Owls have to deal with blowout win

THREE WEEKS AGO, Temple won at Maryland by 31 points. A week later, it lost at home to Toledo by 23. Last week, the Owls (4-2, 2-1 MAC East) won at Ball State, 42-zip.

Tomorrow afternoon, they host Buffalo (2-4, 1-1), which just upset preseason division favorite Ohio.

So, how will the Owls react to another blowout win this time?

"It's a constant education as to what is true," said first-year coach Steve Addazio. "The facts are, we have to be smart enough to figure out that we have to practice hard, that we have to have an edge to us, that we can't take our foot off the gas. That's human nature. We've got to fight that. We know that's a failure for us.

"We've got to play our style. We've got to bring our lunch pail to work, go bloody someone's nose. That's who we are. There's a molding that has to take place. They all have to understand it, buy into it and demand it. That's what we're working on right now.

"There's no question [Toledo] was a learning lesson for us. The concern is, in the society we're in today, you can really back-burner that stuff. I just don't want [us] to feel really good at all. Every week should be a grind. You have to embrace it, if you want to excel. If you start having a team that just wants to get through practice, you're BSing yourself. I don't want to give you the impression we've got that figured out [yet]. It's like you go on a diet and you lose weight. The next thing you want to do is go eat."

The Owls have lost three of their last four at the Linc, after winning 10 straight before that.

They're favored by three touchdowns. They should not be an underdog the rest of the regular season, not even at Ohio on Nov. 2, in the game that figures to determine who gets to Detroit for the Dec. 2 MAC finale.

The Quakers (2-2, 1-0 Ivy) have played their last non-league game. They haven't lost in the Ivies in almost 3 years. They haven't lost to Columbia (0-4, 0-1) since 1996. But the last time they lost in New York, in 1995, it broke Penn's 16-game Ivy winning streak, and an FCS record 24-game winning streak.

This will also be the first time the Quakers aren't playing at night.

"It'll be nice to see a little daylight for a change," said coach Al Bagnoli. "We're coming off probably our most complete game [35-20 win over Fordham]. We looked to improve from the week before, and I think we accomplished that. It was a positive step from Dartmouth [22-20, last-second win]. I hope we can continue that.

"We're getting close to where I'd like us to be, but we're still not there yet. But the last 2 weeks we've made a lot of strides in the right direction. We've got an awful lot of young kids, and we're banged up. But we completed 18 straight passes between the last drive of the Dartmouth game and the start with Fordham. I'm not sure we could have done that before, if we were running [against] air."

The Wildcats (1-5, 0-3 CAA) are at No. 13 James Madison (4-2, 2-1). So what else is new?

Last week, Villanova was at No. 6 New Hampshire, a week after hosting then-No. 11 William & Mary. Next week, it's No. 18 Old Dominion. At least that one's back on the Main Line. And No. 16 Maine and No. 8 Delaware await.

Did we mention that the Wildcats have three seniors on the depth chart, and 14 freshmen? They knew it wasn't going to be an easy season, coming off the 3-year run that included a national title. But nobody figured it would deteriorate like this.

"We won't be where we need to be until we solidify up front [on the offensive line], and that may take another year," said coach Andy Talley. "We need a quarterback who can get out of trouble. We get [redshirt freshman] Dustin Thomas back, so we'll see how that works."

Thomas has been out a month with a shoulder injury. True freshman Chris Polony might also play.

"We just have to hope that we can hold on and get to the fourth quarter," Talley said. "That's a big task. I'm just trying to stay positive with them. But it's fragile, that's for sure."