Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Owls finish with conference’s top class
BOCA RATON — After leaving Alabama a week before the national championship game, new Florida Atlantic coach Lane Kiffin gave himself 30 days to focus solely on the Owls’ recruiting class and ended up giving FAU the best class in Conference USA.
Recruiting service 247 Sports ranked the Owls’ 24-player class as the best in the league, besting UTSA (second) and rival FIU (third). Former coach Charlie Partridge’s three classes were ranked eighth, second and seventh, respectively in Conference USA.
“We’re not really concerned about that,” Kiffin said. “We’re concerned that we brought a lot of really special players that we feel like at this point, can really help us contribute to win and build a championship program.”
Though FAU announced 24 signees Wednesday, Kiffin said the school was still looking to add one or two more recruits. The Owls only graduated 16 seniors from last year’s team. Kiffin did not disclose where the Owls were at, scholarshipwise, but did confirm that none of this year’s recruiting class would grayshirt.
Grayshirting is a process that does not place a player immediately on scholarship, instead waiting a semester or two for a spot to open up. The recruit is asked to pay for his own education during that period.
“We’re always in the best interests of our team and our players, and signing the best players that we can that eventually puts the best team on the field next year,” Kiffin said.
According to the school, the class is the most diverse in program history, with prospects hailing from eight different states. Fifteen of the signees came from high school while nine came from junior college (seven will be juniors at FAU, two will be sophomores).
“We felt like we needed to kind of bring in some guys that had more experience,” Kiffin said. “Some impact guys, whether it was they’d played at other colleges or whether it was they’d signed to bigger places or had been to junior college versus just signing all high school guys.”
Kiffin said the Owls will play a base 4-2-5 defense and FAU signed six defensive backs in this recruiting cycle. Kiffin did not say the secondary was a specific area of need, but said he liked the idea of signing athletes that could play multiple positions.