2024 Football: Florida Atlantic Preview

North Texas maybe travels to Boca Raton to face FAU after Hurricane Milton

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October 12 ・6pm CT ・ESPN2・MGRN・Boca Raton, FL・FAU Stadium (30K)

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This week all eyes are on the Gulf of Mexico and Hurricane Milton. All of west Florida is under threat, and this game in Boca Raton — the east of Florida for you geographic C-students — so it is still slated to take place Saturday evening. Both squad have had a bye week and both are coming off wins. FAU thus far has lost to Michigan State by just six, lost to Army, beat FIU, were thumped by UCONN, and blew out FCS Wagner. They sit as a 2-3 squad that is difficult to pin down. How good is Michigan St? Is Army for real? What about UConn?

Tom Herman has a reputation as a prepared, focused head coach. He sounds like a practical guy, with a little bit of an odd, quirky kind of thought process underlying all of his comments. The picture going around of Texas’ “championship hydration chart” comes to mind. I suppose it is only weird and strange if you think that taking the steps to show someone what you mean and what the standards are is weird. In that sense, it makes perfect sense that you have a color-chart posted by the restroom.

Maybe it also just makes sense that he was a former wide receiver and also a Mensa member. For those of you who are new to things, Tom Herman is on the other side of fame. He peaked in 2017, after getting the Texas job. He did well there, but was dumped for Sark. Before that he worked his way up from graduate assistant (Texas) then as a position coach at Sam Houston, to being the OC at Texas St (under David Bailiff) followed by Rice (again with Bailiff) in 2007-08. You might remember he coached up that Rice team that put up 77 against Todd Dodge’s UNT. After that, he coordinated the Iowa State offense for Paul Rhoads before getting his big break as the OC for Ohio State. He won a national title. He took the head job at Houston (where he employed Major Applewhite) and made a splash by going 13-1 and upsetting Oklahoma. Then he went to Texas.

FAU is the first gig post- firing if you exclude being an offensive analyst for the Chicago Bears (not impressive) and a TV guy for a bit. Florida Atlantic has a policy (seemingly) of hiring rebound guys and seeing what sticks. It worked with Lane Kiffin (two league titles, lots of notoriety), failed with Willie Taggert, and is in-progress with Herman.

Herman is 60-33 overall in his eighth season as a head coach and 6-11 in Boca Raton. Eric Morris is 33-26 in six seasons, and 9-8 in Denton. Neither has faced each other.

Herman is known for his offenses which are spread in nature, and more recently, his run game — particularly post-Urban Meyer. He’s coached up some good quarterbacks but I don’t know that he has a great one right now. Let’s get into it.