Temple football coach Steve Addazio is one of the millions of people across America who was affected by the passing of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno.

Mr. Paterno died of cancer Sunday morning at the age of 85. He has more wins than any other coach in the history of college football and went a perfect 28-0 against Temple during his 46-year tenure as Penn State’s coach.

Addazio had this to say about Paterno’s legacy:

“I am very sad to hear the news of Joe Paterno’s passing. He was someone that I had a great deal of respect for, both growing up as a young man and as a football coach. He did so much for college football, athletics as a whole, and education.  The positive influence he had over so many people and what he’s done for collegiate football and athletics will never be duplicated. He will be greatly missed. Our deepest sympathies go out to the entire Paterno family and the Penn State community.”

Temple (9-3) will play in arguably its most anticipated regular season game of the season tonight as the Owls host Duke (12-1) at  7 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia.

The game, which will broadcast nationally on ESPN 2, is a part two of the schools’ home and home agreement. The Owls lost to the Blue Devils, 78-61, last year at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Blue Devils’ then senior Kyle Singler led all scorers with 28 points, while then senior forward Lavoy Allen led the Owls with a double double.

Both Singler and Allen have now moved on, making it so that this year’s matchup promises to feature some new faces.

For Duke, the USA Today third-ranked and Associated Press fifth-ranked Blue Devils are led in scoring by freshman guard Austin Rivers, who averages more than 15 points per game. Duke also features a plethora of lengthy forwards, including a pair of 6’10 brothers named Plumlee, junior Mason and senior Miles.

Temple counters with its trio of high-scoring guards and undersized forwards. The Owls senior guards Juan Fernandez (13.3 ppg) and Ramone Moore (17.4 ppg), and junior guard Khalif Wyatt (14.2 ppg) all average more than 10 points per game, but injuries have cost the Owls in the frontcourt.

Graduate center Micheal Eric and senior forward Scootie Randall have both missed significant time due to injury this season and will not play tonight. Randall is expected to redshirt this season as he has struggled to recover from offseason surgery in June to repair torn meniscus cartilage in his knee. Eric has missed Temple’s last eight games after re-injuring the same kneecap that kept him out of his last 10 games last year.

Both Eric and Randall were also injured for Temple’s game last year against Duke.

In Eric and Randall’s absence, the Owls are left with two inexperienced forwards in the frontcourt. Redshirt-freshman Anthony Lee will start in only the 13th game of his career alongside junior forward Rahlir Hollis-Jefferson, who is a natural three-guard forced to play power forward.

The 6’9 Lee and 6’6 Hollis-Jefferson will have their hands full trying to defend the bigger Plumlee brothers, along with Blue Devils junior forward Ryan Kelly, who is six foot, eleven inches and weighs 230 pounds.

The Blue Devils high-scoring offense is built around the three-point shot. Duke has the sixth-best three point percentage in the country and has hit 90 threes in 13 games so far this season. Temple counters with the 4th-best defense in the country defending the three, holding opponents to a three-point percentage of just 25.6 percent.

Instead of trying to win the game in the paint, the Owls will try to rely on their talented trio of guards and their excellent perimeter defense.

This is a formula that has proven to give Duke some trouble this season. In the Blue Devils’ season opener against Belmont, the Bruins’ trio of experienced guards all shot better than 50 percent and scored more than 10 points as Belmont took Duke to the buzzer in a 77-76 loss.

If Temple can shoot the ball better than their 37.8 average in their past two games and defend the three as well as they have all season, then its experienced club could pull off the upset against the young Duke squad that features only one senior.

Temple is no stranger to upsetting elite programs of late, either. In the past three seasons, the Owls have defeated a program ranked in the Top-10 in the country.

Tonight, in front of a national audience and a home crowd, the Owls will try to make it four in a row.

To conclude a back and forth contest, Owls’ junior guard Khalif Wyatt hit a game-winning three pointer with 35 seconds left to lead Temple to a 66-63 victory against Delaware.

Wyatt had been 1-10 shooting before making the game-deciding shot, apart of a lackluster offensive performance from the Owls that saw the team shoot 39.1% from the field.

Owls’ junior forward Rahlir Hollis-Jefferson led the team with 13 points and eight rebounds.

This was the second game in a row for Temple that came down to the wire after the Owls’ 87-85 defeat of Buffalo on Wednesday.

Check back to The Temple News later tonight for full game coverage.

Zach Smith, who served as special teams coordinator and wide receivers coach for Temple this season, has accepted the job of wide receivers coach at Ohio State, it was announced Thursday.

“I am very happy and supportive of Zach Smith’s new opportunity at Ohio State,” Temple coach Steve Addazio said in a press release. “He grew up in Columbus, and as the grandson of former Ohio State coach Earle Bruce, he is a lifelong Buckeye fan. I thank Zach for his contributions to Temple Football this year and wish Zach and his family all the best.”

Smith will be reunited with Buckeyes’ head coach Urban Meyer, who Smith worked under at Florida as an offensive and special teams assistant and recruiting evaluator from 2005-09. Smith served as the special teams coordinator and wide receivers coach at Marshall University in 2010 before joining Temple this year.

“Zach has done a terrific job as wide receivers coach at both Marshall and this past year at Temple,” Meyer said in a press release. “I am really looking forward to having the opportunity to work with him again. Ohio State is going to benefit from his coaching and his abilities as a recruiter.”

Smith is the first member of Meyer’s former coaching staff to leave Temple and join him at Ohio State amid speculation that Meyer is trying to get his old group back together.

Addazio, offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler, offensive line coach Justin Frye, defensive coordinator Chuck Heater, defensive line coach Sean Cronin, graduate assistant Mark DeLeone and head strength and conditioning coach Frank Piraino all worked with Meyer at Florida.

ALBUQUERQUE, NM-Temple was defeated by Wyoming in “Survey Says” and bowling on Thursday night as a part of Gildan New Mexico Bowl-sponsored events hosted by ESPN at the Santa Ana Star Casino in Albuquerque, NM.

“Survey Says” (Family Feud) featured a combination of offensive, defensive and coaching matchups from the Owls and the Cowboys. Temple assistant coaches were defeated by Wyoming’s offensive squad in the final round. During the course of its five-year existence, whichever team wins “Survey Says” has gone on to win the New Mexico Bowl.

Temple was also defeated in the bowling competition that followed. The Owls and Cowboys competed in a showdown of the five best players from each team at the Santa Ana Star Bowling Alley. Wyoming’s team of five beat out Temple’s, 172-147.

Stay tuned to TTN for ongoing coverage of the New Mexico Bowl.

The football team will travel to Albuquerque, N.M on Wednesday morning to begin preparation for their game against Wyoming in the Gildan New Mexico Bowl on Saturday afternoon.

Saturday’s contest, set for noon Mountain Time (2 p.m. EST), is the first game of the 2011-12 college football bowl season.

“I really like being first,” coach Steve Addazio said at a press conference on Monday. “Everyone will watch this game. In the middle of [the bowl season], it’s one bowl game after another and you lose sight of what game is when until the BCS games are played. I think this gives us an opportunity for a great audience.”

Addazio said he couldn’t be more pleased with the timing of the bowl. As opposed to playing in a bowl in late December, the early game has allowed the Owls to stay relatively on schedule.

“It’s really just a bye week,” Addazio said. “We tried to do the best we could to give the kids some time off, yet still get a number of practices to prepare our team for this football game.”

Addazio added that playing in an early bowl allows the student athletes to be able to finish their season before having to go home for winter break.

“It gives our players a chance to go compete at a high level and come home and enjoy the holidays with their families,” Addazio said.

Addazio said he expects redshirt-sophomore quarterback Chris Coyer to start on Saturday after recovering from a shoulder injury he suffered against Kent State on the Owls’ last game of the regular season.

“[My shoulder] is feeling great,” Coyer said. “The strength has been coming back a lot. I feel really confident about the game.”

Though the Owls (8-4) have already had one of the most successful seasons in school history, Addazio said the team is primed to pick up its ninth victory.

“This is our championship game, that’s how our kids are viewing this,” Addazio said. “We’re playing for a championship. We want this legacy and we want this for our football team.”

In a game where the men’s basketball team wasn’t playing at its best, the Owls picked up their second win of the year in dominant fashion.

Temple defeated Western Michigan 69-55 in the opening round of the Puerto Rican Tip Off. All five Owls’ starters finished in double digits in scoring while holding the Broncos’ standout sophomore center Matt Stainbrook to 14 points.

Owls’ redshirt-senior guard Ramone Moore led all scorers with 15 points, while graduate center Micheal Eric collected a career-high 15 rebounds.

The Owls will play the winner of today’s Purdue vs. Iona game tomorrow at 1 p.m. in the Tip Off semifinals.

On a night when Temple football didn’t even play, their chances of winning the Mid-American Conference Eastern division title ended.

Ohio defeated Bowling Green while Miami (Ohio) lost to Western Michigan, giving Ohio the MAC East title and leaving the Owls clinging to hopes of an at-large bowl bid.

The Bobcats won on a last-second field goal by junior placekicker Matt Weller. Bowling Green led by nine at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but Ohio scored 10 unanswered points to secure a 29-28 win.

Miami (Ohio) held a seven-point lead in the second quarter against Western Michigan before the Broncos scored 17 points in a row and held on to win 24-21.

The Ohio win combined with the Miami (Ohio) loss makes it a mathematical impossibility for Temple to win the MAC East.

The MAC carries three bowl games. The No. 1 team from the MAC plays the No. 2 team from the Sun-Belt Conference in the Go-Daddy.com Bowl on Jan. 8. The No. 2 team from the MAC plays the No. 8 team from the Big Ten Conference in the Little Caesars Bowl on Dec. 27. The No. 3 team from the MAC plays the winner of the Western Athletic Conference in the Idaho Potato Bowl on Dec. 17.

With a win against their final MAC opponent, Kent State, next week, the best that Temple could finish in the conference is fourth.

The Owls could still make it to a bowl game by an at-large bowl bid, potentially taking the conference spot of a team that isn’t bowl eligible (hasn’t won at least six games). Temple could possibly take bowl spots from teams in the WAC, Big East Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference or Pacific 12 Conference.

Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who has been charged with the sexual assault of eight boys from 1994-2009, had an opportunity to work at Temple.

Sandusky was offered the job of head coach of the football team in December of 1988. Former Athletic Director Charlie Theokas extended the opportunity to Sandusky after the job was vacated by Bruce Arians on Nov. 27 of that year.

Sandusky is currently facing 40 charges of indecent conduct that span over 15 years. The charges include involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault of a person less than 13 years old, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children.

Sandusky allegedly used the Second Mile, a foundation he created to benefit needy children, to seek out his victims.

Sandusky coached under Joe Paterno for 20 years and won two national championships before being offered multiple head coaching positions across the country, including Temple.

In a 1999 article in Sports Illustrated, Sandusky is quoted as saying, “If I hadn’t had the other part of my life—my family and the Second Mile—I would’ve been a head coach.”