The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly: Temple Owls 2023 edition

The Miami Hurricanes kept the good vibes going with a 41-7 win on the road in the rain against the Temple Owls.

Mike Schiffman checks in with this week’s 3 stars.

I was gonna do a game recap, but nah, I’m good. Everything noteworthy I’ll talk about here.

So, with no further ado, let’s dive into The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good

• Winning. Look, I’m never overlooking this point, especially after last season. We won, and that’s great.
• Continuing the dominance over Temple. 14 straight wins against the Owls with the average score along the way: 44 to 12.
• RB Donald Chaney Jr. making his first career start. If you’ve been here for any amount of time, you know I’ve been a HUGE Chaney Jr. stan since his days as a recruit. This just made me smile, so I put in here. For the record, Chaney ended the day with 9 carries for 61 yards.
• QB Tyler Van Dyke to WR Xavier Restrepo for Miami’s first TD of the game, and X’s first TD of the year.
• He didn’t throw it as much as normal in these rainy conditions, but Tyler Van Dyke continued to show why he’s the starter. 17/24 passing (71% completions) for 220 yards, 3 TDs and 0 INTs.
• TVD has an 11-1 TD/INT ratio through 4 games. That’ll work.
• RB Henry Parrish. He didn’t start today, but he was the star. 16 carries for 139 yards and 2 TDs. Great game.
• Canes’ run defense. Temple didn’t have a prayer in the world of running the ball on the Canes today. Temple had 16 carries for 11 yards (0.8 ypc average) on the day.
• DB Te’Cory Couch redeeming himself after giving up a huge pass by catching an arm-punt interception in the endzone. Easiest interception he’ll ever have.

• TVD going up top to Colbie Young for a 26 yard score.

• Leonard Taylor III had an incredible play. Beat the OL with a nasty swim move, got held, fought through that, and sacked the QB with one hand. Elite talent.
• The return of several players previously injured. Nyjalik Kelly. Mark Fletcher.
• 543 yards of offense
• 323 yards rushing
• 220 yards passing
• 7.7 yards per carry
• 12.9 yards per completion
• 6 TFL
• 3 sacks
• Forced 3 turnovers — 2 interceptions (both by Couch), and 1 fumble
• 24 first downs
• Held Temple to 13 first downs
• Held Temple to 5/13 on 3rd down
• Held Temple to 0/3 on 4th down
• 6-7 red zone scoring for the Canes
• 5 of the 6 red zone scores were touchdowns
• 17 chunk plays — 7 passes (15+), 10 runs (10+)
• Another game where backups got plenty of meaningful snaps
• And another strong game on the analytics (though, they didn’t classify as many plays as explosive as the game stats did under chunk plays)

The Bad

• 5/11 on 3rd down. This number should be better given the competition.
• 0/1 on 4th down.
• 7 penalties. This number needs to be smaller. 5 or fewer weekly.
• Allowed 5 chunk plays — all passes (15+ yards)
• Lack of defensive havoc
• Lack of TRUE explosiveness on offense
• Still missing several players. Akheem Mesidor. Branson Deen. Kamren Kinchens. But I understand: I’d rather them sit out now ahead of the bye, thus giving them a month between games, than rush back now and risk further injury/games missed. I just wish they’d have been healthy.

The Ugly

• Te’Cory Couch’s coverage on a near 50 yard play to start Temple’s 2nd drive. Woof.
• I know he had 2 picks today, but Couch continues to get picked on by opposing offenses as well. His inconsistency is what’s been ugly, and that’s what needs to improve.
• A real bad drop by Henry Parrish on a 3rd down play. Sure, it was a checkdown, but he had acres of space in front of him. Just got too happy to run with the ball and forgot to catch the ball. Didn’t hurt us today, but that’s a play we have to have moving into ACC play.
• Pass defense. There were receivers running free in the secondary all day. And Temple missed a couple WIDE OPEN guys that would have scored. This might be harsh, but it’s my article and I’m putting it here.

Team Grades

Offense: A-

Efficient. Dominant in the run game. Great OL play. And enough in the passing game to make the score lopsided. All while facing rain and swirling winds. It was pretty vanilla, sure, but another 40 burger with 543 yards of offense...and it looked easy. Very pleased. Bravo.

Defense: C+

Temple was able to move the ball more in the air than I’d have liked. They couldn’t run the ball at all, which was a good thing to see Miami overpower an inferior team. But I wanted a shutout and didn’t get it, and if Temple was a bit better, they probably score a couple more touchdowns. I’m nitpicking hard here, and I know it. But the standard is the standard and I want excellence, even with Miami missing 3 starters on defense again today.

Special Teams: B+

Borregales made all his kicks. Brashard Smith with another nice kick return. Dylan Joyce with a solid punting day. Temple was able to do a bit more on kick return than I’d prefer, both because there were returns (the wind being a factor on some kickoffs), and the lane discipline on coverage wasn’t fully tight. Again, I’m nitpicking and I know it. Fight me.

Coaching: B+

A workmanlike job from top to bottom. I’ve already nitpicked my issues. But, while this one wasn’t exciting, it damn sure was effective. And, in the end, Miami was able to move to 4-0 ahead of next week’s bye. And the Canes were able to hold out guys previously injured, and those who got dinged up today (Matt Lee, Mark Fletcher) and still won by 5 touchdowns.

And, another win! Which nearly matches the total from last season. All good. But, I’m still leaving room for improvement. Still, this was a job well done. Bravo.

That’s it for this installment of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Hop in the comments and keep the conversation going.

Go Canes