Here’s an FAU Owls Halloween special story. They have a Jekyll & Hyde personality, but the Owls do not have two different teams that play their games. The Tennessee Volunteers have the perfect uniforms for Halloween which you can read about here but I digress. The Owls beat UAB at home and the obvious conclusion would be they will beat FIU and MTSU, right? Wrong.
But, something happens to the men when they board the plane to fly to the game. Team officials checked the turf on the fields at UTEP, Purdue, Ohio and Denton, Texas and they couldn’t find anything wrong. They compared turf samples at Boca Raton and the result was that both fields were the same. The players tried to walk into the locker room entrance sideways, then back to back. They picked names out of a hat for that one. Nothing worked. They began to think that there is some problem with the team. Here is the breakdown:
FAU playing at home
When the Owls play at home, they are amazing. They are 4-1 at Boca with the only loss against UCF. The offense generates 438 yards per game while the defense gives up 382. N’Kosi Perry, Larry McCammon and LaJohntay Wester are the three stars that drive the offense. Perry has a TD/INT ratio of 2/1 and McCammon averages 99 yards a game. Zuberi Mobley has been a great “change of pace” back to McCammon and is a productive player.
The defense only gives up 18.6 points per game. The defense hounded Rice QB for 3 interceptions and 3 sacks in the win. The team gave up a lot of yards to UAB but held them to 3 points in the second half to pull out the victory. UCF pulled away from the Owls in the 2nd half with their no-huddle offense. This is the FAU team that everyone expected to play and compete for a conference title this season.
FAU Owls on the road
The Owls have not been able to win on the road and have their next two games on the road. They play at FIU (a virtual home game) and in Murfeesboro against Middle Tennessee. The Owls haven’t been outclassed in their losses. They lost to Purdue in a tough game but the top three players had great games. Perry threw for 230 yards and 3 TD’s and LaJohntay Wester had 90 yards receiving.
They lost to Ohio and Perry had his best game this season throwing for 364 yards and 5 TD’s. Defensive standout Eddie Williams had 16 tackles in the Ohio game and 10 tackles vs. Purdue. The game at UTEP was a loss but only by three points.
The defense gave up the long drive for the game winning field goal. In the North Texas game, they were down by 7 at the half and then couldn’t handle the no-huddle. Finally, Perry threw a pick six and everything fell apart.
Which FAU team will show up to play?
Coach Taggart said in an article in the Palm Beach post that, “(the players) try so hard to win sometimes that they end up making some bad mistakes.” Against Ohio, N’Kosi Perry lost a fumble in the 4th quarter and they were losing by 10. Ohio recovered and then scored to push the lead to 17.
Against UCF with the score 23-14, Dwight Toombs intercepted a pass and ran it down to the 2 yard line. The offense couldn’t score and then they missed a FG from 19 yards. In the Purdue game at 21-20,
Purdue converted on a 4th & 7 on the drive to score and win the game. Perry threw an interception against North Texas with the score 35-21 as the team drove to answer the score. These are all critical moments in the game where FAU had the chance to seize the advantage and failed.
Former Miami Heat analyst Tony Fiorentino would say that it didn’t matter what happened in the game up to a critical point, that the team had to concentrate on the next five minutes.
It is time for the Owls to “get the road anchor off their back.”