Temple Wins in Wild Comeback, but Still Isn’t Ranked

You could watch a thousand more football games and not see another one that ended the way Temple-Massachusetts did on Saturday. The Owls, favored by 10 and looking for their first 3-0 start since 2010, gave up what appeared to be the game-winning touchdown to UMass’ Jamal Wilson with 1:20 left in the game.

But Temple’s Praise Martin-Oguike blocked the extra point and Stephaun Marshall scooped it up. About to be tackled, he lateraled it to Will Hayes (who said postgame he yelled for Marshall to throw it to him).

Hayes scored. Instead of a 24-20 deficit, Temple was down just 23-22. Now the Owls would only need a field goal to win the game instead of a touchdown. Smart thinking; a lot of people don’t even know you can run back a blocked extra point.

On a side note, the lateral appeared to be forward, but … whoops, oh well!

Temple quarterback P.J. Walker then drove the Owls 50 yards and Austin Jones hit a 32-yard field goal with 7 seconds left to give the Owls the win. Who knew football teams in this town were allowed to have winning records this year? (Penn lost 42-21 to Lehigh on Saturday; you know about the situation with Philadelphia’s professional football team).

Temple was at the top of the “also receiving votes” list last week, but dropped in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll after needing 59 minutes and 53 seconds to put away UMass. They’re now “34th” in the poll. (Temple’s soccer team is in the top 25, however!)

The Owls have an open date next week — maybe the Pope will want to meet with them! — and will return to action on Friday, October 2nd. They’ll get a chance to impress the voters then.

Follow @dhm on Twitter.