Can Coach Hazell End Kent State's Bowl Drought?
Kent State hired its 20th head coach when they officially signed Darrell Hazell on December 20th of this past year. Hazell is a very experienced coach spending a total of 25 years at well-known collegiate programs such as Ohio State, Rutgers, West Virginia, and Western Michigan. He has also coached for some lesser known schools like Eastern Illinois, Oberlin University, University of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Military Academy. Coach Hazell’s last seven years were spent at the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio. While there, he coached a few first round draft choices, Tedd Ginn Jr, Anthony Gonzales, and Santonio Holmes. Coach Hazell will take all of that experience to Kent State, a program that has just endured back to back 5-7 seasons and has a drought of 38 years from receiving a bowl bid (not since 1972). Coach Hazell certainly learned how to win from Jim Tressel over the past seven years and that will absolutely transfer over into his program at Kent State. Knowing how to build a winning organization and learning what it takes to win is the most essential thing that a coach can obtain. Hazell has done that through his hard work and dedication over his 25 years of coaching experience, particularly in the last seven years. Of course, Kent State is not Ohio State. They don’t have the same fan base, the same facilities, the same media coverage, or the same prestige so I am by no means suggesting that Coach Hazell will obtain the same type of success that Jim Tressel had at OSU. However, he will most definitely bring a different attitude to Kent State. As Winston Churchill said, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference”. This certainly holds true in life, but also, without a doubt, in football.
Coach Hazell will probably conduct himself and his program much like Tressel did at Ohio State. Thus, we can expect this team to compete in everything that they do. From the moment he was hired you can bet he was teaching his players to compete with each other to improve each and every day. Hazell is a nice fit for Kent State because he is an offensive coach coming to a team that’s offense was pitiful last season. He was given the opportunity to be involved with play calling at Ohio State, so developing game plans and calling a game will not be completely new to him. That should pay major dividends to him and to Kent State.
I would expect that Kent State will install a similar offense to that of Ohio State; a balanced pro style attack that adapts to the strength of its players. It goes without saying, however, that installing an offense is not easy and takes time. It not only takes time for the players to learn the new system, but also to recruit the type of players that you want to run the offense effectively. This means don’t expect a huge offensive outburst from the Golden Flashes this year, but it would be fair to expect an improvement. Kent State may not be a ten game winner this year but Coach Hazell will breathe life into this program and rejuvenate the offense. The defense was solid last year so expect a better season in the inaugural year of Head Coach Darrell Hazell.
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