BOCA RATON, Fla. – Florida Atlantic University football (2-4, 1-1 C-USA) will play host to Rice University (3-2, 1-0 C-USA) this Saturday at 6 p.m. at FAU Stadium. The game will air on ESPN+ and on Fox Sports South Florida 640 AM.
The two teams both took advantage of a bye week and when comparing the two, there is more similar than just the name.
QUOTABLE
Hagerty Family Head Football Coach Willie Taggart
On the health of the team going into Saturday
“I feel like going into this game, we’ll have more of our team that was coming into the season. We’ll be closer to that than we have been all season long. This bye week came at the right time for us to really get some guys healthy and having that extra week to heal from some those injuries.”
On recruiting during the bye week
“You guys always hear me say recruiting is like brushing your teeth and combing your hair: as soon as you stop, you start to look back. The way that recruiting is now is nonstop. It’s good to have bye weeks so that you can actually get out and evaluate the talent. It’s good that you can evaluate more in-game and how they operate under pressure, and you get to see that face to face. It’s good to get in and get a lot of the information you need on the young men when it comes to academics and character and things of that nature, finding out as much as you can, seeing where they’re at academically so you can help keep those guys on track. It gives you an opportunity to see a lot of those guys. A lot of the young men have been on our campus already. They have been to camp, so it’s just another part of the process and for us to solidify who we want and who we’re going to bring into this class. It’s going well.”
On facing Rice
“They are a well-coached football team that plays to their strength and tries not to make mistakes. They play with great effort, and they take advantage of the mistakes that you make within the game. You have a football team that finds ways to win and they’re playing for four quarters. You look at their last game against UAB, they were down early, but they stayed locked in. UAB made some mistakes and they capitalized on them.”
On Rice’s offense
“They give you a lot of different personnel groupings. When that happens, you have to be defensively locked in and understand who’s in the game and what they like to do out of those personnel groupings. Our coaches and players have to be on top of that because they get in quite a bit of different personnel groupings. That’s a little more challenging than playing a team that’s always going to be in, for instance, 11 personnel. You have to be sharp on who you have and how you match the personnel grouping that comes in, because you can’t play the same thing to every personnel grouping. It’s going to be important that we understand those personnel groupings and get the right people in the game and then the right call depending on the tendencies and what they do within those personnel groupings.”
On how FAU’s o-line helps the team prepare
“I think experience for a lot of those guys who have played a lot together, they understand each other. I think that’s what we’re seeing now. The consistency of their play up front has been the best on our football team. Coming in, we felt they were going to be the strength of our team and those guys are showing that. I think coach (Ed) Warinner has done a great job in bringing those guys together. Those guys believe in each other and they do a good job taking care of the quarterback. We’ve made so much improvement on that part of it from last year to where we are at now. When we do run the football, they do a good job for us. Our guys were the strength coming in, they’re the strength of our team right now, and we need them to continue to be the strength of our football team.”
On improving the mental aspect of the team during the bye
“I think having some time to get away is always good. Our guys have been in a great mind frame. This bye week, we had some really good, enthusiastic, competitive practices, which was good to see out of our guys. Walking through the hallways on their day off, you see guys walking around in here trying to get ahead. Mentally, I think our guys are in the right frame of our mind. Nobody here is happy with where we’re at when you look at our record and all. We feel and know we should be better than what our record is showing right now, but it is what it is. I think what’s important is that we recognize and understand how we got here and that we correct those things with these next six ball games to go, starting with Rice. Knowing if we can correct some of the little things that’s causing us to lose ball games, we’ll all be feeling a lot better. But we won’t feel better unless we correct those things, so we really focused in the bye week on the things we needed to correct. Hopefully with the focus on that and the work that we put in on it, it will make a difference in the game, because we know if it does make a difference, we’ll get better results.”
On Sophomore Wide Receiver LaJohntay Wester
“He is one of our better players. He’s shown that the spotlight is not too big for him. We need him to be that guy and to continue to be that guy for us. I expect for him to. Typically, what you see in practice is what you get in games. We need him to continue to play that way and practice that way and make the plays when it’s called upon for him to make those plays. LaJohntay is a big-time player for us. We know that, our opponents know that, we just have to continue to find different ways to be able to get him the ball so he can do the things that he does well for us.”
On getting Graduate Student QB N’Kosi Perry back on track
“That’s the key to all of this. We need our QB to be at his best when his best is needed, which is every ball game. This bye week was good for him to reevaluate some things, for us to reevaluate what we’re asking him to do, for him to go out and execute like we know he’s capable of doing, but we need for him to be on his ‘A’ game in order for our offense to flow like we know it can. Part of that is making better decisions, making sure we’re calling things that he and the rest of the guys are able to execute at a high level. We have to take care of the football.”
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
FAU Coaches Radio Show
For free mobile listening of all game broadcasts and coaches shows, FAU fans can download the Varsity Network app for iPhone or Android. The app features instant access to free gameday audio streams and the ability for fans to receive push notifications to remind them of games starting or upcoming audio broadcasts. Local fans can tune in to Hubbard Radio (Fox Sports South Florida 640 AM) to follow the team.
FAU Television Inside the Owls Burrow
This week’s show will include a sit down with Hagerty Family Head Football Coach Willie Taggart. Show host and producer Frank Forte will talk 2022 FAU Homecoming and the upcoming game versus Rice. Forte will learn from Teja Young, a 2022 FAU co-captain, about what makes a leader. Viewers will get to know running back Kelvin Dean in this week’s “Pads Off” segment and the show will conclude with the top-10 plays from the season’s first half.
TICKETS
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