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NCAA Football

Dominating Defensive Line Should Carry Temple Football To First Win Over Penn State In 73 Years

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We often hear the phrase in sports that “it is, after all, only a game.”

That’s easy to say for every week other than Penn State Week for Temple people. For people who say “it’s only a game; it’s not life-and-death,” it is life and death for the fans of one school in the state’s largest city who have waited 73 years since the last win. A couple of generations of Temple grads have lived, and many have died, since the last win in 1941. So for many members of the alumni, it is life and death. Then, 200 students lived on Temple’s campus;  now 12,500 students do.

The game has largely been nothing more than a glorified tune-up for the state’s only Big 10 team, but this year is different. The stakes are the highest they’ve ever been as both teams are playing for bowl eligibility. The two teams are 5-4 and need that sixth win now as getting it later for both is far from a certainty.

Both teams have had their struggles on offense, but Temple’s defense — particularly the defensive line — could win this game. Temple has an athletic and quick defensive line, and Penn State has largely an inexperienced group of offensive linemen. If Temple’s defensive line does what it did in a 37-7 win Vanderbilt — with four SEC starters  returning from a team that went 9-4 competing in the best conference in America — the Owls should win this game. In that game, the Owls sacked three Vandy quarterbacks seven times and 11 additional hurries resulted in three interceptions.

On offense, what the Owls have are a lot of really good players with unique skills who are not being put in the best position to win. Temple should not be struggling to score points in the AAC. The Owls have two potentially great blocking fullbacks in Kenny Harper and Marc Tyson, but they rarely use them that way. Temple has a potentially great tailback in Jahad Thomas, but they rarely use a fullback block at the point of attack to spring him for big gains. Temple has a potentially great tight end in Colin Thompson (a five-star transfer from Florida) and rarely throws him the ball. Temple has at least two offensive linemen who will be playing in the NFL on Sundays — tackle Dion Dawkins and center Kyle Friend — and rarely use those two with Thompson and Tyson running interference on toss sweeps to Thomas that could open up that entire offensive arsenal.

Speaking of that arsenal, Temple has a change-of-pace tailback who runs the ball well in space in Jamie Gilmore, but — you guessed it — they rarely use him that way. Hawaii transfer Keith Kirkwood (his OC called him Kirkland on a radio interview), John Christopher and Romond Deloatch — guys with magnets for hands — are rarely thrown to but instead target too many guys who do drop balls. The Owls have an extremely talented rollout quarterback, P.J. Walker, who they try to make a dropback passer far too much.

This offense is a cluster-mess of trying to fit perfectly good square pegs into imperfect round holes.

Temple gets no WR separation or QB protection in the three and four-wide sets they use, but they stubbornly roll those formations out week after week and wonder why the struggles to score continue. With this talent and a more traditional two-back and I-formations with plenty of play-action, Temple is as formidable on offense as they have been on defense this year.

Maybe more.

Despite gross mismanagement on offense, Temple finally breaks through and gets their first win over Penn State in 73 years thanks to a dominating day from the defensive line. And at about 3:30 p.m., Broad Street will be shut down by the 12,500 celebrating students living on campus.

Proving, of course, that a game is often more than a game.

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