First place no longer. The Florida Atlantic Owls [5-3, 3-2 C-USA] are no longer in control of their own destiny, as Marshall knocked them out of the top spot in C-USA's East division with a 28-13 defeat. With three games remaining on the season, the focus is on Old Dominion [3-6, 2-3 C-USA] as they try to win out and take that top spot back.


Here is what Haggarty Family Head Coach Willie Taggart [photo] had to say on Monday leading up to Saturday's afternoon clash with ODU:

On The Team's Offense In Loss To Marshall "We didn't take advantage of opportunities that we had in that game. We had quite a bit in those games and we didn't take advantage of it. That was disappointing. After the first kickoff return, for our offense to go down and respond, that was good for our team, and then we got the ball back, w e moved the ball down on their side of the field and we got three points out of it. But we were down there quite a bit and we didn't score touchdowns and against a team like Marshall, we need to score a touchdown when you have those opportunities and we didn't."

On The Offensive Line's Play "I don't think necessarily different combos, I think we gotta' make sure we're doing right by our kids and making sure we protect them to give them help when they need help. Look at the protection that we're doing and that's a big part of it is making sure that we're doing the right protection that's going to help our guys in games and not keep doing the same thing and expecting different results."

On Tight End Involvement Declining "I just think we gotta' put more emphasis on throwing the ball to them and creating plays to be able to get them the ball on offense. I think that more than anything it's putting more of an emphasis on trying to get them the ball."
 
On Aaron Shahriari "I love the way he nailed those field goals when we were down there. In being consistent in doing that, to get points. Kickoffs, I like kicking the ball in the end zone like he was doing earlier in the year, but I thought, but I thought he nailed it when it came to the field goals the other day. That was a bright spot for us."

On The Young Team Learning From Last Week's Loss "You want every game to be a learning experience, especially when you lose, you gotta' learn from it. If you don't, then you will fall behind. I think you go into a game like that with a young team, you gotta' understand what it's gonna take to win against teams like that. With that kind of game, it's a different mentality and how you go about doing things."