Cleared for takeoff

The 2008 Owls’ offense is considered to be one of the best in FAU’s young football history, as they set records and lit up the scoreboard on numerous occasions.

The 2009 version could be even better.

Some college football experts consider the FAU offense to be extremely talented, including Phil Steele, who has placed Rusty Smith, Jason Harmon and Cortez Gent in the preseason All-Sun Belt Conference Team for 2009.

“Everybody knows our [offense] is powerful,” says tight end Harmon, a senior public management major. “Especially with Rusty back there and the targets he has to throw to.”

Harmon had to watch his teammates win their second consecutive bowl game from the sidelines last season, as an injury forced him out of action. Despite not playing, Harmon still grew as a player.

“I definitely learned how to read the defense better,” says Harmon. “You get a whole different perspective from the sidelines that I can now carry into this year.”

When wide receiver Chris Bonner heard that the FAU offense was ranked as high as 12th in the nation in one poll, he took it as a compliment, and noted that the team is rarely favored to win.

“We are usually the underdogs,” says Bonner.

With all the hype surrounding this potential touchdown machine, it would be easy to see why Smith, Harmon and Bonner could try to overachieve this season. But all three offensive stalwarts have a synchronized answer, like a “football choir” if you will, to the question of a larger goal they want to achieve.

“Win our conference outright,” says Smith.

“Win the Sun Belt outright,” says Harmon.

“Win outright a Sun Belt championship,” says Bonner.

In 2007, the team shared a conference championship with Troy, getting a bowl bid by beating the Trojans in Alabama in the last game of the season. Last year, the team got a bowl bid, but still no conference championship to call their own.

This year, it is clear that the Owls want to hoist a Sun Belt trophy to the heavens and share it only with the rest of FAU.

“We have a chip on our shoulder,” says Bonner. “In 2007, we were starving, and then last year we had a big target on our backs. This year, that chip is back.”

Head coach Howard Schnellenberger hopes that his offense will benefit from that chip.

“If I had to put our offense in a ratio, I’d say our experience is 90 percent,” says Schnellenberger.

Mixing motivation with experience, the Owls want to light up the scoreboard this year.

“These players give us a chance to make a lot of big plays,” says Schnellenberger. “This offense has the experience and the talent to be the best team we’ve ever had here.”

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3 comments

greg

Sat Sep 19 2009 08:46

who are the top 5 picks for today greg

Your name

Mon Aug 31 2009 00:59

Dean, those sources I found about the top 20 and the top 15 came from Phil Stele's College Football Magazine for 2009, and also you have to look at experts blogs on websites such as espn, sun sports, fox sports, it was easy for me to fing polls ranking teams, but offensive polls were hard to find so that I had to dig up some idependent sources that do not get read much. And I guess "says" can be "said," you are right, but by keeping it "says" it still alerts to the fact that maybe Harmon cannot read the defenses better becuase he has not played yet, these are quotes from the summer based on interviews forshadowing the upcoming season, so in that sense we will see!

Best,
-Chuck

Dean

Wed Aug 26 2009 18:19

Not a bad article. Two things though:

"Most college football polls rank the FAU offense in the top 20, and some even crack the top 15."
Where? I'd like to see it. What is the source?

"'I definitely learned how to read the defense better,' says Harmon."
These instances of "says" should be "said", right? Because these quotes happened in the past.

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