Utah State at Temple: How to watch, listen to or stream the game

For Utah State: The Aggies are 1-2 following a 38-21 loss at home against rival Utah. Utah State was genuinely competitive against the Utes, a week after getting blown out at USC. USU looks to be trending up, with an improved defense, a strong rushing attack and the potential for a potent passing attack being apparent. The competition thus far has been fierce — both the Trojans and the Utes will be competing for berths in the College Football Playoff this season — but Utah State has shown glimmers of promise.
For Temple: The Owls are 0-3 following a thrilling 28-20 win loss at home to Coastal Carolina last weekend. With blowout losses to Oklahoma and Navy on the books, Temple has not fared well this season and appears to be one of the worst teams in the FBS. The program came in at No. 6 in ESPN’s Bottom 10 rankings, with Ryan McGee writing, “Once again, Temple has to settle for being our second-highest-flying parliament of Strigiformes, forced to sail in the broken wind that trails Kennesaw in the race for Bottom 10 Owl air supremacy.”
Utah State, save for a few explosive plays given up against Utah — and a few more than that surrendered against USC — has been competitive with the best opponents it has faced this season. Take away one 70-plus yard run by the Utes, for instance, and the Aggies held Utah to under 4 yards per carry. An impressive feat, all things considered.
The issue for the Aggies thus far this season has been maintaining their discipline for the entirety of games. Breaks of concentration on defense have led to scoring plays for opponents, when otherwise the USU defense has held firm. Breaks in focus on offense have led to turnovers, of which USU has six this year so far, all interceptions. To say nothing of missed touchdowns on plays ever so slightly off, or missed blocks that would have sprung open a skill player for a major gain.
It is these mistakes that have cost the Aggies so far this year, and led to their 1-2 record through the first three games.
Fixing those mistakes, those errors in consistency has been the primary focus for Utah State this week.
“We have to hammer home details,” interim head coach Nate Dreiling said. “We are going to hammer discipline and make sure everything we do is consistently to a high level of detail over and over again, so (the game against Temple) doesn’t come down to a couple of plays that we lose. It comes down to those plays that we’ve done a million times in practice and now they are showing up in the game.”
Dreiling is optimistic Utah State can get to the level of consistent execution it needs to start winning games.
“We are taking steps in the right direction,” he said. “But we need to take another big one this week.”
Rahsul Faison, Utah State running back: There has been arguably no better USU players thus far this season than Faison. The Pennsylvania native has carried the ball 40 times for 247 yards this season, an average of over six yards per carry.
He ran for over 100 against at the vaunted Utah defense and was arguably the only real bright spot on offense against USC.
The senior came back to Utah State after testing out the transfer portal during the offseason, and so far it appears that he made the correct decision.
Temple wide receiver Dante Wright — a transfer from Colorado State — deserves a shoutout here too. He has been, by far, the Owls’ most dangerous weapon on offense — he has 23 receptions for 236 yards and two touchdowns. Limiting him, or taking him out of the game entirely, is a major focus for the Aggies’ defense
But Faison has proven against elite competition that he is among the most dangerous backs in the country. The only thing lacking for him this season are touchdowns, but it is only a matter of time. And if he gets loose against the Owls, odds are Utah State will come away from its East coast trip back in the win column.
“You look at them and it says that they are 0-3 on their schedule, but they have played great competition. They almost beat Coastal Carolina last week. So they are playing really good football. (Have) a bunch of good athletes out there. And it is long trip across the country for us, so we have to make sure we handle our own” — Utah State coach Nate Dreiling
“Utah State has had to overcome a bunch of adversity. They’ve got a lot of new things going on and they’ve got setbacks, just like we have setbacks. The one thing I’ve noticed is that they keep playing hard. They present some issues on defense with the way that they pressure. When they played Utah, they hit Utah up pretty good. It took Utah a bit to get going. So we have to prepare for their pressure. … Offensively, I know he’s a backup quarterback, but he is an athletic joker. And they run their offense very very fast. Probably the fastest tempo that we’ve seen since I’ve been here.” — Temple coach Stan Drayton
Utah State: Bye; Temple: vs Army
All times Mountain Time zone.