What to know: Florida Atlantic Owls at UTEP Miners football

What, when, where

The UTEP football team returns home for a rare Sun Bowl afternoon game against Florida Atlantic, the final time the programs will play each other in a Conference USA game.

Kickoff is set for 2 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN+. The radio broadcast will be on 600 ESPN El Paso.

How is UTEP supposed to do?

The Miners are a four-point underdog. Combined with an over-under of 50 points, they are predicted to lose 27-23.

The Miners are 1-2 all-time against FAU but UTEP won the only Sun Bowl meeting in 2015.

Who is FAU?

Like UTEP, the Owls are 3-4, which includes a win against Charlotte and a loss to North Texas. FAU is coming off a win over Conference USAs other Owls, Rice, in a battle of teams headed to the American Athletic next season.

Florida Atlantic is in the middle of the Conference USA statistics in most everything, though tailback Larry McCommon is second in the league in rushing at 87.3 yards a game. Quarterback N'Kosi Perry is third in C-USA in passing touchdowns.

The Owls' coach Willie Taggart replaced Lane Kiffin in 2020 after Kiffin left for Ole Miss. Taggart was the coach at Florida State in 2019, though he was fired before the Seminoles played in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl.

Bret Bloomquist can be reached at 915-546-6359; bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Florida Atlantic Owls at UTEP Miners football what to know