FIU football team clinging to bowl hopes, plus soccer, basketball updates

The FIU Panthers could use a hot streak.

FIU’s football team needs to win three of its final four regular-season games to become bowl eligible for the first time since 2019. FIU (3-5 overall, 1-3 Conference USA) will visit Middle Tennessee State (1-7, 0-4) on Saturday at 3 p.m.

Panthers coach Willie Simmons, in an exclusive interview with the Miami Herald, was asked if, in August, he thought FIU would have a losing record eight games into the season.

“I told our guys in the beginning that we will win when everyone buys in, and everyone does what it takes to play winning football,” Simmons said. “We’re not there yet.

“Going into a season, you are always optimistic. You set lofty goals. And, as the season goes on, you reassess. We’ve had to do that (reassess).”

Simmons said last week’s 28-21 loss at Missouri State was a “winnable” game, and he added that FIU no longer controls its own destiny in C-USA.

However, the bowl goal is still there.

“Now it’s about figuring out how to play good football,” Simmons said. “We have to figure out how to salvage the season and go to a bowl game.”

Simmons said the Middle Tennessee game will be a “homecoming of sorts” because he started his career there as a running backs coach in 2007.

It’s also a homecoming for several other members of FIU’s team, including offensive coordinator Nick Coleman; special-teams coordinator Kenneth Gilstrap and center Julius Pierce.

Coleman was a quarterback at Middle Tennessee, helping the Blue Raiders win 10 games during his senior year. He was also a graduate assistant there.

Gilstrap was a star cornerback and a 55-meter sprint champion at Middle Tennessee. He also served two stints there as a coach – graduate assistant initially and then as a special-teams coordinator and cornerbacks coach.

Pierce played the past two years at Middle Tennessee, making eight starts before transferring back to FIU, where he started his college career.

Perhaps all that familiarity can help FIU as the Panthers are just 1-9 at Middle Tennessee. FIU’s lone win at Murfreesboro came in 2011, when Panthers Hall of Famer T.Y. Hilton had 136 all-purpose yards in a 31-18 victory.

THIS AND THAT

• Simmons said defensive tackle Xion Chapman (shoulder injury) is planning to play on Saturday. “He gives us a different element,” Simmons said.

• FIU redshirt freshman wide receiver Jojo Stone was asked about Panthers rookie quarterback Christian Langford, who could be this program’s QB of the future: Stone and Langford are both from Langston Hughes High in the Atlanta area.

“He can put a team on his back and make plays,” Stone said of Langford. “He’s dynamic, explosive, fast, strong and unselfish.”

• FIU redshirt freshman wide receiver Jojo Stone was asked about Panthers rookie quarterback Christian Langford, who could be this program’s QB of the future: Stone and Langford are both from Langston Hughes High in the Atlanta area.

“He can put a team on his back and make plays,” Stone said of Langford. “He’s dynamic, explosive, fast, strong and unselfish.”

• Pierce, who admits to having a bad snap earlier this season against Florida Atlantic and a couple that were “a little errant” versus Missouri State, said he trusts his training.

At Missouri State, Pierce said, “It was a little colder than I’m used to in Miami, and my hands were dry.

“So, I just go back to basics. How am I grabbing the ball? Where’s my arm hitting my thigh after the snap? I have to trust, knowing that I’ve snapped thousands of balls. It’s like a square (target). I have to get it in that box. If it’s at the (QB’s) torso, I’m happy.”

• FIU’s men’s basketball team, which won its opener 101-49 against Florida National on Monday, will get a much tougher matchup on Saturday at Nebraska.

• FIU’s women’s basketball team lost its opener, 81-56 at South Florida on Monday. Denika Lightbourne, a 5-9 native of the Bahamas who transferred from Dayton, scored 21 points in her FIU debut. FIU will play their next game on Nov. 15 against visiting Bethune-Cookman.

• FIU’s men’s soccer team, seeded fourth, will host fifth-seeded Missouri State on Friday (7 p.m.) in a conference quarterfinal match. FIU (6-8-2) is 5-1-2 at home and 1-7 on the road.

• FIU’s women’s soccer team (7-6-4) ended its season with a 1-0 loss to Middle Tennessee in the conference quarterfinals on Sunday.

This story was originally published November 5, 2025 at 11:34 AM.