2014 was an interesting year for the Temple Owls. They started off the season with a surprise win on the road over Vanderbilt then came back home to play Navy and lost in a closely contested battle. Following their bye week, they thrashed Delaware State by putting up 59 points and holding the Hornets to zero points. The Owls hit the road again and took down UConn and started to be viewed by their American Athletic Conference foes as a potential threat.
Temple then came back home and took down Tulsa to win their third straight game. Temple would then drop their next two games to Houston and UCF, both on the road, before coming back to Lincoln Financial Field and taking down East Carolina in an upset fashion, as it was Temple’s first win over a ranked opponent in sixteen years.
Temple then hosted Memphis and home and lost by only three points. The Owls later traveled to State College, PA with a 5-4 record to face their toughest opponent of the year, the Penn State Nittany Lions. Penn State proved to be too tough for Temple as they lost 30-13 and fell to .500 with only two games left.
The Owls would lose to Cincinnati at home and had to play a tough Tulane team on the road to try and be bowl eligible. Temple marched into New Orleans and marched out with a hard fought win to move to 6-6 on the season and qualified for postseason play. However, the Owls were robbed of a bowl game come the selection day, to the outrage of players, fans, and coaches.
Last season still cannot be totally defined for Temple. It can be looked back on in the years to come and will be seen as either a fluke year or the stepping stone year towards greater things.
Temple’s stacked defense last season has all eleven starters returning, including stars Tyler Matakevich, Praise Martin-Qguike, and Tavon Young, who led the Owls to allowing the fourth least points in all of college football last year (an average of 17.5 points per game). Temple’s defense can be what puts them over the top this season.
However, Temple’s subpar offense could set them up for disaster in the 2015 season. Last year, the Owls averaged only 23.1 points per game, which ranked 97th in the nation (out of 128 schools). While P.J. Walker is a very talented quarterback, he lost his go-to target in Jalen Fitzpatrick and no one on the roster stands out yet as the new go-to receiver. Also, Temple’s run game last year was one of the worst in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
There is one thing that Temple does have going for it on offense: experience. Walker returns at the helms as the starting quarterback, Jamie Gilmore and Jahad Thomas are still in the backfield, and John Christopher, Brandon Shippen, and Romond Deloatch are back at it in the receiving core. Temple also has four of their offensive lineman back for this season. They know the system better now and can improve from their 2014 campaign.
Their schedule in 2015 may help contribute to their defining season. Four of their six toughest games are played at home in the Linc (including Penn State and Notre Dame) which gives them a strong home field advantage and they can rack up wins against easier opponents on the road and help their bowl game push.
For Temple to excel this upcoming season, they need their defense to perform at the level they did last year and they also need their offense to step up and produce at a higher rate. However, it won’t be too hard for them to find themselves back where they were in 2013 if the Temple slips in even the slightest way and the offense makes no improvements.
If Temple can improve from last season, then it will bring in a plethora of benefits for the program. They will almost be guaranteed a bowl game appearance, which brings national attention to the program along with money for improvements to the entire university. The national attention will draw more interest from more talented recruits and improve the team in the long run. When the team becomes more talented, they can contend at a higher level and play more talented opponents. Playing more talented opponents brings them more national contention and starts the whole cycle over and would then set up Temple to go into a potential glory years.
However, if the Owls cannot produce and slip this season, then their 2014 campaign will be seen as a fluke and Temple will go back to being a weak opponent and they will likely lose all the potential benefits that were mentioned above.
The 2015 season for Temple will truly be a make or break year for the Owls. Come September 5th, they will start to define what season they are heading towards.