Kennesaw State’s Coleman Bennett is a smart guy. It took him only three years to graduate from Bucknell. He spent a year studying and playing football at Rice, and last week he graduated from KSU with a master’s degree in public administration — with a 4.0 GPA.
Bennett was intelligent and intuitive enough to see that Kennesaw State had the potential to have a transformative season. That’s why he hasn’t been surprised by the way things turned out.
Bennett has been the most consistent running back during the team’s 10-3 season, which concludes at 11 a.m. Friday when Kennesaw State meets Western Michigan in the Myrtle Beach Bowl (ESPN), the program’s first postseason appearance since moving to the FBS level.
“To be honest, when I first got here in January, everybody was just trying to get acclimated and it was freezing cold. Everybody was so bundled up, and I didn’t even know who my own teammates were,” Bennett said. “But once we got into spring ball, that’s when I started to see, ‘OK, this team could do something special.’ Once we started, I knew the defense was going to be great and the offense, we just had to get adjusted to the tempo.”
Bennett leads the team with 148 rushing attempts and 716 yards (4.8 yards per attempt), and four touchdowns. He has provided durability, getting 10 or more carries in nine games. He ran for a season-high 101 yards on 12 carries against Middle Tennessee, but his best effort may have come in the Conference USA championship game, when he rushed 17 times for 82 yards and one touchdown and caught seven passes for 42 yards.
Bennett has good football genes. His father, Donnell Coleman Jr., played at the University of Miami and was a second-round NFL draft choice. He spent eight seasons in the league with Kansas City and Washington. Young Bennett, the third of four sons, has seen most of his father’s career on film.
Despite his pedigree, Coleman Bennett didn’t get a chance to play running back until his sophomore season at Cardinal Gibbons High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, when he was moved from slot receiver to tailback. His opportunity came when a high-profile recruit decided he only wanted to play defensive back, which left the door open for Bennett.
“It was crazy,” he said. “You know, God knows everything and he has a plan for everybody, right?”
It worked out well for Bennett, who became the team’s captain and helped Cardinal Gibbons win a state championship in 2018, the first in program history. More success followed at Bucknell, where he earned All-Patriot League honors and carved out a spot on the league’s all-academic team.
He was drawn to Kennesaw State after speaking with coach Jerry Mack and having his questions answered by the academic advisers.
“It just seemed like the best place for me, academically and athletically,” he said. “On the football side, coach Mack and running backs coach (Aston) Walter just believed in me and I believed in them. I wanted to be part of the start of the journey to build success.”
Bennett earned the start in the season opener at Wake Forest, and carried 17 times for 66 yards and a touchdown in his debut with the Owls.
Bennett, fellow running backs Chase Belcher and Alexander Diggs, and quarterback Amari Odom have helped the Owls average 158.6 yards per game on the ground, fifth best in the league. It has prevented the opposition from ganging up on the elusive Odom, the all-conference quarterback.
“We pride ourselves on having a vertical running game,” Bennett said. “The guys up front and the coaches put us in the best situation to run the ball. As the season went on, we started to build chemistry and when things started clicking the run game really took off.”
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