Lane Kiffin earns first win as FAU’s head coach with 45-0 win over Bethune-Cookman

After a long week in Madison, Wisconsin, where the FAU Owls extended their stay due to Hurricane Irma disrupting traveling plans, the Owls demolished Bethune-Cookman 45-0 at home behind the legs of Greg Howell and a stifling defense.

FAU rushed for 439 yards, the best rushing output in team history, Howell rushed for a career high 175 yards on 13 carries and added a rushing touchdown. Devin Singletary rushed for 109 yards with one touchdown. In his third career start Daniel Parr rushed for 38 yards and two touchdowns.

I’ve tried not to make too many comparison to last year’s team being that the rosters are so different but there is no question the 2017 Owls are more talented than last year’s team. In FAU’s lone game against an FCS opponent in 2016 the Owls struggled mightily to get past a sub-par Southern Illinois team and were fortunate to win.

Last night there was no question whether the Owls would come away with the victory. The offense looked like dynamite, and the defense played their tails off as they held the Wildcats to 117 totals yards of offense in their shutout. The last time FAU pitched a shutout was in 2006 against FIU.

Against a team you knew FAU was better than, it felt good to have that intuition come to reality and watch the Owls demolish someone. It was easily the best performance from this team in quite sometime.

Last week versus Wisconsin you got the sense that the Owls were starting to improve and this week we saw that improvement lead to a victory. With a 1-2 record, the Owls will close non-conference play with a road trip to Upstate New York to take on the Buffalo Bulls.