By: Will Barfield
KENNESAW, Ga. — After a gut punch from the Georgia State Panthers in week two, head coach Jerry Mack and the Kennesaw State Owls are now focused on the school’s first ever SEC opponent, the Tennessee Volunteers.
After a tight first quarter this past Saturday, the Owls surrendered 22 unanswered points to the Panthers, falling behind 28-3 towards the end of the third quarter. There was no magical Patriots Super Bowl luck, either.
Their fate was solidified after a five minute drive to open the second half ended in a punt on the Georgia State 38 yard line.
On the following possession, Georgia State crafted a nine play, 93 yard drive that resulted in a touchdown with 4:42 remaining in the third quarter. By that point, the game was essentially out of reach for the Owls, and they went on to lose by a score of 31-17.
After the game, we caught up with Owls head coach Jerry Mack.
“First of all, hats off to coach Dell McGee and the Georgia State Panthers,” said Mack. “At the end of the day, those guys executed, outperformed us, out-hit us, they did a lot of things right tonight and they deserve to win that football game.”
The Owls scored only three points in the first half, which is the lowest total for a first half regular season game in the Mack era.
This includes two 2025 road games against Power 4 opponents, Wake Forest and Iast season’s national champions, the Indiana Hoosiers.
“I thought offensively we came out flat the entire game,” he said. “We never really got in a rhythm, and when we did get into rhythm, it was a little bit too late. We’ve got to be able to sustain drives and we couldn’t run the ball tonight. The physicality needs to be there on both sides of the ball.”
There will be no better test of the Owls’ physicality than this week when they travel to Knoxville, Tennessee.
“This team[Tennessee] is really talented,” said Mack. “When you look across the board, the size of the team we’re going to play this week… Coach Huepel has done a great job putting together a really good SEC roster over the years. The size, the speed, the talents and skill sets.”
Being 35 point underdogs, there is no expectation that the Owls will win the game on Saturday. However, this week presents a unique opportunity for the team to grow.
“We want to see a football team that continues to grow, try to get better, and learn from the mistakes they made the previous week,” said the Owls head coach.
“The number one thing about these types of games is it gives you a chance to really continue to grow and get better. It gives guys that didn’t have an opportunity to get recruited by these programs an opportunity to see exactly where they are in their development. So, we’re just looking forward to that more than anything else.”
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