-Philadelphia
The 2014 quarterback class is stacked with an impressive core of pocket passers and dual threat athletes. On Saturday the Owls got their first taste of “Bridgewater”. The Owls lost yet again by a final score of 30-7 to the nationally ranked Louisville Cardinals. That puts the Owls currently at 0-5 on the season and in the cellar of the American Athletic Conference. This game was one sided from the start because for Temple everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Teddy Bridgewater put on an aerial assault against the Temple defenders. While the defense pressed against the Louisville receivers, it was simply no match for Teddy Bridgewaters perfect throws. The saying , ” that was great defense, but just purely better offense” was a true representation in this case.
For Temple, offensively the struggles continue and the ship seems to be going no where fast. The Owls seem to have no identity as to who they are as players when they have the ball. Connor Reilly finished his day early after Matt Rhule benched him. He was 3-7 for 25 yards passing., Head coach Matt Rhule put in senior quarterback P.J. Walker and because he is a lot more mobile than Reilly is, he used his legs to get out into the open when the pocket collapsed. The little momentum Temple had in this game right before half time was ended when a some what successful drive was aborted by a blocked 27 yard field goal attempt. The crowd looked at best to say disgusted by such poor play from the Owls.
After the half it was much more of the same story for Louisville. Birdgewater continued to put the ball in the air and it seemed as if he was playing a video game because quite frankly it was just to easy. Louisville seemed at certain times to run the same bunch formation on third downs and it worked about 85% of the time. Only real critique for Louisville is that , they had no issues in marching down the field especially with the deep ball. In contrast , their red zone offense seemed to be the quarrel as for two straight drives the Cardinals failed to punch it in for seven in the third quarter.
P.J. Walker for Temple was having an up and down day for the Owls behind center. He had a few deep balls caught down field but with no consistency and a relentless Louisville pass rush it really did not make a difference at this point. A play that stood out was late in the third, where as , the Cardinals defense flooded the pocket and in stead of throwing it away Walker bombed the ball to the end zone, only to be intercepted by Cardinals defender Terrell Floyd. Bridgewater had complete his first 15/17 pass attempts for the Cardinals and at this point there was no way the Temple Owls were stopping him. Bridgewater finished the day with 348 yards passing and two touchdowns.
Sadly for the Owls, it doesn’t get any easier as come Friday night they will be playing the Cincinnati Bearcats. Game airs at 8:30 on Espn2.
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