By Pete Pelegrin
Twitter: @Petepelegrin

FIU defensive end Fermin Silva is one of the few Spanish speakers on the Panthers team.

"Some of my teammates will joke with me to talk Spanish to them," said Silva, whose father's side of the family is from Cuba. "But hardly any of them can speak the language. Some of them want to learn it so they tell me speak Spanish."

While Silva can fashion himself the Spanish teacher of the team, Silva has become an eager student of new FIU defensive line coach Kenny Holmes's methods on how to play defensive end.

Silva led FIU with five sacks last season and was sixth on the team with 42 tackles but Silva feels like he can improve those numbers and his play on the defensive line.

Enter Holmes, who had a solid collegiate and NFL career. As a Miami Hurricane defensive end, Holmes totaled 29 sacks. In 1997, the Tennessee Titans drafted Holmes in the first round. Two years later, Holmes was a pillar of the NFL's No. 1 defense leading the Titans to the Super Bowl. In 2001, Holmes again was a stalwart of another NFL defense when he helped the New York Giants reach the Super Bowl.

"Coach Holmes used to play so he understands where we are coming from," Silva said. "He's been in our shoes before so he brings a lot of excitement. We go into the meeting room wanting to learn, seeing what we did wrong. He helped not just me but everyone on the D-line get better and progress."

Silva had a noteworthy high school career leading Miami Central to the state championship while amassing 15 sacks his junior year and 73 tackles in his senior season. However, Silva was still raw when he entered college football.

"When I first got here I felt like the game was real fast for me," Silva said. "Now the game has slowed down a little bit more and I'm understanding the game more especially now that we have coach Kenny Holmes, who was a great player and has taught us a lot of things that I didn't know before."

Like Silva, Holmes was a bit undersized when he played. Silva weighs 235 pounds – up 10 pounds from last season. Holmes was 245 pounds in college and played at 265 pounds in the NFL so he knows what an undersized defensive lineman has to master.

"Anytime you are undersized playing the position like I was you have to have good technique in the run game," Holmes said. "That's the biggest jump we are going to need between now and the season. We have to be flawless in almost everything that we do being undersized."

Among the other aspects of playing defensive end that Silva has learned from Holmes has to do with footwork.

"Coach Holmes taught me a lot about my steps," Silva said. "Before my steps were too wide or I used to hop out of my stance. He nailed my base down showing me the difference between a run stance and a pass stance."

Holmes, who played under FIU Coach Butch Davis at Miami, knows that playing in a Butch Davis defense the defensive lineman has to be versatile.

"If you have been around Coach Davis and how he likes to play defense you have to have athletic guys," Holmes said. "I used to be one of those guys. You have to be able to do a number of things in the pass rush game, drop back in coverage. He wants that kind of athlete in the defensive ends."

And Davis may have that in Silva.

"Fermin has gotten better with his pass rush and run technique," Holmes said. "He's gotten extremely better on the run. In the drill we did today it showed. He played a lot of the doubles and combo blocks a lot better than he had in the past."

In other words, muy bien.