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article <\/p>\n article <\/p>\n
J.T. Pennington #65 of the Kennesaw State Owls signals for what he thinks is a first down during the fourth quarter against the Jacksonville State Gamecocks at AmFirst Stadium on December 5, 2025 in Jacksonville, Alabama. (Photo by Jason Clark\/Getty <\/p>\n
JACKSONVILLE, Ala.<\/strong> – Kennesaw State dramatically scored in the final minute Friday night to stun Jacksonville State 19-15 and capture the Conference USA championship, completing a dramatic turnaround under first-year coach Jerry Mack.<\/p>\n What we know:<\/p>\n Quarterback Amari Odom delivered the winning play, firing an 11-yard touchdown pass to Navelle Dean with 63 seconds left. The score came after the Owls briefly lost a 12-point fourth-quarter lead and suddenly trailed 15-12.<\/p>\n Dean, a sophomore who entered the game with just two catches this season, hauled in the go-ahead throw for his first collegiate touchdown. He finished with two receptions for 19 yards.<\/p>\n The Owls took over at their own 25 after Jacksonville State surged ahead on touchdown runs by Caden Creel and Cam Cook with 4:04 remaining. Odom then led a gritty, must-score drive, keeping it alive with a 26-yard completion to Christian Moss on third and 27 and a 14-yard run on fourth and 14. A late-hit penalty placed the ball at the Gamecocks’ 11-yard line before the decisive pass to Dean.<\/p>\n Kennesaw State built a 10-0 lead earlier in the game behind Coleman Bennett\u2019s 3-yard touchdown run in the second quarter and a 38-yard field goal by Britton Williams in the third.<\/p>\n Momentum swung sharply in the fourth after Davis Bryson fumbled on a free kick following a safety with 12:39 to go. Cook, the FBS rushing leader entering the night with 1,581 yards, turned the mistake into a 1-yard touchdown that cut the deficit to 12-7. Creel followed with a 19-yard scoring run and a conversion pass to Deondre Johnson to give Jacksonville State a brief lead.<\/p>\n Odom completed 26 of 32 passes for 246 yards. Bennett rushed 17 times for 82 yards. Creel threw for 96 yards on 12-of-21 passing with one interception and added 112 rushing yards on 18 carries. Cook ran 19 times for 78 yards.<\/p>\n What we don’t know:<\/p>\n No word on how KSU plans to celebrate their victory.<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n The victory avenged Kennesaw State\u2019s 35-26 loss to Jacksonville State on Nov. 15 and capped a 10-3 season one year after the Owls finished 2-10.<\/p>\n The Source:<\/b> This article comes from the proceedings of the game. FOX Sports and The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n Kennesaw State Owls<\/a>College Football<\/a>News<\/a>Sports<\/a>Kennesaw State University<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article J.T. Pennington #65 of the Kennesaw State Owls signals for what he thinks is a first down…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":428119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,198297,199169,1315,50,12632,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-428118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-kennesaw-state","13":"tag-kennesaw-state-football","14":"tag-ncaa-football","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-organization","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115671019320667531","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}