Owls endure big dropoff in 2nd year under Kiffin
Florida Atlantic’s 2018 football season didn’t go as the Owls planned, ending last weekend with a 5-7 record.
It’s time for coach Lane Kiffin, his staff and returning players to move on to 2019, but as they look ahead, we look back one final time.
Following an 11-3 season in 2017 in which FAU won 10 consecutive games, went undefeated in Conference USA and earned a victory in the Boca Raton Bowl, the 2018 Owls fell short of .500 and didn’t qualifying for a bowl. Why, after Kiffin’s first year at the helm was such a success, was his second season such a dropoff?
Yes, quarterback Jason Driskel, running back Buddy Howell, key offensive linemen and kicker Greg Joseph were no longer with FAU, but this team returned plenty of talented players and had higher expectations than 5-7.
Here are five ways the Owls’ season could’ve gone differently.
A little bit of luck: The downward spiral began in earnest with that “Hail Mary two-point conversion play,” as Kiffin referred to it multiple times.
FAU led 21-3 in the first half against Middle Tennessee State in the Owls’ Conference USA opener on Sept. 29. However, the Owls blew it for a 25-24 defeat, capped by MTSU quarterback Brent Stockstill’s scramble, off-balance throw to the middle of the end zone and completion to Gatlin Casey for the winning conversion.
If that wild play — and that final result — went the Owls’ way, the narrative going forward would have been that it was a hardfought road victory that tested FAU in the conference. As it was, the demoralizing loss showed the Owls were vulnerable in Conference USA after going undefeated in conference play last year.
It put FAU at 2-3, but the first two defeats were understandable — at Oklahoma and at UCF, both top-10 teams in the latest College Football Playoff rankings. This defeat meant the next road game at Marshall, with the team still winless away from home, would be an even greater challenge than already anticipated.
Down the stretch, there were one-possession losses to Louisiana Tech, North Texas and Charlotte. Those losses, respectively, involved: Rafe Peavey starting at quarterback while Chris Robison dealt with an ankle injury; traveling more than 1,000 miles to play in the cold at 9:30 p.m. (Eastern) in a Thursday night game with questionable officiating on four days’ rest; a kicker making a 56-yard field goal for the decisive difference in the waning seconds of the season.
Oh, and all of this is not to mention linebacker, senior leader and Owls alltime leading tackler Azeez Al-Shaair was lost to an ACL and MCL tear in his left knee midway through the season.
It really did seem like anything that was left up to luck for FAU in 2018 did not go the Owls’ way.
Quarterback swapping:
Quarterback De’Andre Johnson led FAU’s offense on a 42-7 run after entering the Shula Bowl in the second quarter against rival FIU on Nov. 3. The 49-14 victory was possibly the Owls’ most impressive win of the season. Many expected Johnson to remain the starting quarterback.
That could’ve been a turning point for what was a 3-5 season so far. Kiffin said his approach the next game against Western Kentucky was to start Robison, allowing Johnson to come off the bench in the same role he was successful in against FIU.
Johnson couldn’t duplicate his success in his next opportunities, and it became an awkward twoquarterback system. Robison started, was playing fine down the final stretch of the season but was always looking over his shoulder.
Could Johnson’s dualthreat abilities have complemented running backs Devin “Motor” Singletary and Kerrith Whyte more than what Robison provided? Would that have created an ultra-dominant ground game, with Johnson and a back running fakes and misdirections off each other, with the added wrinkle of those jet sweeps to the wideouts?
A healthy Al-Shaair all season: Al-Shaair went out for season with a knee injury covering Whyte in the flat on a pass play in practice in mid October.
While fifth-year senior Andrew Soroh filled in admirably at the Mike linebacker position and the defense played some of its best games in the first weeks that followed, that level of play didn’t last through the end of the season.
North Texas seemed to do whatever it wanted offensively against FAU, scoring 41 points, and Charlotte ran all over the Owls in the finale.
Play competitively at Oklahoma: Before folks tuning in to watch the Owls’ opener could even see one play of the season, FAU was already minus-21 in point differential. By the time Fox switched over from the funeral of late Senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, FAU was down 21-0 in an embarrassing 63-14 loss to start a year filled with promise.
Yes, it’s Oklahoma. However, the Owls weren’t even remotely competitive in Norman, they were flatout exposed.
A better effort could have set the tone for the rest of the season, especially after this team had won 10 in a row to end 2017. The other challenging non-conference game at UCF three weeks later provided a slightly more respectable result — a loss by a mere 20 points, 56-36.
Kicking into gear: There were problems that persisted all season, such as quarterback consistency, dropped passes from receivers, getting stops defensively or converting third downs and red-zone opportunities on offense.
However, of all the departures from the 2017 season, Joseph’s may have been felt the most. Without Joseph, now a kicker for the Cleveland Browns, FAU missed 7 of 17 fieldgoal attempts. Last season Joseph missed just 5 of his 21 attempts.