FIU, FAU fueled by new leadership, depth and optimism in Conference USA Media Days

FIU Panthers football coach Mike MacIntyre isn’t bothered by his team being predicted to finish last among the 11 teams competing in Conference USA this season.

That’s because of the 110 players he will have at fall camp on August 1, 50 are new to the team this year, including 31 newcomers on scholarship.

Meanwhile, FAU Owls coach Willie Taggart, raving about the presence of former Miami Hurricanes quarterback N’Kosi Perry in his program, revealed that he had to, in a sense, “baby-sit” his players the past couple of years. That was prior to Perry’s emergence as a leader this summer.

Those were among the highlights voiced during Conference USA Media Day, which was held at the Globe Life FIeld (home of Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers) in Arlington on Wednesday.

MacIntyre, a veteran coach hired by FIU in December, has inherited a program that has lost 18 consecutive games to FBS teams.

“All the rankings go off the past,” MacIntyre said when asked by the Herald if he was bothered by the dire predictions. “I’ve told our kids that you can learn from the past, but you can’t let it affect you now in the present.

“We have a lot of new guys. We have some older guys. Mesh that together, and we can be a good football team.”

Besides MacIntyre, FIU was represented at C-USA Media Day by wide receiver Tyrese Chambers and linebacker Donovan Manuel. They answered questions from media members for three consecutive hours, going through a “car wash” of sportswriters, talk-radio hosts and TV personalities.

After that, the FIU trio took a tour of AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

MacIntyre, a former Cowboys defensive backs coach from 2003 to 2006, said AT&T Stadium was just in the planning stages when he worked for the team.

“I had never been in it,” said MacIntyre, who coached under Bill Parcells. “[Chambers and Manuel] loved the tour. They took us to the locker rooms. It’s a beautiful facility.

“They were setting up for a Garth Brooks concert. I was hoping we could see Garth …”

Instead, the FIU contingent flew back to Miami.

The FAU group might not have had as good a time as MacIntyre and company. But Taggart seems pleased with Perry’s leadership skills, which have grown since he arrived in Boca Raton in the fall of 2021.

“Seeing the growth in N’Kosi and the work he has put in, it’s night and day,” said Taggart, who is set to begin his third year at FAU. “I see him in the office every day, and he’s always with a different player watching film. That’s totally different from what I’ve seen around here, and it’s made our team better.”

Taggart said his team is physically bigger this year. There’s also more depth as Taggart said he has brought in 15 transfers as part of the 2022 recruiting class.

“In the past, we always looked smaller than every other team in the conference,” Taggart said. “We didn’t have enough competitive depth to last the entire season.”

But, Taggart indicated, it all goes back to Perry, who played 24 games for the University of Miami from 2018 to 2020.

Last year, Perry completed a career-best 60.7 percent of his passes in 12 games for the Owls. He was intercepted seven times and reached career highs in touchdown passes (20) and passing yards (2,771).

“We didn’t know what we were getting [in Perry] other than what we saw on film in Miami and what we heard from people,” Taggart said. “But he’s much more than his tools.

“The quarterback is the face of the team. I spent more time the past couple of years ‘baby-sitting,’ trying to get guys to do things the right way. I haven’t had to do that this year. [The players] have been waiting on somebody to lead them.”

That somebody is Perry, who has matured a great deal from his early days at Miami.

“I’m more comfortable around the team now,” Perry said of FAU. “I wasn’t here for the main part of the offseason last year [following his transfer from Miami]. I didn’t want to tell guys what to do and step on people’s toes without actually putting in the work myself.

“With a full offseason, I’ve become a great leader now.”

This story was originally published July 27, 2022 at 6:19 PM.