VIEW ENTIRE COACH MACINTYRE WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE

MIAMI - FIU head coach Mike MacIntyre held his weekly media availability on Tuesday afternoon as the Panthers head into a bye week ahead of the Conference USA opener at Western Kentucky on Saturday, Sept. 24 in a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff on CBS Sports Network.

FIU HEAD COACH MIKE MACINTYRE

On progressing through the bye week…
"I like it to be honest with you … It's good for us to sit down and evaluate. Now the kids have seen what we practiced, gone over it, had two games. One was successful, one wasn't. You know, all these different things that happen in a game and now you're able to show it to them. And when they see themselves on film, they go, 'Oh that's why you told me that coach.' … So, seeing it all fast speed happening, once they've done it enough, they kind of just – you've heard people say it before – it kind of just slows down for them and then they can see it and make more plays. It's definitely a process."

"We had a good practice today and they understood it. We were able to show them the film from the game and we're showing them film from the Bryant game kind of saying okay here's how different people are attacking you, here's how you're doing this, here's how you're seeing this. So the process will keep going and we'll keep finding ways to creep up and get better."
 
On JUCO transfer CJ Christian …
"CJ is doing really well. You know, he started the first two games and very athletic. Has ability to close and tackle in space. Has good ball-eye-hand coordination. You know, we just got to get him a little bigger, he's a little thin right now, but he's playing well. He really is playing well. Sometimes his eyes get out of place. He tries to watch the quarterback too much sometimes when he should just be viewing the receiver or vice-versa. And so we're training his eyes and that's just a process of playing and playing and playing. He's going to be a really good player."
 
On Donovan Manuel …
"When you watch our games, you can see his ability and you can see him being an older player. He makes a lot of plays for us. He's a team captain. They elected him as team captain, which is really interesting. He just got here in January. He's playing really well for us and have been excited about everything that Donovan's done. He's a very good football player. And when he hits you, he hits you. I'm excited about having Donovan here, he's doing a really good job."