Previewing The Cincinnati Bearcats v. The Temple Owls

The Cincinnati Bearcats’ 2015 football season gets really serious in a hurry. Their second game of the season is an AAC contest against the Temple Owls who are fresh off a defensive beatdown of Penn State 27-10, their first win over the Nittany Lions in 74 years.

OFFENSE

As has been the case for darn near a decade now, Temple’s offense revolves around the running game. With Kenneth Harper gone to graduation, Jahad Thomas is now the guy at running back. He averaged 4.8 yards per carry in 2014, is basically maintaining that this season (4.7), but with a boatload of more work. He walked all over Penn State in week one to the tune of 135 yards and two touchdowns. Quarterback P.J. Walker, fresh of a sophomore season in which he threw the ball 381 times and ran it 106 times in 2014, he maintained a similar ratio on Saturday; 20 passes to seven rushes. Clearly he’s as dangerous of a dual-threat quarterback as there is in the game.

The Achilles Heel for the Owls on this side of the ball is, as it’s always been, a lack of an explosive downfield threat. Walker can scramble around and make plays as much as he wants but if it’s all for naught if no one is getting open beyond the first down marker. Temple ranked 111th last season, averaging just six yards per passing attempt (UC was 25th with eight). While the Owls displayed a slight uptick in explosiveness against Penn State, that was but one game and not reflective of a team with the ability to take the top off the defense at will.

DEFENSE

This is where head coach Matt Rhule makes his money, even if he’s essentially coat tailing off of Al Golden and Steve Addazio’s efforts.

Temple’s defense led the AAC in passing and scoring defense and finished third in total defense in 2014. Their ten sacks on Christian Hackenberg, albeit facing an awful Penn State offensive line, was an American record. This is the same defense that held the Bearcats to 255 total yards and 14 points last year. It just so happens that the Owls’ offense was so unbelievably terrible that they couldn’t do much of anything on that side of the ball (267 total yards but just six points).

Temple’s defense returned basically every single contributor in 2015, including linebacker Tyler Matakevich (team leading 117 tackles in 2014), defensive tackle Matt Ioannidis (11 tackles for loss), Praise Martin-Oguike (seven sacks), and cornerback Tavon Young (four interceptions). It should be noted that Martin-Oguike is nursing a sore hamstring and won’t be 100% on Saturday. But the rest of Temple’s defense will surely be raring to go, especially after their performance against Penn State.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND PREDICTION

It might raise alarms to see the Bearcats’ normally high flying offense stymied on Saturday. I’ve been saying for a while that if UC gets into the endzone at least three times, they’ll be in good shape. The fact is that Temple had one of the stingiest defenses in the conference last season, held Cincinnati to a season low 14 points that year, and returned most of their players in 2015. This will be a grinder for the Bearcats and they’ll be hard pressed for points. But at the end of the day, Cincinnati is a far more balanced team than the Owls, with a defense that’s not quite up to the caliber of the offense, but solid. Temple’s, meanwhile, might be the most one-dimensional unit in the AAC and that bodes well for UC keeping them in check at Nippert.

Cincinnati: 24

Temple: 17