Temple football, coming off a moral victory last Saturday in a 23-point loss to top-ranked Miami, will head down the coast to face another national championship coach in South Carolina’s Lou Holtz when the Owls (1-2) play the Gamecocks (1-2) Saturday at William Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C.
The game will mark the Owls’ first road test of this short season. South
Carolina is coming of two close losses against Virginia and Georgia.
Those set backs dropped them out of the top 25 rankings, and put the Gamecocks under .500 for the first time since 1999.
“When I look at us fundamentally, and take out a couple of plays, we are a pretty good football team,” said Holtz, in his fourth-year at Carolina after his long tenure at Notre Dame.
“But we are not as good a football team because of four areas (turnovers, effectiveness in the red zone, foolish penalties, and the kicking game).”
Last week, in their rain-soaked 13-7 loss to Georgia, the Gamecocks’ offense had a case of the turnover bug, as they fumbled the ball three times and had one pass intercepted.
Temple’s defense will look to continue that trend.
South Carolina has coughed up the ball 12 times this season, an immense turnaround from 15 a year ago.
“It’s got to be on South Carolina’s mind,” Temple coach Bobby Wallace said.
“It’s a mental thing for them and I’m sure they’re trying to correct it.
We’re going to try to make it even worse. It will be a key focus in the game.”
The Gamecocks are a little banged up on the offensive line.
They are led offensively by running quarterback Corey Jenkins, who has run for 307 yards this year, an average of 102.3 yards per game.
Temple is coming off a 44-21 loss to defending national champion Miami Hurricanes last week.
At one point in the game the Owls were only behind 21-14, but conceded to the superior ‘Canes.
The Owls did win their only game ever against this SEC team, a 26-6 season-opening victory against the Gamecocks in 1933 at historic Temple Stadium.
Approaching Saturday’s date with South Carolina, the Temple defense is led by senior tackle/end Dan Klecko, who had a dominant game against Miami.
He had four hurries, 2.5 tackles for a loss and a sack of Heisman Trophy candidate Ken Dorsey.
Temple’s spread offense will look to get Tarnardo Sharps off and running as he continues to move up the Temple all-time rushing yardage list.
Sharps ran the ball 20 times for 68 yards last week and has 2,277 career yards.
He is in fourth-place all-time at Temple.
Temple is looking for a big road win, one that can turn a season, or program around, and will look to do it against an opponent that was in Temple’s shoes a couple of seasons ago.
Matt Siticoff can be reached at Phil14367@aol.com
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