Sun Belt Sports Fans

Florida International 38, Louisiana-Lafayette 17

The trap was set. The letdown was possible. The potential for an ambush existed. The Florida International Golden Panthers and quarterback Wesley Carroll would have none of it.

Indeed, the feel-good movie of the year in the lower tiers of the Football Bowl Subdivision is still playing at a Sun Belt theater near you. An unheralded team, thanks to a gem from its offensive captain, is now just one win away from one of the most improbable conference championships in recent college football history.

It would have been so easy for Florida International to relax and step off the gas pedal one week after marching into the state of Alabama and decking Troy, the two-time defending Sun Belt champion, by 17 points. Entering this contest at Cajun Field in Lafayette, Louisiana, FIU faced the temptation to think that it had already arrived, that it had already won a crown it had not yet officially tucked away. Beating Troy by such a substantial margin could have lulled the Golden Panthers into a false sense of security and an even more hollow sense of superiority. Instead, they focused on the task at hand and pulled away late to turn back the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns by 21 points. These road warriors from Miami are now just one win away from claiming the Sun Belt for real. Yes, a team that’s 5-5 overall and had never experienced a winning season since joining the conference in 2005 could dethrone troy as the champ in seven days’ time.

The hero of FIU’s latest and greatest Sun Belt success story is Carroll, the orchestrator of the Golden Panthers’ offense and a man who has steadily grasped the finer arts of quarterbacking. Carroll didn’t throw for a gob of yards on Saturday against Rickey Bustle’s Cajuns; FIU totaled just 162 passing yards on the afternoon. However, when Carroll propelled the pigskin, he made it count. The former Mississippi State performer, now in the Sun Belt with a more manageable situation on his hands, completed 16-of-19 passes without throwing an interception. That’s a phenomenally high completion percentage (better than 80 percent) and a tremendous display of ball security that was not replicated by his counterpart.

Indeed, one of the most telling features of this game was that while Carroll made no mistakes whatsoever, ULL quarterback Blaine Gautier proved to be far too inconsistent for his team’s own good. Gautier ran for 112 yards, including a 55-yard touchdown run for the home team, but it is also true that Gautier tossed three interceptions – one of them a pick-six – to help the Golden Panthers. Carroll’s prudence and patience stood in marked contrast to Gautier’s pronounced ups and downs. The steadiness of Carroll was reason number one why FIU earned a 21-point win despite getting outgained, 390 yards to 317.

Championship teams find ways to win big games. If Florida International finds a way to win just one more 60-minute slugfest, it will hold aloft the Sun Belt trophy and cause a stir throughout the non-automatic-qualifying precincts of major college football.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer