Two years ago, people would have laughed at you if you even made the slightest suggestion that Temple football would be in this position.
That’s because the 2013 Owls stumbled to an embarrassing 2-10 record that included losses to Idaho and Football Championship Subdivision school Fordham, not to mention numerous heartbreaking defeats.
Needless to say, it was not a fun time for players, coaches or fans.
But yet, here we are two years later as undefeated No. 21 Temple prepares to host No. 9 Notre Dame at sold-out Lincoln Financial Field this Saturday night in a high-stakes nationally televised game with potential bowl implications hanging in the balance.
Temple still has 22 players who were on that 2-10 team and those players haven’t forgotten what they went through that year.
In fact, those Owls say the valuable lessons they learned that year have helped them to their 7-0 record (see how Temple got here).
“We were young and trying to find our way and identity,” senior defensive line anchor Matt Ioannidis, who has recorded 3½ sacks on the year, said. “I think we’ve found our identity.
“And learning to trust the coaching has been huge. It’s tough when you’re that young. It’s something that’s come a long way from that year to now. We take everything they say personally.”
That dreadful 2013 season, ironically enough, started out with a 28-6 loss at Notre Dame, a game Temple head coach Matt Rhule called his team’s “best game that year.”
After that came the back-to-back demoralizing losses to Idaho and Fordham, a loss at SMU in which Temple allowed 538 passing yards and 59 points, an unbelievable loss to nationally ranked Central Florida that included an absurd one-handed catch by UCF’s J.J. Worton that tied the game late and resulted in a walk-off UCF field goal, as well as a last-second loss to Rutgers.
Defeats at the hands of Houston, Louisville, Cincinnati and Connecticut were also sandwiched in. The only wins came against 3-9 Army and 3-9 Memphis.
The Owls’ finished 110th out of 125 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in total defense that year when they gave up 474.3 yards per game. The pass defense checked in at 121st with 298.6 yards allowed per game.
The special teams unit was even worse. The Owls made just three of nine field goals they attempted. That’s not a typo. They only attempted nine field goals all year. They also missed five extra points.
It was not pretty, to say the least.
Junior quarterback P.J. Walker got his first taste of collegiate action during that year’s loss to Fordham. He said the Owls learned the hard way that year that they have to play for 60 minutes.
“We learned how to finish games and I think that shows now,” Walker, who has thrown for 1,313 yards and nine touchdowns so far this year, said. “We look at it like we have a great team and we have to believe in ourselves. We learned we have to go out there and play great defense and great special teams and not turn the ball over. It’s things like that we didn’t do as a 2-10 team.”
Rhule was blunt when asked about what was wrong with that team and what needed to be learned.
“They learned to take nothing for granted,” Rhule said. “Sometimes people think they’ll win because of what they look like in the mirror before the game. When I first got here, I think that’s what a lot of guys thought. I think they thought you won because of how talented you are or because of the pregame speech. It was all those things. There was no personal responsibility.
“We had so many hard losses that year that came down to details. We’re playing the same defense now that we played then. We kept teaching. I think they learned about details and attention to details."
The players weren’t the only ones to learn some tough lessons that year. Rhule, who was in his first year as a head coach, and his staff did, as well.
“I learned to consistently pay attention to details and focus on the process,” Rhule said. “If you have a tough team and they focus on the details, they have a chance. That’s why I run the scout teams. That’s the details of it. Those are the young guys and I’m teaching the young guys how to be detailed.”
Despite the lumps Temple took that year, Ioannidis, for one, always believed that this undefeated record, this frenzy and this chance are things the Owls were always capable of. He said his teammates feel the same way.
“We figured our time was coming," he said. "We were young. We were 2-10. We were playing I think seven or eight sophomores on the defense and same on the offense. But we knew this moment was coming.”