Temple Army Spread, Line & College Football Picks

August 28, 2008


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The Temple Owls and Army Black Knights will square off on Friday, August 29th at 7 PM EST on ESPN Classic at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.  Both of these teams are hoping for wins to start their season off on the right track.  Temple was 4-8 in 2007 with all four wins coming in MAC games.  The four wins were more than the team put together in each of the past four seasons combined.  The four conference victories were the most the school has put together in the past 40 years. Army also had a tough go of it last year in going 3-9, and that was after starting out 3-3.  If there is any bright spot for the Black Knights it’s that they have won seven out of their last 12 at home and they won 37-21 against Temple last year.  The oddsmakers have the point spread set at Temple -7 over Army.

Temple’s offense was terrible last year, putting up only 16.4 ppg, but now they have every single starter returning so one would think they should be able to improve.  The line should be improved with more experience and that should open up more holes for the running backs.  Marquise Liverpool makes the move from WR to RB and is a speedy back.  There are also plenty of targets down field for Adam DiMichele in Justin Harper, Michael Campbell, Bruce Francis, and Travis Shelton.

The Owl defense also has all of their 11 starters coming back, and the front line showed improvement last year in lowering the rushing ypg down to 165 from 200.  They are going to need to make another drastic jump though if the team wants to get to .500.  The front line will be tougher, with Junior Galette’s 7.5 sacks holding down the front four.  At linebacker there is the stud Amara Kamara, who should continue to blossom.  The secondary is filled with experience and Dominique Harris could prove to be the best safety in the conference.  Head over to Bookmaker to bet on Temple’s -7 point spread.

Army is going to make a return to the option offense, which will be a good idea since they have a plethora of running backs without much talent at wide out.  Carson Williams will be the starting quarterack, but he needs to do a better job guiding this offense than he did a year ago when the Black Knights were 95th in passing.  Williams threw 12 picks to only 11 touchdowns.  The ground game wasn’t very impressive either in ranking 111th in the nation, but with some talent returning it shouldn’t be quite so bad in 2008.  The receiving corps is depleted with the loss of their star Jeremy Trimble, and there isn’t much experience there to replace him.

Defensively it’s hard to get worse than the 423 ypg given up, but the 233 ypg on the ground ranked 117th in the nation.  The defensive tackles are the strength of the team with Ted Bentler racking up three sacks as a sophomore.  Frank Scappaticci is the best linebacker and he had 89 tackles, six for a loss last season.  If the defensive line can get to the quarterback a little better this year that should take some heat off of this inexperience secondary.  The corners are questionable and the safety position will be manned by two fresh faces. You can bet on the +7 Army Odds at BetUS.

Predicted Score:

Temple: 25
Army: 18

Superbook.com Online Sports Book

Written by admin · Filed Under College Football 

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