Golden Flashes Open Fall Camp With Eyes on Continuity, Communication
8/5/2026 6:14:00 PM | Football
KENT, Ohio — Kent State football kicked off fall camp with its first practice of the 2026 season, and for a program coming off a step forward a year ago, day one carried the weight of expectation and the promise of a fresh start all at once.
"It felt great to be back out here with the guys," head coach Mark Carney said following the session. "Day one, two, it's all a lot of acclimation, right. Getting us used to pads and the little bit of physical contact we're allowed to do these days. But it's great to have the entire 2026 team here and working towards our main goal."
Carney pointed to the lines of scrimmage as the area he's most eager to watch develop throughout camp. Defensively, that group returns a proven anchor in defensive tackle Thomas Aden, surrounded by a mix of retained and newly recruited pieces that Carney said have been "outstanding all summer." Offensively, the line looks much different, with some new faces tasked with rebuilding the unit from the ground up.
"We're going to be known by what we do up front on both sides of the ball," Carney said.
That identity comes with a message Carney has delivered clearly to both sides of the ball: build on what worked in 2025 without leaning on it.
"We took a step in 2025. This is a new group, this is a new team," Carney said. "We can't rely on the lessons learned a year ago. We've certainly got to be students of history and understand the mistakes and lessons that we learned, but we can't afford to make those same mistakes again."
Central to that continuity is quarterback Dru DeShields, who Carney called one of the program's top retention pieces of the offseason. Carney said DeShields has taken major strides as a player and a leader over the past year, citing a full offseason in the weight room and the respect he has earned from his teammates. Aden, Hunter Hopperton, Terik Mulder, Jai Roy, and Atiq Muhammad rounded out a list of eight to ten veterans Carney said the program is counting on for leadership in 2026.
"Those are the key pieces you want to build your program around," Carney said. "Our staff did a great job of bringing those key pieces back."
With expectations elevated entering the season, Carney said the challenge now is less about last year's breakthrough and more about how the team responds to what it built.
"We got expectations on us this year," Carney said. "For the first time in a while, it's how are we going to deal with the expectations we have for ourselves, and then two, that we've created with our actions from a year ago."
Carney also emphasized the standard-setting nature of camp's opening days.
"We're creating a standard every day," he said. "Today was day one on the grass as a group. We set a standard. Tomorrow our job is to go exceed that standard."
DeShields, now entering camp as QB1 rather than fighting for the job, said the energy of day one stood out, even with the usual first-day wrinkles that come with integrating players who missed spring practice.
"I feel like the energy, we came out with a lot of energy," DeShields said. "One thing we do need to fix is the details. I mean, it's day one. A lot of new guys are out on the field that didn't get to do spring ball; now they're here. They've been learning the standard, so I feel like we just got to keep up with that."
Despite the shift in status from a year ago, DeShields said the competitive mindset hasn't changed, it's just aimed in a different direction.
"We're all still competing," DeShields said. "Competing against myself, competing against others, but most importantly, I'm trying to get myself better, and then the guys around me, really, I'm trying to uplift them because some of them haven't played in games yet or haven't played a lot of games. I feel like I'm helping a lot of other people."
Offensively, DeShields said the point of emphasis this camp is simple: be more efficient this season.
"We want to be an efficient football team," he said. "Last year we relied on the big play a little bit too much, which isn't bad, I mean, you love big plays, but we've got to be a little bit more efficient. We want to sustain drives and get like ten, fourteen-play drives and go score."
As for personal goals, DeShields kept it grounded in the day-to-day.
"I feel like I just want to get better every day," DeShields said. "You really can't look forward to the season and look forward to all the awards that you have a chance of winning. You can only get better every day and just be out here with your teammates."
On the defensive side, Aden said the group came out of day one with the mentality it wants to carry through camp and into the fall.
"I loved how we came out strong, we came out intentional, we came out fast," Aden said. "I feel like a lot of people have us lower on the list and in the back of their brain, and I think definitely when we keep coming out the way we keep coming out, as we did today, and we get one percent better every day, we'll definitely be something that people want to see."
As one of the defense's veteran voices, Aden said his primary job in camp is developing the group's younger players.
"I feel like my biggest responsibility is just bringing along the young guys," Aden said. "They're the future of our program, and we want them to emulate us and be even better than us. So I definitely say it's bringing the young guys along and then also focusing on the little things, doing the little things right."
Aden described a defensive room built on competitiveness and confidence, one he said has become a model for the rest of the roster.
"We're eager, we are very, very competitive, we like to bet on ourselves a lot," Aden said. "Every single time we step on the field, we're going to compete with one another. I feel like a lot of other rooms on the team look at us and try to emulate the way that we bring that mentality to the field and into the locker room."
With talent in place across the defense, Aden said the emphasis this camp shifts toward cohesion.
"We know we have the pieces; it's just a matter of making all the pieces go together the right way, and also communicating," Aden said. "You can't play defense and win championships if you can't communicate on the field alongside your guys. You may have the right people and not communicate, and the wrong thing's going to happen, so definitely an emphasis on communicating and being aggressive, going to take the ball away."
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.
---
Be The Difference, Support the Football Excellence Fund
Support Coach Carney and the football program today by donating to the Football Excellence Fund by clicking here.
Follow Kent State Football
For complete coverage of Kent State Athletics, download the official Kent State Golden Flashes app (iOS, Android) and follow the Golden Flashes on social media on X, Instagram, and Facebook for news and updates.
