BOCA RATON –The best part about hitting rock bottom is that there is no where to go but up.
As bad as FAU has looked at times throughout the past few years, the Owls may have finally hit their low point – and they rebounded nicely.
“When you go through some tough losses like the close ones and then have a performance that wasn’t us against Western Kentucky – now you look at what Western Kentucky is doing to everybody in the league, they are at a high level right now – we’re better than we played that day and the guys knew it,” Charlie Partridge said. “They saw improvement and they saw how close we were. That was a hard day.”
The Hilltoppers outperformed the Owls in every facet of the game that afternoon on their way to a 52-3 blowout that dropped FAU to 1-7.
No single player has responded from that afternoon’s poor play better than quarterback Jason Driskel.
Benched as the starter in favor of the still-developing Daniel Parr following a 52-yard passing afternoon against the Hilltoppers, Driskel entered the following game against Rice for the third series and has played like an All-American ever since.
Driskel’s thrown for 550 yards and three touchdowns over two games – both FAU wins.
Considering what was at stake and the time constraints, the last two drives against UTEP – culminating in the game-winning seven-yard touchdown pass to Nate Terry with 25 seconds remaining – were two of the best drives of the redshirt sophomore’s career.
That final drive covered 96 yards, the second drive of more than 95 yards piloted by Driskel in as many weeks.
Did the benching following the Western Kentucky loss light a fire under Driskel or is he simply benefiting from the team as a whole playing better?
“Yes and yes,” Partridge said. “There was a different edge to not only Driskel, to a lot of guys.”
In leading FAU to 15 points in the final 7:30, Driskel completed 10 of his 11 pass attempts, the bookend to a night in which he completed 80 percent of his passes.
After winning consecutive games within the same season for the first time in his three-year tenure, Partridge says that, while the Owls do have more “pep in their step,” more important is a new-found maturity.
“We were down 11, there were seven and a half minutes, and that second-to-last drive, like I said Saturday night, there was just a different look in their eye,” Partridge said. “It attributes to a more mature edge. They’ve been through a lot and it hardens you.”
Driskel’s recent play is making it harder to assess Parr’s development.
It sounds odd, but since being named the starter for the Rice game, the redshirt freshman has actually experienced a decrease in playing time.
After averaging nearly 19 snaps in the three games preceding the first start of his career – and taking no fewer than 10 in any of those games – Parr only saw seven snaps in his two possessions against Rice before Driskel came in and led FAU to back-to-back touchdown drives. In his lone series against UTEP, Parr took three snaps, missing on his first pass attempt before tossing the first interception of his career on the second.
“We want to continue to develop him and give him those game reps, but right now we have to do what we feel is best at the time to win games,” Partridge said.
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