Photo courtesy of Monmouth University
#26 Owen Wright
KENNESAW, GA – Kennesaw State – ranked fifth in country – proved its ranking was no fluke by completely dominating No.24 Monmouth University, 49-17, in what was billed as the Big South championship game, Saturday at the Third Fifth Bank Stadium in Kennesaw, Georgia.
With the win, Kennesaw State (10-1, 7-0) clinches the Big South title and an automatic berth in the NCAA FCS playoffs while Monmouth’s season is over. The Hawks (7-4, 6-1) entered the game as the two-time defending Big South champions.
“Obviously it wasn’t a great day for us today and a lot of the credit goes to Kennesaw,” said Monmouth head coach Kevin Callahan. “I don’t think we got off to a good start and things kind of just snowballed on us on both sides of the ball. It’s unfortunate, I thought we were in a good spot coming in but unfortunately that’s not how the game played out.”
Kennesaw St. came into the game with the No.1 rushing attack in the Big South and ranked fourth in the country and Monmouth’s defense had no answers for it. The Owls vaunted triple-option attack peeled off large chunks of yardage with alarming ease, in particular, spectacular sophomore quarterback Xavier Shepard.
Shepard sliced and diced his way through the Hawks defense rushing for 118 yards and four touchdowns in a little over three quarters of work. When he wasn’t running for positive yardage, he was working the option game to perfection. The Owls, who came in averaging 255.9 yards on the ground, racked up whopping 472-yards rushing in the game.
"Defensively, they were able to hit too many big plays on us," said Callahan. "Which when you play this offense you can't do and we just did too much of that."
Sophomore running back Iaan Cousin added 114 yards and a touchdown on just three touches and Adeolu Adeleke gained 64 yards and touchdown on three attempts. In all, nine Kennesaw State players combined to average of 7.7 yards rushing per attempt.
Monmouth’s offense, on the other hand, looked out of syn from the get-go and struggled to get anything going, at least when it really mattered.
“We weren’t able to sustain anything from an offensive standpoint,” said Callahan.
Kennesaw bolted out to a 21-0 lead midway through the second quarter and never really allowed the Hawks to get back into the game.
On Monmouth’s second possession of the game, already down 7-0, they drove to the Kennesaw State 17-yard line. Going for it on fourth-and-2, sophomore quarterback Tony Muskett lofted a perfect spiral to sure-handed Lonnie Moore IV in the far right corner of the end zone that Moore IV inexplicably let slip through his hands for what’ve been a sure touchdown.
That turned out to be a bad omen for how the rest of the game would go for the Hawks.
Monmouth didn’t score an offensive touchdown until late in the fourth quarter trailing 42-10 with the game already having been decided long before that.
Moore IV atoned for his drop with an electrifying 91-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to pull the Hawks to withing 21-7 midway through the second quarter. But the Owls turned right around and answered with an 11 play, 85-yard scoring drive on their ensuing possession to push their lead to 28-7 with 2:25 left before the half.
Kennesaw State scored touchdowns on four of their first five possessions.
The Hawks offense finally showed some signs of life then. Taking over at their own 35, they moved to the Kennesaw 22-yard line but three incompletions later the drive stalled. On fourth-and-10 Nick Null booted a 39-yard field goal to make it, 28-10, with 1:11 remaining in the half.
On Kennesaw’s ensuing possession, the Hawks defense had it’s best series of the game. Free safety Anthony Budd stopped Adeolu for no gain on third-and-4 and Owls were forced to punt with under a minute left in the half.
The Hawks went into a hurry-up offense – obviously – and advanced to the Owls 27, but with only three seconds left, Null’s 44-yard field goal attempt sailed far to the left.
Monmouth couldn’t catch a break in the game, but as the second half commenced it appeared they finally had.
Kennesaw State received the second-half kickoff and on their first play from scrimmage, running back Kyle Glover fumbled after running up the middle and hitting a brick wall of Monmouth defenders. Erick Massey recovered at the 18-yard line and the Hawks were in business, so they thought.
On first down, Muskett was blindsided as he faded back to pass and the ball was jarred loose. The Owls recovered at the 21-yard line and for all intent and purposes that was the game.
The Owls then marched 79 yards in 13 plays to take a 35-10 lead and following a Monmouth three-and-out and punt they went 90 yards in 10 plays essentially put the game out of reach at 42-10.
“When you play this type of team you got to be able to possess the ball, take time off the clock and not give the ball back to them quickly,” Callahan said. “And you got to be able to get off the field on defense. It just wasn’t a clean game by us in any aspect to be honest with you.”
Kennesaw State finished with 571 yards of total offense averaging 7.8 yards per play. Shepard added 52 yards passing completing 3-of-5 passes.
Monmouth couldn’t get its rushing game untracked all game. Kennesaw’s defense, which is No.1 in the Big South and 13th nationally allowing 98.5 yards rushing per game, held the Hawks to just 30 yards rushing on 22 attempts for a 1.4 yard average per carry.
Muskett tossed a 52-yard scoring strike to Terrance Greene Jr. to cut the Owls lead to 42-17 with 2:34 left in the game but on the Owls next play from scrimmage, Johnathan Murphy tossed a 48-yard touchdown pass to Carter Pinholster for the 49-17 final, and that, in a nutshell, was the story of the game.
Muskett’s final numbers were impressive but deceiving. He completed 28-of-43 passes for 337 yards and one touchdown and was sacked five times. Moore IV had seven receptions for 56 yards while Greene Jr. added six catches for 108 yards and a touchdown.
It was a roller-coaster of a ride this season for the Hawks, who were the preseason favorites to win the Big South. However, devastating injuries to key players beginning in preseason and continuing throughout the season dealt a serious blow to their chances.
Callahan, however, would never use injuries as an excuse for anything that happened on the football field.
“Injuries are part of football, they’re going to happen, every team has them,” said Callahan. “You just got to be able to adjust and adapt as you move along. And if you look over the course of eleven games this season we did a good job at that. So I’m not going to say the result today was because of injuries we had back in preseason or along the way, it had nothing to do with that, because everyone’s playing without some of their guys at some point.”
That’s all true and no excuses are accepted. But some teams are hit harder than others with the injury bug and at some point it gets to where the effect they have on your team is just too great to be overcome.
For the many outgoing seniors on the team Saturday’s loss was a rough way to end their playing careers with many of them having played in four or five of these Kennesaw State clashes.
In a sense, it’s an end of an era of Monmouth football.
“They’re down,” said Callahan of the team. “There’s a group of seniors, I think there’s 35 of them, that have played their last game. These are guys who have contributed an awful lot to this program, who helped put the program where it is today. Guys who are responsible for a large number of wins and elevating the level of play of this program, and they’re down not having another game to play. They’re disappointed they didn’t achieve everything they set out to achieve this year and they know they lost that opportunity, so they’re down about that.
“Hopefully when they have the opportunity to step back and look at the full body of work and look at everything they’ve done and contributed and how they’ve helped elevate Monmouth University football, there will be some satisfaction in that.”
It was a nice run for the Hawks but now it’s time to start another.
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