A Historic American Win
UTSA opens American Conference experience with 49-34 win at Temple and Frank Harris goes over 10,000 career passing yards.
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UTSA's football team opened up life in its third conference the same way it opened life in the previous two conferences. With a double-digit win on the road.
Life in the American began on Saturday against the Temple Owls at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. The Roadrunners departed Philadelphia with a 49-34 win over the Owls to improve to 2-3 on the season and 1-0 in conference play.
Temple fell to 2-4 on the season and 0-2 in conference play. Owls quarterback E.J. Warner certainly gave his team a chance as he completed 42 of 65 pass attempts for 472 yards and five touchdowns.
UTSA was able to win the game thanks to the first two turnovers for the Roadrunner defense and a great game from Frank Harris in his first game action since week two's win over Texas State.
Harris completed 25 of 33 pass attempts for 333 yards and three touchdowns. Harris also scored a one-yard rushing touchdown in the second quarter that gave UTSA its first lead of the afternoon at 21-14.
The Roadrunners forced two Owl fumbles. The first came when it looked as though Temple might drive down to make it 14-0. Instead Dywan Griffin forced the fumble at the UTSA 45 and Brandon Brown recovered it at the UTSA 47. Three plays later Kevorian Barnes got the Roadrunners on the board with a 14-yard touchdown to tie the score at 7-7 with 3:59 left in the first quarter.
UTSA nearly had their first pick six of the season on Temple's next possession when Kam Alexander intercepted a Warner pass and brought it back to the end zone. The play was waved away because of a roughing the passer penalty against UTSA. The Owls took advantage of their second chance and scored on a 33-yard touchdown pass to make the score 14-7.
The Roadrunners second takeaway came in the second quarter with the game tied at 21-21. It came when Jimmori Robinson sacked Warner at the Temple 15 and caused the ball to come out. By the time it stopped rolling, Ronald Triplette fell on it to give UTSA the ball at the Temple six yard line. One play later Robert Henry scored to give the Roadrunners a 28-21 lead with 2:54 left in the second quarter.
It was a lead the Roadrunners would not give up. The Roadrunners increased the lead to 35-21 on the first drive of the third quarter when Harris threw a 40-yard touchdown pass to Tykee Ogle-Kellogg.
The rest of the afternoon was UTSA and Temple trading touchdowns before UTSA was able to make a goal line stand on 4th and goal from the nine for the Owls with 2:42 left in the fourth quarter.
A historic day of firsts
UTSA continued its hot run in conference games under Jeff Traylor. The Roadrunners improved to 21-3 in conference games under Traylor. Saturday's win at Temple gave UTSA a nine-game winning streak in conference games dating back to the start of last season in Conference USA.
The Roadrunners made history on Saturday by winning their debut in the American by double digits. UTSA has begun life in all three of its conference homes with lopsided wins on the road. In 2012 it was a 35-14 win at New Mexico State to open the lone year in the WAC. A year later the Roadrunners opened their decade in Conference USA with a 32-13 win at UTEP.
The win at Temple was also historic as it marked the game in which Frank Harris reached 10,000 yards for his career. Harris went over 10,000 yards with a 16-yard pass to Joshua Cephus on the final play of the third quarter.
One game does not a season make but for Saturday at least there was a lot of things for the Roadrunners to feel good about in south Philadelphia.
In addition to Harris returning from his injury the Roadrunners got a good game on the ground. Robert Henry led the Roadrunners with 78 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries. Kevorian Barnes also carried 11 times and racked up 52 yards and a touchdown. Rocko Griffin had four carries for 21 yards.
UTSA had three receivers with at least 80 yards receiving on Saturday. Devin McCuin led the way with 94 yards and a touchdown on six catches. Cephus led the Roadrunners in catches with seven and got 81 yards and a touchdown on those catches. Tykee Ogle-Kellogg was the third Roadrunner with 80 yards receiving as he finished with 83 yards on three catches.
The Roadrunners offense had 495 yards of offense against Temple on Saturday and improved their turnover margin on the season from minus-seven to minus-five.
There were still things the Roadrunners can work on as they move forward in the season. The Roadrunner defense gave up 542 yards of offense with 472 of those yards coming through the air. There were moments on Saturday that it looked like E.J. Warner was doing an impression of his dad Kurt running the Rams old greatest show on turf offense. The younger Warner was 12 yards away from reaching 484 yards which was the most yards his dad ever threw for in his long NFL career.
UTSA also had more penalties than their opponent. The Roadrunners were penalized eight times for 83 yards. Temple was penalized two times for 30 yards. The Roadrunners had a costly roughing the passer penalty that wiped off a pick six in the first half and had a great return on the opening kickoff of the third quarter wiped off by a block. That penalty did set up a 92-yard scoring drive for the Roadrunners instead of a much shorter field to work with.
The pluses from Saturday will outweigh the minuses. After the rough non-conference schedule it was good for the Roadrunners to get conference started on the right foot. Now they will look to build on the good things and adjust the bad things before playing UAB next week in the first home game in American history.
By beating Temple the Roadrunners have probably given themselves a chance to have a pretty good crowd at home next Saturday night. With next Saturday's game being on ESPNU it will be a chance to show off the Alamodome in front of a national TV audience again. If the Roadrunners are able to replicate the good from their afternoon in Philadelphia it could be quite a show next Saturday night.
FORUMS: UTSA Boulevard | Roadrunner Way