The Florida Atlantic Owls are traveling to Gainesville to take on the University of Florida on Saturday to open their 2021 football season. 

Former Miami quarterback N’Kosi Perry will be making his debut for the Owls and looks to provide an instant boost to the offense. 

FAU will look to start this season strong by defeating UF before making their home debut next week against Georgia Southern. 

Head coach Willie Taggart spoke of Perry’s performance in training camp that led to him being the starter.

“The work that he’s done here to impress us and our staff that made that decision, it was a big reason [for] us choosing him to be our quarterback,” Taggart said..

UF is riding a three-game losing streak dating back to last season where they finished with an 8-4 record and lost to Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. 

Taggart went on to elaborate on what the team needs to do to be successful against UF. “We know we have to be at our best out there, we’re not looking at it just going to compete,” he said. 

Acknowledging the team’s lack of spring action, he said, “we can’t go there and make these first mistakes that you see across the country.”

This game will be a bit of a revenge game of sorts for Perry, as he lost the starting job in 2019 for Jarren Williams against the Gators.

“Hopefully he’s motivated by playing his first ballgame with the Owls and he is going out to try to do his best to start the season off right,” Taggart said. 

The last time UF and FAU met was in 2015, which saw Florida get the overtime win 20-14.

Kickoff is set for Saturday, September 4 at 7:30 p.m. It will be broadcast on the SEC Network from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL.

Kevin Garcia is a Contributing Writer for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email him [email protected].