The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kennesaw State misses FCS playoffs, concluding season
Kennesaw State’s playoff streak is over. The Owls were not named among the field of 16 teams that will compete for the Football Championship Subdivision title, announced Sunday by the NCAA.
Coming into the 2020 season — which was pushed to spring 2021 due to COVID-19 — Kennesaw State had made three straight FCS playoff appearances.
The Owls, who were favored to carry the Big South Conference, went 4-1 overall, 2-1 in conference play. Their lone loss came in their final game, to Monmouth — which went undefeated in the Big South and will represent the conference in the playoffs as an automatic bid.
South Dakota State, winner of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, and Sam Houston are the top seeds. James Madison is the number three seed with Jacksonville State rounding out the top four.
Davidson and VMI will make their first playoff appearances. Missouri State, led by former Falcons coach Bobby Petrino, will make its first playoff appearance since 1990.
Kennesaw State is 4-3 alltime in the FCS Playoffs and last won the Big South in 2018.
fying T-12 finish at the Masters.
As he strolled up No. 18 with son, Reagan, on the bag, the only real quandary was how to frame this moment. Was it a great comeback story? Or a great father-son story? God knows, we love both those. And this one had sentiment draped all over it like Spanish moss wrapping a southern oak. It was almost too emotionally gratifying, if that’s possible.
First, the comeback. Cink spent the decade of the 2010s winning nothing. By late in the decade, he also stepped back to be closer to his wife, Lisa, as she waged a hard, winning battle against cancer. No one could blame the golf world for assuming it had witnessed the last of Stewart Cink’s best.
But he remodeled his game, concentrating on power and spin — “I think I was one of the shortest hitters when I won this tournament in 2000, and I think I was probably one of the longer hitters in 2021,” Cink said. That is another age-defying trick he played on the field during the week, leading it in driving distance.
He drew closer and more committed to his swing coach and short-game coach. Got fitter. For good reason.
“I love playing golf, and the players I’m playing against aren’t getting worse,” Cink said last week. “I don’t really want to stop doing this as a job, and the guys that come out here year after year get better and better, younger and younger, and they don’t make it any easier. So, I have to continue getting more out of myself and managing myself different ways.”
So, at 47, he won again at the season-opening event in Napa, California. Then did it again Sunday, making this Cink’s first multiple-win season since 2004.
Some of this week was eye-popping: Back-to-back 63s on Thursday and Friday.
Some of it was stiff and structured: There wasn’t much exciting about his round Sunday. About the only real challenge came from the helpful fan who shouted “Don’t choke today” Cink’s way as he reported to the course Sunday.
He began the day with a sizable lead — five strokes — and same as those movers will do today, Cink swaddled it in bubble wrap and carefully hauled it out the back door. Nothing fancy was required, just the hard work of sweating out some pars and come in with a fairly unnicked 1-under 70. Just don’t drop the dishes, and everything would be fine.
Most importantly, these two revitalizing wins have coincided with the decision to have his 23-year old son, Reagan — just one year younger than Cink’s Sunday playing partner, Collin Morikawa — caddie for him.
Yes, it is possible for father and son to communicate in the same voice. And by the time Sunday was done, the two of them had turned the tension of trying to win a PGA Tour event into a veritable game of catch.
“I think that the job fits in nicely with our connection that we have,” Cink said. “He and I have always just been on the same wavelength. We’re kind of from the same DNA, and I mean literally like we are the same person. We think about things — we think about jokes, we notice the same funny stuff, we just pick up on the same kind of little details about things in our immediate surroundings.
“It’s been a real good fit for him caddying, and I just can’t tell you how much fun it is to have my son caddying for me.”
It was a perfect walk, unspoiled, Sunday for all the Cinks. They all — Lisa, son, Connor, in from Wyoming and, of course, Reagan — were there to share the victory.
“The best thing here this week to make it more special or differently special than other tournaments was the fact that it happened at my age and with Reagan caddying and Connor and his fiancé and Lisa all here, Cink said. “Several of my friends came down just to be here for this.
“To have a posse like that waiting at the end to celebrate with is an experience that you just don’t get to have in your life that often.”
And he also picked up $1.278 million for the win.
So the moving expenses are covered.