College Football Sunday Outlook

The "white-out" worked again to perfection in Happy Valley against Illinois. Penn State Derrick Williams' 241 total yards including a rush, a receiving, and a return touchdown helped Penn State improve to 5-0 for the first time since 2005 with a 38-24 victory.

Williams had the break out game that everyone at Penn State had been waiting for over the last four years. He's going to need more as the Nittany Lions begin a tough 5 game stretch, with four road games including at Wisconsin and at Ohio State. With the big win and the top 10 collapse, I'd expect Penn State to rise to 6 or 7. Just something to look at it, though I don't believe it hold a lot of value. Oregon State just dominated USC. Penn State beat Oregon State by 31.

Temple lost their homecoming game 7-3 at Lincoln Financial Field. It has been a tough year for Owls as 3 of the 4 losses have been by 4 points or less. 3 of those 4 games, they've held late leads. With quarterback Adam DiMichele going down last week against Penn State, it's going to be an extremely tough road for the Owls to get back into MAC championship contention. Temple travels to Miami of Ohio next week.

Lastly, there was a huge Football Championship Subdivision upset. #19 Villanova beat top-ranked Richmond 26-20 at Villanova Stadium. Nova ran the ball for 226 yards against Richmond. The big win will likely move Villanova way up in the standings. Villanova travels to William & Mary next weekend.

Continuing reading...

College Basketball Round-Up

Conference Tournmanet time is here, or in the past for one City 6 School.

Drexel - Lost in the first round of the CAA tournament to Delaware. They finished the year 12-20.
Penn - No tournament. Will likely finish third in the Ivy League. It was their worst season in awhile.
Villanova - Will play Syracuse in the first round of the conference tournament on Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. as the #9 seed. The winner will face top-seed, Georgetown, on Thursday. Finished 19-11 in the regular season.
Temple - Temple earned the second seed in the A-10 tournament and will have a first round bye. They will play Thursday at 6:30 against the winner of #7 La Salle and #10 Duquesne. They finished the regular season 18-12.
La Salle - Will play Duquesne Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Finished the regular season 14-16.
Saint Joseph's - Earned the 5th seed and will play #12 seed Fordham. If the Hawks win, they will play #4 seed, Richmond. St. Joe's finished the regular season 18-11.

Continuing reading...

City 6 Round-Up

Gonzaga 70, St. Joseph's 65

In front of a standing-room-only crowd, St. Joes forced overtime against 19th ranked Gonzaga, but could not pull of the upset. The Hawks trailed by seventeen early and led by six late, but finally lost in overtime 70-65. They shot 1 for 7 in extra time.

"I never thought we had the game in our grasp," Hawks coach Phil Martelli said of the six-point edge. "On offense, we were not very good. I thought we were good when we were able to run, but even some of the run-outs were broken plays and not efficient enough for as much time as we spend running the floor."

St. Joseph's falls to 3-2 on the season. They host Penn State tomorrow.

Temple 90, Ohio 88

Coming out of the final huddle, his team down by a point with 7.6 seconds left at the Liacouras Center, Temple senior Chris Clark passed along a tip to teammate Mark Tyndale: that he would knock down the shot if he got a pass.

"I didn't hear him," Tyndale deadpanned at Temple's postgame news conference.

But after Tyndale took the ball straight up the court and quickly got double-teamed, he saw Clark open on the left wing - with nobody within 12 feet of him. As promised, Clark knocked it down, hitting an open three-pointer with 1.9 seconds left that gave the Owls (3-4) a 90-88 thriller over Ohio University (2-2) in their home opener and ending a string of early-season heartbreaks.

Temple plays Towson next Thursday.

George Mason 85, Drexel 38

Drexel shot 15 of 50 (30 percent) from the floor to watch George Mason set a school record for margin of victory over a CAA team.

Drexel hosts Creighton tomorrow.

Continuing reading...

City 6 Round-Up

Villanova 70, Bucknell 64 - Down by 7 at the half, the Wildcats rallied behind a great second-half defensive effort and a career-high 12 points from Reggie Redding. He held John Griffin to 5 points in the second after Griffin scored 17 points in the first. Bucknell hit a team-record fifteen three-pointers.

Temple 73, Marist 69 - Temple got their first win of the season after they beat Marist by four in OT. Mark Tyndale scored 23 points, including shooting 13-14 from the stripe. Temple finished 7th place in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off Classic. The A-10 schedule should be much nicer to them.

Continuing reading...

City 6 College Basketball Round Up

Friday Night:

#25 Villanova beat Stony Brook 86-64 as Shane Clark scored 25 points.

Drexel beat UPenn 67-59 behind 18 points from Tramayne Hawthorne.

Temple lost to #7 Tennessee 80-63

Continuing reading...

Temple Sets MAC Record

Yesterday, Temple set a MAC Conference attendance record when just over 69,000 people attended the Temple-Penn State game. Granted approximately 75% of the fans were rooting for Penn State, but at least Temple is in the books for something positive.

Temple kept the game fairly close as it was only 17-0 at half time. Temple missed some opportunities for the game to be even closer as failed in all 3 opportunities in the Red Zone (missed fg, dropped td, fumble).

The final score was 31-0.

Continuing reading...

Friday Night Round-up

Flyers Win...The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Washington Capitals by a score of 3-2 on the road last night. They got goals from Briere, Richards, and Umberger. Niittymaki stopped 24 shots to pick up his first win of the season.

Sixers Win...The Philadelphia 76ers picked up their first win of the season last night. Andre Miller led the sixers with 25 to beat the Chicago Bulls 96-85. Iguodala had another great game: 22 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 blocks, and 3 steals. Dalembert added 14 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks. The Sixers as a team shot poorly, but they out rebounded Chicago 55-36.

Temple win streak snapped...Temple Football's 3 game winning streak was snapped last night as they lost 23-7 to Ohio University. Kalvin McRae ran for 151 yards to pace the Bobcats.

Continuing reading...

Where do we lay the blame?

It could be any of the following:

1 - Andy Reid? His terrible decisions to go with the pass to run down the clock again. He just loves choking in must win games. His awful red zone play-calling.
2 - Reggie Brown? His dropped touchdown continued our red zone blues.
3 - The rest of receiving corps? Their inability to get separation against man-press coverage is terrible.
4- Sean Considine? The constant view of our safeties with their backs to the ball while the receiver catches it for a touch down. How about when his little self jumped for the big hit and missed the receiver completely as he got more yards after the catch.
5- The Prevent to Lose Defense? - Throughout the entire game the Eagles had very little pressure on Griese and it continued to show on the final drive. The Bears WRs find all the holes in our zone.
6 - Jeffrey Lurie? Sure, he does not have a direct impact on this game, but he has had an impact on the season and seasons in the past. He is afraid to go after the risky, pricey free agent target and instead extends Andy Reid's terrible draft picks to long-term deals.
7- The Refs? Juqua Thomas was tackled on the touchdown throw, but there was no call. Also, the call against William James for defensive holding when it was clearly shown that he never held the receiver or came close to it and it was really the first time that a Eagles DB actually pressed a receiver well. The play was third down and Griese was sacked on it, but they got a new set of downs because of the bogus penalty
8 - Us? Did we over-hype this team too much, even when we know they did not fill one hole through free agency or the draft besides bringing in Spikes. We all know we needed not one, but two new safeties for depth or the starting strong safety job along with help at corner. We knew we really needed help at the wide receiver position. But we deemed the team to beat in possibly the NFC or the NFC East. Shame on us.

So what do you want to happen now? We're already 1-4 against the NFC and we would need to go 7-3 over the rest of the season just to finish 9-7. Is it worth it anymore to jeopardize a decent draft pick? I mean seriously, if this team made the playoffs this season, they do not have enough to win one game, let alone 3 to get to the super bowl.

Does it really matter if Andy Reid is still on the sidelines and drafting the players anyway?

Let this one sink in...Temple University has more wins on Lincoln Financial Field than the Philadelphia Eagles and more wins in general...Temple!

Continuing reading...

Temple Wins 3 Straight!

The Temple Owls have won three straight games and improved to 3-5 on the season. (they should be 4-4, but no, the Big East officiating crew wanted UCONN to win.)

Yesterday, the Owls beat MAC-East division leading Miami (Ohio) 24-17 at Lincoln Financial Field. Temple has played competitive football just about every time they stepped on the field this year, and they may have finally found a groove. The young Owls mustered out a win even after losing their starting quarterback Adam DiMichele to a season ending leg injury. This is Temple's first three game winning streak since 1990.

Division 1 football in Philly? Hey, I'll take it. It is something to do on a Saturday when Penn State is playing a weak team or a late game. Check them out when they host Penn State (11/10) and Kent State (11/17). If you are looking for Penn State tickets, I believe tickets are still available at Owl Sports. For the Kent State game, you should be able to buy tickets at the gate. It is a cheap and easy way to take your kids to see a college football game...or just another reason to tailgate.

Continuing reading...

In case you missed them...

Here is your local score round-up:

Flyers 3 - Islanders 1: Goals by Carter, Kapanen, and Smith (EN). 29 saves for Biron.
Penn State 38 Wisconsin 7: Penn State racks up 221 yards rushing.
Temple 24 Akron 20: Temple has an amazing 21 point 4th quarter comeback.

Continuing reading...