Owls are wise.
To possess wisdom, you usually have to be old. Not all owls are old. Take, for instance, the Temple Owls‘ players. They’re really, really young.
Just how young are they? The Owls are the youngest team in the AAC and one of the youngest in the nation.
Consider this: Temple’s starting offense has a grand total of one senior— wide out Jalen Fitzpatrick. The defense? Zero. None. No seniors on the best defense in the conference and one of the most efficient in the nation.
The punter? Freshman. Kicker? Freshman.
Every week, Temple players vote on who they believe to be the 10 toughest players on the team. Those 10 players get to wear a single digit jersey number for the impending game. So far, of the seven players given a single digit for every game this season, one is a freshman (Sean Chandler) and two are sophomores (Stephaun Marshall and Avery Williams).
Even Matt Rhule was the eighth youngest head coach in the FBS when he was hired last year.
This is something to be excited about, for sure. Temple is sitting at 4-1 and playing some incredible football this season. And because of its youth, we can assume it will be even better in the future. It’s inevitable, right?
But being young also means Temple may be prone to struggles this season too. I’m not saying it will struggle, because every time I say something bad about this team I’m wrong. Instead, I’m saying there may be a chance that it could possibly struggle, like, if, say it had a stretch of six games that included road trips to Houston, UCF and Penn State; and then home games against ECU and Memphis. And all of this would have to come without a bye week in between. Oh, it does have all of those games on its schedule? And they’re starting right now? Oh.
If the Week 1 game at Vanderbilt was a test for Temple, its upcoming stretch is the SATs.
And it started before it even took out its Ticonderogas: Last week, the Owls didn’t beat (then 1-4) Tulsa as easily as we thought it would. The 35-24 final score isn’t really that indicative of the game. It’s fair to say that Temple struggled for the first three quarters before pulling away; its offense had to be bailed out by its defense again and again. It couldn’t convert on third down (1-of-12) and P.J. Walker overthrew a few open guys. Also, running back Kenny Harper played like a guy who just lost his starting job to a converted defensive back (Jahad Thomas), probably because he did.
Even Temple’s defense couldn’t stop the run at times, couldn’t get off the field, and didn’t cause a turnover for the first time all year. I watched the game wondering if Temple peaked early this season and had nowhere to go but down. We’ll find out soon.
This week’s game at Houston is no sure thing. The Cougars have three backs averaging over six yards per carry and its defense allows just over 8.5 points per game at home. In fact, Temple doesn’t have any “sure things” left on its schedule. Even its finale at Tulane could be tough—the 2-4 Green Wave are a solid rushing team and stout at home.
With its upcoming schedule, Temple has found itself in the ultimate heat check. And now we will find out if the Owls are wise… or otherwise.
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