College Football Week 5: Army vs. Temple

Week 5 of the college football season begins with a double-digit road favorite, as the Army Black Knights square off with the Temple Owls. This Thursday marks the last one with only one game until Halloween night in Week 10 and, in fact, we’ll be adding Tuesday and Wednesday football when we get to the second week of October.

For now, it’s Army vs. Temple and a game that draws the solo spotlight on ESPN.

 

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Army Black Knights (-13.5, 45.5) at Temple Owls

Thursday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)

What a rare spot for Army, as they’ll face the Owls for the third game in a row. Actually, their entire schedule has been for the birds, opening up with the Lehigh Mountain Hawks before playing Florida Atlantic and Rice. Thus far, Army has been killing many birds with many stones, as they’ve outscored the opposition 103-28, including 61-21 in their two FBS games.

The story is the same as it always is for the Knights, who have rushed for 356 yards per game, which ranks second to UCF. Navy is fourth and Air Force is 64th. Army’s 6.28 yards per carry also rank 12th in the nation. They’ve rushed for 346.5 yards per game against their two FBS opponents and will probably find success running against a Temple defense that has given up over 5.3 yards per carry.

The Owls have already faced an option team, as they took on the Midshipmen and lost 38-11 to the new-look Navy squad. OC Drew Cronic has put a lot of wrinkles into the offense, whereas Army’s run game is way more traditional, especially being back under center. Nevertheless, Navy had 5.8 yards per carry on 51 attempts in that one.

But, the Owls have improved the last two weeks. They outgained Coastal Carolina in the 28-20 loss and then scored 45 points and had 6.6 yards per play against Utah State last week. Rutgers transfer Evan Simon has a 7/1 TD/INT ratio in two starts after taking over for Forrest Brock, who had the job coming into the season.

The recent efficiency shown by Temple’s offense will need to carry over because they are unlikely to get a lot of possessions here. Army has averaged just under 37 minutes of possession through three games, second only to Oregon State.

My line on the game is 10.5, so a lean towards the Temple side. But, I actually like Over 45.5 more. In the FAU game where Army only scored 24 points, they had a plus territory fumble, a red zone field goal, and a 14-play, 34-yard, 8:44 drive to end the game. FAU also only had 235 yards and looks to be one of the worst teams in FBS. Temple is at least showing some signs on offense and I know they have a bad run defense.

Army also scored 37 points coming out of the bye week against a better opponent, so I think they installed some more offense and are ready to go here. Plus, Temple has a short week to work on dissecting the option. Even though they’ve done it once, it didn’t really help them.

Pick: Over 45.5

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