WKU Football: Ranking the 2017 Opponents — #8–5
We’re now 81 Days from WKU’s football opener against Eastern Kentucky. Over the course of the next 2+ months we’ll be have a lot of content previewing the upcoming season. Including position group breakdown’s, individual opponent previews and other pieces about the upcoming season. On Monday, we started with the ranking of WKU’s opponents from easiest to hardest and today, we continue with the middle-tier teams that are all potentially scary and very intriguing.
8.) Florida Atlantic Owls
The next three teams in our rankings have a lot of potential but have just as many question marks going into the season.
Florida Atlantic is the ultimate question mark.
They made the splashy hire of the offseason by luring Lane Kiffin down to Boca Raton to restart his head coaching career. The former USC & Tennessee coach is well known and talented, but he has repeatedly shown that he cannot escape his immaturity and personal demons when he runs his own program. He spent the past three seasons modernizing Alabama’s offense and helping them a title before departing in ugly fashion before the National Championship game this past season.
Florida Atlantic might have the most potential of any program in Conference-USA. They are in the beautiful and wealthy community of Boca Raton, a recently new on-campus stadium that is the best in the conference and they have access to some of the best talent in the country due to their South Florida location. If Kiffin is ready to learn from his mistakes that got him fired at one of the most resource heavy programs, look out. Florida Atlantic could be a juggernaut with or without fan support. That’s a big if:
Luckily, WKU gets Kiffin at home in year one. Last year, before FAU threw in the towel during the Charlie Partridge era, WKU flew down to Boca and hadned the Owls the worst loss in FAU Stadium’s 5-year history. The Owls did play better to close out the season, even winning two games (against Rice, UTEP) to finish 3–9.
Where Charlie Partridge failed, Lane Kiffin can succeed. The cupboard isn’t bare at all. FAU is #2 in the nation in returning starters, returning a whopping 18 starters (nine offense, nine defense) including breakout running back Devin Singletary and experienced QB Jason Driskel (who could potentially lose his job to former FSU QB De’Andre Johnson). He hired troubled former Baylor Offensive Coordinator Kendal Briles to run his offense, so it could be explosive if the players buy-in.
Defensively, FAU is always full of athletes, it just depends on how they come together as a unit. They lost NFL draft pick Trey Hendrickson, but still return a lot of upperclassmen including junior LB Azeez Al-Shaair, who had 112 tackles in 2016. Kiffin is using this job as a spring board to show he can run a program without screwing up.
FAU’s early season schedule only has one guaranteed loss on it (Wisconsin) and a lot of toss-up games (Navy, ODU, MTSU, North Texas) so Kiffin’s team could be anywhere from 5–2 to 2–5 heading into the game. With WKU coming home after a tough road game at ODU this one has a lot of intrigue and unpredictability heading into that one.
7.) @ FIU Golden Panthers
When it comes to the Conference USA’s Florida teams, you never know what you’ll get year to year. FIU is a perfect example of a program that is high on potential talent but low on results and even lower on support.
Last season, they started 0–4 and ended the terribly uninspired Ron Turner era mid-season. Interim coach Ron Cooper took over and FIU rallied to win their next three games and played much more competitively down the stretch, even giving WKU its closest result during their last five games in a 49–21 Tops’ victory.
Now, former Miami Hurricanes, Cleveland Browns and UNC coach, Butch Davis returns for his last coaching gig after getting run out of the game after the 2010 season. At Power 5 programs, he had a great track record of producing winning teams even if some shady recruiting was involved. He inherits a FIU program that returns 15 starters (seven offensive, eight defensive) including most of their main skill position contributors.
Senior QB Alex Mcgough has been decent during his career and almost took the Golden Panthers to a bowl in 2015. He will rely on senior wide reciever Thomas Owens and senior running back Alex Gardner to give him weapons and experience the Panthers lacked in previous seasons.
Defensively, Davis has his work cut out for him. The Golden Panthers only allowed less than 21 points one time last season (against Marshall). They’ll hope experience & new schemes will lead to improvement.
This game will be a weird one regardless of how each team’s seasons are going. The game was moved to the Friday after Thanksgiving for TV purposes. WKU’s Florida player’s families will show up, but FIU has minimal fans support even during the best of times. I went to the game in 2015 while FIU was 5–6 and playing for a potential bowl game against an exciting opponent and this was the crowd early:
An experienced, senior led team with a veteran coach the day after Thanksgiving in an empty stadium has let down written all over it. Let’s hope the Tops are wrapping up the C-USA East in this one instead of playing out the string before bowl season.
6.) @ Marshall Thundering Herd
Prior to 2016, Marshall was seen as the top program in the Conference USA Eastern Division. They nearly went undefeated (if not for WKU) in 2014, going 14–1 and bookended that season with a pair of 10 win campaigns. Out of nowhere last season, the bottom fell out and the Herd finished an embarrassing 3–9. That included a 60–6 whooping at the hands of the Hilltoppers during Thanksgiving weekend.
What happens next with Doc Holliday’s program will be fascinating. Was 2016 an aberration or a sign of a program bottoming out? Marshall consistently recruits towards the top level of the conference and relies on various talented (if not troubled) transfers to fill in the gaps. They return 15 starters (eight on offense, seven on defense) with several talented pieces on offense in place.
Defensively they were a dumpster fire and will rely on experience to lead to improvement. QB Chase Litton is a perfect example of why Marshall is so hard to predict going into this season. At his best, the 6'6" signal caller is everything that you want in a QB. Good size and a solid touchdown to interception ratio, but he plays with a lot of bad emotion that often affects his play on the field, especially when he overthrows receivers. With the game being so late in the season, WKU could be playing a team either peaking towards a bowl or bottoming out towards a coaching change. If competitive, the motivation will be there for the Herd. They’ve gone 0–3 against their newest rival and haven’t been competitive against WKU since the 2014 upset. The trip to Huntington for the second year in a row will be a major challenge for the Tops.
5.) Louisiana Tech Bulldogs
Since Joining the Conference in 2014, Louisiana Tech has been WKU’s most competitive Conference rival in the league. During that three season span they have split the series 2–2. WKU has gotten the better of Tech lately when the stakes have been the highest, especially in last year’s Conference USA Championship game.
Skip Holtz has been consistent over the past three years, winning nine games each season. 2017 might be a taller task for the Bulldogs.
They must replace two All-Conference receivers in Trent Taylor & Carlos Henderson, along with starting QB Ryan Higgins, so they will be essentially starting over.
WKU gets Tech in the third week of the season, coming off their home game with Mississippi State. Projected starting QB J’mar Smith did almost beat Arkansas in Tech’s opener last season before Higgins took over the job.
Overall, they return just 11 starters (five offensive, six defensive) but they do have several skilled players that may wreak havoc, including 1000-yard rusher Jarred Craft & sack artist DE Jaylon Ferguson who finished with 14.5 sacks in 2016. This game will be Sanford’s first true home test against an opponent that has played WKU more than anyone since joining the league. The result will instantly help everyone re-calibrate WKU’s expectations for the season.
What do you think of our rankings so far? Did we put someone too high or too low? Let us know with a comment below, on twitter @TheTowelRackWKU or on our brand spankin’ new Facebook page!
