FAU football held its final practice of the spring Thursday morning and will hold their 2022 Spring Game this Saturday, April 9, at Howard Schnellenberger Field at FAU Stadium at 6 p.m.

“It’s good to see the excitement from the players and coaches about the game,” said head coach Willie Taggart. “Guys are taking it seriously, which they should. It’s going to be fun. I’m looking forward to watching it.”

The White Team, led by defensive coordinator Todd Orlando, will take on the Red Team with defensive line coach Kevin Patrick at the helm. Both coaches had the opportunity to recruit two players as “free agents” and selected the remaining players through a draft. 

Patrick selected graduate quarterback N’Kosi Perry and sophomore defensive lineman Decarius Hawthorne as free agents, while Orlando went with sophomore defensive lineman Evan Anderson and redshirt senior offensive lineman Nick Weber.

Both coaches opted to spend their first draft picks on the offensive line. Orlando selected recent transfer from Rutgers University and graduate offensive lineman Brendan Bordner with the first overall pick, while Patrick selected redshirt senior offensive lineman Chaz Neal with the second pick. 

The spring game will be the first time the offense will be seen live in action, under new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Brent Dearmon.

Dearmon will be leading the offense alongside Perry, who threw for 2,771 yards and 20 touchdowns last season. 

“N’Kosi Perry has played outstanding,” said Taggart on who he thought stood out this spring. “He had some really nice balls thrown in the scrimmage and thought he had really good command of the offense.” 

Throughout spring practice, Dearmon has consistently mentioned that tempo and speeding up the pace of the offense has been an area of focus. 

“[Tempo is] giving our defense a little bit of a headache at times, but it’s making us all better,” Dearmon said. “We’ve got to get in shape, so it lets our guys see what they need to do all summer.”

Even with the changes in scheme, Dearmon also mentioned the emphasis he’s placing on the culture of the program.

“We want to build a good foundation, but at the same time let’s talk more about the culture which we’d like to build,” Dearmon said. “You hear guys like Coach Orlando and Coach Taggart saying things like ‘culture of toughness’ and ‘culture of discipline’ and I think our guys have responded really well.”

While the spring game will not have a live broadcast, it is open to the public and is offering free admission.

Cameron Priester is a staff writer for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @PriesterCameron.