FAU Owls 2024-25 Football Preview - DT w/ Tom Herman

[Music] welcome here to wake up call with Dan toror inside of our travel Heritage Hill Studios and I am here with the head coach of the FAU owls Tom Herman and Tom how are you I'm doing great thanks for having me Dan absolutely so I have to we talked about it off the air but I have to go back to how you and I first met we met through American Athletic Conference Monday morning teleconference calls so when I I mean I guess I'm putting myself on the hot seat when you heard that I had a question for you every week like it dislike it how' you feel I thought it was great because it it meant somebody cared somebody cared and they were good questions yeah they were they were well thought out uh insightful questions for sure no I appreciate that cuz one like I said off the air one of your guys was like Tom's not here today so I have to ask where's danor and where's my first question I was like you know I do it because I care but you and I got to meet through that the irony is we didn't get a lot of FaceTime like we have right now no so this might be the first time that we it's the first time we've sat on the show like this you from Houston toas and now you're at fa so bring me through the road when you and I first started talking at Houston to now what's this journey been like for you oh it's been um eventful for sure uh it's it's been fun um it's been informative you know um transformational you know I'm certainly not the guy I was 10 years ago uh at Houston um so it's been fun we're in a great place right now you know when we decided to get back into to college coaching you know we I made a commitment to my wife and my kids and said we're going to the job has to meet two requirements one it's it's got to be a place that my family is Happy living yeah uh and we got to be able to win championships and that's a rare find in in in college football um these days and so when when the fa FAU job opened um it was was kind of a no-brainer and we have we have loved every minute of living in boa Ron and although the season wasn't um what we had hoped for last year we we certainly made the right decision and for you like you said coming into that decision a place where you believe you could win a championship a place where your family wanted to be besides that what else spoke to you about FAU well I I believe believe and was taught early um I think Jean Smith might have said it the legendary athletic director at Ohio State uh the first time I heard it was you know players and coaches win games but administrations win championships and uh and Brian White our athletic director and our president um we we've got uh a championship Administration and um that was critical you know and coming into a new conference you know we're we're not going to have the biggest budget uh in this conference not yet um probably not until we see a full share of that that TV money but uh but I understood that coming in and I understood how good the American Conference is and and was uh but I also knew that you know let's call it what it is the three big boys uh were leaving you know the the three teams in Houston UCF and Cincinnati that kind of ruled this conference for the last 10 years and so uh felt like it was kind of anybody's game and with the ability to recruit locally the way we can in in South Florida and now with the the 12 team playoff um you know and you you win the American Conference you're pretty much assured a spot in the playoffs um you know it's been been fun to to recruit to a univers a stadium that's less than two miles away from the the white sandy beach of South Florida uh oh and by the way if you win the conference you're going to go play in the playoffs yeah you know and I've been to your Stadium been down for the Boer rone Bowl so I get to experience it recently here and so many different parts of Florida I've been to it's it's the second home a wake up call here for the show and for my company and my family really so South Florida and you with the scheduling and the way that everything's kind of set up and there's no divisions anymore with these conferences and whatnot do you feel like there's something there that has meat on the bone for FAU in South Florida I don't see why it wouldn't we we're the only two schools um in our state that uh play in the conference um you know so every year that game is going to be for bragging rights in the American Conference and one of the best football playing States in in our Union and so um it's a really important game so whether they say the word rivalry I know last year we couldn't say it cuz they didn't want to say it and you look at the way that they played and cheered in that game it sure felt like a rivalry so um I I I would imagine that um you know because we come across each other so so much in recruiting we come across each other just out and about with the High School coaches so on and so forth so um what is it familiarity breeds contempt right and so um they may not want to use that word I'm fine not using that word I don't care what it is I just know we we want to beat him real bad every time we play him yeah and you're in a conference where there's three owls I never thought of that so you got Temple you got rice and you have you and so we need kenesa state so yeah and I was I was talking to Mike bloomgren and I said when you do the when he does the owl I said you have to do the owl and you have to point to your chest to let people know so what what do you think of in that respect and is there a certain hand gesture or something that you've utilized as a coach to kind of let them know that it's fa little known fact I've coached at two of two of those three schools uh having been the offens coordinator at rice for two years so um maybe when I I retire Stan Drayton can hire me as a consultant and I can I can say I work for all three uh owls in the American Conference no I I actually think it's it's it's a unique mascot when you think about it uh and to have three of them in the trivia question I always like is I think the number is still this there's 11 Division One or FBS football playing schools whose mascot does not end in the letter S and I think the American I think we have four of those 11 something like that yeah yeah I'll leave you to ponder that one I'm not going to give you all the all the answers I'm pondering now but with you know the time that you and I spoke so many years ago initially to now back then when we first started talking there was no nil there was no transfer portal realignment didn't necessarily make geographical sense but it also wasn't 2,300 miles away to play a conference game how do you look at the FBS right now with nil with the transfer portal with this Court ruling now of 22% trying to figure out how schools are going to budget out that money and realignment has has put the Big 10 which is a Midwest conference in the west I mean there's a lot of things on a coaches plate that weren't on there when you and I talked a decade ago no you're you're right and you know what the the line from airplane I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue or whatever you know I picked the the wrong year to get back into college football but uh things have certainly changed in the couple years that that I was out I think nil I I've been pounding the table to anybody that'll listen for a decade plus that these kids need to get paid more than than they worth I coached the two-time Big 10 Player of the Year in Braxton Miller and uh you know this this guy's getting uh called to the carpet the athletic director's office because he's wearing a $50 knockoff Louis Vuitton belt and the NCA selling jerseys for $150 on their website um and so but this isn't what any of us had intended this pay forplay model which is is where we're at now and so um the players do deserve to get paid the they're they're the ones that are putting their bodies um on the line for the entertainment of of the masses and and um without them there there would be no product um we just have to find a way to at least within conferences make it so that if my Collective is spending X I don't have to go play and beat to keep my job a bunch of schools that are spending why if Y is significantly more than mine yeah because at the end of the day it's a players game and he he with the best players wins the most games and I think coach sa hell of a coach but he's a hell of a recruiter too and um if we can compete MoneyWise um in this new era of college football there there is no reason that with our status in the American Conference and and a a shot the playoffs every year our location the the I I'd like to think our staff provides uh an unbelievable amount of development and in our University and you know it used to be at this level the the one thing um that was the hangup well coach I can't win a National Championship Well you certainly can't probably more so at FAU than the eighth best team in the big you're going to leave South Florida to go to where wherever in the midwest I'm not going to say any names to get me in trouble but yeah to go six and six like that doesn't make sense to me and so if you're going to make from our Collective what their Collective is going to pay you why and you have an even better chance of making the playoffs here kind of seems a bit obvious I know I've got my red and blue shaded glasses on right now but um having nil um if we can stay competitive um is definitely going to help us before we jump into rapid fire here we get to put each other on hot SE have some fun with that um FAU this season bring us into kind of that leadership offense defense special teams these guys now that you've got some time under your belt with them just what you're seeing from this year's specific group well the two guys you got are here with you today in Jackson Ambush and feder Rico mingz I mean those are marry your daughter kind of guys you know their feder Rico was not just a football student athlete of the year he was all of FAU athletic student athlete of the year he's after he's done playing football whenever that is he's going to have a wonderful life you know so we in the the short year and change that that we've been here you know it reminds me a lot you know our first year we went 13 And1 at Houston but that was an 8- win team that we took over yeah this is a lot more like when we took over Texas that was three straight years of losing no bowl games you know just the it it was a tough environment in that locker room very similar to to hear and we barely squeak by with six wins there and year two was when we started to see really that that progress and um that's what I feel here now these guys all want to be here you know those that didn't either transferred or we got rid of them those that wanted to stay Stayed and then we in influxed if that's even a word um we infused uh some freshman and and transfer talent that that I think is only going to make us better let's jump into rapid fire coaches never get to ask the question so you get to ask me a question what do you got for me um favorite team growing up doesn't matter sport well I'm going to I'll I'll rapid fire myself around this world because my teams don't make any sense according to where I geographically grew up so grew up in Syracuse obviously Syracuse basketball and football Toronto Raptors fan in the NBA Anaheim Ducks fan only because of the Mighty Ducks movies and Emilio Estes in the NHL uh Charlotte FC for the MLS for you are you do have a wide range yeah NFL Jacksonville Jaguars but second Dallas Cowboys who's right down the road here and then Major League Baseball this is probably the one that people have no idea why but I want it with any of the other teams I wanted a team that had no bandwagon so in 1998 I chose this team fast team to the World Series and to win and I have some PTSD being in Texas right now because of what happened recently but I'm an Arizona Diamond and I just went over to Globe Life field and I said I was like an enemy has infiltrated you I didn't I and I didn't even realize the ball I remember when the ballpark at Arlington opened up and it was the Taj Mahal and and now they built one right across the street yeah the choc to here then the other one all right coach let's see here food you can't live okay it's a two-parter food you can't live without and the one thing like a snack or something in the grocery store that you wish was never made like because it's bad or because it's bad for me what however you want to answer it um I'm going to go ahead and say food I can't live without would be fajita tacos um and snack food that I just don't understand almond Joy like I I just it it it doesn't make any sense to me at all and oatmeal cookies like oatmeal is good for you why would you put something that's good for you in a cookie there's a comedian Jim Gaff again that said he's like if you're no I'm sorry it was Jeff Foxworthy he said if you're going to have a sugarfree cookie eat vegetables amen right I don't want oatmeal in my cookie I want a cookie to be a cookie you know of everything you said today these are the sound bites that I'm living with what's your final question for me uh final question for you would be why did you decide to be doing what you're doing I well first and foremost I mean I I have a passion for sports but ever since I was a little kid like I can remember being little little like three I love making people laugh making people feel seen I always could walk into a room of strangers and walk out with a ton of friends because I'm not afraid to talk to people I I want people to know that they're appreciated and and I just I don't know there's something inside of me that I have this undying want to just tell stories from other people and to share and make my world small in a good way and when I got into this business almost 21 years ago I didn't know that Honesty was a choice in the media I didn't know that building relationships was was something that wasn't Paramount that it was so much about the story than it was about the person so I've kind of learned through my journey that the more I've done to connect with people like yourself the more the rest of the media really loathes me but the coaches and the players and I I was told a long time ago by somebody they said when coaches and players come off a field and they see the media and they walk over to you and they shake their hand they give you a hug are they doing that with other media people and they said would you rather break bread with these media people or would you rather break bread with the coaches and the players and I mean I I just I love like I said I love making people laugh I love telling stories but it's the bond and it's the hope that when you're on a teleconference call for all those years it's the hope that a coach actually starts to see you as different than the rest of the people out there so hopefully you did well I appreciate you doing what you do I thank you for that my final question for you Tom oh shoot okay so you and I are going to be in a movie together okay you have to pick our profession and you have to pick what the movie's about um I'm a comedy guy so yeah this is going to be uh a buddy comedy uh probably cops kind of a bad boys flare to it but which one of us is going to know the Bad Boys song well yeah but more character-wise like the brothers and Step Brothers that's the movie okay there there's the ticket right there I like that yes I can feel that D and Brennan but as cops that's good I was going to I was going to either put us in a will farell situation or I was going to put us in Wedding Crashers too yeah see there you go Tom Herman here you got to know him in a totally different way which I appreciate and Tom I mean over the years if you didn't know this before I respected you back then and I'm greatly honored and thankful to your staff that we got the opportunity to sit together finally appreciate it thank you for your time thank you Tom Herman fa the owls at fa so what are we doing for fa I don't know we're doing this we do this yeah you do this yeah like the it's okay so this is different than rice because rice rice is doing it this way you do it this way these are our wings right here just one the okay owls so there you go come out and see FAU and Boer to in on the road and for Tom Herman we appreciate you thanks man [Music]