Game Analysis

TEMPLE (-7)  28   Tulsa  26

After two really bad performances in home losses to Villanova and Buffalo the Owls of Temple turned this around last week with a resounding 35-14 road win at Maryland. Temple is not as bad as those first two games and they’re certainly not as good as they were last week, although the change of quarterbacks (from Frank Nutile to Anthony Russo) looks like a good decision so far. Russo will have to be good again given how bad the Temple running game is (3.6 yards per rushing play) but Tulsa has actually been good defending the pass so far this season. The Golden Hurricane have yielded just 6.3 yards per pass play to 3 better than average passing teams and that defense has been better than average overall through 3 games, which is certainly surprising.

Another surprise is the fact that Tulsa’s offense has been the problem for that team, as the Hurricane have managed to average only 5.3 yards per play against teams that would allow 5.9 yppl to an average offensive team. Temple’s defense is 0.4 yppl better than average overall but Tulsa has an advantage running the football, as they’ve averaged 230 rushing yards per game at 5.1 yards per rushing play against a trio of pretty run defenses – including 5.0 yprp against a good Texas defense. Temple has allowed 5.2 yprp to teams that would combine to average only 4.5 yprp against an average team and the Hurricane should be able to move the chains by continuing to utilize their ground game (averaging 45 rushing plays per game).

Tulsa has been better than expected so far this season, as their defense looks like the 2016 version (just 0.1 yards per play worse than an average FBS team) rather than the horrible unit they had last season (1.6 yppl worse than average). I see value with the underdog in this game against a Temple team that’s been horrible in two of their 3 games so far.