Temple puts up a fight but loses to Houston

South Philly was filled with hope for most of Saturday afternoon as the Temple University football team put out a valiant effort and nearly upset one of their divisional rivals, the Houston Cougars. The Owls have never won a football game against the Cougars and  Temple came into the game as a two touchdown underdog. The beginning of the game looked like it was going to be a blowout as the Temple offense could not seem to get things moving. They went into halftime down 13-0.  Luckily for the Owls, their defense settled down and managed to only give up an additional 7 points in the 20-13 loss at Lincoln Financial Field.

The story of the game was the Houston defense. They made three interceptions off of Temple QB, Logan Marchi. Overall, the Temple offense threw 41 passes that resulted in only 181 yards for Marchi who has not seemed to click with his offense this year at all. We may see a quarterback change coming for the Owls in the next week or so.

Houston played without starting quarterback, Kyle Allen, who did not play because of a coaching decision. This left Kyle Postma to be the leader of the Cougar’s offense and he took full advantage of the opportunity. Postma finished the day 25 of 36 for 226 yards and rushed for an additional 81 yards.

The loss brings Temple to 2-2 and 0-2 in the division. It is not the type of start to the season that Temple was looking for after two hugely successful seasons in a row; however, it is clear that the team is starting to find their identity. The key going forward is going to be the offense and specifically the quarterback.  It appears that head coach Geoff Collins is content with passing the ball a large amount. This differs from the game-plan that the Owls have had success with in the past. Only time will tell if Collin’s offensive scheme can be successful in South Philly but something better happen sooner rather than later because the Owls season is quickly slipping away.