AAC Media Days: FAU HC Tom Herman

joined here by Tom Herman head coach at the fa alsl coach you've coached at few places in Texas and now in Florida what's the biggest difference from recruiting Texas high school kids to Florida high school kids I think unfortunately um for the kids in Florida the the resources in the State uh of Texas uh that the state pours into to High School coaches not just in salaries but in facilities and numbers of coaches and teaching positions and so we're fighting for that in the State of Florida but any given year you know you talking about Texas California and Florida and the athletes you know any given year throw them in a hat toss them you know one may be better than the other in any given year but the resources and commitment um from the state to to this section of of education is is very apparent in this state do you feel like you get a more hungrier athlete coming from the Florida high school than you do maybe a kid coming from these you know better facilitated high schools I don't know if if hungrier is is the right word in terms of the the difference in an athlete that you get I think raw is the the first one that comes to mind you know we we signed a kid when I was at the University of Houston that that played for KY High School played in 64 high school games they went to the state championship every year he played uh on varsity as a freshman and so um that's a lot of football and you consider what they do in the off season and all of that and so um a lot of times what you see is what you get uh when they come in as freshmen not that we we can't develop them but um the gap between where they are and maybe their ceiling uh from a kid you know with a kid by from the state of Florida is usually uh in my experience has been quite a bit bigger are there any crucial or pivotal uh position battles going into this fall Camp well I I I don't know we we've got to solidify our our offensive line uh We've Got Talent there maybe more than last year just not not near the experience um so we're going to need to come together very quickly and cohesively uh in that unit and then uh we got to replace our nose guard Evan Anderson he was a tremendous player for us on defense last year and um I we think we we've got uh a couple guys that can do that um but it'll probably be more of a rotation then a guy doing that you know snap in and snap out so those are the two spots that that I'm going to have my eye on and then um on the interior and then when you look on the perimeter uh you know lante Wester led the country in catches last year and and he's he's gone and uh when you lose the leading receiver in the country uh you you got to find guys that that can fill that void and uh it'll be I don't know that position battle is the right word there cuz we'll play six or seven of those guys but just to see kind of who what cream kind of Rises to the top in that receiver room while at Houston you kind of built that place as what was called a giant slayer do you feel like FAU has the foundations to become the same thing I do I I think it's become harder and harder uh as the Gap grows between the halves and have knots um you know we had some really good football players at Houston in my two years there we had two first rounders and William Jackson and uh Ed Oliver with tus Bowser was a second rounder you know we we had uh uh quite a few really good football players so um we were able to compete from a talent standpoint but those guys obviously what what made us who we were was was the grit the toughness and and I do think that uh we have that here or can have that here and you know we'll see if we have you know quite the level of of athlete that we had there when recruiting whether it's the transfer portal or out of high school what's your pitch why come to FAU well I think the answer now is why not with the 12 team playoff you you win the American Conference you're going to the playoffs and so if the money is equal uh in terms of what you're going to make from a collective and you're you're from the state of Florida south Florida locally why you want to win a National Championship check oh you you want to go to some big 10 school out in the midwest because you think no the answer is no we're you win this conference you're going to go and we're going to have a lot better chance of winning this conference than some of those schools you're talking to are going to have to win theirs and so I I think that pitch as as long as we can compete dollar to dollar um we've got a really good shot at keeping a lot of these uh top athletes home thank you coach thank you