You can’t get a moral victory from losing to a team that you could have beaten. The Owls, who led the game for more than three quarters had every opportunity to put the game away, but they just couldn’t do it.
“There’s no moral victories”, said Temple head coach Steve Addazio. “There’s nothing. . . . We lost. We could play anybody for that.”
From a talent standpoint, the Temple Owls are on the same level of the Penn State Nittany Lions except they’ve got to get better play from the quarterback position. Tahir Whitehead and that Owls defensive front is just as good as the Nittany Lions. Add a decent passing attack to their running game led by All-American running back Bernard Pierce and you have yourself a team that could have beaten the Nittany Lions.
Pierce is a future NFL player with great size and speed. I love his vision and ability to press the hole, then take the run outside if the opening isn’t there. 
He made some big runs early in the game, but Penn State focused on him more the rest of the way and the Owls couldn’t get the job done through the air. Pierce finished the game with 50 yards gained on the ground in 17 carries.
You should be able to throw the football against team that brings eight guys into the box to stop the running game.
Temple took some chances late in the game and put the ball in the hands of quarterback Mike Gerardi rather than 
playing more conservative and making sure the Nittany Lions had to march the length of the field to beat them.
Gerardi threw two interceptions and they were two awful ones, as he telegraphed both passes and threw the ball behind his target each time. The second pick set up the Nittany Lions winning scoring drive.
“They were bad throws,” Gerardi said afterward. “I saw the guy was open. I didn’t lead him enough.”
He completed 9 of 22 passes for 95 yards with two interceptions. That’s just not good enough to beat a good football team.
Penn State is an average team and will struggle to be .500 team once playing their Big 10 Conference Foes.. (Wisconsin/Nebraska/Iowa) will all be licking their chops to play this Offensively challenged team and teams like Mich State,Northwestern & Illinois who always play the Lions tough … Ooh and I forgot about Michigan and Ohio State.. Penn State will beat the basement teams like Indiana/Minnesota & Purdue, how far this Program has fallen.. Coach Joe Pa needs to retire and they need to re-energize that entire Program in my book
by their recruits, tv exposure, money generated, tradition,, all of it, they are a Major program, struggling right now, especially at quarterback, to say they are not a major program is among the dumbest things you have said on this site paulman, damn you are one dumb mfer
I disagree-
By moving the BIg 10, they have moved further away and have alientated much of their core Recruits,Alumni and Fans and relationships with High Schools that would funnel a lot of their Talent to Penn State.. Most of their Recruits and recruits families from Maryland,Eastern PA,NJ,NY and Conn are going to want to have more opportunites to see their kids play.. Many of their Alumni who live in these areas can’t go to many road games in the Big 10 due to the distances away… (Nebraska,Iowa,Minnesota,Wisconsin,Illinois are all 700 + miles away) as opposed to the many road games they used to play were all within 4-5 hours so family members,alumni and even fans could travel to watch them play (Pitt, West Virginia,Rutgers,Syracuse, etc,etc..)