Penn State Nittany Lions vs Temple Owls Football Preview

Temple at Penn State: In most years, this would be a laugher. This Saturday, the chances are that few people at Beaver Stadium will be laughing late in the third quarter. 

Yes, the Nittany Lions and iconic coach Joe Paterno should be able to dig out a win this weekend in Happy Valley, but their task isn’t as simple as it would have been 12 years ago or so. Temple, for so long the ultimate doormat in the Northeastern United States, has become a very respectable football program under a promising young coach. Penn State has won its last 27 games against its in-state rival, but the Nittany Lions have not been particularly impressive to this point in 2010, and this year’s Owls will present a stiffer challenge than usual.

Last week, Penn State was inconsistent despite beating Kent State, 24-0. Freshman quarterback Robert Bolden has completed 50 of 85 passes for 600 yards and three touchdowns, but he has also thrown five interceptions for the Lions this year. 

Yet, for all the ways in which Bolden is certifiably scuffling, he hasn’t gotten much help from his star running back.  Evan Royster has started very slowly in September, with just 110 yards rushing on 31 carries over the course of three full games.  Backup Stephfon Green has 22 carries for 104 yards, which offers a better yards-per-carry average but hardly anything to get really excited about. 

Speaking of being excited, that’s what Temple is right now. For one thing, the best running back in this matchup is Temple’s Bernard Pierce, who ran for 169 yards and three touchdowns in the Owls’ surprising 30-16 win over Connecticut at home last week. Pierce has met expectations, unlike Royster, the upperclassman who needs to snap out of a funk as quickly as possible if the Nittany Nation is to enjoy a satisfying 2010 campaign.

The Lions’ ground game might be able to start rolling on Saturday, though, as Temple allowed 240 yards rushing against Connecticut, which actually led 16-14 in the fourth quarter before Temple’s Adrian Robinson executed a strip-and-score, returning a fumble 24 yards for a touchdown with 8:28 to play. That massive display of dynamic defense enabled Temple to take down one of the Big East’s more touted teams, just one week after the Owls barely avoided an upset bid by Central Michigan. Temple slogged through an ugly 13-10 overtime win against CMU, so the step-up effort against Connecticut caught much of the college football community off guard.

Temple coach Al Golden, a Penn State alumnus who played for Joe Paterno and later coached on Paterno’s staff, hopes to lead the Owls to their first win over the Nittany Lions since 1941. What’s quite interesting about this matchup is that Golden’s name has been whispered as a potential successor to JoePa. The speculation is ridiculously premature, because Paterno deserves to stage his exit the way he sees fit (and that’s if Paterno ever does choose to retire; he might not, and rightly so). Yet, what’s not premature is that Golden can coach the bejeezus out of his football team. He’s totally transformed the culture at Temple, and already has the Owls halfway toward bowl eligibility before the end of September.

If Temple can make a few of the high-impact defensive plays it produced against Connecticut, JoePa just might sweat some bullets against a member of his coaching tree.

This isn’t your father’s Penn State-Temple game. That much is clear.

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