Ventell Bryant scoring a Temple touchdown in the American Athletic Conference Championship game (photo by Marc Arot)

Annapolis, MD – In Temple’s 34-10 win over Navy at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in which the Owls claimed the American Athletic Association Championship, the Temple offense made some big plays early to build a lead while the Owls defense played at a high level all day to prevent a comeback by the Midshipmen. Navy suffered some key injuries which further hampered their ability to rally; the Mids lost record-setting quarterback Will Worth and slot backs Toneo Gulley and Darryl Bonner.

The Temple defense was ranked third in the nation in total defense coming in and it held Navy to 164 less yards and 31 points under their season averages.

“[T]hey played an eight-man front and a 4-3 look and just played better than we did,” said Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo after his team fell to 9-3 with the Army game still to come. “They beat the crap out of us and hit us in the mouth. We have not been hit in the mouth like that in a long time. Normally we are the ones hitting the other team in the mouth and to Temple’s credit they hit us in the mouth and we were dazed the whole game.”

“I thought that Phil Snow did a tremendous job of playing multiple defenses against the option,” said Temple head Matt Rhule referring to the Owls defensive coordinator, “and you can only do that when you have players that can handle multiple defenses. This offense is so hard most people play one defense against it but we have kids that are so bought into the process of preparing that it allowed Phil to play multiple defenses and I think that gave us an advantage.”

The Owls took the opening kickoff and mixed the pass and run nicely. They converted on two third downs and once on fourth down. The fourth down conversion came on a pass to Keith Kirkwood at the Navy 15, it came one play after Kirkwood dropped what would have been a first down near the Midshippmen 10-yard line. The next play after converting that fourth down, Thomas scored on a jet sweep running around left end. It was the eight game in a row that Navy allowed a touchdown on their opponents opening drive.

Navy moved into Temple territory but the drive stalled and Gulley was stuffed by Nate Hairston and Sean Chandler. The went right back down the field with one of the big plays an end around by Adonis Jennings that gained16 yards. The touchdown came when Phillip Walker connected with Ventell Bryant inside the 5-yard line, Bryant made a move on the defensive back and got into the end zone to complete the 22-yard play.

On Navy’s next possession, Worth hit Dishan Romine for a 34-yard pass that gave the Midshipmen a first down at the Temple 25 but on the next play Sean Chandler forced Bonner to fumble and Avery Williams recovered it for the Owls. Walker made it a more costly turnover for the Mids when he threw a 56-yard touchdown to Kirkwood.

“We didn’t throw that post [pattern] in practice this week,” said Walker, who was named the game’s Most Outstanding Player by going 16-of-25 passing for 199 yards and two touchdowns, “but I know how fast Kirkwood is, I know he can get behind a defense and look pretty good so I just gave him an opportunity to get the ball in his hands and he made a great play.”

The teams traded three-and-outs with the most important element of the sequence being that Worth was lost for the game with a leg injury. His replacement Zach Abey threw a 22-yard pass to Calvin Cass Jr and Navy was driving. However as the got close to the Temple goal line, the Owls defense stiffened. Bruising fullback Shawn White gained five yards on two carries and then free safety Chandler tackled Tre Walker for a 1-yard gain which forced the Midshipmen to kick a 23-yard field goal to get on the scoreboard.

“We definitely focused on that during the week,” said Chandler when asked about the Owls tackling, “and we knew that we were going to have to tackle well in order to beat this team because they’ll make big plays if you miss one tackle.”

The Owls would try to answer but they missed a 50-yard field goal into the wind but they got the ball right back when Hairston intercepted Abey and this time Aaron Boumerhi was good from 48 yards to make it 24-3 at halftime.

The one truly big play Navy was able to make with the option was a 47-yard run by Abey with just over five minutes to go in the third quarter, it set up his 1-yard touchdown run.

The Owls offense, which was held to just 29 yards in the third quarter after going for 274 yards in the first half, did respond to the Navy touchdown with a 12-play, 40-yard drive that resulted in a 42-yard field goal by Boumerhi. While the kick put the Temple up three scores with just over 10 minutes to go in the game, the drive consumed seven minutes of the clock.

Out of their game and forced to pass the Mids turned it over on downs once and Abey was intercepted by Hasson Reddick. It led to the Owls final score, a 30-yard run by Ryquell Armstead.

The hardware (photo by Marc Arot)

“I will never talk down about another team,” said Rhule. “I think that any team that goes undefeated; I wish them all the best. But we are the sixth power conference. If you win this league, you should go to a New Year’s Six Bowl. That is neither here nor there. When you see what the teams in our league have done in those New Year’s Six Bowls, you should want to have us there. We have beaten two Top 25 teams this year in South Florida and we have beaten a Navy ranked team. We should be a ranked team. We had three losses early to the No. 5 team in the country and to a pretty good Memphis team, but over the last half of the year I would say we are as hot as any team in the country. I am not saying anything negative about anyone else but I think we should be playing in a New Year’s Six Bowl.”

Email Rock Hoffman at Rock@footballstories.com