Miami Central High Duo Leads FIU to Best Start Since 2018

Entering Saturday's matchup against the University of North Texas, the FIU Panthers had lost their last two matchups against the Mean Green. Notably, last season, UNT dominated the Panthers 54-14.

This week was a different story. After a lot of back and forth, the Panthers outlasted the Mean Green 46-38. FIUs' 2-1 record matches their best start since 2018 and the Panthers' 2-0 start at home is the best since 2018.

"That is by far the best our offense has played out here," said FIU head coach Mike MacIntyre. "Last week we were just so close to getting two or three of those (touchdowns) that we didn't get and and Keyone made some fabulous plays. Again, the thing about Keyone is he didn't let anything bother him...He'll learn from some things from the game tonight, but he knows how to play ball and he'll keep improving and keep growing."

Quarterback Keyone Jenkins finished with 291 passing yards and a touchdown pass to Kris Mitchell.

Running back Kejon Owens became the 12th player in FIU history to score three touchdowns in one game. Along with his three touchdowns, Owens ran for 101 yards - a career high for him.

Both Jenkins and Owens were standouts at Miami Central High School.

"Kejon is awesome. He is growing up," said MacIntyre. "He's a really good football player. He's a really good runner and he's starting to learn how to follow his blockers...We're excited about how he ran the ball. He ran with a toughness."

MacIntyre went on to describe how Owens' week of practice led up to his performance on Saturday. 

"He ran hard like that in practice," MacIntyre said. "He was making the right cuts, cutting downhill, falling back fall in the blockers, slicing and dicing in practice. We had a hard Tuesday and a pretty hard Wednesday because we knew we needed to be able to run the football consistently better."

Although Jenkins and Owens didn't play together at Miami Central, Jenkins still considers Owens his "big brother." Both were making their second starts as college players.

"My brother," said Jenkins. "That's my roommate, so we see each other every day, every night. Every morning, we come together, we eat together, we always eat." 

Ultimately, it was Owens' second touchdown of the night with seven minutes left to play that gave FIU the final lead of the night. 

The Panthers will next hit the road to face UConn and try to boost their record to 3-1 for the first time since 2017.