The American Athletic Conference will help get the October portion of the college football season started with a mid-week game between the East Carolina Pirates and Temple Owls. Kickoff is set for 8:00 EST on Thursday, October 3 at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium in Greenville, North Carolina. The game can be seen on ESPN.
Oddsmakers list the Owls as 11.5-point favorites on the road with an over/under of 47.5 points. Click here for a full list of this week’s college football odds.
On paper, the Pirates are in good shape at 3-2 under new head coach Mike Houston. However, two of ECU’s wins have come against FCS opponents, including an unconvincing 19-7 win over William & Mary. The third win was a close call last week over Old Dominion, as the Pirates won 24-21. Meanwhile, their two losses were both lopsided affairs to NC State and Navy by a combined score of 76-16.
If the Pirates can find three wins in their final seven games, they’ll have a chance to reach a bowl game, which would be a huge step forward for Houston and ECU. However, their schedule doesn’t set up well for them in the AAC East division. If they can pull off the upset over Temple, things might look a little different. But right now, the odds are stacked against ECU making it to six wins.
As for Temple, they are coming off a 24-2 win over ACC opponent Georgia Tech, pushing the Owls to 3-1 on the season. Temple also had an impressive home win over Big Ten opponent Maryland earlier this season, giving them two wins over power-conference teams. Unfortunately, sandwiched in the middle of those two victories was a disappointing loss to Buffalo.
Thursday’s game will be Temple’s conference opener, and based on their two wins over Maryland and Georgia Tech, the Owls have a chance to makes some noise in the AAC this season. Of course, that’s easier said than done with two ranked teams left on the schedule.
The good news for the Owls is that they’re 5-0 against East Carolina since both schools joined the AAC. The Owls won last year’s meeting in Philadelphia 49-6, giving the Pirates a lot of ground to make up on the Owls this season.
For whatever reason, it’s tough to go against home teams on Thursdays. But this game definitely qualifies as an exception to that. East Carolina has a long way to go as a program, as evidenced by their blowout losses to NC State and Navy. I don’t think Temple is that far beneath either of those teams. As long as the Owls aren’t overlooking ECU, I have no problem eating the points for the road favorites.
If there’s one weakness on Temple that East Carolina might be able to exploit, it’s their rush defense. The inability to stop the run is what cost the Owls in their loss to Buffalo. They also struggled a little in their wins over Maryland or Georgia Tech. However, I’m not convinced the Pirates are good enough to take advantage of that weakness. They’ve been able to push around their two FCS opponents, but they’ve not run the ball well against their other opponents. Even last week against Old Dominion, ECU gained a modest three yards per carry on the ground.
At the same time, I have little faith in the East Carolina passing attack. Quarterback Holton Ahlers is averaging less than 200 yards passing game, which is crazy considering that he’s played two games against FCS opponents. More importantly, he’s completing just 54% of his passes and has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns. That’s not going to cut it against a Temple defense that more or less kept a shutout last week and gave Maryland quarterback Josh Jackson a world of trouble a few weeks ago.
On the other side of the ball, the East Carolina defense hasn’t fared well against FBS teams. I don’t put much stock in their game against the Navy triple-option. But they allowed NC State to gain over 500 yards and score 13 points above their season average. Despite a good showing last week against Old Dominion, I have my doubts about them being able to keep the Temple offense under wraps.
To be fair, the Owls are by no means a juggernaut offensively. But they do have a potent rushing tandem in Re’Mahn Davis and Jager Gardner. Those two are complemented by quarterback Anthony Russo, who’s in his second season as Temple’s start. In fairness, Russo has had a rocky start to the season, already throwing six interceptions. However, he also has 10 touchdown passes in four games and looked quite good early in the season. If he can get back on track against an ECU defense that has some holes, the Owls should finish with a sizable point total.
In the end, I’m expecting the Temple defense to clamp down and hold East Carolina to 10 points or less. Outside of their win over Gardner Webb, the Pirates are averaging less than 15 points per game. I can see ECU struggling to reach that total, which means that even a modest output by the Temple offense will be enough to cover the 11.5-point spread.