Army runs past Temple, 42-14

The scoreboard will show that Temple got blown out Thursday night on national television.

The game tape will show that the Owls had some chances to put some points on the board early and gain some momentum before things got out of control.

But a few unfortunate officiating calls, Army’s triple-option attack, and a relentless Black Knights defense eventually wore Temple down in a 42-14 loss that dropped the Owls to 1-4 on the season.

Army improved to 4-0 and was clearly the better team Thursday night. A Black Knights defense that hadn’t registered a sack prior to Thursday night dropped Temple quarterback Evan Simon seven times and held the Owls to a paltry seven rushing yards on 19 carries, with the negative sack yardage putting a dent in an already sparse total.

Offensively, Army did what it usually does even better for good measure. The Black Knights reeled off 417 rushing yards, 61 more than they were averaging through the season’s first three games. Quarterback Bryson Daily racked up 152 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries, while South Jersey product Kanye Udoh added 128 yards and a touchdown on just 14 carries.

Temple, which now has nine days before it plays again on Oct. 5 at UConn, made things a bit interesting when Simon hit freshman tight end Daniel Evert for a 54-yard touchdown that helped close the gap to 28-14 with 11:19 left to play, but Daily responded with a 12-yard touchdown run almost four minutes later to put the game out of reach.

Simon, who went 19 of 30 passing for 224 yards, two touchdowns and a late interception, walked gingerly into his postgame media session after taking a tough hit late in the game when his head coach Stan Drayton elected to keep him on the field during the Owls’ final possession despite the game being well out of reach.

“It was a physical game,” Simon said. “I’m definitely going to be sore in the morning.”

Temple will be shaking off more than soreness Friday morning. The Owls will be lamenting missed opportunities, too.

After Army won the toss and deferred, Temple took the ball and appeared to be on its way to a 7-0 lead seven plays later when Simon connected with Antonio Jones on what would have been a 49-yard touchdown pass, but the officials saw what they felt was a hold on redshirt-junior left tackle Diego Barajas that nullified the play.

Temple punted two plays later, and Army slotback Noah Short scored on a 61-yard run three plays after that to help put the Black Knights ahead 7-0 at the 9:48 mark of the first quarter.

Later on in the second quarter, after Army jumped ahead by 14-0 courtesy of a Daily 8-yard touchdown run, Temple’s next drive stalled after seven plays. Army’s Jayden Mayes muffed Dante Atton’s 39-yard punt, and Owls long snapper Andrew McIlquham appeared to jump on the ball and possess it while down on the field before Mayes took it away from him.

But instead of Temple getting the ball at the Army 9-yard line with a chance to get within seven, the officials ruled that Mayes had recovered the ball.

Down 14-0 as halftime approached, the Owls looked like they might be able to steal three points after defensive end Diwun Black looked to have forced a turnover on a strip sack of Daily with fellow defensive end Tra Thomas recovering the ball. Replays slowed Daily’s arm had clearly not moved forward, but the officiating crew somehow saw it differently, overturned the call and ruled it an incomplete pass, and Army went into halftime two plays later up 14.

Had the call stood, Temple would have gotten the ball at the Army 39 with 11 seconds left before halftime. At worst, the Owls could have trotted Maddux Trujillo out for a 56-yard field goal attempt five days after he hit a program and Lincoln Financial Field record 64-yard kick, but the overturned call took what could have been three points off the board.

Drayton wasn’t in the mood to make excuses after the game.

“They called the game the way they saw it,” Drayton said. “Some of those things were under review and confirmed the calls. It wasn't the referee's cause of why we lost this ballgame today, so I’m not gonna go into that.”

Drayton had what appeared to be a long conversation with the officials on the muffed punt before the play was reviewed. Asked about it postgame, Drayton again refused to complain about the officiating.

“He called it how he saw it,” Drayton said. “I don’t believe they’re out there trying to be favorable in any way. They called it how they saw it. He basically told me what he saw and called it how he saw it.

Drayton himself rightfully saw a lot of mistakes from his team. In his opening statement to reporters, he said they didn’t protect the quarterback well, as evidenced by the seven sacks, although Drayton later said his receivers were running routes too deep on certain occasions.

While it would have been naïve for anyone to expect Temple to snuff out what had been a potent and steady triple-option rushing attack by Army, the Owls were particularly bad in defending it on several occasions.

“Those guys are a veteran group over there,” Drayton said. “No one’s stopped the run against them all year, and I don’t want to let that be an excuse as well. But we’ve got to get off blocks. We got to make sure that we are tackling properly, and there's some mistakes that were made. We were out of gaps at times. Safeties didn't support the run from time to time. This really, really got out of hand, but that's what they do, and they're really damn good at it, but we’ve got to find a way to interiorly be a lot more stout than what we showed today. I know we're a better outfit than what we showed today.”

Nine days from now, Drayton’s team will get a chance to find out if that’s really the case.

Watch Thursday night's postgame interviews here.