Temple Into The Bye Week After Navy Loss
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Temple Owls sit at 1-1 on the season as they head into their bye week.
Temple lost its home opener on Saturday, falling to Navy 31-24 at the Linc. The Owls could not contain Navy's triple option attack as the Midshipmen rushed for 487 yards.
"It was disappointing for us not to be able to contain them," Temple head coach Matt Rhule tells KYW Newsradio. "Especially, we started out with a defensive touchdown, had some momentum. But Navy's an excellent team, they did a great job, they ran that (triple option) really to near perfection and they deserved to win the game."
After that Temple defensive touchdown to open the scoring, Navy scored 31 of the game's next 38 points. But to its credit, Temple kept battling, scoring the game's final ten points and putting itself in position late to extend the game.
"Our kids are learning how to be resilient," Rhule says. "Learning how to fight all the way to the end. We had the ball at the end of the game with a chance to tie and send it to overtime (drive ended with a fumble in Navy territory). Certainly was an exciting game, I think it was a good college football game. We just have to take the momentum from the end of the game and transfer it forward."
So now the Owls get a week off before returning to game action on September 20th at home against Delaware State. A bye week after just two games is a bit unusual in college football, but Rhule welcomes the break.
"I think this is a great time for us," Rhule says. "To have played an SEC team (Vanderbilt) and the triple option, we're a banged up football team right now. So I think to have a week to kind of regroup, get healthy, get back to fundamentals, I think that will allow us to build some momentum as we move forward to Delaware State and beyond."
Matt Leon spoke with Temple Head Football Coach Matt Rhule:
Matt Rhule
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.
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