Kiffin cautious for rematch
BOCA RATON — Florida Atlantic’s Lane Kiffin has never played a team twice in the same season during his collegiate coaching career.
That changes when the Owls play North Texas in the Conference USA championship game Saturday at FAU Stadium. The game is a rematch of when the teams met last month.
“I have not experienced that,” Kiffin said. “What can you say? It’s always hard. I don’t know if it’s harder or easier. I think you’ve just got to erase it period, and pretend you never played them before.”
The Owls find themselves in the opposite role. Their season mostly has been about avenging losses from the previous year. Now they face an opponent that enters with more than enough motivation. FAU won the earlier season meeting in impressive fashion, defeating the Mean Green 69-31.
The Owls gained more than 800 yards of total offense.
“I’m sure they’re going to come in as the underdog role because of the assumption of the last game,” Kiffin said. “We would be favored, I would guess. That’s a dangerous situation.”
Both teams have improved since they played in mid-October. The Owls have won five in a row, improving their schoolrecord eight-game winning streak.
The stretch also allowed them to receive votes in the Top 25 poll for the first time in program history.
North Texas also has won every week since.
“Since our game, they’ve won every game,” Kiffin said. “There’s a reason they’re a championship team.”
The Mean Green were humbled by the FAU loss and believe they learned from it. Coach Seth Littrell said his team may have gotten too confident.
“There is a fine line between being confident and cocky,” Littrell told reporters last month. “You start getting cocky, bad things are fixing to happen. It never fails. We have to get back to understanding who we are, the way we work and the way we prepare. We have to have that energy and play hard every snap in order to beat people. We have to get back to doing those things.”
After the defeat, the Mean Green adopted a similar motto as FAU. The Owls all season have focused on just winning the next game.
“We are not worried about how many we have won in a row,” North Texas receiver Jaelon Darden told the Denton RecordChronicle. “We are worried about the next one. We are getting prepared the right way.”
Kiffin said he feels the Owls are actually at a disadvantage. He has grown to enjoy the underdog role the Owls were at for the start of the season. They were picked by the media to finish fifth in the East Division before going undefeated in conference play.
Kiffin credited part of the reason for the success to a relaxed approach by the coaching staff and players. Now they are forced to play under high expectations.
“You saw it last week [against Charlotte],” Kiffin said. “Those guys go for a fake punt. When you’re the underdog, a lot of times it’s easier because there’s no pressure on you. You do take a lot of risks, take a lot of chances because the expectations. I like actually like better playing from that role.”