Kent State Did All Kinds of Losing in 2024: What’s Next for Golden Flashes?

Just as Oregon stands as the unanimous choice as the nation’s No. 1 college football team, Kent State kneels as the unanimous choice as the nation’s worst Football Bowl Subdivision team.

When the Golden Flashes lost 43-7 Tuesday night at Buffalo, they wrapped up FBS’ only 0-12 season and extended the program’s losing streak to 21 games. In many ways, Kent State achieved a perfectly imperfect season.

They held two leads all year: one for 5 minutes and 31 seconds in the first quarter on Nov. 13 at Miami Ohio, then one for 9:16 in the first quarter on Nov. 19 versus archrival Akron at home. They were losing at the end of EVERY quarter EXCEPT Sept. 28 versus Eastern Michigan, when the Flashes forged a 7-7 tie in the first 15 minutes.

Kent State finished the year averaging 13.9 points per game, which ranks next to last in FBS (only Houston’s 13.6 is worse). But that’s a triumph compared to the defense, which surrendered 44.1 points per game—four more per game than FBS’ next-worst team (Tulsa at 40.1). Kent State also ranks dead-last among FBS teams in total offense (233.3 ypg) and total defense (516.0 ypg), and the next-worst teams aren’t in the same zip code.

The Golden Flashes were deemed so flaccid this season, Jeff Sagarin’s mathematical ratings of all 263 FBS and Football College Subdivision teams determined through last weekend’s games that Kent State ranks 224th. That means 90 of the 129 FCS teams are considered better than Kent State—and those teams are allowed 22 fewer scholarships than FBS squads.

Now, you might be asking yourself: How does one program fall so far? Well, to paraphrase Hemingway, it has happened gradually and suddenly.

“Kent State’s always been a really hard job,” 41-year-old head coach Kenni Burns said in an exclusive interview with Deadspin. “It’s never been really committed to football. When I took this job, I knew it was going to be a long process. To me, just to be able to do it the right way, you had to build it from scratch. 

To Burns’ point, Kent State joined the MAC in 1951. Over the intervening 74 years, the Golden Flashes have played in five bowls. Since John F. Kennedy was elected, they’ve enjoyed 10 winning seasons—TEN!—versus five winless seasons. The current 21-game losing streak isn’t even the first 21-game losing streak in school history.

At the same time, previous Kent State coach Sean Lewis led the Golden Flashes to two bowls in his five-year run before leaving in December 2022 to join Deion Sanders as Colorado’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach—a run that lasted a grand total of eight games before Sanders demoted one of the game’s brightest offensive minds. Lewis is now the head coach at San Diego State.

“Sean Lewis did a great job of creating a scheme that created problems,” Burns said. 

In Lewis’ final year at Kent State, the Flashes finished with a 5-7 record and ranked 105th in Sagarin’s ratings. Eight days after Lewis left for Colorado, Burns was introduced as Kent State’s new coach. The young and personable Burns was a hot hire after spending the previous six seasons working as P.J. Fleck’s right-hand man at Minnesota and Western Michigan.

Now, you might be asking, how much can change at a place like Kent State in eight days? Well, have you met the transfer portal? Here’s where Hemingway’s "suddenly" comes into play:

Quarterback Collin Schlee (UCLA), wide receivers Dante Cephas (Penn State) and Devontez Walker (North Carolina/2024 fourth-round pick), offensive linemen Savion Washington (Colorado), Jack Bailey (Northwestern) and Marcellus Marshall (UCF), two-time 1,200-yard rusher Marquez Cooper (Ball State/San Diego State), defensive tackle CJ West (Indiana) and cornerback Montre Miller (Mississippi State) hadn’t necessarily chosen their destinations by the time Burns got hired—but they definitely had decided they wouldn’t be spending another year in Kent, Ohio.

Using Kent State’s final 2022 depth chart as a guide, exactly four starters stayed with the program in 2023: middle linebacker Khali Saunders, cornerback Alex Branch, kicker Andrew Glass and punter Josh Smith.

“Sean’s last team, they had some really good players,” Burns said before chuckling. "We did the math, and we had, like, 3 percent of our productivity back. It was crazy. It was nuts. I’d never seen anything like it before.” 

This is not to suggest Burns was blindsided by this. He knew what was happening during the hiring process. But the portal departures reinforced his desire to build like an old-school program—through high school recruiting.

One reason: The Golden Flashes have almost no NIL money. “It’s not enough to compete at a high level,” Burns said. “You can probably take care of one or two kids in that world. And when I say ‘take care,’ it’s give them enough to think about the idea (of attending Kent State).”

To help remedy Kent State’s NIL shortcomings, athletic director Randale L. Richmond hired Malik DeVese—a recent Penn State Law School grad—last month to lead the athletic department’s NIL efforts.

With so many other schools focused on the portal, Burns and his staff find it easier to lure high school prospects with the prospect of immediate playing time. Kent State entered Tuesday’s season finale at Buffalo with 15 freshmen on the two-deep and others helping on special teams.

“We’ve played almost every freshman we’ve got,” Burns said. “We signed the best recruiting class in program history last year. This year, I believe we’re going to beat it. We think we’re ranked 2 or 3 on Rivals and 247.”

As of Wednesday, Kent State’s 21 recruits rank second per Rivals’ total points method and fourth in 247’s average prospect measurement. Either way, that’s way better than being 12th like the MAC’s won-loss standings show.

“We’re getting guys who are more talented than we probably should be getting,” Burns said. “We’re getting guys that probably back when I was at Western Michigan, we probably couldn’t touch. I think this is going to help us in the long run.”

Burns takes heart in the examples set by MAC peers like Eastern Michigan’s Chris Creighton and Northern Illinois’ Thomas Hammock. Creighton posted a 3-21 record in his first two seasons, then earned six bowl bids in his next eight seasons. Hammock went 0-6 in Year 2, but 9-5 in Year 3. And, of course, Year 6 has featured the Huskies’ huge win at Notre Dame. 

That’s the blueprint that Burns sold to Richmond after the 2023 season, which gave Richmond the confidence to extend Burns’ contract by one year (through 2028).

“I learned this from P.J.,” Burns said. “You’re building a house. The first and second years, you’re laying the foundation. That’s when you play your youth. You let them get experience. They learn to do things at the level you want them to. Then, Year 3 is what I call the framework. You start to see the house being built. You see, ‘OK, there’s something happening over there.’ 

“That’s what I want Year 3 to be about. I want people to see what we’re building, and now you shoot up a little bit. Maybe you win some games you’re not supposed to. You’re a little more competitive. Year 4 is when you start competing for conference championships and put it all together—as those guys get into their junior and senior years.”

That’s all well and good, but how long might this losing streak stay alive?

This leads us to another part of the Kent State reality: Guarantee games. The Golden Flashes made $4.05 million this season to lose in September at Pitt (55-24), Tennessee (71-0) and Penn State (56-0).

Next fall, Kent State has been hired to play at Texas Tech (Sept. 6), Florida State (Sept. 20) and Oklahoma (Oct. 4), so it’s going to matter which FCS team the Golden Flashes bring to Dix Stadium on Sept. 13. 

If Kent State needs any help finding that team—and wants to garner some national attention along the way—may we suggest a phone call to Northwestern State? The FCS Demons just finished their own 0-12 season and carry a 20-game losing streak into next year.