Defense offers a few brights spots in Saturday's loss
Temple has now lost five straight games after Saturday’s 37-8 loss to a 17th-ranked Houston team that has now won nine straight.
Temple’s offense was outgained by 432 to 218 yards and only picked up 10 first downs to Houston’s 23.
However, head coach Rod Carey liked what he saw from his defense.
“The defense, I thought, played well enough to win the game,” Carey said. “They were put in a lot of bad positions.”
As Carey would go on to say, Temple’s defense was on the field too long Saturday. The Owls lost the time of possession battle, 39 minutes and 22 seconds to 20:38. Most of that was because of Houston running for 217 yards.
Saturday marked the fifth-straight game that Temple allowed 200 or more rushing yards.
When explaining why he wasn’t too worried about it, Carey cited the lack of production from his offense.
“We’ve gotta get that offense going,” Carey said. “Whatever the numbers ended up being today, their offense versus our defense, I don’t put any stock in those.”
When asked what adjustments he’s been trying to make during the losing streak, Carey said he has “three-ringed binders after three-ringed binders of stuff that we’re doing every week.”
Temple plays a lot of nickel and dime, meaning they often substitute linemen and linebackers for defensive backs, leaving the defense susceptible to the run. However, players don’t see it that way.
“[Jeff] Knowles’ defense is great,” linebacker William Kwenkeu said of his defensive coordinator. “We have to execute better.”
On the surface, it appears as if Temple was helpless on defense. However, there were a few bright spots. The Owls tallied three sacks and nine additional tackles for loss for a total of 44 yards. The secondary also added five pass breakups to that.
Two of those sacks came from second-year freshman defensive tackle Darian Varner, and the other came from redshirt freshman safety M.J. Griffin, who led the team with 11 tackles, three tackles for a loss and two pass breakups.
However, if the defense wasn’t making splash plays, they were giving up something productive. Temple also lost the turnover battle 3-0, something else Kwenkeu touched on.
“We have to be able to create more opportunities for our offense by creating turnovers," Kwenkeu said.
Kwenkeu did mention that there are ups and downs and that he sees a turnaround coming soon for the Owls.
Safety Amir Tyler didn’t see it that way.
“You can’t play better if we ain’t win,” said Tyler. “They still scored 30 points.”
Tyler was also asked about Knowles’ defense. He didn’t say whether he liked it or not, but he did eliminate excuses from his teammates.
“We’ve been running it all year, so there’s not too much to say now,” Tyler said. “Everybody has to do their job, regardless of if they’re put in a bad circumstance or not.”
After Saturday’s loss, the Owls have now failed to qualify for a bowl game in back-to-back seasons after going 1-6 in last year’s COVID-shortened season. At this point, the next two games at Tulsa and home against Navy will serve as a measuring stick for young players.