A fluid situation: Temple’s home schedule

Up until a few days ago, the last weekend of September was already planned.

Tailgate on Saturday morning, a game on Saturday afternoon.

Then the schedule makers changed things up by moving the Saturday afternoon home game against Army to a Friday night game.

There are good and bad things about that Friday night (9/25) date.

First the good.

Temple gets a chance to open some eyes on national TV against a respected opponent.

Then the bad.

From Temple’s perspective, an extra practice day against Army is always a good thing especially considering that the Owls have to travel to Toledo on Sept. 19, which is exactly one week after the home Penn State game.

Not an ideal situation, so maybe head coach K.C. Keeler will set aside a practice day per week to install defensive principles against Army and Navy.

Whatever problems Temple had against Army were offensive-related, not defensive, in a 14-13 loss. You limit Army to 14 and you should be able to win the game. My feeling last year was Temple didn’t take advantage of its passing game and played into Army’s hands.

Maybe that approach changes this year. We’ll see.

Evan Simon threw for over 300 yards against Navy but didn’t get that same chance because Army capitalized on the time of possession. He uncharacteristically overthrew tight end Peter Clarke in the end zone and that would have given the Owls the win.

Also problematic in the Army game a year ago was a 45-yard field goal miss by Carl Hardin. You get so few scoring opportunities against Army, you have to cash it and Temple missed two big chances there.

The realization in this day and ago is that the schedule is so fluid fans will have to rearrange any plans they have given the time of games and day of games. That’s all due to TV controlling things.

It’s not ideal but it’s all part of the imperfect college football world we live in today.

Friday: A Second All-American

Monday: Legacy Pecking Order

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