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STARKVILLE — Cody Kennedy remembers standing on Division II sidelines and hearing his father shouting from the stands. Coaching in front of a barren sea of metal bleachers, it wasn’t hard for the offensive line coach to pick up what his dad was saying.
Yet as his career has brought him into SEC venues, which will include Davis Wade Stadium when he begins his first season at Mississippi State in August, the simplicity of the game remains.
“You go up there and it … ,” Kennedy starts but pauses to reflect.
“You’re playing in front of x amount of thousand people … ,” Kennedy restarts but stops again.
“The game never really changed that much,” he concludes.
Kennedy is in Starkville working under Jeff Lebby leading a key part in the offense that made the first-year head coach a lucrative option for the Bulldogs in November.
Kennedy has an office – though still undecorated after his more from Arkansas − overlooking three practice fields with a state-of-the-art baseball facility sitting adjacent. He has exceeded far beyond his back-up plan of becoming a physical education teacher.
Kennedy was a 2021 Broyles Award semifinalist which is awarded annually to the top assistant in college football. He’s in the sport’s most prestigious conference. But at his core, Kennedy isn’t much different from the ambitious graduate assistant at West Alabama.
“I was in the bus leagues,” Kennedy told the Clarion Ledger. “Golden Corral and Subway sandwiches, man. Having the time of our lives coaching D-II ball. To be honest with you, I was really, really happy doing that. I jokingly tell people this at clinics and stuff. Your job doesn’t change, just more people start watching.”
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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/mississippi-states-cody-kennedy-hasnt-100333803.html
Author : The Clarion Ledger
Publish date : 2024-04-08 10:03:33
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