We are just a little over a week away from #24 Temple(10-3, 7-1) taking on Toledo(9-2, 6-2) in the Marmot Boca Raton Bowl, which is considered one of the best early bowl match ups. Temple football hasn’t been to a b0wl game since 2011 where they defeated Wyoming in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl by a score of 37-15. This will be the 11th meeting between the two schools with Toledo winning the most recent game in 2011 by a score of 36-13.
- When: 7 PM on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015
- Where: FAU Stadium, Boca Raton, Florida
- TV: ESPN
Temple and Toledo are both coming off disappointing finishes to their regular seasons and badly want to end this year on a high note. Toledo was upset by Western Michigan in their final game of the regular season, shattering their chance to play in the MAC Championship game and Temple lost a heart-breaker to Houston in the first ever AAC Championship game. Toledo has been no slouch this year being ranked for five straight weeks this year and climbing as high as #19. There was a lot of speculation early on at one point in the season, where it looked like Toledo was going to be the group of five school to play on New Years Eve, but it wasn’t meant to be like it wasn’t for Temple.
Keys to the game for Temple
Establish the run: Temple’s offense this year has been based off of getting the running game going because it can help open up opportunities in the passing game and they have Jahad Thomas at running back. When Temple hasn’t been able to establish the run this year, their offense has looked out of sorts and teams have been able to take advantage of that. It will be no easy task against Toledo, who has an even better run defense than Temple, allowing only 118.2 yards per game and a minuscule 3.4 yards per carry. Jahad Thomas seems he will be at full strength and up to the task. However, don’t be surprised if Matt Rhule puts one of his freshman running backs in the game if Jahad proves to be ineffective.
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Stop the run: Toledo like Temple loves to run the ball and they will always be a run first team. Toledo as a team rushes for 213 yards per game and has more rushing touchdowns than passing touchdowns this year. The Rockets have a legitimate three-headed monster at running running back with Kareem Hunt(894 yds, 10 TD’s), Terry Swanson(870 yds, 7 TD’s), and Damion Jones-Moore(404 yds, 5 TD’s). Hunt is a workhorse logging at least 20 carries in 5 of 7 game this year and has had four multi-touchdown games. I have faith Temple can stop the run because their defensive line has been like a wall all year led by AAC Defensive Player of the Year and first-team All-American Tyler Matakevich, who does nothing except make plays.
Win the turnover battle: Temple has done pretty good job for the most part this year in taking care of the football and getting takeaways on defense. But there are times where they have been careless with the football and that has played a role in two of their three loses. Turnovers killed them against Houston in the AAC Championship game and most notably PJ Walker’s ill-advised throw on Temple’s first drive that turned into an interception, setting up Houston for an easy touchdown and an early hole Temple couldn’t climb out of. As long as Temple doesn’t turn the ball over and gets a takeaway or two on the defense, they should be able to win the game.
Prediction: Toledo will be able to hang around for a little while with their the defense, but Temple will clamped down on the Rockets running game forcing them to take to the air and Temple will pull away with help from Robby Anderson and Jahad Thomas.
Final score: ‘][’emple 31 Toledo 20
Photo credit: Temple Owl Nation
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