The biggest Temple-Tulane game in 91 years

Last year, this story ranked the Sugar Bowl between “Temple” and Tulane as the 12th best of all time

Most of the time when Temple plays Tulane the Owls are either very good or Tulane is very bad.

Or, as we’ve seen over the last couple of years, Temple being bad and Tulane being good.

The twain never met until now.

It’s finally time to get revenge for that loss 91 years ago.

Now, on an unusually beautiful 60-degree day on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field (3:45 p.m. kickoff), both Temple and Tulane are pretty good and the stakes are higher than any other meeting between the two teams in a long time.

How long?

The last time that happened was 91 years ago when the two teams played in the first Sugar Bowl game, won by Tulane, 20-14. (They brought the same refs that officiated this year’s Army game.)

Tulane is playing for an American Conference championship a spot in the college football playoff. Temple is playing for a bowl game.

Both things mean just as much to each team as the other thing does so something has to give.

From the Temple game plan perspective, it’s time to pull out all of the stops.

Attacking your opponents’ weaknesses means unleashing Evan Simon on the 127th-ranked passing defense by throwing more than 30 passes.

That doesn’t mean to panic but it does mean a lot more “imaginative” plays than what we have seen through 10 games.

That means setting Kajiya Hollawayne up for the reverse pass by giving him the ball a few times a jet sweep. Only after a couple of successful jet sweeps, have the former four-star UCLA quarterback sucker the defense into him and use that arm to hit JoJo Bermudez in stride for six. Being a great coach means taking advantage of the unique talent of your players and, when you have a wide receiver with a 4* arm, not using that arm is coaching malpractice.

Should be a beautiful day to enjoy the last home game of the season, so Temple fans should make plans now to support these kids.

Also, trust in the numbers, which never lie.

Attacking your opponents’ weaknesses means unleashing Evan Simon on the 127th-ranked passing defense by having him throw more than 30 passes. UTSA’s Owen McCown demonstrated the wisdom of that approach by going 31-for-33 for 370 yards with no interceptions four touchdowns.

Not surprisingly, UTSA won that game against Tulane, 48-26.

Simon is a better quarterback than McCown, at least in our opinion, and that is also is matchup advantage Temple needs to lean on heavily. If Temple’s Mon-Friday practices emphasize all of that, it’ll be a pretty sweet “T for Temple U” afterward. If it’s the same/old, same/old we’ve seen on offense all year, that won’t do.

Bombs Over Baghdad. Or at least South Philly.

Friday: Temple-Tulane Preview

2 thoughts on “The biggest Temple-Tulane game in 91 years

  1. Mismatch classic. One team battling for a spot in the conference championship, the other team battling demons.

    Tulane beat Temple last year 52-6. They sacked Simon 6 times. Temple had less than 180 yards total offense, and one Worthy run accounted for 75 of those 180 yards. Worthy is gone.

    What else has changed? The line of scrimmage imbalance remains. Temple canʻt win this game upfront. First, pick a poison on defense. Run blitz, and contain Retzlaff. Force him to beat you throwing the ball.

    Second, Temple canʻt win by running the ball on offense. And, they donʻt have the speed to run by Tulane. A controlled passing attack is the only way Temple can score enough points to take the game to the 4th quarter.

    There is hope, UTSA did beat Tulane this year. But Tulane turned the ball over 4 times.

    It comes down to this, can Temple lose at the line of scrimmage and still win the game? What is the game plan? Will the first Temple play on offense be a handoff to Ducker between the tackles? If so, then the 5000 fans who did show up might as well leave.

    Excluding the academies, itʻs no coincidence the top teams in the American are the teams leading the conference in revenue share. Tulane had the money to go get Retzlaff, Temple didnʻt have a chance with T. Chambliss. A tale of two programs on different paths.

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