East Carolina Pirates vs Temple Owls Preview
Last time the East Carolina Pirates were on the field, they established a balanced attack that defeated the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. James Summers had important action and the defense was heavily involved. Most of Tulsa’s points came in the fourth quarter with the game out of reach.
Now the Pirates return to the field to face the most obnoxious loss on last year’s schedule. Last year, the Pirates dominated the Owls statistically but gave away the ball too many times. The result was a Temple win and the beginning of the season’s derailment.
This year it is the Owls who are flying high, coming in with a ranking in the top 25 of the AP Poll. This year it is the Pirates who are looking to create some juice by knocking off one of the better teams in the American Athletic Conference. The Pirates would love to return the favor for last year’s loss. Temple may have its mind on other things, like their battle with Notre Dame next week.
Opponent: Temple Owls (6-0, 3-0 AAC)
Date: October 22
Time: 7:00 PM
TV: ESPN2
Venue: Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium
X – Temple’s Run Defense
Temple has been great against the run against its last two opponents. UCF and Tulsa could not get their ground games working against it. The run has become increasingly important to the Pirates, but they showed that they could still go the old way. Will this game have more Blake Kemp, or will the Pirates let Summers throw a little bit? A return to the proper Air Raid seems to be the way around this road block.
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Y – Jahad Thomas
The other side of that coin is the Temple running game. Temple ground up Central Florida for almost two hundred rushing yards from Thomas. Thomas is the best rusher in the conference with almost eight hundred yards on the season. The Pirates have shown a struggle with the run against Navy, but that was weeks ago now. The same Pirate defense that stymied Virginia Tech will be needed to stop the running game of Temple.
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Z – Crowd Support
Though this is usually a given for the Pirates fans, they need to make an extra Thursday night effort to disrupt the Temple play calling. A few false starts or delays of game never hurt anyone.
Prediction: 31-28 Temple