2005 Temple Owls Handicapping Review

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

Temple has become such a horrible football program that they were told before the 2004 season by the Big East Conference that they were being fired/kicked out. WHAT AN INSULT! The Big East is not a conference to be confused with, let’s say the Big 12 or Southeastern Conference as far as power teams goes. The fact that the Owls were given the boot by such a joke of a Bowl Championship Series conference led many sports betting bloggers to immediately write off Temple as a fraud team that should only appear on the “go against” list of football picks for sports bettors. A deeper look, however, would reveal that Temple would provide some sports handicapping value opportunities for the deeper looking sports bettors.

Temple certainly won no converts in their 2004 season opener, which was a 14-44 loss to Virginia as 16-point home dogs. With their value quickly shot and as a point of ridicule at online sports betting blogs, Temple was made a ridiculous 25-point dog for their next game at Maryland, which was a 22-45 loss but cover. Things got quite ugly after that as in their next two lined games Temple was clobbered 17-45 at Toledo as 7.5-point dogs and then humiliated 16-70 as 7-point home dogs against Bowling Green. At this point the Owls stood at 1-4 straight up and 1-3 against the odds with their lone straight up win against a 1-AA team. sports betting bloggers said that it was a “lock” to simply oppose Temple on one’s list of weekly football picks.

With their sports betting appeal completely and totally nuked after that debacle against Bowling Green, Temple was a 12-point home dog against Pitt and actually got the cash with a 22-27 loss. The Owls began to play better football as they covered four straight games against the odds although losing all of those games straight up. Temple now all of a sudden stood at 1-8 straight up and 5-3 against the odds and was receiving no more ridicule at online sports betting blogs.

The Owls offered solid sports handicapping value as 8-point home dogs against Syracuse and won the game straight up 34-24 for their fifth consecutive win against the odds. sports betting bloggers now began to take the Owls seriously as a sports handicapping value for their season finale as 14.5-point home dogs to Boston College, but it was too late as BC prevailed 34-17.