Temple likes chances against Penn State

TEMPLE first-year coach Steve Addazio insists that the margin for error for his football team tomorrow against Penn State is "minuscule."

When you haven't beaten somebody in 7 decades, that's probably a pretty safe assumption.

Yet he wasn't here for all those consecutive losses. Except for the last few years, neither were these Owls players.

The only relevant stuff is that Temple, which nearly won last year in Happy Valley and appears to be one of the best teams in the Mid-American Conference, has rolled two overmatched opponents while the Nittany Lions, who probably fit in somewhere near the middle of the Big Ten, are coming off a home loss to second-ranked Alabama at home.

If Temple had just scored 11 points against the Crimson Tide, and Penn State had beaten Akron by a bundle, who knows what people would be thinking right now? But the point spread is single digits (8), the lowest it has been in forever, for a reason. Of course, how much that means when they start banging helmets at Lincoln Financial Field remains to be played out.

If nothing else, at least it doesn't seem to be only a matter of whether Temple might cover any more.

"I like our team, but their talent level is [still] outstanding," Addazio said. "They're an upper-tier BCS program, make no mistake about that. Their defensive front is SEC-caliber.

"We're glad we're in the buzz, and playing well. We want to go play this game nose up. If we win, it'll be a great day. If we don't, then we'll go back and try to figure out why. Who knows what the outcome's going to be? But you wouldn't want it any other way.

"We have some guys who've played some football, but we're still young. There's still some growing that has to take place. Last week we put the ball on the ground four times, lost it once. We can't do that and survive this week. Same for them now. We've got to understand that we've got to attack that way, and sustain that way. We've got to get to the fourth quarter and let them fight for the win."

If the Owls lose, their season's hardly over. They're at Maryland next week before hosting Toledo, which was picked to win the MAC West. The Owls never have been to a MAC title game, and haven't won a bowl game in 32 years. And those realities will be out there even if they get to 3-0 in consecutive seasons for the first time since the Great Depression.

Either way, there's going to be a bunch left to deal with.

This is how quickly a landscape can move. Villanova, which lost a starting lineman to injury in spring practice, lost wide receiver Norman White with an injury in preseason camp. In last week's loss at Towson State, a team that already was rebuilding lost quarterback Dustin Thomas (shoulder) and wideout Joe Price (rib, lung).

So they're hosting Monmouth (0-1) in tomorrow's home opener using a true freshman (Chris Polony) at quarterback, one of 17 first-year players.

"We need to not really worry about who we're playing right now," coach Andy Talley said. "We need to worry about how we are playing. We're still trying to find a way. I'm not sure that our guys yet know how to play banged up. That's another tangible, when you lose as many [good] players as we had. All those things we're trying to recapture, to see if we can back in the dance again . . .

"We have to be really careful with the game plan. It's compounded because a lot of the weapons aren't there. Our offense is predicated on a quarterback that can run. Chris is a good runner, but not as good as Dustin. So while we'll run some option stuff, we're going to try and protect him a little bit. He is a good passer and he's poised. How he'll respond in this situation is a true unknown. But he was given Dustin a run for his money in the preseason."

The backup is walk-on senior Christian Culicerto, who played when Thomas went down.