A season to forget for the Kent State football team came to a conclusion against Buffalo (8-4, 6-2) with a 43-7 road loss, solidifying the program’s first 0-12 season in history and extending its losing streak to 21 games, tying the program record set from 1981-1983.
“I’m disappointed in the loss. I’m really proud of this football team, though, I told them that,” coach Kenni Burns said. “There’s a phenomenal group of young men in there who battled through a lot, who went through their ups and downs of injuries this year, but they came out each week, and they kept fighting, they kept working.”
Buffalo dominated from the beginning, outscoring the Flashes 13-0 in each of the first two quarters.
Down 26-0 early in the second half, Kent State scored its final touchdown of the season when junior quarterback Tommy Ulatowski connected with graduate student receiver Luke Floriea for a 27-yard touchdown pass.
Ulatowski completed seven passes on 12 attempts for 91 yards and a touchdown. Freshman Ruel Tomlinson got playing time as well, and completed three of five passes for 11 yards.
“I wanted to make sure we got out of the game getting him more experience because if you look at next year, you’re going to get J.D. (Sherrod), back, you’re going to get Dev (Devin Kargman) back, so I wanted to make sure these young guys got some experience, as well,” Burns said. “That went in with the plan, and seeing if anyone got into a rhythm, I was going to keep riding them.”
Without senior running back Ky Thomas available, redshirt freshman receiver Jahzae Kimbrough filled in, averaging 4.64 yards per carry for 14 attempts, totaling 65 yards.
“He filled in for depth in our running back room when Gavin Garcia went down, and then Marcus Hicks went down and then Curtis was down for a couple weeks. We moved him there just to get some depth there, and he’s a talented young man,” Burns said.
Without redshirt sophomore Chrishon McCray, who was playing a limited amount of snaps due to an injury, just two Flashes receivers accounted for all of the team’s receiving yards. Freshman Jay Jay Etheridge had 64 yards on six catches, both career highs, and graduate student Luke Floriea had 38 yards on four catches along with a touchdown.
“Chrishon was battling a knee injury and really wanted to play. His knee got banged up a little bit last week,” Burns said. “We worked him out all week in practice, limited his reps and he went out there yesterday, and he was still struggling with it then. He even tried this morning, and we made the decision to pull him and shut him down for the game. We didn’t want to hurt it worse than what it is.”
On the defensive side, the Flashes gave up 446 yards to the Bulls, pushing their streak of allowing at least 400 yards to 13 games. The defense has been battling injuries all season long, resulting in players playing new positions.
Sophomore safety C.J. Young led the team with 14 tackles, one of them being a sack.
“I love C.J. Young. He’s a walk-on safety. We’re down eight guys at linebacker right now, and when we told him we have to move him there, he answered the bell,” Burns said. “He went down there, and I think he got progressively better at the position over the last three games here.”
One positive in having a large amount of injuries like the Flashes did is the ability for young players to be thrown into the fire and gain experience that they would not have otherwise had.
“It’s huge, it’s everything. When you look at it, that was the purpose of the year, honestly, to get almost every impactful freshman reps, and we got it accomplished. We might have not wanted to do it as early as we did, but with the injuries that we had, we had no choice,” Burns said. “Now the whole thing is we have to get them bigger, faster, stronger. We have to get them in the weight room ready to rock and roll.”
The Flashes will enter the offseason looking to develop the young talent on the roster to prepare for the 2025 season.
“We have a team meeting tomorrow with everybody coming back, and we have to get to work,” Burns said. “Year three is an important year because I think that’s when you start to show what you’re building as a program. We’re going to rest for a little bit, then get back to work.”
Demetri Manousos is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].
