2021 Preview: Butch Davis Needs A Miracle To Turn Florida International Around
It feels like this marriage is just about to end.
ICYMI: This is a part of The Outside Zone’s full 2021 G5 preview series, which last looked at Louisiana Tech. You can find a master list for all of the previews here.
I’ve done 14 of these G5 previews so far (including UCF, which I did out of order). That’s not a huge number, and it’s a group of, largely speaking, terrible teams given that I started from the bottom and will be working my way up. Because of that, there’s a pretty natural slant towards optimism here, because for a lot of these teams, it’s either hard to get much worse, or the beginning of a fairly new tenure which should bring with it natural progression and improvement. Generally speaking, those first 14 previews were pretty positive. It wasn’t especially difficult to find things to be excited about moving forward, despite the major shortcomings among all of those teams that led them to the bottom of the rankings in 2020.
I say that to give a little extra context and weight to this next part: I’ve looked at some of the worst FBS teams in America over the last two months, and I’ve never been as conflicted on a team as I am on Florida International entering 2021. That’s a group that includes teams like UMass, UTEP, Akron and UNLV, all truly despicable in 2020 but all pretty easy to pin down as potential improvement cases entering 2021. Even in the other direction, teams like ULM and Middle Tennessee were easy to peg as bad and likely getting worse. Those teams have plenty of roster and staff complexity. None of them have vexed me in the way that FIU has.
There are three main reasons for that, and to avoid belaboring the point too much, I’m just going to lay out those three reasons here, and let that serve as the preview.
First: This was one of the worst-coached football teams I have ever seen. FIU struggled with extremely basic things throughout the season and was consistently hampered by those issues on both sides of the ball. This team could not tackle, could not block on the perimeter, and could not do the little parts of football needed to do things like… pass the ball, or to get off the field on defense. It’s a tremendously frustrating group to watch, because there’s obviously talent here, it’s just talent that constantly has to fight against its own mistakes.
Take this play for example. Facing a third and long here against Liberty with a great chance to get off the field, Florida International does a nice job in rushing the passer. The blitz is well run, Malik Willis is forced out of the pocket and FIU looks to be in great shape with two defenders trailing him out of the backfield. Neither one finishes the play. That’s not the end of the world though, Willis is a good runner, and not sacking him doesn’t mean that the play is over. This can be made up for with either good angles from the backfield or solid play in the secondary. Instead both defenders chasing him fall down, the secondary shows up late and hedges hard to the outside (famously pretty much the exact opposite of how you’re supposed to tackle in the open field), and the remaining defensive tackle that does take a good angle downfield just… bounces into Willis? Like, with his shoulder pads? And no arms?
This was a constant thing for this defense. FIU was actually fairly good at preventing explosive plays in general (because it had talent on the defense and a decent system) but checked in at 109th in passing down explosiveness because it couldn’t tackle. At all. Here’s second and long, Asher O’Hara keeps on a power read. FIU plays it fairly well, but the linebacker overshoots his tackle by about two full yards.
Here’s a third-and 18. Eight defenders in coverage, should be essentially impossible to fuck this up. Coverage is solid, O’Hara scrambles, and the spying linebacker misses him by a mile. No one is there in the secondary to make a play. Comically bad.
This stuff happened to the offense too. This is a cool play, pistol and h-back sidecar look with a jet motion sweep to the field, while the quarterback fakes a handoff to the deep back to drag the linebackers in, creating two fairly easy blocks for the field receiver and that sidecar h-back. Wide receiver seals off the outermost linebacker, h-back gets the cornerback, leaving the field safety to make a tough play in open field on a spot where you only need four yards anyway. The receiver does his job, and the h-back, seemingly expecting the cornerback to be further away for some reason, just runs right past him. Why? Why would you do this? What coach told you to do this? Why would that be the assignment here, under any circumstances?
This is a cool play when it’s actually blocked for, like here, without the h-back!
Other times, receivers (specifically Georgia transfer J.J. Holloman, who has since entered the transfer portal again) would go to catch the football and instead let it bounce off of various equipment. Here’s it’s a facemask. Other times it was shoulder pads. This happened at least six times a game. It’s not like FIU was swimming in quarterback play either, so catching the ball when it was actually thrown correctly was a pretty big deal.
That brings me to point No. 2: FIU absolutely refused to pick a quarterback in 2020. I can’t really blame it, either. The three options were the veteran, Maryland transfer Max Bortenschlager; the runner, Kaylan Wiggins and the youngster, Stone Norton. Each one was terrible at throwing the ball and was throwing it to a truly despicable wide receiver corps. There really wasn’t a good option here, so FIU never picked one. It rotated between the three all season, didn’t find a viable solution and lost its quarterback of the future in the process when Norton transferred to Southern Illinois back in December, which is unfortunate because he seemed like the likely pick for the starting role in 2021, because of throws like this one.
Wiggins and Bortenschlager are back and will battle for the spot in 2021, with the winner likely being determined by the kind of style that FIU wants to go with for its offense. Head coach Butch Davis made a ton of staff changes headlined by the firing of offensive coordinator Rich Skrosky (good move) and promotion of running backs coach Tim Harris (great move), which makes me think that FIU is going to lean more into the running game in 2021 - and that should favor Wiggins, who can at least move, if nothing else.
He isn’t an amazing runner by any means, but if FIU wants to lean into its strengths, deploying a quarterback that can do this would be a smart decision. Bortenschlager’s ability as a passer is only marginally better than Wiggins’ so I would be very surprised if Wiggins (or a transfer) isn’t the pick here.
Which now takes us to No. 3: Despite all of the immensely stupid things that this team did in 2020 the 0-5 record, the general feeling of grogginess around this program and the 107 ranking in Bill Connelly’s returning production numbers entering 2021, I do not hate this team as a candidate for pretty serious improvement. That’s why I’m so conflicted here. A lot of signs point to disaster here. Two key contributors up front are leaving, as are defensive contributors like linebacker Tyson Maeva and linemen Jordan Woods and Noah Curtis. The quarterback position is foggy at best. Holloman was terrible in 2020 but he was still a former four-star. There’s talent departing here and a lot of questions about the talent remaining. Davis isn’t getting any younger and he hired Everett Withers to run his defense.
Despite all of that, I like a lot of this team. I like the Dames brothers, Richard and Rishard leading a very experienced defensive backfield. I like linebackers Jamal Gates and Josh Powell (the latter of which I cannot yet confirm is returning). I like defensive lineman Kevin Oliver. I really like the trio of transfers: wideout Tyrese Chambers (50 receptions, 811 yards and eight touchdowns with Sacred Heart last season); Texas State standout linebacker Hal Vinson and NC&T offensive lineman Dontae Keys.
Then there’s the basis for a lot of my optimism: The rushing attack. I love D’Vonte Price and Shaun Peterson Jr. might form the best halfback duo in the entire conference, and the coach responsible for developing them is now running the offense.
Price is elusive as hell for as big as he is, and can serve as the bell cow on a team that will absolutely need to be able to run the football without much of a consistent passing game (I’m assuming) to lean on. Truth be told, the run design was pretty strong with the FIU offense in 2020 and should be able to carry that into 2021.
You see that with plays like this. These guys couldn’t do much in 2020, but they could draw up a run and block it pretty well, specifically up front. Losing a pair of line starters hurts, but I think the FIU rushing attack will be good again in 2021, especially if it has a full-time starting quarterback that can serve as a threat with his legs.
Peterson is solid too and complements Price brilliantly. He’s a former linebacker that runs exactly like you’d expect. Two-back sets with Price and Peterson around Wiggins sounds very dangerous.
For any of that to work, though, this team has to be more disciplined in 2021. The stop and start nature of the 2020 season did a ton of damage here, which shouldn’t (fingers crossed) be an issue again this season, but fixing those problems has to be job No. 1 this offseason. I don’t love the staff, specifically on defense, but I like Harris a lot and admittedly, it’s going to be pretty hard to fuck up a defense this experienced. It’s hard to trust a team that went winless too much, but I do think that FIU can pull off a pretty significant bounce back season this year, it just has to figure out how to get out of its own way. Is Davis the best guy to lead a team with those kinds of issues? Absolutely not. Is that a death sentence? It was in 2020. I don’t think it will be this year.