Every year, not long after March Madness comes to a close, the NCAA produces a video set to the song ‘One Shining Moment’, highlighting the brief but glorious moments of greatness that mid-majors and underdogs can have in the tournament.
If they did that for college football, we’d have quite the tape for 2019. From LSU’s unbelievable rise to SMU’s long undefeated start to the barnstorming NY6-crashing campaign mounted by Baylor (and nearly another by Minnesota), it was a fiesta of surprises and upsets.
But somewhere in there, if only for a second or three, you’d find FIU, celebrating like mad after a bowl-season-saving 30-24 win against the once-great Miami Hurricanes. And that’s why it’s called ‘One Shining Moment’: because aside from that miraculous victory, Florida International wasn’t, well, all that good last year.
The Golden Panthers went 6-7 in 2019, losing three of their last four (you know what the win was) and losing the Camellia Bowl to Arkansas State. It wasn’t a banner year by any stretch of the imagination, yet it was still a wild ride. FIU having a football is a pretty new thing, and the team’s only been in FBS since 2005. At first, they lived up to low expectations, going 5-18 in their first two years with a winless 2006 season.
But then FIU picked up the pace, notching bowls in 2010 and 2011 and taking its first bowl win in the former season. They slipped into another rut from 2012 to 2016, winning 3, 1, 4, 5, and 4 games, but they’ve since bowled in three straight years.
All in all, FIU is a perfectly fine program that’s surpassing expectations, even if 6-7 is a little disappointing. Indeed, TERSE sees another 6-6 regular season coming for the Panthers, even if it does say they’ll slip to bottom-25 in the nation. #JustCUSAThings
But hey, if a team’s set a standard for annual postseason appearances just a decade and a half into its FBS tenure, that’s pretty good! And we should all hope, if only in the backs of our heads, for more shining moments at Miami, Florida’s other university.
Offence
2019 TERSE: 43.3 (80th)
2020 Returning Production (SP+): 30% (129th)
Q. 27: Which of these is named James Morgan?
- An accounting firm
- A defunct moving company
- The 2019 FIU quarterback
- The CEO of IBM
The answer is: C!
Morgan completed 58% of passes for 2585 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 5 interceptions in his senior year. Despite a drop-off from 65.3%, 2727, 26, and 7 as a junior, FIU still went relatively steady and racked up juuust enough wins to get Morgan some NFL looks, somehow. (Hey, remember Mike Glass from EMU? His numbers, relatively: 66.3%, 3169, 24, and 11. And he’ll probably go undrafted. The NFL is weird.)
With Morgan out the door, FIU will likely turn to Kaylan Wiggins, now a junior coming off a 15-for-27/172-yard season (though he spent most of his time rushing from the QB slot, racking up a whopping 323 yards by comparison that way). Wiggins is probably not your ideal choice for a quarterback given his lack of experience, but if FIU doesn’t have any weapons through the air in 2020 it’s probably just as well would you look at that, they don’t!
That’s not entirely fair to the Golden Panthers. Sherman Thornton was last year’s leading receiver, putting together 668 yards on just 51 catches, and he returns as a senior. The other two receivers over 200 (and also over 600)? Both gone. See ya, Tony Gaiter IV and Austin Maloney.
In fairness, the ground game also looks highly suspect. The top two running backs in 2019—Anthony Jones (867 yards rushing) and NAPOLEON Maxwell (675 yards rushing)—are both graduates.
You can see why they’re second-to-last in offensive returning production, can’t you?
Defence
2019 TERSE: 47.0 (79th)
2020 Returning Production (SP+): 59% (84th)
In the words of Jon Bois: That was sad. Let’s keep it sad!
Okay, fair enough, FIU’s defence did rank near-average in 2019 TERSE. Which prompts me to ask TERSE what on earth it’s doing, exactly. FIU gave up 26.5 points per game (83rd in FBS) to a mostly C-USA schedule, right? They only held their opponents under 17 once, right? They gave up 30 points six times, all losses, right?
TERSE is sticking to its guns. ‘There must be some reason this team won six games!’ it cries valiantly, I presume. Well okay then.
Fine, FIU’s defence was at least decent last year. Not a top-80 unit in my mind, but TERSE can be weird. Still, the defence’s failures in certain games must have been frustrating; the offence topped 25 in three of those six losses in which the defence gave up 30 or more. Imagine scoring 31 and losing by 12. Unless you’re former FIU quarterback James Morgan, and then you don’t have to imagine, because it was you who did that.
The defensive returning production is, thank goodness, not a complete wasteland. Sure, top tackler Sage Lewis is gone, as is Teair Tart, team leader in tackles for loss and odd names (he’s occasionally been spotted with a ‘-Spencer’ affixed to his last name). But Rishard Dames*, who led FIU in solo tackles and added three picks, is a returning senior, along with Alexy Jean-Baptise, leader in sacks.
*Not to be confused with fellow 5-11 FIU defensive back Richard James, his brother.
Altogether, FIU will probably be just fine on defence in 2019. It’s the offence that augurs for a step back.
FIU isn’t anything like a historically great team. First off, you have to have an actual history to be one of those. FIU football is almost certainly younger than you. Probably by a pretty wide margin, too.
But hey, they’ve accomplished quite a bit in that brief span. To go from nonexistence to regular bowl appearances in less than two decades is quite a feat. It takes more than one shining moment to pull that off.
Fortunately for FIU, they’ve managed more than a few in their time.
CORN 