Know Your Opponents: The Big East's New/Old Member

In 2004, the Big East took their first of many near fatal blows when they lost Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College to the Big East. In an effort to revamp the conference and form the Big East 2.0, Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, and Connecticut were added. Despite the new programs and the mass exodus, football only member Temple was kicked out of the conference. Their program was THAT bad. Things started to turn around for the Owls two years later though, as Jersey native Al Golden built the program up into a respectable one that made a few bowl appearances and competed for MAC titles. With Golden leaving for the job at Miami in 2010, Florida offensive coordinator and northeastern native Steve Addazio was brought in to lead the program. In his first year in Philly, he went 9-4 and won the New Mexico bowl. When West Virginia departed the Big East for the Big 12, the conference had to scurry and fill that vacancy, and they did so by bringing back Temple.

Temple So Far
Temple is off to a 3-2 (2-0 in the Big East) start this season. They beat up on cross town punching bag Villanova in their opener,  before dropping consecutive hard fought games to Maryland and Penn State. Coming off a bye, the Owls upset South Florida, as the Bulls made countless mistakes that Temple took advantage of. They knocked off Connecticut on the road a week ago, to win consecutive Big East games for the first time in school history.

Coaching Staff
Steve Addazio is a Connecticut native, and he has spent a lot of time recruiting the northeast as the offensive line coach at Syracuse, Notre Dame, and Florida, amongst others. He was a very good line coach with the Gators, winning a couple national championships, but he seemed to be out of his comfort zone when calling plays after his promoted to offensive coordinator for the Gators. He interviewed for the job at UConn, but did not get it, and the Owls made him their new coach a few weeks later. He was briefly considered a possibility for the head job at Rutgers this January. He is well organized and keeps his teams disciplined, and seems to be a successful head coach so far, owning a 12-6 record.

Offense- 72nd in PPG, 78 yds per carry, 91st in pass efficiency, 105th in yards per play
The Owls run a spread offense and they run the ball a ton, using both man and zone blocking techniques.Their best player is running back Montel Harris, who transferred in from Boston College.
The two time all ACC back is coming off two consecutive 100 yard performances, after not carrying a ton in the team's first three games. Temple is quarterbacked by mini-Tebow, Chris Coyer. Coyer is not much of a passer (6.6 ypa, 54%), but like Tebow, he is a very powerful runner and can beat you with the deep ball if you load up to stop the run. The Owls have four new starters on their offensive line from a year ago, and although they have done a decent job run blocking, they have not protected the passer too well. They are giving up roughly one sack for every ten drop backs. The Owls spread the ball around in the passing game, and do not have a receiver with more than 12 catches, but they have a lot of size at the position.

Defense- 42nd in PPG, 35th in yds per carry, 70th in pass efficiency, 54th in yards per play
Temple lost arguably their six best players from a solid defensive unit a year ago, but they have done a solid job so far this year stopping the run and getting after the passer. They bring the heat on blitzes a lot, but nobody has more than two sacks, they lost both of their ends form last year, despite them ranking 9th nationally in sacks per game. Freshman linebacker Nate Smith leads the way against the run with 31 tackles on the year, and Levi Brown is a strong anchor in the middle at nose tackle. This group is physical and aggressive, but they can get beat through the air, if you are bale to protect your quarterback.

Conclusion
Temple is a very well coached team who will not beat them selves with turnovers or penalties. They may have MAC talent, but they are playing great football right now, and have upset two Big East teams this year. They can really run the ball with Harris and Coyer, but if you get ahead of them and force them to throw, you can stop them as they aren't great at throwing the ball. Their defense gets after the passer and can stop the run, but their secondary hasn't been great, despite not facing any great passing teams. The Owls are a tough, gritty team who can knock you off if you're not careful.