Temple Was the Worst Team in the Nation on 3rd Down

The Temple Owls converted 23.5 percent of their third down attempts all season. That was good for dead last in the FBS.

I bet you couldn’t guess the next worst team in the nation. No, seriously. I’ll give you 50 guesses. Okay, ready for the answer? UTSA. Perhaps you’ve never heard of UTSA. You’re probably not alone. Or maybe you don’t know what UTSA stands for. Me either. But the four-win Roadrunners, pride of Conference USA, still converted nearly five percent more of their third down attempts than Temple. Yes, you read that correctly but I’ll reiterate for emphasis: Temple was last in the nation on third down and the next-to-last team was nearly five percent better than them.

23.5 percent conversion rate! That number is also rounded up. To be exact, it was 23.4939759 percent. For those of you that go to Penn State, that means the Owls had less than a 1-in-4 chance of converting on any given third down. What’s that? Penn State made a bowl game and Temple didn’t? Oh. Well hey at least I’m trying to push this whole “Penn State is our rival” thing. (Temple’s Wikipedia page lists the Owls rivals as Penn State and Villanova. I can’t decide between trying to push these rivalries into legitimacy or just openly mocking the idea that either of these teams have any idea that Temple thinks of them as a rival.)

23.4 percent is an atrocious, deplorable, harrowing, thesaurus-inducing number. It’s something I’d like to forget about. It happened. But it’s over. Let’s stop thinking about it. Actually, let’s spend a few hundred more words on it first. I mean, I complained about it all season. I knew I’d be writing this column some day.

Only one team in the last 10 years has been worse on third down: FIU’s 22.5 percent last year.

Throughout the season, I waited and waited for a solution to the third down troubles. Spoiler: It never came. I thought the oft-injured tight end Colin Thompson, a four-star Florida transfer, would be a solution. He wasn’t. I thought the converted defensive back Jahad Thomas, Temple’s one-time flavor of the week running back, would be a solution. He wasn’t.

There was no solution.

Let’s look at some splits. At home, the Owls converted 28.5 percent of their third downs. On the road, a gut-wrenching 18.2 percent. While running, 40.3 percent. Passing, a stomach-turning 14.67 percent. That last number dipped to nine percebwbw… sorry I just dry heaved. Let me start over. Ahem. That last number dipped to nine percent through 44 attempts in the Owls last six games. Sure the Owls’ final six opponents were more skilled than their first six, but Temple’s offense also clearly regressed. It scored more than one offensive touchdown just once in its last seven games.

Its struggles were partially P.J. Walker’s massive regression, poor accuracy and decision-making; partially the offensive line not being very good; partially the wide receivers being extremely raw; and partially the run game being wildly inconsistent all season.

What I’m saying is, this team could have benefited from the 15 extra practices every bowl team gets. They would have certainly helped get some of these problems out. But to get to the bowl game, these problems needed to be sorted out in the first place. Hey Nova fans, that’s what you call a “paradox.”