The Kent State football team appeared to be moving in the right direction in its first two conference games, but since the 37-35 defeat to Ball State Oct. 12, the Flashes have lost by a combined score of 79-27 in its last two games.

Saturday’s 52-21 loss came at the hands of the Western Michigan Broncos, who improved to 5-3 (4-0 Mid-American Conference) after their victory. Kent State dropped to 0-8 (0-4 MAC).

“It’s a disappointing loss, we did not perform well in the first half on offense, defense or special teams. We didn’t do what we came here to do, and it showed,” coach Kenni Burns said.

Similar to last week, the Kent offense was generally ineffective, scoring 14 of its 21 points in the fourth quarter when the game was out of reach. 

Junior quarterback Tommy Ulatowski went 12-of-24 passing for 114 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions. Ulatowski also lost a fumble.

He completed just four passes for 31 yards and a touchdown in the first half. 

“Tommy has to keep learning and playing better,” Burns said. “He’s not playing up to his ability right now and we’re not coaching him up to that right now. He has to play better than what he is playing right now. He knows that. He has to keep attacking it, keep working on his pocket presence and keep working on his reads and keep getting better each week.”

In his first two starts, Ulatowski threw for 739 yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions, but in his last two, he has thrown for just 192 yards, three touchdowns and four interceptions. 

With Ulatowski’s decline in numbers, the receiving duo of redshirt sophomore Chrishon McCray and graduate student Luke Floriea have followed suit.

Each receiver had three receptions; Floriea’s went for a total of 43 yards while McCray’s went for 23. The only touchdown between the two came when Floriea pulled in an 18-yard pass in the final minute of the first half.

In the opening two games in conference play, McCray had 13 receptions for 401 yards and five touchdowns while Floriea had nine receptions for 207 yards and two touchdowns. In the last two games, McCray has just six catches for 44 yards and no touchdowns, and Floriea has five catches for 78 yards and one touchdown.

The offense averaged 34 points and 441.5 yards through its first two MAC games, but just 13.5 points and 227 yards in its last two games. 

Though the offense has struggled in its last two games, the team has set new season highs in rush yards each of the last two weeks, going for 126 yards Oct. 19 and 136 yards Saturday. 

Redshirt senior running back Ky Thomas led the way against Western Michigan with 15 carries for 62 yards. 

As a team, Kent had 39 carries, bringing its rushing average to 3.49 yards per rush. Despite gaining the most yards on the ground since Oct. 14 of last year, Burns was not pleased.

“I thought we struggled running the ball today. We couldn’t get into a rhythm,” he said. “We got behind the sticks too much on first and second down. We did some stuff better in the second half, but we struggled to get the ball moving in the right direction up front today. It was one guy here and one guy there not doing their job, but we have to coach better, and we have to run the ball better.”

For the defense, the unit was also generally ineffective in the first half. Western Michigan scored on six of its first seven possessions, gaining 347 yards on those seven possessions as the Kent State defense allowed the Broncos to score the game’s first 38 points.

The streak of allowing over 400 yards has now reached nine games, dating back to the final game of last season. The defense gave up a total of 569 yards to Western Michigan bringing their season average to 540.25 yards allowed per game.

“We have a lot of guys hurt,” said Burns. “We lost Rocco (Nicholl) again today, we lost Mason Woods. We have guys hurt, we have guys filling in, and guys that are filling in have to step up, they have to play better. We didn’t do that today.”

The 569 yards the defense gave up were the most against non-Power Four opponents this season and are the most Kent has allowed against a non-Power Four opponent with Burns as its coach. The last time the Flashes gave up more yards than they did against the Broncos in a MAC game was Nov. 3, 2021, against Northern Illinois in a 52-47 victory. 

Since that game three seasons ago, the Flashes have only given up more than 569 yards three times: Aug. 31, 2023, at Central Florida in Burns’ first game as Kent State’s head coach, Sept. 14 against No. 7 Tennessee (6-1, 3-1) and Sept. 21 against No. 3 Penn State (7-0, 4-0).

 A bright spot on the defense was freshman linebacker Jayden Studio, who had six tackles and one interception, the first turnover of the Flashes’ defense in conference play.

“He did a solid job. He’s playing as a freshman, but he did a good job, you can tell he’s getting better each week. I thought he was one of the bright spots on defense. We have to get some other young kids playing at that level as well,” Burns said.

Kent State will return home for a bye week  to host the Ohio Bobcats (5-3, 3-1) on Nov. 6 at 7 p.m.

“We have to learn from it, play better and keep working at figuring this thing out,” Burns said.

Demetri Manousos is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].