On Saturday, the Florida Atlantic Owls (4-4, 3-1 AAC) will face the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Blazers (2-6, 1-3 AAC) in Birmingham.

The Owls are coming off a 38-16 victory against the University of North Carolina at Charlotte 49ers (2-6, 1-3 AAC) last Friday, Oct. 27.

Junior quarterback Daniel Richardson threw for 218 yards on 19 completions, with three touchdowns and one interception. Junior wide receiver LaJohntay Wester had a career-high 149 receiving yards and two touchdowns. The Owls’ defense got to the quarterback five times, but the offensive line did not allow a sack on Richardson.

The University Press Sports staff predicted the outcome of Saturday’s game, where the Owls will go up against the Blazers.

Maddox Greenberg – Sports Editor

The Owls got their first win after a brutal homecoming loss to the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Roadrunners.

To prove you’re a bowl-eligible team, you have to play like one. The Owls have been inconsistent throughout this season. Scoring 42 points against a Football Bowl Subdivision school but blew a 10-0 lead to the Ohio University Bobcats. 

The Owls have a weak defense, especially in the secondary. 

The next few games on the Owls’ slate are winnable by a 40-point margin. However, with this UAB team, which has a first-year head coach and was a test to Tulane University, it might be unexpected how FAU performs. UAB is coming off of a bye week and has had two weeks to prepare, while FAU only has one week to prepare, which head coach Tom Herman reiterated at his weekly press conference on Monday. 

UAB is 12th in the AAC standings, 13th in scoring defense, 12th in rushing defense and 4th in both passing offense and defense. 

Prediction: FAU 38, UAB 24

Cameron Priester – Editor-at-Large

After trouncing a bad and, more importantly, completely dysfunctional Charlotte team, UAB is yet another opponent scraping the floor of the AAC standings that FAU should handle easily, given the talent on the roster. 

However — not to repeat myself from a week ago — who knows what FAU team we’ll get?

It wasn’t much easier to gauge FAU after Friday’s outing, either. However, the 22-point victory did get them back in the win column after their embarrassing loss to the University of Texas at San Antonio two weeks ago. 

But when you consider that Charlotte players were fighting each other on the sidelines, and the head coach called out his players during TV interviews mid-game, maybe — and call me cynical if you please — FAU should’ve beaten them worse than 38-16.

UAB isn’t precisely the definition of consistency. Two wins overall is pretty telling, but they put up a much better fight than FAU did when taking on UTSA. Granted, that didn’t take much, considering FAU’s offense scored a grand total of zero touchdowns that game. They also found a way to hang around with the mighty Tulane for much of their matchup and somehow put up 21 points on the vaunted back-to-back national champion University of Georgia Bulldogs’ defense.

But again, 2-6 is 2-6.

So, here we are: inconsistent vs. very inconsistent. I guess that means it’s time to throw another dart.

Prediction: UAB 31, FAU 24

JD Delcastillo – Staff Writer

I needed a break from predicting the results of FAU football games after that horrendous showing against UTSA. However, the bounce back win against Charlotte has given me hope of the possibility of being bowl-eligible this season.

The Owls were able to take care of business on the road against an inferior Charlotte team, but it’s not much of an accomplishment. A win is a win, but beating a team that is 11th in the conference with two wins on the season should be light work. 

Although UAB has been mediocre this season, it is consistent. They’ve scored at least 20 points in every game this season, including their games against #1 University of Georgia and #21 Tulane University. The problem for them has been on the defensive side of the ball, which is making them give up an average of almost 38 points per game. 

This could be problematic for an FAU offense that has been inconsistent all season. We could get a team that scored 38 points with five touchdowns or a team that scored 10 points with zero touchdowns. With UAB being a consistent offense this season, the Owls’ defense holding them to their floor average of 20 would be a win. 

This game is going to have to come down to the FAU offense and whether or not the game plan is good and overall implementation. With a consistently bad UAB defense, there is room for optimism in this game. 

Prediction: FAU 31, UAB 24

For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or DM the staff: Maddox Greenberg (@MaddoxGreenberg), Cameron Priester (@Cameronpriester), and JD Delcastillo (@jd.delcastillo).