Ex-Longhorns coach Herman takes over at FAU
Former Texas coach Tom Herman was named Florida Atlantic’s new head football coach Thursday, the school announced.
Herman replaces Willie Taggart, who was fired last month after going 5-7 this season. Taggart went 15-18 in his three seasons in Boca Raton, reaching the Montgomery Bowl in 2020, his first season, before consecutive 5-7 campaigns.
“There are already great young men on this team, great facilities, a great location, a great recruiting base and great leadership, all of which are important to building a successful program,” Herman said as part of a news release from the school.
Herman gives the Owls a coach with a track record of renowned offensive success. Across six seasons at Houston (2015-16) and Texas (2017-20), he has accumulated a career record of 54-22 and has five bowl victories — four coming at Texas.
His best season in Austin came in 2018 as the Longhorns went 10-4, finished second in the Big 12 and beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. Before taking the head-coaching job at Houston before the 2015 season, Herman was Urban Meyer’s offensive coordinator at Ohio State, helping lead the program to the inaugural College Football Playoff national championship in 2014.
The Buckeyes that year were ninth in total offense (511.6 YPG) and averaged 44.8 points in 2014 as Herman won the Broyles Award, which is annually given out to the top assistant coach in the country.
“Throughout the process and the more we talked with Coach Herman, the more it became apparent to me that he was the right person to lead our football program,” FAU athletic director Brian White said. “Beyond his knowledge of the game, which is obvious by his success over the years, he also truly cares about the young people in his program. He has coached winning programs everywhere he has been and we believe he can be tremendously successful at FAU as well.”
Herman is expected to retain Ed Warinner as the Owls’ offensive line coach, sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Warriner worked at Ohio State when Herman was the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator.
The defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers are rolling. The Carolina Hurricanes are reeling.
Sam Bennett scored one of his two goals in Florida’s three-goal first period, Sergei Bobrovsky made 17 saves, and the Panthers beat the Hurricanes 5-0 on Thursday night to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals.
Gustav Forsling and Matthew Tkachuk also scored in another tone-setting opening 20 minutes for the Panthers, while Carter Verhaeghe had three assists in the win.
“It might have been natural for us to take a little bit to get going tonight, and it was the exact opposite,” said Tkachuk, whose putaway off the feed from Verhaeghe at the crease marked his first goal since Game 3 of the first round against the Tampa Bay Lightning. “It was an unreal start from us. The goals aside, just the way we played in the first period was as good as it gets. Yeah, that’s just a hell of a road trip.”
Florida had already ripped home-ice advantage away Tuesday night with a 5-2 win, the opener in a rematch of the 2023 conference finals swept by the Panthers with four one-goal wins. Florida tightened its grip on the series with this one and now heads back south to host Game 3 on Saturday night.
Bennett scored a second time by skating in to clean up an attempt at the right post in the final minute of the second period to make it 4-0, ending a long shift in Carolina’s end prolonged by Hurricanes defenseman Brent Burns being stuck on the ice after breaking his stick. Aleksander Barkov added a goal midway through the third as punctuation.
Bobrovsky had his third shutout of the playoffs this year and the sixth of his career, with Florida’s defense smothering a Carolina team that typically peppers the net with shots but found little daylight.
Florida has won four straight road games by a combined score of 22-4, this time sending Hurricanes fans fleeing for the exits early.
“It’s fun when you’re on the road and it goes quiet,” Verhaeghe said. “It feels like we’re doing our job.”
It wasn’t all great news for Florida. Veteran forward Sam Reinhart was knocked from the game in the first period after taking a hit from Sebastian Aho in the left leg, causing Reinhart’s knee to bend awkwardly.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice said after the game that Reinhart would be evaluated Friday and that there would be no update on Reinhart’s status until Saturday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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