I can type the following with utter and completely certainty: if Lane Kiffin was still the offensive coordinator at Alabama, he would not have lost this game.
Be that as it may, the Kiffin Era at Florida Atlantic kicked off Friday night, with FAU squaring off against 2016 AAC runner-up Navy. With the Owls coming off a three-win season and the Midshipmen nine victories, the outcome was decidedly predictable as the service academy, outside of myriad weather delays that totaled nearly three hours, had little problem dispatching their hosts in a 42-19 road win.
The Midshipmen ran for 416 yards on the night/morning, with starting quarterback Zach Abey accounting for 235 of those yards on the ground. Abey also threw for 110 yards in completing three of his 10 pass attempts on the night/morning.
The loss wasn’t without highlights for the home team as the first score of the Kiffin Era was a 95-yard touchdown pass...
... that featured the coach’s signature signal-score-before-it’s-an-actual-score sideline move.Lane Kiffin knew he had a touchdown early! pic.twitter.com/3tXk5x7naH
— SB Nation (@SBNation) September 2, 2017
So there’s that, which is nice.
Kiffin is now 35-22 in a career as a college head coach that has included stops at USC (28-15) and Tennessee (7-6). His last win as a head coach at this level came in September of 2013; his next chance for a win will come in Week 2 against No. 9 Wisconsin in Madison; his next realistic chance for a win will come a week later against FCS Bethune-Cookman.