Navy is getting an overwhelming majority of the action right now based on what they have done their last two games putting up 66 points and 75 points. They played two of the nation's worst defenses in SMU & East Carolina with nothing to play for now they step up to play the #7 defense from a yards per play perspective and they are #5 holding opponents on the season over 130 yards below their season average. It's also worth noting that this is the 3rd time Temple is seeing the option attack. Everyone will point to how they struggled against Army to open the season, but that was a long time ago and this defense was breaking in a lot of new guys.
To stop Navy's offense you must create negative plays and who is better than Temple at doing so. They rank #4 in front 7 havoc rate and have 95 tackles for loss led by Haason Reddick with 21.5 at DL. This defense gave up 0 rushing TD's over their last 4 games and held Tulane to 118. They have also held all 5 opponents they have faced on the road under their season PPG average. I don't expect Temple to completely slow down a hot Navy squad, but They are very good in the red zone and on third down on defense overall and even better on the road. Everyone is talking about Navy's offense, but Navy's defense ranked 114th in yards per play allowed are going to have their hands full.
Temple's offense has plenty of weapons and PJ Walker is an experienced QB who gets big plays as he's averaging 8.4 yards per attempt which is actually good for 15th in the county while Navy has allowed 23 TD's to 6 interceptions and 8.7 yards per pass attempts which ranks 120th in the county. Not much Navy can do here considering Temple likes to run the ball first and use play action. Navy struggles in run defense allowing 5 yards per carry in conference play. Temple 4.98 ypc in their wins and 2.44 in their losses have two guys in the backfield in Thomas and Armstead to lead the way for a balanced attack. At the end of the day both offenses should put up similar #'s and it's Temple's defense that is considerably better that I'm betting on here.
