Recent Clues Give Temple Edge Over Houston In AAC Football Title Game

By Mike Gibson
Tyler Matakevich, AAC East trophy, Temple,
Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Most of the bowl projections by the so-called experts have Houston beating Temple and earning the AAC’s slot in a New Year’s Six bowl. To borrow a phrase from ESPN analyst Lee Corso, “not so fast, my friend.”

Two or three games into a 12-game season, comparative scores hardly seem like a good way of picking a winner but that equation all changes 12 games into a season.  Those scores appear to point to Temple as the winner over host Cougars (noon, ABC-TV).

Both teams played Memphis and UConn recently and Temple performed significantly better against similar opposition in two games than Houston. The Cougars lost at UConn, 20-17, two weeks ago while Temple beat UConn, 27-3, last week. A lot of that could be attributed to the Cougars being without star quarterback Greg Ward Jr., but it is hard to assign a 27-point difference to the absence of just one player.

In the Memphis example, as the Tigers led, 34-14, with seven minutes left at Houston before blowing the lead and losing, 35-34. A week later, the Tigers were not even in the game at Temple, where the Owls won, 31-12.

Those are a couple of compelling examples, but there have been others as Cincinnati had the lead for much of a game at Houston before falling, 33-30. The Bearcats’ game against visiting Temple played out far differently earlier in the season as the Owls took a 34-12 lead into the fourth quarter before holding on to win, 34-26.  Temple’s top two non-conference foes, Penn State and Notre Dame, were certainly tougher than Houston’s top two, Vanderbilt and Louisville, so the evidence suggests that Temple has been steeled for these types of games.

Of course, there is other data to consider, but there is a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that Temple will come out on top.

Mike Gibson is a featured writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @papreps , “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.

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