Week 6 is here for FAU Football and with is returns a familiar foe in that of Rice University. The Boca Raton based Owls are 2-3 all-time against their Houston based counterpart in what has been dubbed The Battle of the Owls, with a 1-2 mark on the road.
The series itself has been very competitive with all five meetings being decided by an average margin of 5.8 points. And even that is slightly skewed with the largest margin of victory goes back to FAU’s Lane Kiffin era and resulted in a 42-25 road win for Florida Atlantic.
Moving ahead, Coach Zach Kittley (photo above Angelina Labelle) is familiar with the Space City having played many contests therein, seeing a child born, and defeating Rice while with Western Kentucky.
#FAU Coach @ZKittley will be making a homecoming visit of sorts when he and @FAUFootball return to #Houston. Here's some of his fond memories and one he hopes to make in this weekend in the Space City 🚀 pic.twitter.com/b7iIlQ2MZk
— FAU Owls Nest (@FAU_Owls_Nest) September 30, 2025
Still looking to establish his first road win of his Head Coach Kittley was in bright spirits on Tuesday for his weekly press conference where he shared his team has stayed the mental course through what have been murky waters thus far.
He also touched on various other topics such as the play of Rice, and provided an injury update for two key members of the offense.
Below are select excerpts from his session.
Opening Statement on Teams Return to the Field Today
“Coming in that first big practice after a tough loss like we had, our guys responded and were fired up, juiced and ready to go today. Extremely proud of where we are at. We’ve got some solid individualized numbers, but we’ve got to keep climbing and put that together as a team.”
On Continuing to Establish the Run Against Rice
Clearly they practice a lot of different stuff, and I’m sure they’re going to be very disciplined defensively with their eyes, especially on some certain stuff. But we’ve got to get better in that facet of the game. I’d be shocked if we don’t look up and that’s what Rice is trying to do to us. They are going to play two high safeties and say ‘Hey, run the football’. Thought we did a pretty good job for the most part today in our run scheme that we have built for Rice this week. But again we have got to keep punching there.”
Reflecting on the Passing Success Against Memphis
“You look back to Memphis, we knew it was going to be tougher sled and running the football going into that game because that was the strength that their defense was stopping the run, and their defensive line. So we did have to attack more through the air. But the run is still definitely an area that we’re really working hard to improve.”
Injury Update on Gemari Sands and Run Strategy
“He (Gemari) is day to day. We’re hopeful for him to play Saturday, but we’ve got a few more days here to keep going and see if we can get him going Saturday, but he’s going to travel with us, and we’ll see what we can get going for him on Saturday.
“And we’ve got a young freshman back that’s up and coming to in Ethan Irvin. Xavier Terrell came in and played a lot of snaps for us in the second half last week, and a really good job. And Kaden too. So we’ll make sure that we’re doing a good job of mixing those guys in it this week.”
Requirements for Defending Rice
“It’s all about your eyes…You’ve got to challenge your safeties this week. Your safeties and your corners are huge pieces of the puzzle this week. They’re going to do the orbit motions and all the stuff, and they’re going to triple option, and then here comes the deep pass over the top to play action pass.”
“Here comes the reverse, coming back around the edge. And so again, it’s staying diligent and doing your job by being great with your eyes. That’s I was working on them, their offense early this morning, watching their offense.”
Prior American Opponents Breakdown
“You look at a team like Charlotte, who they gave up 28 points to them, and they were just not doing a great job, in my opinion. I don’t know what call they were, where they’re supposed to be, but just guys not doing their job, trying to make plays, and it wasn’t their turn to make a play, setting the edge on defense, stuff like that.”
“And then you watch this pass game against Navy, and I thought Navy did a much better job of making plays when it was their time to make plays by setting edge and doing their job. And being more disciplined with their eyes, with all the stuff that’s going on, and making sure you don’t blow yourself to sleep and just scream up to play run, because then you can have guys running wide open deep. I know ‘coach speak’ probably sounds like this, but just be disciplined and do your job.”
Injury Update on Ja’Kavion Nonar
“We could have played him last week, but again, it was just one of those things we want to make sure he came back 100%.So he was more of an emergency role type situation last week, but he’s feeling really, really good. Had a really nice day of practice today, back with the ones in there, and so feel good about where we’re heading with those guys. Again, Kudos to Scarlee (Jean) pumping out the left tackle duty. Did do a nice job. And you know Okino (King) coming into his first start of the season did a good job there.”
Florida Atlantic will be looking to tie up the series with a win against Rice on Saturday. Weather for the contest looks to be the best seen on the season thus far, with completely clear skies and lower humidity than the team has worked in aside from the Maryland opener.
Kick-off is scheduled for 7:00 PM local time and the game will be available on the ESPN+ streaming platform. Be sure to follow along with our in game coverage as well on all social media platforms.