Golden Panthers focus on special teams with potential transfer looming

By: Jackson Wolek / Staff Writer 

The first week of the fall semester is underway for FIU students, but the football team has been going strong since Aug. 3 in fall camp in preparation for their first game against North Texas on Sept. 1. And beyond all the talent that FIU has at the moment are the transfers that could be coming in to the program from larger schools that can help.

Wide receiver James Louis from Ohio State, a former four-star recruit according Rivals.com, is expected to make an announcement of his transfer to FIU today. Head Coach Mario Cristobal could not comment on the situation regarding Louis and whether he will be coming to FIU or not, but Louis is looking at other schools such as USF and University of Miami.

Whether Louis comes to the Golden Panthers or not, starting quarterback Wesley Carroll will have targets to throw to.

“We feel real good about the emergence of Dominique Rhymes, a young guy who’s really been productive in camp so far,” said Cristobal. “I’d like to see Mike Jean-Louis in full health. He said he’s supposed to be fully healthy by tomorrow, he got a little dinged up in camp but he was really coming on well and Wayne Times is playing some real good football for us.”

A transfer that FIU has just picked up is a running back from West Virginia Daquan Hargrett. Hargrett played his high school ball at Northwestern Senior High, where he scored 17 touchdowns in his senior season. At West Virginia, he had just three carries his freshman year. He will be entering as a redshirt sophomore, and the other schools that he was looking at were Clemson, Iowa State, Minnesota and South Florida.

As Hurricane Irene barrels down on the Caribbean islands, it is expected to make landfall in South Florida some time this Thursday or Friday as perhaps a category 3 storm. This, however, according to Cristobal will not force them to miss any practices.

“We will plan around it, and it really shouldn’t affect us,” said Cristobal. “We have a grade 1 emergency plan, grade 2 emergency plan and grade 3, so we won’t miss a practice. I can promise you that.”

Cristobal does not want any excuses of the storm affecting the outcome of their first game. He feels that if he takes the approach of the storm coming as inconvenient, his team will, too.

After a closed practice to the media on Sunday, the team went over every special situational play that you can imagine. From having the ball in their own endzone to having to punt after a safety, they went through it all and even taught the players a little bit about the new rules in place on penalties by the NCAA.

“We went over the new rules that were put in place regarding blocking below the waist and excessive celebration, which is now a spot foul from where that person celebrated,” Cristobal said.

As far as who is in the running for what positions now, Cristobal has now said that there are six positions that are in contention for the 2 spot, whereas two of them are already set. One guy who has been noticeably missing in all of camp is redshirt sophomore Larvez “Pooh Bear” Marz. Coach Cristobal still says that Marz will be here, but has not said when. It is surprising to see freshmen Richard Leonard wearing the No. 3 jersey at camp since that was Marz’s number.