Owls dominate Panthers in Shula Bowl
The FAU Owls needed a steady, offensive boost all season long — and they got it with Javion Posey in their fourth consecutive Shula Bowl victory against the FIU Panthers.
Posey led Florida Atlantic (4-1, 4-1 Conference USA) to its most productive offensive showing of the year in his first collegiate start at quarterback in the Owls’ 38-19 win against FIU (0-4, 0-2 C-USA) Friday night, keeping the Shula Bowl trophy in Boca Raton.
“I didn’t want to be that coach to lose this game,” FAU coach Willie Taggart said. “It was really good to see our offense put some things together and try to establish an identity, which is something we hadn’t really done all year.”
FAU had season highs of points, touchdowns (five) and yards (462) against the Panthers after entering Friday scoring eight combined touchdowns and averaging 288.5 yards through its first four games.
Posey, a redshirt freshman, finished 10 of 16 for 80 yards with two passing touchdowns to go along with a team-high 182 rushing yards on18 attempts and one rushing touchdown.
His yards on the ground broke the record for the most rushing yards by an FAU quarterback in a game. Jaquez Johnson held the previous record of 113 rushing yards, which he set versus Tulane on Nov. 2, 2013.
Posey joined Johnson as the only Owls quarterbacks to rush for over 100 yards, with Johnson doing it three times during the 2013 season.
“It could’ve been better,” Posey said about his performance against FIU. “I felt like we left a lot of points out there.”
FAU ran for 381 yards on 52 attempts — the fifthmost rushing yards in a game in program history.
“Running the football is something we said we wanted to do coming into the season,” Taggart said. “Our guys really put it together today, and Javion played a huge part in that. Defensively, it makes you have to defend 11 guys in the run game. That’s tough on any defense.”