I can't do that here. There will occasionally be some questions I can't answer. But I'll do my best to answer everything I can and be as candid as possible. 

Preseason football camp is right around the corner. I'll be at practice just about every day and reporting back here much the way I used to in my reporting days. You can ask questions and comment below every blog post. I'll try to respond to every one. And you can still follow me on twitter @CarducciKSU.

I'm anxious to see if Colin Reardon can continue to push David Fisher for the starting quarterback job. Reardon is unusually poised for a redshirt freshman. I want to see what the offensive line looks like without Brian Winters and Josh Kline. I want to see how the Flashes have filled the holes at linebacker. There is help on the way from the junior-college ranks, and they'll need to fit in right away.

More on the blogs ... Linder's Look by the voice of the Golden Flashes, Ty Linder, is already live with a link available at the new www.kentstatesports.com.  In the coming weeks, we'll have blogs for every team featuring coaches and players, and a blog by Kent State's athletic administration featuring athletic director Joel Nielsen.

We'll also be introducing an email address where fans can directly ask questions of Kent State's coaches, players and student athletes. We'll pick the best of those questions and have them answered each week in a regular video feature.

Ready for Dri's next act? I sure am

I covered Kent State sports at the Record-Courier for more than a decade before going to work at the school as the athletic department's director of new media last year.

If you've been with me during that time, you know how lucky we've all been.

We were in on the Joshua Cribbs secret long before the NFL's fans. We knew Antonio Gates as a basketball player before the NFL came calling. We watched Ben Curtis without ever dreaming he'd out-duel Tiger Woods and the rest of the world's best in winning an Open Championship, then again as he validated that title with three more PGA Tour victories and a spot on a winning U.S. Ryder Cup team. 

We knew James Harrison was a game-changer off the edge before he had to prove himself by braving overseas flights (not an easy task for James) to play in NFL Europe.

Now we are about to get the privilege of watching Dri Archer for another season. I actually get paid to do this. 

I keep forcing friends to watch and re-watch the YouTube video of Dri's sideline-to-sideline run at Bowling Green in last year's MAC East clincher. Every time I watch the highlights, I wonder what he will offer as follow-up act.

The pressure will be on for all of the obvious reasons. He's a known quantity now. Opponents have spent the summer thinking of ways to try to slow him down or keep the ball out of his hands. After last year, that was going to happen. But as we debut the new www.kentstatesports.com website today, some fans might wonder if we are turning up even more heat under Dri to perform in his final college season.

"Dri4Heisman" is now live on Twitter and Facebook. Celebrities with Kent State ties from the worlds of sports and entertainment are already endorsing the campaign for Dri to win the Heisman Trophy. 

There is even a comic strip on the way called "The Archer" by Kent State alum Chuck Ayers of Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft fame. That, by the way, is going to be a whole lot of fun. I've been lucky to be in on some of the planning for the comic, and I think it is going to be something very special … something different than any Heisman campaign we've seen before. 

The first six-panel strip is almost ready for debut with weekly three-panel strips to follow.

So, how will Dri handle the pressure of a Heisman campaign and being imortalized as "The Archer"? 

If he is feeling some additional heat, you'd never know it.

I was with Dri for a little while at Water Street Tavern a week ago during a planning meeting for the new Kent State Sports radio show. I've never seen a more relaxed college athlete. He was smiling and having fun with the idea of the campaign and of seeing himself in comic-strip form for the first time.

Later that day, he was off on a media tour with visits to radio and TV stations in Cleveland. Again, calm and cool.

The real hard work starts in the next week with the start of preseason camp. Dri is going to have to learn how to run behind a revamped line. He has to get used to a new quarterback. He knows he needs to get even better as a receiver and on special teams to impress NFL scouts. He also needs to prove himself as a punt returner. We all remember how teams kicked away from Dri last season on kickoffs. It'll be harder to avoid him on punts. Fielding punts didn't come easy to Dri in practice during his first couple of seasons, but he showed marked improvement during the spring.

So let's get into camp. Let's see what this team can do to build on last year's breakout season. And let's get ready to watch another show by the next in a long line of thrilling student-athletes who have emerged at Kent State.