Is Florida Atlantic a Good Fit for Casey Thompson?

FAU has a history of being a graveyard for head coaches

Quick. Name all the head coaches in the history of Florida Atlantic football who have coached at least one full season and left the Owls with a winning record.

The answer will appear later in this column.

At this writing, it's not official that Casey Thompson is going to enroll at FAU. But it's a pretty good bet he will. Last week, I wrote about Thompson's recent entrance into the transfer portal. Thompson, as most Husker fans know, was the starting quarterback for Nebraska last season. He led the Huskers to a 4-8 record. He transferred last spring from the University of Texas and became the Husker starter last fall.

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I wrote that Casey's moving on was probably a good decision for him. He didn't want to sit on the bench this fall at Nebraska waiting for QB Jeff Sims to get injured. Casey needed to find a place in his last season of eligibility where he would have a good chance of being the starter.

So why Florida Atlantic? That's because his former coach at Texas, Tom Herman, who recruited Casey to Texas, is now the head coach at FAU.

So if he goes there, what's the QB competition going to be this fall? Last year's starter, N'kosi Perry, has left the program. The Owls' QB room includes Ben Ballard (grad student), Michael Johnson Jr. (redshirt junior) and T. Starks (redshirt freshman). Also in the mix is Luke Rucker, who is a high school recruit from Sanford, FL. But Thompson's main competition just might be junior Daniel Richardson, who transferred this spring from Central Michigan. He's a 5-11, 198 dual-threat QB.

FAU is a member of Conference USA. Their '23 schedule includes Monmouth College, Ohio, Clemson, Illinois, Tulsa, South Florida, UTSA, Charlotte, UAB, East Carolina, Tulane and Rice.

For the record, the Owls finished 5-7 last year. So who is on the list who have coached at least one season at FAU and what was their winning percentage?

The list is pretty thin.

1) Howard Schnellenberger (2001-2011) Remember him, Husker fans? Career winning percentage: .439

2) Carl Pelini (2012-2013) Remember him, Husker fans? .230

3) Charlie Partridge (2014-2016): .250

4) Lane Kiffin 2017-2019: .675

5) Willie Taggart 2020-2022: .458

The answer to the above question is Lane Kiffin. If you guessed correctly, you need to go to the head of the class.

How Bout Them Huskers

On this week's episode, Will and I discuss a variety of topics including Casey Thompson's transfer, the slide of the Husker baseball team and the success of Husker softball. We also talk about the new recruits for Husker football and for the men's and women's basketball teams.