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FAU Owls Football –
On the Path to Success
By Rob Chiavetta
When you think about major
college football in Florida, then you
think of Miami, Florida, Florida State
and perhaps even Central Florida, but
Florida Atlantic? Not likely. What’s
even more unlikely is when you see a
schedule that includes Clemson, Kansas
State, Oklahoma State and the Steve
Spurrier led South Carolina
Gamecocks; you figure it can’t be part
of FAU’s schedule. However, you would
be mistaken.
As a member of the Sun Belt
Conference, to see a nonconference
schedule of the aforementioned is
suicidal, but not for Head Coach
Howard Schnellenberger.
Schnellenberger enters his seventh
28 October 2006
season as The Owls first and only head coach to date,
and he continues to push the program to compete at
college football’s highest level. While the program is still
in its infant stages, Schnellenberger believes that in order
to be the best, you must compete against and beat the
best.
Howard Schnellenberger has always been known as
the man to call when it comes time to rebuild a college
football team. He started by resurrecting the Miami
Hurricanes, a team which was on the verge of college
football extinction, and led them to a National
Championship in 1983. Schnellenberger then moved on
FAU Head Coach Howard Schnellenberger
to Louisville and eventually turned the Cardinals into a
10-1-1 team in his sixth year at the school. So, what was
the master-architect of college football thinking when he decided to
return to coaching in 1998, not to just rebuild a program but to
build one from the ground up?
Although Schnellenberger is a bit “longer in the tooth” now than
he was back at Miami and Louisville, it became clear right away
that he hadn’t lost his touch. He started by attaching his name to the
school and helped raise $15 million to get the program off the
ground. Then, he got busy recruiting. His initial class came together
and became a tough football team from the get-go. Despite a quick
jump to Division I-A, the Owls won 11 games in 2003 and followed
that with nine more wins in 2004. The 2004 season included wins
over Hawaii, North Texas and Middle Tennessee, but it also marked
the end of the road for Schnellenberger’s first recruiting class.
When the Owls settled in as full-fledged members of the
Division-I Sun Belt Conference last year, they did so with one of the
most inexperienced teams in the conference. The result was a 2-win
season, matching Schnellenberger’s worst year since arriving in
Boca Raton. So with the challenge of now competing regularly on
the Division-I level, the coach, who has built his reputation on
rebuilding football programs, is now busy rebuilding the program he
initially built. While several young starters took their lumps in 2005,
15 return in 2006 with some experience. Add to that what may be
the best recruiting class in school history, and the future is once
again looking bright.
With the brutal 2006 schedule, the overall record may not look
favorable, but rest assured the program is headed in the right
direction. So let the rest of the schools in the Sun Belt be forewarned
– if you want to beat Florida Atlantic, you’d better do it this year,
because the master rebuilder is once again on his path to success.
— Come out and support the Owls, Palm Beach County’s very own major
college football program. Visit http://fausports.cstv.com/ for ticket info. ❂