What’s It Like Preparing For Alabama In A Game You Know You Won’t Win?
The way Haynes saw it, if his players were caught up in "outside stuff" — like Alabama’s ranking, or the crowd, or that Kent State was getting a rare national TV game — they’d be defeated before the game kicked off. When ESPNU play-by-play man Tom Hart suggested that playing in front of a wild and loud crowd at Penn State in the opener prepared Kent State for what it saw in Tuscaloosa, former Heisman Trophy winner Andre Ware, working as the game analyst, basically did everything he could to not laugh.