The resurgent Panthers (4-5, 4-1) are in sole possession of first place in the Sun Belt for the first time. They just beat Troy for the first time. They have four conference wins for the first time. If they win out, they will claim a conference title for the first time, not to mention a bowl appearance for the first time.
So how does a team so used to losing start dealing with success?
“All it means is anything outside of this football game means nothing and that’s being as real as it gets with our players and our program,” FIU coach Mario Cristobal said this week. “I can’t recall the last time a game was ever won with a prediction or a newspaper headline. We’ve always been of the routine of sticking to our process and making sure we get to work. Our coaches do a great job of staying focused.”
Cristobal will probably want to see how his team responds Saturday at Louisiana (2-8, 2-3) following a big 52-35 win over Troy, a victory that included a school-record 668 yards of offense and three different 100-yard rushers. That win has given the Panthers the upper hand on Troy, which has won four straight conference crowns.
In his fourth year at FIU, Cristobal owns the best season record in the short history of this program -- 5-7 in 2008. This is a program that has never finished .500 or better, that had eight wins vacated in 2004 and 2005, along with the loss of 30 scholarships, because of NCAA violations. This is a program that suffered through a 23-game losing streak between 2006 and 2007, that has only one win over an FBS team outside the Sun Belt.
Even Cristobal admits the program is ahead of schedule at this point given the severity of those scholarship reductions. But he saw this type of potential when he took the job back in 2007. Cristobal is from Miami, played at the University of Miami and understood what he could build with the support of the administration.
“The ingredients are there as long as there is a commitment to it,” Cristobal said. “The pleasant surprise is having inherited a monstrosity of infractions, we’re finding ways to battle through. We still have miles and miles to go to be the team we want to be.”
Indeed, this is a young team. A total of 15 freshmen and redshirt freshmen have played this season. In all, 36 underclassmen have played. So if FIU is playing this way with a bunch of inexperienced players, imagine what is to come.
“I’ve been fearful of their development and evolution over the last couple of years,” Troy coach Larry Blakeney said. “They are seemingly there. They have really good players across the board. Now they get to play from the top for a while and see how it works.”
You could see the seeds being planted early this season. FIU opened with a brutal nonconference stretch against Rutgers, Texas A&M, Maryland and Pittsburgh. But they were more than respectable in those games -- they nearly beat the Scarlet Knights and Aggies. Though they lost all four games, being able to hang with those teams gave the Panthers a shred of hope, and got them to where they are today.
“It gave us a lot of confidence knowing we can play with the best teams. Hopefully we can move forward this weekend and handle our business,” said receiver T.Y. Hilton, who has posted back-to-back games with over 200 all-purpose yards. “Everybody has bought in this season. We’re hyped, ready to play, ready to accomplish it all.”
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