Battling the big boys
Sun Belt Conference member Louisiana-Monroe has more than held its own this year against teams from BCS conferences:
Sept. 8: The Warhawks upset then No. 8 Arkansas 34-31 in overtime. La.-Monroe rallied from 21 points down in Little Rock.
Sept. 15: La.-Monroe nearly went to 2-0 against the SEC, losing in overtime at Auburn after rallying from a 14-point deficit.
Sept 22: The Warhawks led Baylor 35-34 in the fourth quarter before losing a shootout 47-42 in their home opener against the Big 12 foe. The teams combined for 63 first downs and 1,109 yards of total offense.
Louisiana-Monroe is averaging 34.7 points against teams from the SEC and Big 12, and hung 63 points on Tulane.
That is not good news for the teams that is ranked last in defense in the Sun Belt Conference.
Florida Atlantic (1-4, 0-2 Sun Belt) plays at Monroe on Saturday, facing a team that has given us one of the more surprising story lines of the season. Monroe (3-2, 1-0) started Sun Belt play last week after four non-conference games in which it stunned then No. 8 Arkansas and crushed Tulane; and lost to Auburn in overtime and Baylor by five points.
Monroe leads the conference with 512.6 yards and just under 40 points per game.
FAU is allowing 444.6 yards.
As good as the Warhawks have been, they still are the third best team in the Sun Belt, according to the coach’s poll. ULM received three Top 25 votes this week, four fewer than Western Kentucky and three less than Louisiana-Lafayette.
“The best thing they do is make plays,” FAU defensive coordinator Pete Rekstis said. “The quarterback keeps the plays alive and when he puts the ball out there people seem to make plays.”
Junior quarterback Kolton Browning is in his third year as a starter. ULM was 12-15 his first two seasons and it averaged just more than 390 yards a game last season. But the Warhawks have nine juniors and seniors starting on offense, most of whom saw significant playing time last season, helping this offense mature into one of the best in the country.
Browning said “having three years of experience and going into bigger (stadiums),” has made him more comfortable.
“The speed of the game (is) slowing down for me a lot, and just the maturity of learning the system and getting to know the plays better,” he said.
Browning is eighth nationally in total offense, averaging 338.5 yards a game. He threw for 412 yards and three touchdowns in a 34-31 victory over Arkansas and was 25-of-39 against Baylor, a game the Bears survived, 47-42.
“He really has matured,” Auburn coach Gene Chizik said after Browning tossed three touchdown passes in a 31-28 overtime loss to the Tigers. “The thing he really does is make plays with his feet.”
ULM’s 31-17 victory at Middle Tennessee on Saturday was its conference opener and fourth road game of the season. The Warhawks had 500 yards of offense, the fourth time this season they have had at least that many.
“All week in practice we worked on containing the quarterback,” Middle Tennessee linebacker Roderic Blunt said. “We tried to execute that but we just couldn’t get off the field on third down in the first half.”
Rekstis saw glimpses of the Warhawks’ offense coming together a year ago, noticing how they were able to move the ball in a 38-17 loss at TCU. FAU coach Carl Pelini is most concerned about their ability to spread the field and create matchup problems.
ULM not only has the Sun Belt’s fifth leading rusher in Jyruss Edwards (374 yards), but it has four receivers with at least 20 receptions. By comparison, William Dukes leads FAU with 18 catches.
“They’re just very efficient, they know their offense,” Pelini said. “They’ll spread you out and create matchup problems. They’re offense is really built in a way that, if you take away one thing they always have a counter move. It’s a very well devised scheme.”
Pelini was encouraged when FAU surrendered just 56 yards rushing — and 307 total — in its last game, a 20-14 loss to North Texas. And although Florida Atlantic’s defensive numbers have been worse in nearly every category compared to last season except points per game, Pelini sees improvement.
“I kind of like where we’re going defensively and what we’ve been able to do the last few weeks,” he said. “It was a little bit chaotic early in the season. We had to kind of piece some things together and figure out who was going to play where.
“Now we’ve kind of settled into a lineup I see steady improvement.”
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