Video Blog: Paul Haynes on Toledo week and scouting the Rockets

The head coach of the Golden Flashes discusses the week of practice leading up to the Tuesday, Nov. 4 game with Toledo at Dix Stadium and gives his scouting report of the Rockets

Video Blog: Paul Haynes on the win over Army and the return to MAC play at Miami University

In the second of our video blogs, head coach Paul Haynes discusses the transition from last week's big Homecoming win over the United States Military Academy to the return of Mid-American Conference play on Saturday at Miami University.

Kent State vs. Army: A day in the life of a Homecoming victory

Take a look back at Saturday's win over Army as our photographers give you an inside look from Friday walkthrough, to clap session and Captains Meal on Saturday morning, to the locker room and then onto the field at game time.

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Excitement for Homecoming and preparing for the difficulties Army presents

By Paul Haynes

Head Coach

Getting prepared to play an option team like Army is always difficult. You have to be extremely disciplined in a game like the one we will play on Saturday. You need to have eye control and you have to stay poised because Army is are going to continue to come after you and come after you, almost like a dog biting at your knees.

It can get frustrating as a player to get cut play after play, so in addition to the mental part, this game requires quite a bit of poise. 

It is tough to stop the option. When playing Army, you almost need them to make a mistake every once in a while. You need them to drop a ball, or have two guys go in motion at the same time, or get called for a cut block, just to get their offense off schedule. 

And then, every possession is so important in this game because you don’t know how many you are going to get.

Cut blocking in the style of offense that Army runs is different than it is in other offenses. In this one, you have everybody cutting. You are getting cut on every single play that they can possibly run. That’s where you have to stay patient and stay poised.

We are a zone blocking team, and there is some cutting in it. I think the zone scheme is helping our guys get better, but we haven’t seen the impact of it yet. The teams that have been successful against us have been movement teams and teams that are quicker than us. We have also had to get away from the run occasionally as we have fallen behind in games.

We made a conscious effort during the last two or three weeks, though, to stick with the run game just so that we can get better. Remember that other than Terrell Johnson, we are going to have every guy on our offensive line back for at least two more years. We have to get better at establishing the run because in this day and age even spread teams like Oregon run the football very well. You have to be able to run the football well to win.

Our guys on the offensive line are working hard. All of our guys up and down the roster are working hard. There is a misconception within athletics. Just because this team is 0-6, it doesn’t mean guys are refusing to work their tails off. These kids are still going to school. They are still busting their tails to try to win. It will mean a lot to them when they look up into the stands and see the students and the community backing them this weekend for Homecoming. 

We are hearing from a lot of alumni who are coming back for this game, and that’s a big deal to our guys. The players know how important this game is, and they will go out and play hard for Kent State University.

It’s going to be great to have so many former players in town. We will have our Captain’s Breakfast on Saturday morning. I believe we have 26 captains coming back from as far back as 1956. Ray Carroscia, who was a team captain in 1989, will be the speaker at the breakfast. That’s special for the kids to be around the former captains. I know the captains appreciate it. 

This is what college football is all about. Homecoming is a big part of college football at every school, but being an Kent State alumnus makes it even more special for me. 

Preparing for a very good passing offense in UMass

By Brian George

Defensive Coordinator

Massachusetts has a very good passing offense. Their quarterback isn’t a very super mobile, but he has a very strong arm. He knows where to go with the football within their offense.

They have very good skill players, including their wide receiver Tajae Sharpe, who is 6-foot-4. They also have a big, tall kid who is one of those wide-receiver-slash-tight-end kids. Against tall kids like that, we have to try to get jams on them, try to slow them down and not let them get going. A lot of their routes are timing routes, so you have to disrupt that timing with the receivers. Obviously, you want to add a little bit of pressure at times as well.

Those guys are long striders rather than quick, so the more you can disrupt them, the better chance they will get. It will help to get Najee Murray back at cornerback. He gives us more depth and another physical guy in there, which is good for a game like this.

Getting back Terence Waugh and Jontey Byrd on the defensive line is also a big is also a big help. It improves our depth tremendously. They are also two of our most athletic linemen so it is definitely a good thing for us in terms of having two guys who can pass rush and a do a lot of other things for us.

We played well defensively last week at Northern Illinois. The best thing that I saw on film after that game was that we played for four quarters. That may be one of the first times this season where I felt like we played the same way, consistently, through the entire game. 

We are looking forward to continuing that consistency tomorrow when we play Massachusetts at 2 p.m. at Dix Stadium.

Playing for the name on the front of the jersey

By Paul Haynes

Head Coach

Everything is a process.

You can go back to 2012 when the process started for us, but we have lost a lot of the guys who were a big part of that start. Things change, and the process begins all over again.

Understanding that it is a process isn’t always easy. We live in a society when everyone wants things now, but you are not always going to get it now. It is going to come from hard work. It is going to come through sacrifice. It is going to come from commitment. That’s what our young men are showing. Unfortunately, the are young. 

Is that an excuse?

No.

Any real football person will tell you, though, that you never want to line up with a young offensive line like we are doing now. That’s not what you ever want. But while we are in that situation, our young offensive line is showing great promise. Next year they will be better. The year after that they will be even better. That’s building a program.

We are also building a culture.

One of the most satisfying things to happen this season was Sunday night when DVSport had to upgrade our server because we have so many guys logging on to the system to study video. That doesn’t happen with a lot of 0-5 football teams. So, we are seeing the effort and the commitment every day. We just aren’t seeing it yet in the win column. 

When you come here every day and walk up and down this hallway seeing all of these guys watching film, then you go out to practice and see guys with high energy who love to be out there working to get better, that’s why you love coming to work as a coach here. 

We are getting there. We may not be getting there as fast as everybody wants us to. But the process is happening. 

A lot of NFL scouts have been here recently. They look up and down our roster and say, boy you guys are young. But they say they’ve been watching us play and they see that we have a chance to be very good.

I appreciate that there are also fans out there who are also seeing it. With the fans I’ve talked to, the one thing they say they appreciate is how our guys are showing up, they fight and they don’t give up. 

Those things are signs of great leadership within the team. That’s taking a pride in the school. That’s the result of guys playing for each other and for the name on the front of their shirts. 

We may not be getting the wins yet, but these guys are battling for Kent State. If you want to be proud, we can all be proud about that.

Players can take a snapshot to process "Information You Can Use" on the field

By Paul Haynes

Head Coach

It’s good to get back into Mid-American Conference play this weekend at Northern Illinois. 

We’ll be going on the road against a tough opponent that is arguably the best team in the conference year in and year out. We know it is going to be tough, but it is always tough and our guys are looking forward to it.

While we don’t want to put an overemphasis on this game, we’ve talked about all our goals in the MAC still being right there in front of us. What we are doing is focusing on what we can do better. Like I said it after the Virginia game on Saturday, we can’t beat two teams. Our achilles this season has been turnovers and penalties. We can’t afford to make those mistakes in any game, but especially on the road against tough opponents. To put ourselves in position to win, we have to clean up those things.

There are other things we can clean up. On the defensive side of the ball we talk about offensive formations as books. There is so much information an offense gives you in a picture, and players have to take a snapshot of that picture and communicate what you see to everyone else. Just like a book, people can take what they read in different ways. And that’s why the communication that needs to happen is so important for our guys to make sure they are all on the same page.

If you take Virginia as an example, their quarterback gave away run and pass all of the time just with his stance. It’s something that is simple, but as the game goes on you start to lose that recognition because your mind goes somewhere else. His stance was always staggered on pass and he was always square when the play was a run. On third down that may not matter as much, but on first-and-10 and second down, recognizing that and communicating it is huge. We may see it on the sideline or in the booth, but at that point it’s too late to get it to the field. The recognition has to come from the field. 

We call it "Information You Can Use." Our guys need to get better at recognizing that information. Teams give you that picture. Our guys have to process it and communicate it, and then go.