FAU seeks improvement from QB Robison, defense
Florida Atlantic has started its season 2-2, with home victories against Air Force and Bethune-Cookman and road losses to No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 13 Central Florida.
With the non-conference slate complete, coach Lane Kiffin and the Owls shift their focus to Conference USA play, which begins at 7 p.m. Saturday at Middle Tennessee.
While FAU’s weaknesses have been exploited in the two losses, there is a bright side in how battle tested the Owls are as they face conference foes for the remaining eight games of their regular-season schedule.
“There’s always good and bad in everything,” Kiffin said on a Sunday conference call with reporters. “When they scheduled it, I’m sure they looked it as Oklahoma is probably a top-five team and UCF, you know, they might be the hottest team in the country.
“It’s good because we played two really, really good teams. The bad side is it can mess with some people’s confidence.”
One of those players whose confidence going forward will be something to keep an eye on is redshirt freshman quarterback Chris Robison, who threw three interceptions while UCF’s McKenzie Milton tore up the Owls for three touchdowns both passing and rushing.
“Whenever you go against a veteran quarterback like we did, those guys don’t usually make a lot of mistakes. Not often do freshman quarterbacks not make mistakes, especially early in the year,” Kiffin said. “He’s been up and down, which is what usually happens, especially on road games.”
Another concern coming off the loss to the Knights, who extended the nation’s longest win streak to 16, was the defense, which Kiffin said has issues with every aspect.
“It’s multiple,” he said. “Lack of turnovers, poor tackling in space and not a lot of pass rush. That’s not a very good combination.”
The FAU defense will go up against talented fifthyear senior quarterback Brent Stockstill on Saturday. He’s Middle Tennessee’s career record holder for passing yards and touchdowns but missed last year’s meeting with the Owls due to injury.
Following the matchup with the Blue Raiders, who are 1-2 and coming off a bye week, FAU gets Old Dominion at home on Oct. 6. The Monarchs, while starting the season with three consecutive losses, are fresh off a big 49-35 upset of Virginia Tech.
“That just shows you, you never know what’s going to happen,” Kiffin said. “Old Dominion got blown out by Liberty and lost to Charlotte, so I don’t think anybody would’ve seen that happening.”
Last year, FAU went undefeated in Conference USA and ended up with the conference title, adding on a 50-3 Boca Raton Bowl victory against Akron to end the season.