Burns uses last year’s shortcomings as motivation to turn Kent State into a winning program.
Starting with a sweatshirt
A 56-6 loss to UCF. A 53-10 defeat to Fresno State. A 49-19 thrashing from Bowling Green. And worst of all, an agonizing 31-27 November heartbreaker to arch-rival Akron which featured a squandered 17-point lead.
Those four losses stood out in the 2023 campaign to first-year head coach Kenni Burns in a season full of them.
The Kent State Golden Flashes finished 1-11, holding the dual indignity of failing to win multiple games and failing to win against fellow FBS competition — thus cementing its place as the No. 133 team in the country.
Rather than forget about the trials and tribulations of a futile 1-11 season, Burns chose to embrace it.
Each of those results became a piece of navy blue thread, stitched into a yellow-gold sweatshirt. That navy blue thread embroidered six digits and one hyphen onto the sweatshirt, and when the final product was present, it contained an unmistakable message. The first two lines of the sweatshirt read “Kent State” and “Football.” But the blue stitches added two more lines — one that said “1-11” and another that said “133.”
Burns debuted the sloganeered sweater in January during winter workouts and it received plenty of intrigue upon its reveal.
“I didn’t know it was gonna get out, but it did with social media and other stuff,” Burns said. “What that was, was just about ownership. We couldn’t run away from what we had done previously this year. We had to own it and it starts with me as a head coach owning it — owning the deficiencies we had last year, where we fell short, and understanding we were ranked 133, last team in the country. It is what it is, but you can’t run away from it as a competitor. You have to learn from it and grow from it and constantly be reminded daily that we don’t want to go there again. We have enough talent I believe to not go there again.”
Burns understands what the pinnacle of success in the Mid-American Conference looks like, serving as the running backs coach for Western Michigan in 2016 during their 13-1 Cotton Bowl run. To this day, that Western Michigan team is still the last from the MAC to complete an undefeated regular season and qualify for a New Year’s Six bowl.
Burns is a longtime disciple of P.J. Fleck, serving as an assistant under him on both that 2016 Western Michigan squad and at Minnesota from 2017-22. Fleck always reiterated the importance of using your past experiences to create a more successful future, a mantra which Burns utilizes at Kent State. Just like Fleck navigated adversity through a 1-11 season at Western Michigan in 2013 as a first-time head coach, Burns looks to find motivational tactics in order to do the same.
“It was more of a motivation — not just for the team, but for myself as well — to be consistent in my coaching and to teach and demand the way they have to play and perform, and also, letting them know that even though we’re getting better as a football team, don’t let them forget our past,” Burns said of the sweatshirt. “We’ve got to embrace our past to create our future. We embraced it, the guys took it, and weren’t embarrassed by it. They learned from it. We were constantly reminded of last year and how we don’t want to go down that road again. So when guys were struggling to get motivated, we found ways to get inspired by my sweatshirt, and I thought the guys really embraced it.”
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This isn’t Burns’ first offseason as head coach of Kent State. Last year, he took the reins after his predecessor Sean Lewis unexpectedly departed for the Colorado offensive coordinator gig. As with most head coaching changes in the modern era of the transfer portal, the transition spurred a mass exodus of Golden Flashes in the transfer portal. When Burns arrived, he was left with just three returning starters on defense and zero on offense. But this offseason with more significant retention and a more veteran roster, the second-year head coach can take a different approach in his teaching methods.
“Last spring, we were teaching guys how to do things — how to do things the way we wanted them done,” Burns said. “This year, they know how to do them. Now we’re trying to teach them how to compete at the highest level, and we talk about playing harder for longer. There were parts in games where we played really, really hard, but we didn’t maintain it throughout the whole game. So this spring was about that, competing at a high level for longer.”
Where is Kent State progressing?
Each FBS team is allotted 15 spring practices over the course of a 34-day window, and that window typically concludes with the annual spring game. Transforming the No. 133 team in the country into a MAC championship caliber program over the course of 34 days is no easy task, of course. Yet, Burns is already observing stages of progress.
“Spring ball was honestly a lot of success,” Burns said. “We saw guys develop and grow and get better at their craft. Are we there? No, but I think we got closer as a football team of being all in and understanding the demand that it takes to have a winning culture.”
In order to thrive in the sport of football, it’s important to establish a foundation in the trenches. Operating with a youthful, inexperienced offensive line was one of Kent State’s greatest detriments during its 1-11 campaign last fall. Not a single Golden Flashes lineman came equipped with more than two career starts last year, and two of the five Week 1 starters made their collegiate debuts in the opener.
However, the 2024 opener will look substantially different for the offensive line as every starter returns to the unit, allowing Kent State to possess a significant degree of cohesiveness at the all-important position group.
“It’s created competitiveness,” Burns said. “We started seven or eight guys last year and they’re all back. We’ve got to use some different rotations — with some guys at tackle and some guys at guard — and really try to find our best five. Last year, there wasn’t a sense of competitive nature within that room. We had what we had and it was what it was, but now we’ve got seven or eight guys that can go in a game and play. I know people looked at me crazy when I didn’t take all these guys out of the portal at the o-line position, but we have everyone coming back, we’re gonna be a year better, and you can see it now. And I think we’re doing things offensively that fit their skillset and that’s a big part of it.”
The internal development extends beyond the offensive line. Kent State has its most on-field experience accumulated within the linebacking corps, which will now be guided by new defensive coordinator Kody Morgan.
Nick Giacolone finished second on the team in tackles last season, while CJ Harris, Khalib Johns, and Matt Harmon are seasoned starters who earned significant playing time even before Burns’ arrival. The linebackers are also witnessing even further advancement in the depth chart, with younger faces like Rocco Nicholl ready to emerge as stars this fall.
“The guy who really jumped off the screen this spring was Rocco Nicholl,” Burns said. “We moved him to WILL linebacker. He played outside linebacker a little bit last year, and we lost our starting inside the box linebacker, so we moved him to WILL, and he’s had a heck of a spring. If I had to give MVP to someone, it’s probably him.”
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Internal development is essential to establishing a winning culture for team No. 133, but in order to thrive in modern day college football, working the transfer portal is a must.
Thousands of players stepped foot into the portal this offseason, ranging from the FBS level to the FCS to even the Division II and III ranks. So how does Burns decide which ones to pursue as Golden Flashes? He credits Kent State men’s basketball coach Rob Senderoff with helping him come to grips regarding the modern challenges of the game.
“We brought guys in with cracks on their shoulder and wanted to be here,” Burns said. “The one thing I’ll credit (Senderoff), who I met with at the end of the season, he said to me, ‘You’ve got to get guys who want to be here, especially in this world of the portal. I really took that to heart and really invested in that when we went out and looked for guys.’”
The portal was widely a net negative to the Golden Flashes a year ago, losing several All-MAC starters to the likes of UCLA, North Carolina, Penn State, and UCF, among others. This year, Burns and his staff utilized the portal to seek potential day one starters or rotation fixtures at positions which weren’t quite as established with returning talent — namely in the secondary.
“I thought this was a phenomenal job by our coaches of identifying what we need and then bringing in guys that fit that mold,” Burns said. “You look at Mason Woods, a linebacker from Towson. He’s a heck of a football player and leader. He was a Freshman All-American at the FCS level, just a winner and you can see it instantly with how he plays football, how he goes about preparation. Dallas Branch, cornerback at San Diego State, he played there and he’s conquered the immediate impact as well. Then you look at Conner Muldowney, he’s a tight end, another guy that’s come in and had an immediate impact on our offense. And (cornerback) Jaylen Dotson’s done a great job.”
Burns understands his program may not have the resource or financial advantages of other in-state programs like Ohio State, but those with chips on their shoulder wanting to shed that 133 label are always welcome.
“You have to be who you are,” Burns said. “Kent State will never be all about NIL, and I tell our players that all the time. What we do believe is from our president to our athletic director to the head football coach is an experience. We believe we are creating an experience for our student-athletes and that’s what you see on social media, that’s what you see from our players, and I believe that’s what matters. For us, I’m never gonna allude to the sense that they have to enjoy where they’re at, and I think that’s how you keep retention on your roster. We had a lot of guys stay this spring. We didn’t have too many guys jump into the portal, and I think it’s because they enjoy being here at Kent State, and I think we have to keep that a part of what we do.”
With the conglomeration of returning talent and transfers under one roof in Kent, Burns is ready to stitch some new numbers into his sweatshirt. While Burns hopes the days of wielding 133 and 1-11 across his chest will soon be in the rearview mirror, it’s also important to him that his team doesn’t forget the lessons learned as they aim to adopt a different identity in 2024.
“I really like our football team,” Burns said. “I like the leadership of our team. I think we have a lot of experienced players coming back that understand the value of the ball and the value of our culture and what we’re doing, and I’m excited for the future for sure.”