A plus from this film is that SMU does not appear to have a significant home field advantage.

Fortunately, they do not play football real football games on paper or Madden or Xbox because, if you input all of the relevant statistics into a computer, Saturday’s game (3 p.m., EST) at SMU does not favor Temple in any way.

The Owls have struggled against passing teams and the Mustangs are the No. 8 passing team in the nation. Heck, the Owls have struggled against passing teams for the last two years. These stats against just four foes illustrates that a lot better than mere words:

Not good. Not good at all. Add to that Idaho, freaking Idaho I call them because I still cannot believe Temple lost to that team, had 301 yards against the Owls and it’s hard to imagine SMU not pushing 400 through the air on Saturday.

I think the Owls do have some talent on the back line of their secondary, particularly in players like Anthony Robey and Tavon Young and maybe Young’s interception last week was the start of something big.

Let’s hope so. SMU has a big-time quarterback in Garrett Gilbert, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound senior who has put up some amazing statistics: 208 completions in 329 attempts for 2,096 yards and 11 touchdowns so far this season. Worse yet, the Owls have shown an alarming tendency for giving up the “easy” patterns, the slant and the out. Brendan Kay used the out to complete 31 of 37 attempts. Two Houston quarterbacks went 29 for 48 with mostly slants over the middle.

Click on the Vandy guys for 5 upsets this week.

SMU coach June Jones, an accomplished college football coach who knows what he’s doing, probably has figured that out by now.

What can Temple do, then?

I’ve always said there are three keys to winning in football, from the Pee-Wee Level to the NFL: 1) Limit turnovers; 2) Protect your quarterback; 3) Put the other quarterback on his ass.

Although all are important for Temple this Saturday, No. 3 should be the No. 1 priority this week if  the Owls are going to have any chance to win.  Guys like Matt Ioannidis, Shabaz Ahmed and Averee Robinson MUST put relentless pressure on Gilbert. It can’t be a part-time, some-time thing. It must be a full-time thing, both sacks and knockdowns. That’s a lot of pressure heaped upon very few young guys, but if they get to Gilbert early and often, they might be able to force fumbles and interceptions. Robinson had five sacks in the spring game. If he gets two or three in this one and Ahmed a pair and Ioannidis just one, the Owls win going away. Or any combination of five or more.  No sacks mean no win. The guys up front must give guys like Robey and Young a chance to intercept the ball by pressuring Gilbert into mistakes.

Those guys have shown signs of coming on and they must all have good games on Saturday if the Owls are going to come away with a win.  SMU is beatable. The Mustangs needed a last-second play to beat the lone FCS team on their schedule, Montana State, 31-30. Montana State is 5-2. The Owls failed to beat the lone FCS team on their schedule, losing on a last-second play to 8-0 Fordham.

Nothing on paper says the Owls will win, but this game will be played on the same sprint turf kind of surface the Owls practice on every day and,  if they are able to put Gilbert on it enough, they can put the pre-game paper in the shredder.

Tyler Matakevich is going to become the first player in the nation to hit 100 tackles this season.

James Casey while playing quarterback for the Rice Owls.

All of this talk about James Casey being the “emergency quarterback” of the Philadelphia Eagles got me to looking up Casey’s credentials as a potential quarterback should both Michael Vick and Matt Barkley go down on Sunday.
Since Nick Foles already is out with a concussion, it looks like Casey would not be in over his head as a quarterback because he was more than a serviceable at that position while playing for the Owls.
The Rice Owls.

Call James Casey the Chris Coyer of Rice. Or, if you will, call Chris Coyer the James Casey of Temple. Very similar skill sets. Very similar-type players.

Temple’s Chris Coyer catching at a halfback option pass from Jalen Fitzpatrick for a first down in front of Deiontrez Mount and Keith Brown. (See, trick plays do work.)

Casey, like Coyer, made a position change his senior year and, like Coyer, moved from quarterback to tight end.
Unlike Coyer, though, the coaching staff at Rice used Casey wisely as he became the first player in the history of the NCAA to do this: Throw a touchdown, run for a touchdown and catch a touchdown all in the same game. Casey did this twice for the Owls.

Casey was second in the country in 2008 with 111 receptions, which set a Conference-USA record. He caught 13 touchdowns, rushed for six more and threw a pair. Those are the kind of stats I thought Coyer could have put up if he was targeted enough in the Temple offense this season. That’s not going to happen, but that doesn’t mean he can’t throw for a touchdown, run for a touchdown and pass for a touchdown in one or two or more of the remaining Temple games.

Since there are five games left, I’d like to see Coyer do this twice, maybe three times, for Temple.
Heck, five times would be nice but I realize I’ve been spitting into the wind all season on this issue.
Coyer is a pretty talented player. Those of us who have seen him all these years, even his one or two detractors (don’t get those people, but they are out there), have to agree on that.
He can run. He can throw. He can catch. He can block.
I realize Coyer is needed to block now more than ever, but I would like to see some plays to free him up to throw the ball out of non-Wildcat formations. On those plays, Chris Parthemore (see his perfect seal block in the slideshow below) can be used as a blocking tight end.
Since there currently are no plays in the Marcus Satterfield playbook for the tight end reverse, pitch and throw downfield, maybe line Coyer up as a fullback, have him rip off a few runs to set up a toss pitch option pass downfield.

Great play for Coyer, running to the left, not the right as shown here.

Too much to ask?
Yeah, probably.

I asked Chris after the game on Saturday if the tight end reverse, toss and throw downfield off it was in the playbook and he said no.

My immediate reaction was to say a four-letter word preceded by the word “Oh.” (Sorry, Mrs. Coyer.)

There should be a way, though, to have Coyer run the a couple of plays out of the fullback position, establish himself as a threat running the ball inside the tackles and then quick toss and have him throw the ball down the field. I’m 90 percent certain you can get a safety to bite with that kind of setup.

It worked a few times for the Rice Owls with James Casey.

It can also work for the Temple Owls with Chris Coyer.