The Temple Owls entered into last Saturday’s game against Penn State on a 39-game losing streak against the Nittany Lions. The team did not want that streak to extend to forty games, so they did all the could to prevent it.
The team ended up winning the game 27-10, for the first time since 1941, and it was thanks to the defense’s performance on the day. According to College Football Talk, one defensive player has been given a pretty high national honor for his participation in the “sack fest.”
Temple defensive end Tyler Matakevich (coolest name ever BTW) recorded three of the team’s ten sacks on the day. That was good enough to earn him the Chuck Bednarik Defensive Player of the Week award. Honestly, I’m pretty sure he will share that honor with the rest of his defense as they held the Nittany Lions to a lackluster 191 total yards of offense.
The team is going to be celebrating their win over the Power Five conference rival for a long time, but Matakevich needs to keep his team focused on the goal at hand.
Temple proved that they can play with the big boys, so now they should be focused on trying to compete in the AAC. The Owls next play at Cincinnati in the team’s first conference game of the year. It can be seen on ESPNews on Saturday at 8 p.m.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports
