In 2013, the Temple Owls found a dominant quarterback in P.J. Walker when Connor Reilly fell to injury in October. Walker came out and dominated in the nine games he played in. Walker accumulated over 2000 passing yards and 332 rushing yards along with 23 touchdowns (three rushing) and only eight interceptions.

At the start of 2014, many Temple fans were expecting the same out of this dual-threat quarterback. However, Walker backtracked a little bit and put up a slightly disappointing season, despite the team finishing at 6-6. In 12 games, Walker put up 2317 passing yards, threw only 13 touchdowns but 15 interceptions and his completion percentage dropped over 7%.

Overall last season, Temple’s offense was not clicking on all cylinders. Their run game ranked in the bottom ten in the nation and their aerial assault was in the bottom third in the nation. Scoring wise, they ranked 100th in the nation, only putting up 23.7 points per game.

For Temple, Walker is vital for a strong 2015 campaign. The defense is still at full strength from last season but the offense needs to step it up and that all starts with Walker at quarterback. Walker’s accuracy last season was his biggest concern. He only converted on 53.3% of his passes and found his passes in the hands of the defenders 15 times last year. If Temple wants to do well this year, then Walker needs to find the 2013 version of himself and bring it back out. If Walker can find his targets better, their offense will come alive again. One way to help with that is for Walker to use his feet.

Over the last two seasons, Walker has run for an average of 300 yards and 3 touchdowns. Instead of forcing passes to receivers with defenders draped all over them, Walker can take off with his feet and create offense that way. If Walker can do this more, he’d be able to improve his passing accuracy while being able to move the ball upfield more.

For Temple to get better in 2015, it all comes down to P.J. Walker. Walker needs to be more accurate and needs to know when to take off when there is not an open receiver or else the Owls will go back to being one of the mediocre teams in the American Athletic Conference this season.