Owls Earn Fourth Straight Win Over Army

The Temple football team won the battle, but it may have lost the war.

The Owls won their fourth straight game on Saturday, downing Army, 27-13, at Lincoln Financial Field, but standout freshman running back Bernard Pierce suffered a shoulder injury in the second quarter and left the field on a stretcher.

“The preliminary reading was good, but they’re doing more tests,” Coach Al Golden said afterward. “I think it looks positive.”

The four-game win streak is the Owls’ first since 1985.

Pierce entered the game with 489 yards rushing on 84 carries with five touchdowns, and added to those totals before the injury, carrying 11 times for 65 yards and a score. Ranked second nationally in rushing yards by a freshman, Pierce took a big hit from Andrew Rodriguez and Antuan Aaron by the Army sideline after a four-yard gain near the end of the first half.

“It kind of caught me off guard,” admitted Temple linebacker Alex Joseph, who recovered a fumble to seal the game in the fourth quarter. “For some reason, I thought he was indestructible.”

The Owls needed a series of gifts to pull out the game once Army erased a 10-point deficit following Pierce’s injury. Temple scored the go-ahead touchown on a six-yard TD pass from Vaughn Charlton to Steve Maneri with 7:25 to play after the Black Knights turned the ball over on downs deep in their own territory.

Channeling the spirit of Barry Switzer, Army Coach Rich Ellerson went for it on 4th-and-1 from his own 24 with the score tied at 13. Quarterback Trent Steelman was stopped for no gain one play after linebacker John Haley jacked up Malcolm Brown for no gain on 3rd-and-1.

“We were punting into a hurricane,” Ellerson explained. “We’ve got to be able to [make a first down] with two tries. With third and 18 inches, and two snaps … if you can’t get 18 inches, what makes you think we’re going to win the football game? What type of magic is going to happen out there that you’re going to somehow manufacture points?”

On the previous drive, cornerback Kevin Kroboth had stopped running back Patrick Mealy for no gain on 3rd-and-1, fighting off a block and forcing him out-of-bounds in front of the sticks.

“We all take it personally (when they go for it on 4th-and-1),” Kroboth said. “When we stop them [two] times in a row, and they want to try one more time … hey, they can go for it, but we’re going to try to stop them.”

On the play after the fourth-down stop, Charlton was hit as he threw and his wobbly pass was intercepted by Donovan Travis. But defensive back Mario Hill was called for pass interference on the play, and the Owls received the ball on the Black Knight 12-yard line.

Three plays later, the 6-foot-6 Maneri went back to his high school basketball roots, posted up the 6-foot Hill and caught a fade from Charlton for the go-ahead score.

The Owl defense forced a turnover on Army’s next series as Adrian Robinson sacked Steelman, forcing a fumble that Joseph recovered at the 1. Kee-ayre Griffin went in off right tackle on the ensuing play for a two-touchdown lead.

The undisciplined Black Knights took 14 penalties for 100 yards.

“That was a badly coached football team to be penalized that many times in that many critical situations,” Ellerson said. “The lack of attention to detail was stunning. Don’t let anybody tell you it was the officials, it was not.”

The Owls drove the field on their first possession with Pierce finishing the drive with a one-yard touchdown run, and Charlton hit Jason Harper for a 37-yard score behind the Army defense in the second quarter.

But Army’s Alex Carlton kicked a 24-yard field goal before the half, and the Owls offense sputtered without Pierce. Carlton added another field goal, and the Black Knights tied the game on a four-yard TD pass from Steelman to 6-foot-10 Ali Villanueva in the third quarter.

“He’s a big kid, he’s not just 6-10, he’s 283 pounds,” said the 6-foot, 195-pound Kroboth. “Right before the half, they completed a ball to him, and I knew they’d come back to it in the red zone. I peeked back for the ball a little, and I should have just played his hands.”

Temple managed just 19 yards of offense in the second half as Black Knight defensive end Josh McNary disrupted the flow with four sacks.

But the Owls made enough big plays and had enough luck to prevail.

“There’s a confidence right now we haven’t had before,” Golden said. “To not lose in a month is a big deal.”