Know Your Enemy: Florida Atlantic Owls

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will win a hundred times in a hundred battles. —The Art of War by Sun Tzu as read by Joe Mantegna (yes, that Joe Mantegna, seriously)

The Cats are 4 and 0, Andre Woodson is a Heisman contender, political pundits (Mort Kondracke et. al) are unanimous in their belief that UK will win the national championship, the Turkey Hunter’s blood test turned out negative, and Woo just got drafted by a non-military entity. Yep, life is certainly good if you are a UK fan. Amidst all this success, I like to think that we here at the “Know Your Enemy” wing of the Kentucky Sports Radio Compound (basically a tool shed that houses me and my My Little Pony G.I. Joe collection) have had a little something to do with the Cats’ fast start. (Pausing to ponder) You know, that’s an absurd statement. Upon reflection, I take ALL the credit for UK’s undefeated record. You see, I have it on good authority (Jason Blair) that each “Know Your Enemy” has made its way to that week’s opponent’s bulletin board with the intent to stoke the competitive fires of the footballers as they prepare for Kentucky. The problem is that when the players who are literate actually read the column, they realize beating the Wildcats is as hopeless as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad winning a GLAAD Media Award and they proceed to crumble in the face of the unstoppable force of Kentucky football. In summary, you’re welcome.

Now, on to the mighty Owls of Florida Atlantic who are riding high after upending the Tubby Smith-coached Minnesota Gophers two weeks ago and knocking off perennial national title contender, North Texas, last week to move FAU’s record to 3-1. Usually, I beseech the lot of you to read these posts in an effort to gain more knowledge about our opponent for the week so that you can better focus your disdain. However, this week I will recommend to you, the reader, and you, the UK football team, to feel free to go ahead and both overlook and underestimate this FAU team. They are nothing special, so let’s get the South Carolina conversation started. UPDATE: Mitch Barnhart just hit me up on my celly and told me that we need to show class and say all the right things leading up to this game. Therefore, HE is requiring that you read the remainder–not me.

Location

Basically, all over southeast Florida. FAU has seven campuses spread out over the area with the main campus being centered in Boca Raton (French for “Pig’s Eyeball”). It is very much a commuter school and was only founded in 1964 with an initial enrollment of 867. Since that time, FAU has hit puberty and now boasts 26,000 students spread around the seven campuses on America’s wang (Florida).

Notable Alumni

Going through this list originally worried me as I saw no names that I even remotely recognized upon my first pass. Luckily, upon my second perusal, God blessed me with the names of an “adult” actress and a prop comic. Mary Carey (A.A. 2002) is an adult film star who is best known in mainstream America for her unsuccessful attempt at running for the governorship of California (Schwarzenegger won; Ms. Carey finished 10th out of 135) on the platform of tax deductions for lap-dances and taxes on breast implants. Carrot J. Top (son of Henry and Eleanor Top) should be well known to readers of this blog as he calls Matt Jones and the Turkey Hunter personal friends. For those of you who do not know Mr. Top, he is a brilliant prop comic with curly red hair, huge biceps (that’s why I labeled him brilliant instead of hacky), and more plastic surgery than a fugitive Colombian drug lord. This is seriously the type of people FAU is handing degrees out to, kids.

Cheerleading Scouting Report

I was hoping we could get through the entire year without this happening but…I can’t find any pictures of the FAU cheerleading squad better than the collage you see below. Well, we have to assume that being south Florida co-eds would automatically make them attractive, right? While they pass the collective hot test, it’s hard to get a read on their individual ratings and I keep getting distracted by the pictures of the band. Therefore, I deduct 2 points from each of them and would request that we organize an e-mail blast to be directed to the athletic director imploring him to put user-friendly team pictures of his cheer squad and dance teams up on his internet. Also, maybe it’s not this formal, but I would imagine this occurs on other cheerleader teams: The FAU cheer team requires all cheerleaders/dancer to have a BMI of less than 22. Surely this caused many a prospective cheer-girl to take up the Nicole Richie Diet (cocaine and throwing up).

Football History

Not much. The program only began in 2001 and Howard Schnellenberger stands to be remembered as the Father of Florida Atlantic Football (or the Monopoly man). Apparently, FAU owns the record for being the fastest start-up team to win a DIV 1-A game, but despite this fact still plays its home games at a high school field (Lockhart Stadium). The Owls are due to open a new non-high school facility as early as 2009.

Players

Quarterback Rusty Smith will be under center for the Fighting Hoot Owls come Saturday and the redshirt sophomore has shown that he is more than capable of handling the position…Actually I have no idea whether he is good or not, but I’m running low on players to make fun of. I thought about doing something here around his name being “Rusty” and then either going with a Joe Dirt quote (Hey, I’ve got a good name for this car….RUSTY!) or perhaps something from the “Vacation” family of movies–maybe, “Smith will be on his back so much Schellenberger will frequently say, ‘Can’t see the (offensive) line, can you Russ?’. However, the readership of this blog is far too clever for either of those so I will opine on defensive tackle Dino Cox whose name (if pronounced with a long “i”) sounds like some sort of dinosaur/chicken hybrid in the Paleozoic Era.

Rusty Smith prepares to take on Kentucky

Dinocox!

Airtight Predictions

DLJ checks in with a pedestrian 4 touchdowns (two on double reverses, two on statue of liberty plays) in little more than a quarter of action before making out with every FAU player’s mother. He finally settles in to call plays as offensive coordinator for the young’uns as they mop up the aftermath of the on-field onslaught. Brooks will make the controversial choice of allowing Woodson to play some safety in the fourth quarter despite the protestations from the fan base and Lee Corso. Lou Holtz will, of course, think it’s a good idea. Cats walk away with a closer than expected 123-4 victory. Safeties come courtesy of blindfolds put on Little and Dixon at halftime. Additionally, FAU will become the first collegiate athletic program to sell corporate sponsorship rights to its mascot in an attempt to fund its new stadium, although I think the change keeps with the concept of “Owls” and is barely noticeable:

Summary

“Are you here for the feeding? It’s gonna be a bloodbath”. Get there early, shorties, cause this game will be decided within the first 15 seconds. After that it will get a little boring, so might I suggest discussing the current political situation in Burma (Myanmar) and the government’s response with those sitting around you. After Saturday, the Cats will be 5-0 and will technically control their own destiny in the SEC race. Then, the Cats will go to South Carolina to face off against “The Visor”. Happy footballing and “Go Cats”.