Waiting through the growing pains of another young team

I know there are quite a few frustrated Kent State football fans out there. I understand. Watching a 66-0 loss and the 0-3 start isn’t easy. I also know nobody out there wants to hear excuses.

I choose to look at the current Golden Flashes in a somewhat similar vain to the start of the 2011 campaign. In that year, we watched Kent State lose its first three as part of a 1-6 start. Tinkering with personnel on the offensive line, some growth in some youngsters and the flip of the schedule helped the Flashes build some momentum into the offseason with a 4-1 finish. 

But before that turnaround, most fans saw the future as pretty bleak. Nobody could have known just how much that team would grow in October and November and how it would continue into 2012.

I have no idea what kind of a turnaround awaits. This is as young a team as I’ve ever seen at Kent State, and I’m convinced there is growth ahead. 

Paul Haynes broke down the inexperience at today’s Kent Area Chamber of Commerce Kickoff Luncheon when he mentioned that the current team has 41 players who are contributing on a game-to-game basis. Of those, only five are seniors. Eight more are sophomores. That’s pretty striking.

The coaching staff likes the young offensive linemen on this team, and they are getting the chance to play right now. Most of this group should be together for another two years after this one. There is the chance to build some continuity through the growing pains. 

The starting left tackle is Reno Reda, a sophomore who played in 12 games as a freshman last season, but spent most of his time at an entirely different position (left guard). When he took the field against Ohio State, he was appearing in just his 15th college game – and he was the most experienced lineman on the field.

With fifth-year senior Terrell Johnson out with an injury, Brock Macaulay made his first start at right tackle. Just last spring, Macaulay was a tight end who had yet to play a down after redshirting as a true freshman last year. 

We all know about the loss of Jason Bitsko, who was very much the heart and soul of this offensive line, and a guy who was beginning to take some pride in that role with his switch to center this season. But even he would have been somewhat inexperienced coming into this season after appearing in a total of just 14 games in his first two college seasons. Now Alex Nielsen has been thrust into that position, and while he has has upside, his first appearance in a college game was this season’s opener. Nielsen redshirtted as a freshman in 2012 and did not appear in a game in 2013.

At right guard, 320-pound sophomore Wayne Scott joins Reda as arguably the most experienced player on the offensive line, having played in 12 games last season, including five starts at left guard. Again, though, he has been forced to move to right guard after spending all of the preseason at left guard. The Flashes loved the idea of having Reda and Scott shoulder-to-shoulder at left tackle and left guard, growing up together from 2014-2016 and eventually becoming a tandem similar to what they had with Brian Winters and Josh Klein in 2012.   

Now Jim Katusha is in at left guard, and while he has been with a Division I program at Ohio University in 2011 prior to playing at Butte College in 2012, he sat out all of 2013 before getting his first Division I action in this season’s first three games. 

So, against Ohio State, the average game experience along the Kent State offensive line was 6.8 games in a unit that featured no seniors, three sophomores, one freshman and a junior who was playing in his third college game.

It’s going to take time. 

I talked with a former Division I coach recently, who has watched the Flashes in practice, and he has raved about offensive line coach Shawn Clark. According to him, Clark just needs some time with this group and we will start to see growth.