Defense Sets Early Tone, Offense Answers Late as Kent State Holds First Scrimmage of Fall Camp
8/15/2026 6:16:00 PM | Football
KENT, Ohio — Kent State football got its first extended look at live, scripted competition Saturday, holding its first scrimmage of fall camp in overcast conditions that head coach Mark Carney said contributed to a slower start than he wanted to see.
"Energy's got to improve, a little bit of a slow day, overcast, whatever, blah energy," Carney said. "Can't have it to start the game. When the ball gets spotted, when that clock starts rolling, we've got to be ready to play."
Carney said the defense held the edge for much of the first half before the offense's playmakers took over as the scrimmage progressed.
"I thought the defense had an energy edge early, certainly an execution edge early, offense responded," Carney said. "I know offensively we got a bunch of explosive playmakers, right, we get the ball to Da'Realyst or Ardell Banks or Wayne Harris, Terik Mulder, Hunter Hopperton, and then adding these backs, we can be explosive. The question is, can we be consistently efficient?"
Carney pointed to true freshman Brendyn Smith as one of the day's standout performers.
"Football guy. He's an 'and' guy," Carney said. "He's a great kid and a great football player and a great worker, a tireless learner. He checks a lot of boxes, and he's going to impact this football team this fall."
Defensive coordinator Cherokee Valeria said the unit's energy and execution stood out early, even with room to clean up finishing plays.
"There's a lot of good things that happened out there, I thought a lot of guys flew around, made plays," Valeria said. "The energy that was on the sideline for the defense was really well, especially when we started the game and started the movement of the ball, and how we all got together. The final finish still needs a lot of work, I think our tackling still needs some production there, some final finish, but other than that it was really good."
Asked about a run defense that limited the offense to a few explosive gains on the ground, Valeria was measured, noting film study will offer a clearer picture than the live look did.
"Everything is as good as you look at it, and then when you go back and watch film, it's not as good, or it's going to look really bad, and it's not as bad," Valeria said. "On the surface of everything, it looked really good. We fitted the run up; we were leveraging everything else out from each other, complementing our run fits from the back end all the way up to the front end, so that it fitted really well. But I'm sure we're going to go back and watch film and see things we still have to tweak and get better at."
The defense's gold zone execution was another bright spot, according to Valeria, who credited an offseason of tightening up situational calls.
"It's a huge improvement that our defense has gone through this summer and going into fall camp. We kind of tightened down some of the calls that we've done and did a great job," Valeria said. "Guys are really communicating at a high level down there. We understand that the field changes a little bit and the alterations of everything change, but they're working well together."
Valeria credited the defensive line collectively for setting up success at the second and third levels.
"When you look at the defensive line, they're creating havoc up front, it makes the second level and the third level really easy," Valeria said. "If they're disrupting the front, the offensive line, the run fits, it makes our run fit job at the second level easy to fit, and it makes the job of the third level to come up and come through and clean everything else up. Our defensive line, the whole line, is doing a really good job this camp."
Offensive coordinator Clay Patterson offered a more measured assessment of his unit's day, pointing to ongoing work up front and at quarterback.
"We're early in camp, not our best day," Patterson said. "We showed again we can create explosive plays, but we're still working on our efficiency and putting the pieces together up front, figuring out what our best five are. We can be very multiple, but we have to figure out exactly what we're going to be on offense. I think we took a couple of steps, but we got some work to do."
Patterson said quarterback play was inconsistent overall, though several players in the room flashed potential, led by returning starter Dru DeShields.
"We were inconsistent. Dru showed his ability to get out of the pocket and make some plays, but the consistency of the group needs to improve," Patterson said. "I thought Deonte had a couple of good drives, Deonte Ruffin, that really showed some stuff. All the young quarterbacks showed up, Gavin Peeps got in there, Kent local, and got some stuff done, Cole Miller, Ethan Thanthanavong got a drive, and Nolan Good did some good things as well. But we've got to take the next step at quarterback and really increase our depth at that position so that we're ready to go."
On the ground game, Patterson said the offensive line needs to play with more force, while praising the potential of the running back room.
"When you're up front, we've got to increase our violence, our strain. We've got to be able to enforce our will on people when we have to, and not be gimmicky with it, just go run the ball and get our tailbacks involved," Patterson said. "I think our tailback group really has a chance to be pretty good. We just got to put them in good situations and be more consistent, stay ahead of the chains, that's the big thing, stay out of negative plays, be efficient with our run game."
Patterson said returning playmakers with experience in his system, including Da'Realyst Clark, Ardell Banks, and Wayne Harris, gives him confidence in how he can attack defenses.
"Anytime you can have carryover, with what we lost, we were able to retain some guys that have been in our offense that we know can make some plays," Patterson said. "Even Jared Kelly, who people haven't seen a lot of, has done a good job. It's a comfort level for me that I can call more things and put them in a situation. But at the end of the day, when things are going a certain way, you've got to get your playmakers the ball."
Like Carney, Patterson pointed to Smith as a player pushing for a bigger role within a deep receiver room.
"The way we look at our receiver corps, we got six guys that can go in the game and play," Patterson said. "If you watch us, even last year, the guys we just mentioned with Ardell and Jared Kelly, we have packages that get people in the games. I think Brendyn's shown that he can really run. He's an explosive player, a true freshman, and we're extremely excited about him. He had a great day today, made some plays. It's going to take all of them to get it done."
Special teams analyst Josh Cribbs said the scrimmage gave his unit valuable teaching tape, even with clear areas to sharpen.
"I love them; they provided a lot of teaching tape," Cribbs said. "Those guys were very physical, fighting through the whistle. Have a lot of opportunity for improvement, but those guys went out there and battled."
Kicker Sean Leonard connected on multiple field goals during the scrimmage, and Cribbs said the young kicker is being evaluated with no favoritism as camp continues.
"All those guys, I put them in situations to say, hey, I haven't been looking at you guys before I got here, it's fair game, it's not a favoritism type of deal," Cribbs said. "You make all your kicks, you be consistent, you're the guy, and so on for the next guy. It's not a depth chart already set in stone. Those guys are fighting for that first spot."
Cribbs also touched on Smith's role in the return game, where he's working behind an experienced group.
"I'm excited for the depth, you got Wayne Harris, he's done very good at punt return, you got Da'Realyst on the other side, has done very good as well, coming into the season as an All-American and wants to improve on that," Cribbs said. "When you have depth, you have guys who are playing heavily on offense and other guys that can go right in, and there's no drop-off. When that happens, you're going to have multiple guys getting big accolades all season with this unit, whether it's punt return, kickoff, kick return."
Cribbs said the scrimmage helped reinforce a program-wide buy-in to special teams as camp moves forward.
"The biggest area of growth is team-wide, all these guys are fighting for spots on offense and defense, and now they're understanding, with our first scrimmage out of the way, that special teams matters just like offense and defense. You can't have one without the other," Cribbs said. "These guys are starting to buy in. I don't want to make it seem like they're there, it's a long way to success, it's a journey, and they're on that path."
Cribbs pointed to walk-on Quan Rhodes-McKee and freshman Kendall McNutt among the players standing out for their effort on special teams.
"You got Quan Rhodes-McKee, who's a walk-on, who's battling for a position, willing to do anything a coach asks for him," Cribbs said. "You got guys on the defensive end, offensive side, just begging to get on these units, and I love guys that are hungry. I need my depth chart to be able to just rattle down all the names of guys that are hungry. Some of those running backs started taking second and third reps; they're hungry and fighting for themselves to get on special teams. It seems like this is a good group of guys that's fighting, and they have one goal in mind, and we all know what that is."
The Golden Flashes open the 2026 season on the road at South Carolina, on September 5, at 12:45 p.m. Eastern. Season tickets for the 2026 season are available now at KSUtix.com.
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