Kent State Football: Golden Flashes Will Be Springboard to Success for Alabama

Poor Kent State. Like so many college football cupcakes before them, the Golden Flashes will scurry in and out of Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday with a humiliating loss to Alabama and a nice check as a thank you for showing up to what will amount to a glorified scrimmage ahead of the Crimson Tides' run to the BCS National Championship Game.

First-year head coach Darrell Hazell couldn't have asked for a ruder introduction to the post he assumed in December of 2010. Hazell, who spent the last seven years as an assistant coach at Ohio State, apparently had about as much success escaping hard luck as all of the unfortunate characters of the Final Destination series.

However, this weekend's season opener in Tuscaloosa might not be so pretty for Kent State.

The Golden Flashes finished 5-7 overall in 2010 before coach Doug Martin resigned after the season finale against Ohio University. Kent State did not reach a single bowl game during Martin's seven-year tenure, accruing a record of 29-53 in the process.

Thus, Kent State isn't exactly a force to be reckoned with out of the Mid-American Conference, especially against a team as loaded with talent as Alabama.

The Crimson Tide are the talk of college football heading into the 2011 season. As everyone's preseason No. 2, Nick Saban's squad is expected to play Oklahoma for the BCS title, despite losing the likes of Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, Julio Jones, Greg McElroy, Marcell Dareus and James Carpenter to graduation or early defection.

Those absences, along with Saban's soft spot for Kent State—the Alabama coach played as a defensive back in Kent, Ohio in the early 1970s and got his start in coaching there—may give the Golden Flashes the slimmest of hopes for success against possibly the best team in the country in a hostile stadium on Saturday...

Or not.

The Tide should have little trouble neutralizing defensive end Roosevelt Nix, the reigning MAC defensive player of the year, who stands at a mere 6' and 245 pounds.

Just small enough that Cade Foster, Bama's kicker who stands at 6'1" and 216 pounds, could probably block him.

Offensively, Hazell will have to keep his fingers crossed that quarterback Spencer Keith (2,212 yards, eight touchdowns, 11 interceptions) and a steady rotation of running backs will be able to move the ball against one of the most fearsome defenses in the nation.

Good luck with that.

Overall, expect Bama to wipe the floor...errr, I mean, the field with the Golden Flashes this weekend, chewing them and spitting them out before diving right into the meat of their schedule on the way to a potential national title.

As for Kent State, Hazell and his team will have to be content with a sound whoopin' and the money that comes with it as they head back to Ohio, looking forward to friendlier days this fall.

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