FIU coach Mike MacIntyre keeping things positive throughout Panthers’ 3-4 start

Tony Dungy or Bill Belichick?

Tom Hanks or Attila the Hun?

FIU Panthers football coach Mike MacIntyre, who inherited a team that had lost 18 of its previous 19 games, is off to a fairly positive 3-4 start. Even so, some ex-FIU players have taken to Twitter recently to criticize MacIntyre for making a joke at a press conference following a loss.

Which begs the questions:

Is Coach Mac too McNice?

Do you have to be surly (like Belichick) to win?

Or can nice guys – such as Dungy and Hanks – still finish first?

MacIntyre, who will lead his team against visiting Louisiana Tech (2-5, 1-2) in a Conference USA game on Friday night, is hoping his squad can even its league record at 2-2.

But, as nice as MacIntyre is with the media and the public in general, the coach has made it clear that he is brutally honest with his players as needed.

“People don’t see me all the time,” MacIntyre said. “I’m a fiery, tough guy.”

Asked about the ex-FIU players’ tweets, MacIntyre scoffed.

“They’re not in our conversations,” he said. “We’re going to turn this thing around.

“Those (those ex-players) will be positive on our bandwagon when we get it turned around, I promise you.”

MacIntyre’s positive style has kept his team together. An embarrassing 73-0 loss at Western Kentucky on Sept. 24 could’ve sunk the team. Instead, the Panthers are 2-2 since then.

“Everybody in our program has stayed positive,” MacIntyre said. “That helps me, and it helps our players.

“You’re seeing a young team, since Western Kentucky, that is growing up.”

MacIntyre has managed the team through the tragic death of linebacker Luke Knox on August 18.

Two weeks later, the Panthers lost their only quarterback with starting experience, Duke transfer Gunnar Holmberg, to a concussion.

Three weeks later came the blowout loss to Western Kentucky. The next week, FIU lost its best player, wide receiver Tyrese Chambers, to what turned out to be a two-week injury.

Somehow, through all of that, the Panthers can even their overall and league records with a home win on Friday over a struggling Louisiana Tech team.

Score one for the nice-guy approach.

“When you are the leader, you have no choice,” MacIntyre said of his positive public stance. “There are times I might go in my office and throw things and bang on the desk.

“But, in front of everybody, I have to always stay positive, and I will. Because if you are negative, you don’t go anywhere.”

The “nice guy” subject has nuances, MacIntyre said.

“There are different types of positive,” he said. “There’s, ‘Everything thing is hunky-dory. Everything is going to be perfect.’

“No, excuse me. (Instead), it’s, ‘Here’s what we have to fix. We have to make everybody accountable, myself included. Ok, how do we fix it? Here’s the hard work we have to do. This how we handle it, and, if you keep doing that with a positive attitude, you will eventually improve.’”

MacIntyre said his mentor, former Duke coach David Cutcliffe, taught him that if players are listening to coaching it means they have discipline, and they believe. If they are not listening, they don’t have discipline, and they don’t believe.

MacIntyre believes his players are listening.

“I love these kids,” MacIntyre said. “I’m going to keep loving them.”

Translation: Sorry Twitter, Coach Mac is going to keep being positive in public.