Temple at Army in NCAA Opening Week Football

The Temple Owls (4-8 SU, 8-4 ATS in 2007) certainly hope it’s a new era for them as they travel up the Hudson River and tackle the Cadets of Army (3-9 SU, 4-6-1 ATS in 2007) in an NCAA football matchup that is set for Friday and a 7 PM ET kickoff at Michie Stadium (artificial turf) in West Point, N.Y.

BetUS NCAA Football Betting Odds: TEMPLE -7, Total 41
Army’s offense was ranked 116th in the country last season, and the Cadets, under second-year coach Stan Brock, who just beat cancer, are going to move back to more of an option-oriented attack. But questions revolve around whether Carson Williams, who completed 52.6% of his passes last year, is the right guy to run that offense.

Growing pains are likely, And the leading receiver coming back for Army is Mike Wright, who made only 12 catches all season. If Brock’s new approach creates more of a culture of running the football, that would be a good thing, because the Cadets ran for only 2.6 yards a pop in 207, compared with the five yards a carry they yielded to opposing offenses. One of the teams Army was able to run the ball on last year was this Temple squad, and indeed Brock’s team put together its best effort of the season in handing the Owls a 37-21 defeat, ambling for 154 yards on the ground.
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Temple is coming back this season with 21 returning starters, which obviously makes them more formidable. It’s not as if coach Al Golden, who, with four wins last year, matched the effort of the last four years combined, has hit the mother lode in recruiting, but he’s got all the top rushers and all the top receivers back for QB Adam DiMichele (61.9%, 12 TD’s in 2007), who survived a challenge from Vaughn Charlton to hold on to his spot. But this offense still has a lot of work to do, as it averaged just 16 points last season. And Temple is not going to extract an edge with its poor special teams.

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