How Kennesaw State pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the season

As the only football coach in Kennesaw State’s history, Brian Bohannon has experienced all of the high and lows of the past decade.

An FCS startup team in 2015, the Owls won their first game and went 6-5 in their initial season. Kennesaw State won eight games in its second campaign and had a 34-7 record from 2017 to 2019, winning two Big South Conference championships along the way.

The Owls’ 48-15 record over their first five seasons is the best record by an FCS startup, and they’re the only FCS team to have three straight seasons with at least 11 wins in their first five years of competition.

For all of Kennesaw State’s success at the FCS level, though, its first season of competition while transitioning to the FBS in 2024 has been equally humbling. Heading into last week, the Owls had dropped their first six games, losing to FCS program UT Martin 24-13 at home on Sept. 28.

“You don’t ever know what the path is going to be, right?” Bohannon said. “You know where you want to go, but you don’t know what the path is going to take you. I think the thing anybody would say about this program is we have a strong culture because to still be hanging around at 0-6, it’s hard, and our kids stuck together.”

Everything came together for Kennesaw State in last week’s 27-24 upset of previously unbeaten Liberty.

It was the first time in 23 years — and only the sixth such occurrence in the AP poll era since 1936 — that a team with an 0-5 or worse record knocked off an opponent with a 5-0 record or better.

Kennesaw State ended Liberty’s 18-game win streak in the regular season and conference championship games, which was the longest streak in the FBS.

The Owls, 27½-point underdogs against the Flames, pulled off the second-biggest upset of the season. Only Northern Illinois‘ 16-14 win at then-No. 5 Notre Dame on Sept. 7 was a bigger shocker — the Huskies were 28½-point underdogs.

Kennesaw State had been winless in its previous 10 games against FBS opponents.

“I mean, the biggest thing is it’s a huge confidence boost for our kids,” Bohannon said. “You know, obviously getting that first one is always big. And then Liberty is a really good football team. I think getting the first one is always big, right? And we’re a young program. We’ve got a lot of youth, and they’re learning every week, and it was just good to see them have success. I was really proud of it.”

Bohannon’s team will try to make it two straight victories when Kennesaw State plays at Conference USA front-runner Western Kentucky on Wednesday night (7:30 ET, ESPN2/ESPN+).

“We just lacked consistency,” Bohannon said of his team’s early struggles. “We’ve been turning the ball over, and we haven’t been playing complimentary football. We’ve been talking about all this stuff, and finally it came together.”

The Owls were playing so inconsistently on offense that Bohannon benched starting quarterback Davis Bryson after a 63-24 loss to Jacksonville State in the league opener Oct. 4. Bryson threw three interceptions and had only 76 passing yards on 6-for-14 passing attempts.

In a 14-5 loss at Middle Tennessee on Oct. 15, the Owls had 10 first downs and 234 yards of offense with Khalib Johnson and Braden Bohannon — the coach’s son — sharing snaps at quarterback.

“[Coach Bohannon] told me the decision was best for the team and for the program and that I was going to learn from the mistakes that I made in the previous game,” Bryson said. “He told me to attack those things throughout the week and just take advantage of my opportunity when it comes back.”

Bryson, a sophomore from Woodbridge, Virginia, got his opportunity eight days later against Liberty. He completed his first eight passes and finished 16-of-20 for 189 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions.

“I guess he was motivated, huh?” Bohannon said. “He has been our guy. We just turned the ball over, so we went another direction for a week. He had to take some humble pie and go signal for a week, but he had a great attitude. He handled it awesome and cheered on his teammates. We weren’t able to get it done [with other quarterbacks], and we gave him an opportunity. He took advantage of it.”

Going into the Liberty game, the Owls ranked 130th out of 134 FBS teams in scoring offense with 14.6 points per game. They came out of that game with a season-high 323 yards of offense and didn’t turn the ball over. They also went 7-for-14 on third down.

On defense, Kennesaw State became only the second team this season to limit Liberty to under 180 rushing yards (No. 1 Oregon was the other). After surrendering an average of 36 points during their six-game losing streak, the Owls came up with several big stops against the Flames. They stopped Liberty’s offense on a fourth-and-11 at the Kennesaw State 29, which led to a field goal and a 24-17 lead.

There are likely to be more highs and lows this season for the Owls.

“We’ve still got a long way to go with everything here being what it needs to be, to be an FBS program,” Bohannon said. “But our kids hung in there, and we found a way to win a game, which was honestly big for us. But we’ve got a long way to go and a lot of work to do. I won’t call this a fun path, but it’s the path that we’re taking right now. We’ll see where it takes us.”