Florida Atlantic head coach Tom Herman didn’t appreciate the shoe being on the other foot Friday.
Let’s rewind to October 14, 2023. FAU, in its first season under the former Texas head coach, blew the doors off South Florida, 56-14. It was not a graceful victory, as FAU tried and recovered an onside kick, then tried it on fourth down while leading by 42 points in the fourth quarter.
In the lead-up to this year’s matchup, Herman spoke openly about how he views USF as a rival, saying, “We don’t like them, I hope they don’t like us.“Those comments ended up being an unfortunate prologue to a crushing 44-21 USF victory.
And USF didn’t just beat FAU. On their last real play of the game, the Bulls tried to make it on fourth down with a 23-point lead and succeeded with a 10-yard pass.
When the game ended, USF head coach Alex Golesh attempted an icy handshake with Herman, which seemed to trigger something in Herman. He proceeded to follow the coach and berated him for several seconds.
At one point, Herman could be seen turning around and about to shout at Golesh again, only for his wife Michelle to grab him by the polo sleeve and pull him away. These types of moments don’t happen in professional football.
gosh downplayed the incident after the gamebut recognizing that there was some motivation for last year’s defeat:
“There’s not much back and forth. Actually, I said a year ago, nothing would come back for him and we went back for him. Whatever is said is said, I’m fine. I think it was said that we recruit each other, I think He says we don’t like each other. I have a lot of respect for the staff. I think they do a very good job, at least I don’t specifically think we recruit each other. I can’t think of any guys we would have to beat them to.
“We certainly ran into them, I have a lot of respect for a lot of those guys, but I said we were going to come back to get it. Last year, at the end of the game, we embarrassed ourselves at home. We came and bounced back. And we’ll continue to do that.”
The loss improves USF’s record to 4-4, while FAU now has a 2-6 record in its second year under Herman. The team only has one FBS victory this season, over FIU.