Temple University Athletics
Photo by: Timothy D. Sofranko
Owls Keep Their Eyes on Navy
9.2.14 | Football
Game Notes | Conference Notes | Press Conference
After a thrilling win at Vanderbilt in week 1, Temple head coach Matt Rhule held a press conference on Tuesday, September 2 to address this week's game. The Owls open their twelfth season at the Linc with an afternoon game against Navy on September 6.
The game kicks off at 1 pm ET and can be seen on ESPN3. Those in the Philadelphia area can listen to the game on 97.5 FM The Phanatic with Harry Donahue (play-by-play), Paul Palmer (analyst) and Harry Mayes (sidelines).
Below is Coach Rhule's opening statement:
"I'd like to begin by obviously thanking everyone for coming. We appreciate it, we appreciate you guys covering us as always. Obviously, it was a great win for us last week. I was really happy of our kids, proud of our team, proud of coaches; I thought it was a group effort by everyone down there. Proud of those of you who came down; you hung around until 2:30, three-o-clock in the morning. It was a long day, a tough day, but a good day.
Before I move on, there's a couple statements I wanted to make sure I said that were kind of on my heart at the end of that game. There were two really great men, really good people that were important to me, important to Temple football, and people that I missed. With that being the first win of the season, two people I knew would have rejoiced in that.
The first was George Moore, who was our general council here at Temple, who was a tremendous man and a tremendous supporter. This Saturday won't be the same without George, knowing that he won't be there yelling at me as he tailgates as we do our fly-in. And the second was Lewis Katz, a man who, as I've said before, was a friend of mine. A guy that saw the good when everyone else saw the bad, including myself. When you were down, all he saw was the positives, it's probably why he was so successful. I know those guys would have loved to been there, and I wanted to make sure I said that we miss both George and Lewis.
I want to also make sure to thank the people that came. I thought we had a great crowd, the guys who were at the game. To go down to Nashville and play at that time of night, to look up and see the president of our university, the chairman and the trustees all there supporting us. To see parents, to see just fans, I thought it was awesome; I thought it gave our kids a lot of energy and juice and that was a real big moment for us in that game.
I was also proud of the subs that went in for us. We had some injuries, some costly injuries early. Guys stepped in, guys were ready to play. To play that many kids and have them play at a high level I thought was good for our program moving forward. We'll have a lot of competition as we move forward.
With that, we're kind of ready to close the book and move on. We've been working on Navy day and night. Our kids sat right in here and watched them play Ohio State, and they saw that this is a tremendous team. There's no greater challenge right now for us than to play a team like Navy. A team that knows how to win, that's won a tremendous amount of games, a team that we have a great history with. We were beating them one year and they beat us at the very end of the game in overtime, and came back the next year and we were able to find a way to emerge victorious. A team that we have a great history with, a team that is going to be in the league for a long time so we have got to learn how to play them.
We're excited. They have a great quarterback in Keenan Reynolds, a guy who college football is all about; he's a Heisman candidate, he's a tremendous player. They have a veteran, veteran, veteran offensive line; big, physical strong guys that know how to run their offense really well. They have a lot of speed, they're as skilled as any team we'll face. They have an aggressive coach; he'll fake punts, he'll fake field goals, he'll do everything. Besides just the triple option, besides a really good defense, they'll also be really aggressive on special teams.
Our kids know that this is a team we're playing that is committed to precision and execution, so we're working really hard to try and get caught up over these next couple of days.
With that, I'll see if you guys have any questions."
After a thrilling win at Vanderbilt in week 1, Temple head coach Matt Rhule held a press conference on Tuesday, September 2 to address this week's game. The Owls open their twelfth season at the Linc with an afternoon game against Navy on September 6.
The game kicks off at 1 pm ET and can be seen on ESPN3. Those in the Philadelphia area can listen to the game on 97.5 FM The Phanatic with Harry Donahue (play-by-play), Paul Palmer (analyst) and Harry Mayes (sidelines).
Below is Coach Rhule's opening statement:
"I'd like to begin by obviously thanking everyone for coming. We appreciate it, we appreciate you guys covering us as always. Obviously, it was a great win for us last week. I was really happy of our kids, proud of our team, proud of coaches; I thought it was a group effort by everyone down there. Proud of those of you who came down; you hung around until 2:30, three-o-clock in the morning. It was a long day, a tough day, but a good day.
Before I move on, there's a couple statements I wanted to make sure I said that were kind of on my heart at the end of that game. There were two really great men, really good people that were important to me, important to Temple football, and people that I missed. With that being the first win of the season, two people I knew would have rejoiced in that.
The first was George Moore, who was our general council here at Temple, who was a tremendous man and a tremendous supporter. This Saturday won't be the same without George, knowing that he won't be there yelling at me as he tailgates as we do our fly-in. And the second was Lewis Katz, a man who, as I've said before, was a friend of mine. A guy that saw the good when everyone else saw the bad, including myself. When you were down, all he saw was the positives, it's probably why he was so successful. I know those guys would have loved to been there, and I wanted to make sure I said that we miss both George and Lewis.
I want to also make sure to thank the people that came. I thought we had a great crowd, the guys who were at the game. To go down to Nashville and play at that time of night, to look up and see the president of our university, the chairman and the trustees all there supporting us. To see parents, to see just fans, I thought it was awesome; I thought it gave our kids a lot of energy and juice and that was a real big moment for us in that game.
I was also proud of the subs that went in for us. We had some injuries, some costly injuries early. Guys stepped in, guys were ready to play. To play that many kids and have them play at a high level I thought was good for our program moving forward. We'll have a lot of competition as we move forward.
With that, we're kind of ready to close the book and move on. We've been working on Navy day and night. Our kids sat right in here and watched them play Ohio State, and they saw that this is a tremendous team. There's no greater challenge right now for us than to play a team like Navy. A team that knows how to win, that's won a tremendous amount of games, a team that we have a great history with. We were beating them one year and they beat us at the very end of the game in overtime, and came back the next year and we were able to find a way to emerge victorious. A team that we have a great history with, a team that is going to be in the league for a long time so we have got to learn how to play them.
We're excited. They have a great quarterback in Keenan Reynolds, a guy who college football is all about; he's a Heisman candidate, he's a tremendous player. They have a veteran, veteran, veteran offensive line; big, physical strong guys that know how to run their offense really well. They have a lot of speed, they're as skilled as any team we'll face. They have an aggressive coach; he'll fake punts, he'll fake field goals, he'll do everything. Besides just the triple option, besides a really good defense, they'll also be really aggressive on special teams.
Our kids know that this is a team we're playing that is committed to precision and execution, so we're working really hard to try and get caught up over these next couple of days.
With that, I'll see if you guys have any questions."
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