DETROIT: As Doug Martin enters his fifth season as the head coach of the Kent State football team, he says his vision of turning the Golden Flashes into a perennial Mid-American Conference contender might finally be at hand.

''I think we are really close,'' Martin said Tuesday at the Mid-American Conference Football Media Day at Ford Field. ''I think we were there last year if we don't have the injuries at quarterback. So I am excited about what we got coming. I like what we have done. I like the way we have built the program. We have done it the right way and we'll reap the rewards of that.''

Anytime a team loses its starting quarterback its chances of winning decreases. How about losing the top three on the depth chart? That is what happened to the 2007 Golden Flashes as they stumbled down the stretch losing their last seven games and finishing 3-9.

Starting quarterback Julian Edelman, now a senior, rushed for 455 yards and passed for 164.4 yards a game despite injuring his knee in the second week of the season. However, he couldn't play through a broken arm he suffered in the eighth week of the season.

With Edelman out and backup Anthony Magazu, now a junior, nursing an ankle sprain, Martin decided against red-shirting on promising freshman Giorgio Morgan, who then injured his knee after playing just one game. Starting safety Fritz Jacques was also lost for most of the season due to injury.

''When you look at last year, Kent State had not beaten a BCS team since the mid '80s and we went out and beat Iowa State on the road,'' Martin said. ''Ohio was the MAC East defending champion and we went down and handled them in Athens. That was the only time we had the whole team out there though.''

The rash of injuries did allow Martin to build plenty of depth to carry into this season. All four quarterbacks now have in-game experience and Martin plans on employing a two-man system with Morgan and Edelman.

Overall, 16 starters return from last year's team, including the leading rusher in the nation, Eugene Jarvis. The junior rushed for a school record 1,669 yards and had 10 touchdowns, enough to get on the preseason watch list for the Maxwell Award.

''A lot of players are hungry,'' Jarvis said. ''We don't want to feel like we felt like last year ever again.''

The Golden Flashes open the season against Boston College at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 30 at Cleveland Browns Stadium.