Recordpub.com - Win would keep sky from falling for Flashes

By David Carducci

Record-Courier staff writer

Kent State’s fate in the Mid-American Conference East Division race may be decided in the first few minutes of its league opener with Miami University tonight at Dix Stadium.

The Golden Flashes are better than a touchdown favorite against the rebuilding RedHawks.

They are playing at home against a young team trying to find its way in the new system of a new head coach.

The Flashes should win. If they don’t, the consequences could be catastrophic.

To keep the sky from falling on their hopes, Kent State must avoid limping out of the gate to another painfully slow start.

Lackluster starts have become the trademark for the Flashes.

After a loss to Iowa State last week, KSU head coach Doug Martin chastised his team for playing scared until late in the game, when the Cyclones already owned a commanding lead.

“That’s kind of the Kent State deal,” Martin said in his postgame press conference. “Once it is decided, they loosen up and decide they want to play. They better start playing in the first half. That’s something that is going to have to come from within. You can’t coach that. They are either going to bow up and play the way they are capable of or it is going to be a long year.”

It won’t take long for the fans who brave potential rain tonight to find out if Martin’s players got the message.

“It would be huge for us to get off to a good start,” Martin said Thursday. “We’ve been trailing in just about every game early on and not getting points on the board early. That’s one thing we have to get done. We have to become a fast-start team.”

Defensively, pass-rush specialists like Monte Simmons and Kevin Hogan need to win their early battles with the RedHawks’ troubled line and find ways to pressure freshman quarterback Zac Dysert, who is starting his first college game tonight.

Simmons has 21⁄2 sacks so far this season. Hogan is still searching for his first.

“We have to get after the quarterback,” Martin said. “We have to get him on the ground. We have to get sacks. (Dysert) is a young quarterback, and they are going to throw the ball. That’s what they do. The way to stop that is to get the quarterback on the ground, so we have to be very aggressive on defense.”

If veterans Chris Anzevino, Pat Reedy and Dante Campbell and their young teammates on KSU’s offensive line don’t blow open some holes in Miami’s defensive front on first down, Martin’s message wasn’t received.

Just as the Flashes have been slow to start off games, they have been equally slow to start individual offensive series.

Kent State is dead last among the nation’s 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in third-down conversions (6-for-41, 15 percent), and those troubles are due in large part to poor play on first and second downs. According to Martin, KSU has found itself in third-and-9 or more 26 times in its first three games.

“That’s way too much,” Martin said. “That’s almost nine times a game, and it should be about four. Only nine times we’ve been in third-and-4-to-6, which is where we want to be. First down has not been as productive as we need it to be. We end up with a lot of second-and-longs, and that’s been for a variety of reasons. But the lack of a running game being consistent has been a problem. At times we block things very well, but it is not anywhere near the consistency we need it to be.”

In the absence of injured star running back Eugene Jarvis, the Flashes rushed for just 47 yards on 32 carries against Iowa State last week. The Cyclones came into that game ranked 103rd in the nation at stopping the run.

The slow starts, the lack of production in the running game and the poor third-down conversion rate are a big reason the Flashes are off to a disappointing 1-2 start.

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David Carducci can be contacted at dcarducci@recordpub.com