Golden Panthers ready for season opener vs. North Texas

By: Jackson Wolek / Staff Writer

After months of preparation and waiting over a long offseason, the Golden Panthers will finally be put to the test.

FIU takes on a once highly talked about North Texas football program in their first game of the 2011 season. The Mean Green at one point won three straight Sun Belt championships in a row in the early 2000’s, but now they have fallen to the middle of the pack and this year the Golden Panthers are the ones who are starting out on top.

It will be the first time ever that FIU begins a season as the defending co-Sun Belt champions, so the added pressure on the players and coaches is there, pushing them to perform just as well or even better this year. It is always important for a team to get off to a fast start in any season, but this year they begin with a conference opponent, something they have not done since 2006 when they traveled to Middle Tennessee.

“They could have lined up anybody in the first game, we still have to get off to a fast start and in our minds the only game that’s important is the game that we are playing that week,” said Cristobal. “It is the most important game of the season.”

Someone who will be lining up against FIU on Thursday night is the second leading rusher in the conference, Lance Dunbar, who averaged 129.4 yards per game in 2010. Dunbar is now entering his senior season at North Texas, but was held to his worst performance last season against FIU with just 30 yards on 11 carries.

However, Cristobal does not see that as too great of an accomplishment, since North Texas had a large part of their team out due to injury for that game in Denton last fall.

“It’s not a game tape that we’re really spending much time on. It’s more of what they did after that when they got a little bit healthier and they were able to play their quarterback,” Cristobal said on his preparation.

Not only is Dunbar their leading rusher from last year, but he is now their leading receiver coming back as well. Before the summer, it would have been Darius Carey, who had 57 catches for 509 yards and four touchdowns, but he got dismissed from the team for not living up to expectations.

That will not help starting quarterback Derek Thompson, a sophomore who played in one game so far and has thrown just three passes. Nor will the losses of first team All-Sun Belt offensive lineman Victor Gill and Esteban Santiago.

New FIU defensive coordinator Todd Orlando and the defensive line are expected to have a field day against a depleted offensive line, but defensive lineman Tourek Williams ignores all the talk.

“Never, never, ever going to be easy,” Williams said. “It’s always going to be a fight and whoever fights the hardest will come out with the win.”

FIU is going through a similar process that North Texas is dealing with on the offensive line, having to replace both Cedrick Mack and Brad Serini. What they have that North Texas does not is one of the best defensive lines Hauptman has ever seen.

“As far as our defensive line goes, there’s nobody that can beat them,” said offensive lineman Caylin  Hauptmann. “They are a force to be reckoned with and I’ll say that honestly because I’ve played the best and went up against the best and I think our defensive line is ready for whatever challenge steps in front of them.”