Moving on to the 2015 NCAA Football Regular Season we come upon 2 American Athletic Conference rivals both of which have had good seasons to date thru Week 11! That is the 8-2 Tigers of Memphis (AAC-West 6-0) playing at the 8-2 Owls of Temple (AAC-East 5-1) with the game being played at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with kick off scheduled for 2:05 PM ET and seen on ESPN TV.
The early Vegas odds for those that Bet on College Football have the Tigers of Memphis favored at -1 1/2 and with the Over/under at 58 ½ and -125 on the Money Line, while the Owls of Memphis are slight underdogs at +1 ½ and +105 on the ML.
Yes, in this game we have the 2 big dogs of the AAC with the Tigers of Memphis taking on the Owls of Temple, as the Tigers dropped further behind AAC leader Houston who is 10-0 and beat the Tigers, and Navy at 8-1 in the AAC-West race. Meanwhile the Owl got a setback for the 2nd time in 2015, the 1st to Notre Dame 24-20 and then to South Florida 44-29, and now at 8-2 need to continue stay on top of the AAC-East.
If you like the 8-2 Tigers of Memphis, your team appeared on track for a win last Saturday against Houston, but the Cougars came back to beat the Tigers to remain undefeated in the AAC with the 35-34 win. Thus, the Tigers lost its ultimate 2 games and against the Owls of Temple seek to halt that losing streak this Saturday.
In that last game the Tiger offense was on course for most of the game, but then came 2 costly turnovers and their defense collapsed. Then their QB P. Lynch who began the game as the AAC leader in passing passed for 278 yards and 2 TD’s, while suffering 1 intercept in that game. RB D. Dorceus had 26 carries for some 118 yards rushing.
The offense for Memphis has led the scoring in the AAC with an average of 44 points each game, and are 2nd with 542 yards of total offense each game. Those stats will be hard to repeat against the Owls of Temple who have only allowed their opponents to some 358 total yards each game this season.
On defense the Tigers in this game will need to step up their action in order to handle the Temple offense more precisely. However, the Temple offense is not as powerful as that of Houston’s who are 2nd in the ACC at 45 points each game, while Temple averages some 34 points each game and 362 yards, and that ranks them 9th in the AAC.
Now if you like the also 8-2 Owls of Temple, you team was another that had a bad Saturday last week as they got beat by South Florida 44-23, and that was a setback for the Temple defense that had ranked 1st in the AAC for total defense as well as scoring defense.
The South Florida QB Q. Flowers had an easy day destroying the Owl’s defense passing for 232 yards and 2 TD’s and no intercepts on his 15 completions of 22 attempts. However, their defensive secondary is still tops in the ACC, but they will have to step up their efforts against the Tigers, as their QB Paxton is for real. The Owl’s are 2nd in ACC defending against the past as they allow opponents some 226 yards passing per game to date. The Temple team also needs some repair on their defense against the run, as they had allowed the Bulls a 328 yard rushing spree. On offense their RB P. Thomas could be problematic for the Tigers defense as in the South Florida game he scored 1 TD and rushed for 75 yards, while he is leading the AAC Conference with 15 TD’s and a total of 1,036 rushing yards this season.
The prediction in this game is that the Owls of Temple will easily cover the spread and beat the Tigers of Memphis 35-28 in this highly contested AAC rivalry game.