Kiski Area grad Kuhn ramps up for senior season with Slippery Rock football

The accolades poured in for Chad Kuhn after the 2019 college football season.

The Kiski Area graduate, a rising redshirt senior defensive end at Division II Slippery Rock, earned first-team All-PSAC West and Division II College Coaches Association honors and second-team All-American recognition from the D2CCA and Associated Press.

Kuhn led The Rock in sacks (11 1/2), ranked second in tackles for loss (17) and was fifth in total tackles (58) for a team that produced the best record in program history (13-1), topped Kutztown for the PSAC championship and advanced to the Division II national semifinals before a loss to Minnesota State.

“The Kutztown game, winning the PSAC championship, was probably the best feeling ever,” said Kuhn, who owns 34 starts over three seasons for The Rock.

“In 2018, we lost to West Chester at home. We saw them partying on our field with the trophy. We said that wasn’t going to happen again. We went out to Kutztown and played well and won it. That bus ride home was amazing.

“We made a nice run in the (NCAA) playoffs. We came up just short of our ultimate goal. Now, we’re working as hard as we can to get back to where we were last year and go even further.”

While the normalcy of spring and summer preparation has been put on its ear with the continuing covid-19 pandemic, Kuhn said he understands what it’s going to take to get ready and stay ready for a season, no matter the circumstances.

“We can’t slack off,” he said.

Kuhn said the team came out of winter strength and conditioning workouts ready to move into spring camp.

“Our head athletic trainer (Scott Morrison) is also our strength coach,” he said. “The team fell in love with his lifting program. That was the strongest I’ve ever been coming out of the winter. We literally finished our last workout, and then left for spring break all excited to come back and be ready for spring ball.

“During spring break was when covid-19 hit hard. We got all this crazy news that we weren’t even coming back to campus after spring break.”

Kuhn finished classes online and kept his fitness and focus through home workouts while staying in touch with his coaches and teammates.

Slippery Rock campus facilities, as of Saturday, remain closed to student-athletes, coaches and the public. The football team, along with other fall sports teams, tentatively are scheduled to report for training camp Aug. 10.

“We have a team meeting Wednesday, and we are waiting word on any changes,” Kuhn said. “I miss my teammates. Spring ball is a grind, but in a way, it is fun because we’re all together working hard. It’s great to see the growth that can come from a series of practices.

“The defense is a pretty veteran group and looks to be in good shape, but the spring was going to be important to determine a number of things on offense. We have to be focused and ready to work twice as hard when we get back together, whether that is Aug. 10 or before that.”

Slippery Rock has nine regular-season games on its schedule posted on the athletics website, beginning with a nonconference game with Wayne State at home Sept. 12. As the fall competition landscape changes for schools and conferences throughout the country, the schedule is subject to change.

Slippery Rock defensive coordinator Domenick Razzano said he is confident that Kuhn, as a dedicated team leader, will have himself and his teammates ready for any challenge leading up to and during the season.

“Chad has a relentless motor with a relentless work ethic,” Razzano said. “I’ve stayed in constant contact with him over the summer, and I know he’s in probably the best shape he’s been in as a player at Slippery Rock, and he’s ready to get back to practices and get ready for the season, what that ends up being.

“Chad’s teammates know how hard he’s been working. He sets the standard and the expectation of how they are to handle themselves in the times we are in right now. It takes a lot of self-motivation, and Chad always shows that accountability.”

Razzano said he sees in Kuhn flashes of West Mifflin grad Marcus Martin, a Slippery Rock defensive end from 2014-17 who set the NCAA all-divisions career sack record with 56.

Kuhn, who enters his final season with 20 career sacks, shared the field with Martin in 2017

“We recruited Chad as a linebacker, and then Mother Nature took over and he grew,” Razzano said.

“We put his hand in the ground, and we knew he was going to be physically tough enough to play at the line of scrimmage. It just came down to getting him caught up fundamentally. Three years later, he’s one of the top defensive ends in all of Division II and one of the top pass rushers that I’ve been around, and I’ve been around some special ones.”