Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Kiffin wants players to stay with the process
BOCA RATON — Florida Atlantic coach Lane Kiffin has played in plenty of rivalry games.
At Alabama, it was the Iron Bowl against Auburn. At USC, it was the matchup against UCLA. At Tennessee, it was Georgia and Florida. He even went through it at the NFL level when he coached the Oakland Raiders against the Denver Broncos or Kansas City Chiefs.
On Saturday, Kiffin gets his first chance to experience the Shula Bowl when the Owls play host to Florida International. Like his previous rivalry encounters, this will also have major implications. An FAU victory would clinch its first appearance in the Conference USA championship game. If they win, the Owls will play North Texas in the title game Dec. 2 at FAU Stadium.
“No disrespect to rivalries,” Kiffin said Monday. “That’s not our focus, the Shula Bowl. It’s about today and preparing really well and having a good week of practice.”
Part of Kiffin’s coaching philosophy in his first season at FAU is treating every game the same. Playing FIU is considered no different than facing Bethune-Cookman or Marshall. It’s just the next game on the schedule.
The objective of the coaching staff is simple: keep the players thinking bigger picture because the Owls are chasing school history. The program was a non-factor in the league race until this year. The last time FAU captured a conference championship was in 2007 when they won the Sun Belt championship.
So Kiffin wants the players thinking about rings rather than solely on the rivalry factor.
“I think it’s more our job to focus the players,” Kiffin said. “They’re going to be motivated. They’re going to be excited. You can already see it.”
FAU leads the series 10-5 but has lost four of the past six. Last year FIU won 33-31, giving it access to the Shula Trophy for a year.
Kiffin compared this week’s atmosphere to that of his times at major universities. He’s just been careful not to let it consume practices or team meetings. The players can think about FIU on their time.
“For those kids, it’s huge,” Kiffin said of the SEC and Pac-12 rivalries. “It’s huge for these kids. They’re obviously not in the size of the stadiums, but it’s still the same for the kids. When I was younger, I think we put too much attention on it.”
The game lost some of its luster when FIU lost to Old Dominion last week. The Panthers need to win out the remainder of the season and have FAU lose at Charlotte the following weekend to win the East Division.
“These guys are very dangerous,” Kiffin said of FIU. “The quarterback [Alex McGough] is playing really well … Like most teams, they’ve been up and down but when they’re up, they’re as good as anybody.”
The game also pits the two highest-profile coaches in the conference. FIU coach Butch Davis, in his first season there, has initiated turnaround similar to the one Kiffin has at FAU. Under Davis, who restored the University of Miami program in the late 1990s and coached the Cleveland Browns, the Panthers are bowl-eligible for the first time since 2011.
“I think it’s great,” Kiffin said. “It’s great for South Florida football … for Miami, FIU and FAU to be playing this well. Who would have thought that we’d be sitting here at this time of year and having more wins than Florida and Florida State combined. That’s pretty neat.”