On Saturday, the Florida Atlantic Owls (4-6, 3-3 AAC) play their final home game against the No. 17 Tulane University Green Wave (9-1, 6-0 AAC).
Last week, the Owls fell to the East Carolina University (ECU) Pirates (2-8, 1-5 AAC), 22-7 at home. Junior wide receiver LaJohntay Wester had six receptions for 38 yards after posting back-to-back career highs in receiving yards the past two weeks. Junior quarterback Daniel Richardson threw for 151 yards on 24 completions for no touchdowns. He was sacked five times.
The University Press sports staff predict the outcome of the Owls’ home finale.
Maddox Greenberg – Sports Editor
Last week was difficult to watch, especially if you are a FAU fan. The Owls gave up 22-points to the conference-worst ECU Pirates. The team did not look complete: defense wasn’t holding up strong early on in the game, and the offense was lagging the entire game. The Pirates stout defense made Richardson and the Owls offense to ‘Walk the Plank’.
Going into their final home game of the 2023 season, the Owls need to get a win against Tulane in order to stay in contention for bowl eligibility. This season, there’s a trend of showing out and winning up big, or playing bad football and losing big. The Owls have lost games that they shouldn’t be losing. Tulane is on an eight-game win streak. They have multiple wide receivers who have over 400 receiving yards this season and a defense that is 2nd in the AAC in scoring.
The Owls must strike first and keep the momentum going throughout the duration of the game, which they’ve hardly done this season. Richardson has to throw the ball to LaJohntay more often and the run game has to improve for FAU. McCammon has been beaten up for a majority of this season and the secondary is thin in depth. Herman is 15-10 among active head coaches in college football when going against AP Top 25 teams.
Because the Owls have been rocky and unpredictable this season (which is never a good thing in a team), Herman and the team will put up a fight to “Defend Paradise” against the forecast of a Green Wave in Boca. But this Tulane team is well-rounded on offense and defense.
Prediction: Tulane 35, FAU 20
Cameron Priester – Editor-at-Large
Allow me to choose my words here carefully…
Last week’s performance shouldn’t leave me confident in FAU going up against anybody—much less the 17th-ranked team in the country.
However, chances are I only get to write one more of these this season, so let’s get weird.
All things considered, the Owls’ defense played well in the circumstances they were put in; thanks to seven punts and four turnovers on downs’ they weren’t put in great field position often, and still only gave up 22 points.
Meanwhile, [junior quarterback] Michael Pratt and the Green Wave offense hasn’t exactly lit things up the past two weeks. They got held to a single touchdown by ECU in a 13-10 slugfest two weeks ago, before putting up 24 against the University of Tulsa last Saturday. Not terrible, but not exactly lighting up the scoreboard for the 17th-ranked team in all of the land.
This might sound crazy coming from me, but stay with me here: the past two weeks have been gut wrenching losses, and I think a highly-experienced coach like Herman can use that to pony up his team in a game no one thinks they have a chance in.
They’re not going to win a shootout. But, I think Herman will have his team coming out with an underdog, nothing-to-lose energy and the defense can drag Tulane into a low scoring, Big Ten-esque dogfight that, if nothing else, they can keep interesting.
Prediction: Tulane 17, FAU 14
JD Delcastillo – Staff Writer
It’s over. Another season of no bowl eligibility. The very winnable games against the University of Alabama at Birmingham and ECU were supposed to be the ones to secure the first bowl game since 2020, but fast forward to today and FAU is 4-6. The only way FAU could pull it off is if they win out the rest of the season; but if this team can’t win the easy games, there’s no reason to believe they can win these next two games.
FAU will play No.17 Tulane University for their final home game, and I am expecting attendance to be the worst it’s been this season. Tulane is currently on an eight-game win streak, with their only loss coming against No.13 University of Mississippi, a team in the Southeastern conference that consistently plays NFL-level talent. I do not expect this win streak to end in Boca Raton for Tulane.
The only glimmer of hope for FAU is that Tulane’s last three wins have all been by a margin of less than three points. If they can play their best football of the season, FAU can put up a fight. However, the pessimistic side of me remembers that FAU put up a whopping seven points on offense against ECU and had 45 points dropped on their defense against UAB. To put it straight, Tulane would have to lose this game, because FAU is not going to do much to win this game.
Prediction: Tulane 35, FAU 24
For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or DM the staff: Maddox Greenberg (@MaddoxGreenberg), Cameron Priester (@PriesterCameron), and JD Delcastillo (@jd.delcastillo).
