Riding the wave of momentum from an upset victory, Week 7 is upon FAU Football. With UAB coming to town on Saturday, Florida Atlantic is 2-3 and looking to go above .500 in American play at 1-1. The Owls have had their glory against UAB (2-3, 0-2) leading the series 6-4, but the past six meetings have seesawed with the Blazers and FAU alternating wins.
For Coach Zach Kittley (Photo, Rick Henderson) and his Owls, they want to keep that momentum riding and they have a great opportunity against a faltering UAB team.
After coming back to Paradise with a grin, Coach Kittley spoke in his weekly presser on Tuesday. He highlighted the Owls poor running game and shared his hopes for this week.
The Owls offense has been good through the air as of last, but Coach @ZKittley knows how important it is for #FAU to finaly establish a consistent and formidable ground game to keep humming. He set's this as a TOP PRIORITY for the #Blazers. pic.twitter.com/QcxjE6tAGH
— FAU Owls Nest (@FAU_Owls_Nest) October 7, 2025
The remainder of the presser highlighted the upcoming contest, expectations for his squad, and an update on his RBs as well.
Below are the quotes from Kittley’s weekly presser.
Opening Statement
“First and foremost, extremely excited for our guys. They competed hard, very hard. Harped on a few things all week. And, again, it wasn’t 100% perfect, but we did the things we needed to do to get the win. Defensively, I thought we played really, really well, maybe about five plays total (that did not).”
“You know, we had the third play of the game, big long touchdown run. We gave up two long passes, one for a touchdown. And then we had two personal fouls. One was a roughing the passer, but that kind of happened a little bit, and the other one was just kind of an unsportsman like. And those are the ones that continued drives.”
“We would have had them in third long both those times without those penalties, and so that could help change the game. Made it a little easier for us as well. But other than those five things. I thought the defense played great. They flew around. They were very physical, very detailed and disciplined with our eyes and setting edges and getting in the run fit and all those things we asked them to do all week.”
“And so it’s never easy playing that kind of offense and then plus going on the road, long trip, night games, sitting around the hotel all day, all those things, just excited for our football team and the adversity and the highs and lows that we battled and were able to come out on top.”
On Facing a UAB Team that Relies More on the Passing Game
“Yeah I think it’s going to be a little tough, to be honest with you, just because we have been facing so many run first, run heavy teams. We know that’s what they want to hang their hat on. They want to run the football. These guys are the opposite, you know, and they are more pro style in their approach.”
“But it’s pro style pass, you know, it’s Coach Dilfer for his background and, you know, being a Super Bowl, winning quarterback and playing in the NFL forever, you know, he’s got a wide range of offensive knowledge. And you can tell they’re a full progression based offense, kind of like we are here. You see the quarterback, standing big in the pocket and taking his drops and fully progressing left to right or right to left, full field reads.”
“And so there are a lot of similarities to that. But at the same time we haven’t faced a team that wants to throw the ball first, and this will be the first time that we face that, luckily for our defense, they do see that in practice against us, we go against each other. They saw it all spring and all camp. And so I do think it presents a different challenge, though, something that we just haven’t seen in a few weeks. And so now it comes back to you mentioned, we got to be great at getting after the quarterback, making him uncomfortable, getting him off his spot, and in the secondary doing their job and making sure we’re not committing pass interference penalties and holding penalties and stuff like that. And, you know, hopefully with the ball being in the air a little bit more that gives us more opportunities to maybe create some takeaways as well.”
On the Secondary’s Play
“We knew [Rice was] going to just throw it somewhere between 10 to 15 times a game. You know, that may have gotten a little skewed late. I didn’t even look at their total pass attempts, but, you know, they got down, so they had to throw a little bit more than they would like to. So we knew that they were gonna have to be more involved in the run game, and a lot of that was setting the edge on defense and not letting them circle us. And we did a really, really good job of that, proud of those guys for doing that.”
“And now it’s going to come back to playing the past, you know, and making sure hey, from my im in press man, or hey, I’m in zone coverage now, what’s my zone? Where am I supposed to be? There’s still a lot of the same disciplines that you have to have, but just in a completely different facet of the game. And what we’re trying to do against a pass at the offense.”
On Possibility of Having a High Scoring Game, Controlling the Clock, & Taking Chances
“I mean, first and foremost, one of our number one goals this week is to really figure out why we’re struggling to run the football. Rice has given us some really light run boxes, and unfortunately for us, we didn’t pop as many as we should have popped. Really good average, very good yards per carry. And so that’s an area we’ve got to get better.”
“You know, teams are going to start playing coverage on us like Rice did. Eventually we’ve got to be able to really run the football, until we get them out of that. And so we’re going to have to be ready to run the football again. I expect them to come out and play coverage early and give us those run boxes and see if we can dominate up front or not.”
“And so I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s in a game plan to try to keep the ball away from them, but I think that’s going to be naturally part of the game, just with what I assume they’re at least going to do some defensively against us. They’re naturally a one high defense, which makes it to where you want to throw the ball a little bit more, because they have extra run fitters in the run fit already, but they have shown plenty of two high as well. And again, we’ll see what they want to do. They hang their hat on being a one eye aggressive style defense.”
“But again, with the struggles we’ve had running the football, I can see them playing a little bit of two high safeties, and see if we can dominate up front. Yeah, we’ll see. Gemari was able to go a little bit today, and those other backs are going today too. So we just gotta keep punching and try to get to Saturday night.”
It will be a weekend of celebration as Family Weekend, the Hall of Fame Weekend, and the 25th Celebration of the Florida Atlantic football program will all take place this second week of October. Kickoff is set for 6 pm under the lights of Flagler Credit Union Stadium.