MAC Football Notes: Kent State

Let’s go back to the Sean Lewis days. Currently, he’s the San Diego State coach, but only because the Kent State experience would only lead him to be the Colorado offensive coordinator for Deion Sanders (aka Coach Prime), for less than a season. Not only that, it took him five years at Kent State to get there. 

In 2021, Lewis’s group reached the MAC Championship game for the first time since 2012, and won seven games for the second time under his leadership. It was the first time since Don James in the early 1970’s that a coach led Kent State to at least seven wins in multiple seasons (1973, 1974), which had players like Jack Lambert, Gary Pinkel, and Nick Saban. 

James, after having success as a coach at Kent State (25-19-1 overall, 10-10 MAC), went on to have a long, fantastic, and historic career with Washington (150-60-2), and is in the College Football Hall of Fame (Lifetime: 175-79-3). 

Lewis’ record at Kent State: 24-31 overall, 19-17 in MAC play.

Lewis was not hired at other places he was interviewed for before he took the Colorado OC gig, and Kent State’s issues grew. It’s still not a rich MAC program, and if Lewis can’t land the Cincinnati job, then what prospects will the next hire have to look forward to in their career?

Kenni Burns was the answer, a running backs coach from the P.J. Fleck tree. Burns was on the MAC championship-winning coaching staff at Western Michigan in 2016, and came to Kent from Minnesota in 2023. In two seasons, the team’s only win came against FCS-level Central Connecticut, 38-10, three games into his freshman season. 

Burns was sued by a hometown bank – literally called Hometown Bank – in Kent, Ohio, for “$23,852.09 plus interest in unpaid credit card purchases, which exceeded the credit limit of $20,000,” and fired for cause with a simple 1-23 record next to his name.

Mark Carney took over as an interim, but he reached full-time head coach status before the final month of the 2025 season. Carney, a former quarterback for Fordham, where he played for Dave Clawson. From 2009-2013, Carney was on Clawson’s staff at Bowling Green as a receiver’s coach. (Lewis would be hired as BG’s new WR coach when Dino Babers took over as head coach in 2014.)

In 2025, Carney was able to, much to my surprise (complimentary, welcomed), back to where Lewis left it in 2023: 5 wins and an even .500 record in league play. 

Entering 2026, Kent State is in an interesting spot with its roster. Though it lost its best receivers, running backs, tacklers, and even the punter from last year, Kent State’s atop the MAC in Phil Steele’s homegrown roster percentage at 68.6%, along with Miami OH and Buffalo. By ESPN’s returning production percentage, the Flashes rank fourth in the league and 87th nationally. 

Does this mean I’m starting to think Kent State will be a fundamentally different and much-improved team moving forward? God, no. But an impressive first year with its new head coach led by an offseason where the locker room remained largely intact should (fingers crossed) lead to really good things. And for Kent State, that’d mean improving its record to six wins and reaching its first bowl game since the Lewis era.

PLAYERS OF NOTE