Norfolk State head football coach Dawson Odums and his staff understood there was a chance that they could start the 2024 season without Otto Kuhns at quarterback as soon as the 2023 season ended.
With that in mind, Odums and company put a plan in place that included recruiting Jalen Daniels, a sophomore who played last season at Garden City (Kansas) Community College and will lead the Spartans into Saturday night’s Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge against HBCU national champion Florida A&M.
“Throughout this whole time, we had an idea,” Odums said of Kuhns’ four-game ineligibility status. “When you know the worst, and you know the best, you can kinda plan. We had a plan in place; we navigated it, we won’t lose him for the season, and he’ll rejoin us after four games.
Jalen Daniels is going to start for us. He’s been here since the summer and has done a fantastic job for us. He’s excited, and this football team is excited about the opportunity that’s in front of us.”
Daniels completed 120 of 210 pass attempts for 1282 yards and nine touchdowns at Garden City Community College last season. The Meza, Arizona native previously walked on at South Carolina before transferring to Garden City.
“He was able to get himself ready to play and has gotten better every day. He’s got a chance to put the world on notice. Not a lot of people have seen him play, but he’s a special talent,” Odums said. “We’ve got a chance to put together a team led by Jalen Daniels that will give us a chance to win football games.”
Odums noted that questions about Kuhns’ eligibility would be an offseason issue, so he and his staff hit the trail with quarterbacks in mind and are happy with Daniels.
“How we go about things is being ahead of them,” he said. “We understood coming out of the fall semester that this was a possibility; we had a plan in place, and we tried to execute the things we needed to before putting it in the hands of the NCAA. The ruling came back, and we live with that ruling. We went out and recruited a quarterback, knowing we could be facing this situation in August.”
