FIU Football: Safety CJ Christian Earns Starting Role After Injury Recovery

After suffering a season ending torn labrum just four games into the 2022 season, FIU Panthers safety CJ Christian made sure to comeback stronger than ever.

FIU Athletics

After suffering a season ending torn labrum just four games into the 2022 season, FIU Panthers safety CJ Christian made sure to comeback stronger than ever. 

Through the first three games of the season, Christian has posted 16 total tackles, and an interception.

After a strong spring, Christian wasn't a starter on the depth chart. However, he's getting the chance to fill that role in Week Three. Christian has been on the field for the majority of the snaps at free safety through the start of this season.

"Really bubbly personality," FIU head coach Mike MacIntyre said when describing the Illinois native this week. "He likes to hit and run. Has excellent ball skills, good eyes, can judge a football and make plays on it."

MacIntyre went on to describe the process of Christian returning from Injury.

"The bad thing is he got hurt. The good thing is he was able to redshirt off of that, because he hadn't had that," MacIntyre stated. "We got a couple more years with him after this and we are so excited about the way he played Saturday. The good thing about CJ is that he always wants to keep getting better and so he's excited about working with that."

After just three games, Christian is 11th in passes deflected amongst all of Conference USA. He was named to PFF College's team of the week after his last performance.

PFF’s College Football Team of the Week: Defense♨️ pic.twitter.com/HRYI4E0uap

— PFF College (@PFF_College) September 11, 2023

The big news out of UConn this week is that starter Joe Fagnano will miss the remainder of the season due to a shoulder injury. Despite Fangano's unfortunate injury, Christian told the media on Tuesday that they had been preparing for Penn State transfer Ta'Quan Roberson.

"I think we're preparing for the other quarterback, number six (Roberson)," said Christian. "So once we already got down, we just started studying the quarterback and that's really been our game plan."

The Panthers are currently off to their best start since the 2018 season and have the chance to go 3-1 - something that hasn't been done since 2017.

For Christian and the rest of the Panthers locker room, they just feel like something is in the air, but understand that there is still a lot of work to be put in.

"We definitely felt confident," Christian said of his team's performance in their last win. "We already felt comfortable. We just needed to start putting games together."

The Panthers travel to Hartford this week to take on the 0-2 UConn Huskies on CBS Sports Network at 3:30 PM ET.