College football

FAU and FIU are serious underdogs

By SHARON GINN
Published September 2, 2005

If you caught the front end of Hurricane Katrina, and if you're a new football member of the New Orleans-based Sun Belt League - which has abandoned its offices and is uncertain about the status of its bowl game - Kansas might seem like a good place to escape to this weekend.

But then there's the matter of playing football.

Florida Atlantic and Florida International head to Kansas and Kansas State, respectively, on Saturday to mark their debuts as full members of Division I-A. What usually would be a week of anticipation and demonstration of school pride has been dulled by the post-Katrina cleanup in South Florida and news reports out of New Orleans and Mississippi.

Both teams are heavy underdogs. Though FAU opened last season with five consecutive victories, all on the road, Kansas is favored by 24. Kansas State, unranked in preseason polls, is a 33-point favorite over FIU.

FAU coach Howard Schnellenberger spent four years watching his first recruits mature into a team that went 20-6 over the past two seasons, but this year he starts fresh with a young group. But throwing his players into a difficult schedule, which includes Oklahoma State, Minnesota and Louisville in addition to Sun Belt League teams, is the only way to steer the program in the right direction, he said.

"We go into this game realizing we are the prohibitive underdog and that a win by us would be something spectacular," Schnellenberger said. "We go into it with the idea that this is what we need to do to develop our football team this year."

FIU faces even more of a challenge. The team has gone 10-23 in its three seasons, and half of those victories came in the first year.

The Golden Panthers point to the fact no other team has gone from nonexistence to I-A by the start of its fourth season.

"It's amazing the leap this program has made," linebacker James Knapp told the Miami Herald. "We're the fastest team in NCAA history to go Division I. I mean, what more could you ask for? We were little kids and now look at us. A lot of us are now men."

UNCERTAINTY: The schedules for FAU and FIU may change, as conference members Louisiana-Monroe and Louisiana-Lafayette are serving as shelters. Sun Belt League offices, usually housed in a high-rise along Poydras Street seven blocks from the Louisiana Superdome, are being temporarily set up on the Lafayette campus.

It hasn't been determined if the league champion can play the New Orleans Bowl, scheduled for Dec. 30 in the Superdome.

HURRICANE MAGNETS: For the second straight year, Jacksonville's opener was washed out by a hurricane. Last year Frances was bearing down on the east coast as the Dolphins traveled to FIU, only to have to turn around and evacuate with everyone else.

This time it was Thursday's game at Southeastern Louisiana, located in Hammond, about 50 miles north of New Orleans. The game will not be rescheduled. The teams considered playing in Jacksonville, but it was logistically impossible to make it happen in time.

"The biggest problem was trying to round up their players," coach Steve Gilbert said. "At one point they had a quarter of players in Hammond; (the rest) were with their families."

JU will instead host a scrimmage Saturday, with proceeds from the $5 admission fee going to American Red Cross relief efforts.

RATTLER TO WATCH: New coach Rubin Carter isn't sure what to expect from his FAMU team this season, but at least one player is generating excitement. Sophomore Albert Chester Jr., son of legendary FAMU quarterback Albert Chester, completed 16 of 19 passes for 202 yards in the Rattlers' final scrimmage. He completed 6 of 7 for 76 yards on his first series.

Chester's father led the Rattlers to the Division I-AA title in 1978. Chester Jr. played sparingly last season, but it appears he is the likely starter for Saturday's opener at home against Delaware State.

[Last modified September 2, 2005, 02:15:35]