Here's a stat line that doesn't add up at first glance. Rickie Collins has completed 165 of 236 passes this season. That's 69.9 percent, and it's a big reason Kennesaw State ranks second in Conference USA in completion percentage, according to KSU's game notes. He's thrown for 1,687 yards.
He's also thrown seven touchdown passes in nine games, with seven interceptions.
So how does a quarterback hit seven of every 10 throws and still find the end zone through the air so rarely? We went through the season stats and game-by-game numbers. The short answer: the touchdowns are there. They just aren't coming through the air.
The game-by-game split
Collins' seven touchdown passes have come in five games, and three of them came in one night:
- West Georgia: 1
- Georgia State: 1
- Tennessee: 0
- Arkansas State: 0
- Jax State: 1
- Missouri State: 1
- Liberty: 0
- Middle Tennessee: 3
- Delaware: 0 (he left the game injured after going 5-of-7)
Take away the win at Middle Tennessee and it's four touchdown passes in eight games. That's not a knock on his accuracy. At Missouri State he went 26-of-34 for 260 yards, his season high in completions, and threw one touchdown. Against Jax State he threw for a season-high 293 yards, including a 70-yarder to Brayden Munroe, and the Owls got one passing touchdown out of it.
Where the touchdowns actually go
Look at the whole offense and the pattern is obvious. KSU has 18 rushing touchdowns this season and eight passing touchdowns. Their opponents have thrown for eight, too.
A lot of those rushing scores belong to Collins himself. He has 321 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns, so he's been responsible for 13 touchdowns in all. Add Boogie Woods III, who leads CUSA with eight rushing touchdowns, and you see the plan. When KSU gets close, it runs.
And KSU gets close a lot. The Owls rank first in CUSA in red zone offense. They've scored on 29 of 31 trips inside the 20, but only 18 of those were touchdowns. Daniel Kinney has been money at 12-of-14 on field goals, but that's still a lot of drives ending in three points instead of seven.
Short, safe and steady
The other piece is how far the ball travels. Collins averages 10.2 yards per completion and about 7.1 yards per attempt. As a team, KSU averages 10.5 yards per catch, a little under the 11.1 that opponents have averaged against the Owls.
That's a high-percentage, chain-moving passing game, not a big-play one. It works between the 20s. Munroe leads the team with 440 receiving yards at 15.7 a catch, and Javon Rogers has 401. But Munroe hasn't caught a touchdown yet, and Rogers has one. Dylan Gary is the red zone target, with a team-high four touchdown catches, two of them at Middle Tennessee.
The Middle Tennessee blueprint
The best version of this offense showed up in Murfreesboro. Collins went 16-of-19 for 206 yards with three touchdowns, and KSU scored 44 points. Same accuracy, but the completions turned into touchdowns instead of field goals. If the Owls can mix that kind of finishing through the air with what Woods and the run game already do, this offense gets a lot harder to stop.
What it means at Sam Houston
First, the big question: Collins' status. He left the Delaware game injured, and KSU hasn't announced anything about his availability. Public injury trackers list him as questionable for Saturday, and RotoWire reports he's been doing light work at practice. If he can't go, Landon Varnes showed what he can do against Delaware, throwing for 254 yards in relief, including the 63-yard go-ahead touchdown to Reed Jesiolowski. Varnes has 408 passing yards in four games this season.
Either way, the matchup lines up with how KSU already scores. Sam Houston is good against the pass. It allows just 161.4 passing yards a game and a 55.4 completion percentage. But it gives up 5.0 yards a carry and has allowed 16 rushing touchdowns. That's built for Woods, Collins' legs if he plays and a red zone offense that already likes to run it in.
The bottom line
Collins' completion rate is real, and it's a big part of why KSU has won two straight. The low touchdown pass count is mostly a choice about how the Owls finish drives, not a flaw. The one number to watch in the last three games is that red zone split: 18 touchdowns on 31 trips. Turn a few more of those into six, by air or by ground, and the bowl push stays alive. OwlUp!
Catch up on our Kennesaw State at Sam Houston fan's guide and 3 Things We Learned from the Delaware win, check the full 2026 Kennesaw State schedule, and grab some black-and-gold gear before kickoff.
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