Thursday game vs. defending champ UCF highlights Temple football schedule

Temple will visit defending American Athletic Conference champion Central Florida in a Thursday night game on Nov. 1, highlighting the Owls'  2018 football schedule.

The AAC released football schedules Tuesday. Starting times and broadcast information for the first three weeks of the season will be released in June.

The UCF game is Temple's only one that definitely will be on a Thursday night on ESPN, but there is a game against Tulsa that could be either Thursday, Sept. 20, or Saturday, Sept. 22, and also broadcast on ESPN.

The Owls' four nonleague games will be played in September, starting with their Sept. 1 opener against Villanova at Lincoln Financial Field. Temple will play the five other teams from the AAC East Division and three teams from the West. For the second straight year, the West opponents will be Tulsa, Navy, and Houston.

Temple won four of its final five games, including a 28-3 victory over Florida International in the Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl, to finish 7-6 in coach Geoff Collins' first season.

Sat. Sept. 1 Villanova, TBD
Sat., Sept. 8 Buffalo, TBD
Sat., Sept. 15 at Maryland, TBD
Thurs./Sat, Sept. 20/22 Tulsa ESPN
Sat., Sept. 29 at Boston College, TBD
Sat., Oct. 6 East Carolina, TBD
Sat., Oct. 13 at Navy, TBD
Sat., Oct. 20 Cincinnati, TBD
Thurs., Nov. 1 at Central Florida, ESPN
Sat., Nov. 10 at Houston, TBD
Sat., Nov. 17 South Florida, TBD
Sat., Nov. 24 at UConn, TBD
Sat., Dec. 1 AAC Championship, ABC/ESPN

After Taver Johnson resigned as Temple defensive coordinator to become cornerbacks coach at Ohio State, the Owls filled his slot by naming Nathan Burton as safeties coach.

Last month, Johnson was named assistant head coach defense/co-defensive coordinator/safeties and last year's linebackers coach, Andrew Thacker, was promoted to defensive coordinator/linebackers.

Burton, 37, was the defensive quality control coach last year at North Carolina State.

Collins and Burton met in 1999 at Georgia Tech. That year, Burton was a walk-on while Collins was a graduate assistant for the Yellow Jackets.

Burton began his coaching career as a Georgia Tech graduate assistant from 2005-08. He then coached linebackers and the secondary at Tennessee-Martin (2010-11), was defensive coordinator at Shorter University (2012-13), and was defensive coordinator for three seasons at West Alabama.