If football were a highway, FIU’s Fermin Silva spent his entire career prior to this spring looking at endless green lights with relatively little in the way on the way to his desired destination.
Now, to keep with the driving metaphor, Silva is watching for a series of blinking lights, trains crossing the tracks, pedestrians on the road, and cars and trucks weaving through traffic.
In football terms, instead of simply going forward as a defensive end, Silva has learned to backpedal into coverage as a senior playing outside linebacker for the first time in his career.