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    • Kent State is approaching the worst college football season of this century
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    Kent State is approaching the worst college football season of this century

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    Editor’s note: Kent State lost 43-7 to Buffalo on Tuesday night and finished the season 0-12.

    Jaylen Thomas’ 23-yard touchdown run with 2:28 left in the third quarter put the finishing touches on Kent State’s 38-10 victory last September against Central Connecticut, the program’s first win under new coach Kenni Burns.

    Kent State hasn’t won since, snapping a 20-game losing streak that is the second-longest streak in program history, following 21 straight losses from 1981 to 1983.

    But losing streaks come and go: There have been 19 losing streaks of 21 or more games in the modern era of the Bowl Subdivision, none longer than Northwestern’s 34-game slide from 1978-82.

    What is currently happening at Kent State goes beyond just a losing streak, but puts the Golden Flashes in the mix as they are considered among the worst teams in FBS history.

    The Flashes have played eleven games this season while leading for about the equivalent of a quarter of the playing time, with a series of lopsided blowouts, apart from two defeats in possession: 23-17 against Saint Francis (Pa.) of the Championship Subdivision and 37-35 for MAC opponent Ball State.

    “We obviously know the season didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” Burns said last week. “But the only thing we can control is the next game, the next opportunity. We have to get back to work and do what we have to do to do that.”

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    Louisiana-Monroe played the entire 2020 season without ever taking the lead, playing a 10-game schedule with stops and starts during the COVID-19 pandemic. If we remove that shortened season from the equation, their resume paints them as potentially the worst team of this century.

    Overall, the Golden Flashes enter Tuesday’s season finale in Buffalo having played 660 minutes of game time. They have been tied for just over 64 minutes, with the longest stretch of non-losing, surprisingly, coming from an eventual 56-0 loss to No. 4 Penn State. The Nittany Lions were held off the board until a 16-yard touchdown pass with 2:38 left in the first quarter.

    Kent State has held the lead at times over the past two games. It scored first against Miami (Ohio) on November 13, holding a 7–0 lead for approximately five and a half minutes of playing time, from 1:40 PM to 8:09 AM remaining in the first quarter. The RedHawks would pull away for a 34-7 victory. Last Wednesday against Akron, the Golden Flashes scored on an 80-yard touchdown with 13:31 left in the opening frame and would hold that lead until the Zips scored to take a 10-7 lead with 4:15 left in the quarter. Akron would ultimately win 38-17.

    Combined, Kent State has been tied or ahead for just under 79 minutes of playing time. That’s just one metric that explains why the Flashes could be on their way to a place in college football infamy:

    • Saint Francis has only three other victories. One of those was against Delaware State, which finished last in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Another was Stonehill, a former Division II program that transferred to the FBS in its first year. The Red Flash ended the season with a 21-20 loss to Mercyhurst, another program that moved up from Division II.
    • The Flashes were blown out three times — by Tennessee, Penn State and Ohio — and failed to score a touchdown in a 27-6 loss to Bowling Green.
    • Bowling Green is the only FBS opponent to score fewer than 34 points against Kent State. The Flashes have been defeated by an average final score of approximately 46-14 in 10 games against FBS competition.
    • KSU ranks last in the nation in total offense, total defense, scoring defense, rushing defense, first downs gained, first downs allowed and third down offense. The Flashes are second-to-last in rushing offense, ahead of Colorado, and in scoring offense, ahead of Houston.
    • KSU also ranks in the bottom 10 nationally in passing offense, passing efficiency offense, passing efficiency defense, turnover margin, third-down defense and red zone defense.
    • The Flashes are gaining 235.5 yards per game. That’s almost 10% percent less than Kennesaw State, which leads KSU at 260.5 yards per game. At 522.4 yards per game, the Flashes defense is giving up almost 20 more yards than Oklahoma State, which is allowing 503.3 yards per game.

    Injuries have played a role. The Flashes have lost players “more than normal, more than most schools,” Burns said, most notably with injuries to two quarterbacks — starter Devin Kargman and primary backup J.D. Sherrod — in the loss to Penn State. Third-string quarterback Tommy Ulatowski has started six of the past seven games.

    “I’d be lying to you if I didn’t think that was a factor in our success this year,” he said.

    Kent State has plenty of competition for the title of worst team in the modern FBS era, including two from fairly recent program history: the 1989 team went 0-11 and completed just 44.3% of its pass attempts and the 1998 team went also 0-11. 11, while being outscored by more than 300 points and giving up more than 310 rushing yards per game.

    Other contenders include 1950 Virginia Tech, which was outscored 430-72 and lost every game by double-digit margins, and 1981 Northwestern, which finished last nationally in points scored and allowed per game with two losses by 64 points and another with 52 points. . A surprising entrant into this embarrassing debate is 1955 Alabama, the proud program’s only winless team since 1896.

    A loss to Buffalo would make KSU the 23rd winless FBS team of the 21st century, not counting the COVID-19 shortened season, and the first since Akron in 2019. With another double-digit loss, the Flashes would join Texas-El Paso 2017., 2015 Kansas and 2005 Temple as the only winless teams since 2000 to have just one game against FBS competition decides with some figures. And with the Bulls favored by 22½ points, another loss could make Kent State and Temple the only two to have decided all but one of their games against the FBS by 21 or more points.

    “We’ve got our hands full here, but we’re playing for something,” Burns said. “We’re playing for our ability to finish the season the right way, get our seniors into the offseason the right way and get this team moving in the right direction.”

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