FAU's comeback fails, as North Texas downs Owls 20-14

Harry · September 30, 2012

BOCA RATON — When Carl Pelini took over the FAU football program, he came with a formula for victory.

Improve every day. Make every game better than the last. If a team does that, the formula said, victories will come.

For an FAU team that won one game last season, there was plenty of room to improve, but, sure enough, in Saturday's matchup against North Texas, the Owls found themselves in a situation they hadn't experienced in a year. They had a chance to win a Sun Belt Conference game.

Trailing North Texas 20-14 with 3:49 remaining in the game, the Owls had the ball on their own 20 yard line. A win was 80 yards away.

The Owls didn't even come close.

With the game on the line, the Owls gained four yards in four plays, and Saturday's matchup against the Mean Green ended the same way as FAU's last 11 Sun Belt Contests — with a loss.

Sun Belt-departing North Texas (2-3, 1-1) walked away from FAU Stadium for the last time with a 20-14 win.

Saturday's game wasn't always close — the Owls (1-4, 0-2) came within three points after falling behind 17-0 before failing on the pivotal series.

The Owls' comeback attempt was swift — FAU scored on two separate 11-yard touchdown runs in a span 72 seconds — but in the end, it proved to be too little, too late.

"What we have to learn to do, how to do as a football team is learn to play when the pressure's on, not when we're down 17," FAU coach Carl Pelini said.

FAU quarterback Graham Wilbert was unable to foster an offensive rhythm for the Owls, as his three first-half turnovers squandered two early scoring opportunities.

"That [loss] was all on me. We can't get away with that against a team like North Texas," Wilbert said. "It's frustrating knowing that we left points on the field. ... We just didn't execute everything we needed to, and we shot

ourselves in the foot. It wasn't necessarily anything that North Texas threw at us, it was just us not getting the job done."

Read more: http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-09-29/sports/fl-fau-north-texas-game-story-0930-20120929_1_fau-quarterback-graham-wilbert-zach-olen-fau-coach-carl-pelini

CurveItAround · September 30, 2012

Feels a lot better to be on the good side of ugly this week. Would have been crazy if we could have been 3-2 going into Houston, but I'll take what we can get. Now, if we can just go down to Houston and take care of business.