No. 24 Miami Battles 'Dangerous' Temple Squad
Oct. 15, 1999
By MARK LONG
Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) – Temple coach Bobby Wallace created the slogan “MAD” for hisstruggling Owls before their game against Boston College last week. He had theacronym, which stands for Motivated And Determined, stamped on T-shirts thatthe players wore under their uniforms.
It seemingly helped.
The Owls beat Boston College 24-14, handing the Eagles their firstloss of the season and marking Temple’s second Big East upset in two years. The Owlsstunned Virginia Tech 28-24 last year in Blacksburg, Va.
The 24th-ranked Hurricanes (2-3, 0-0 Big East) want to make sure the samething doesn’t happen in Miami on Saturday when they play host to Temple (1-5,1-1).
“Our players are going to recognize the fact that (Temple) is a programthat is definitely turning the corner,” Miami coach Butch Davis said.”They’re getting better, they’ve got athletes.”
That’s something rarely said about the Owls, 7-48 all-time in the BigEast and 2-29 on the road in conference play. Davis, though, believes Temple is ateam on the rise.
He has his players convinced of it.
“They’re dangerous,” wide receiver Andre King said. “People areoverlooking them and not giving them too much credit, but around here werespect all our opponents. We don’t make any one game bigger than theothers. A year ago, they went up to Blacksburg and beat Virginia Tech in their backyard.These are the kind of opponents that you don’t know what to expect.”
No one really does.
The Owls started 0-5 and did not score in three of their first fourgames. They trailed Boston College 14-0 and seemed likely to fall to 0-6 for thesecond consecutive season.
But Temple, led by backup quarterback Devin Scott, mounted its thirdcome-from-behind win under Wallace. Though Wallace doesn’t think his newslogan had much to do with the rally, the T-shirts are likely to make a repeatappearance Saturday.
“It was kind of a corny thing, but the point is the kids know it was fromthe heart and they knew exactly what I was talking about,” Wallace said. “Iwas hurting for them just like I would my own son if he was caught at aprogram where everything seemed to be going bad.
“We’re still young and we’re not as talented as we need to be in thefuture, but we’re establishing an attitude of care for each other and that’sgoing to help us down the road.”
But will it help against the Hurricanes?
Miami has routed the Owls in seven meetings since joining the Big East in1992, winning by an average score of 44-12. The Hurricanes, losers of threestraight for only the second time in 15 years, are hungry for a win.
“That’s where we’re at right now – we want to win a game,” Davis said.”We can’t change the outcomes of any of the previous games. We’ve learned fromit, and hopefully we’ll be a better football team these next seven games fromsome of the things that we’ve learned in the first five.”
