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Posted at 2:45 PM EST

7:00 PM EST. Both these teams enter off outright wins last week despite being 6½-point underdogs at the close of their respective markets. Temple upset Navy 34-26 on a Thursday night prime-time game, which was televised nationally on ESPN. Navy is one of the most recognized names in the American Athletic Conference that was a favored to unseat Temple as reigning and defending conference champion. On this night however, the Owls bared a resemblance to the AAC Champion it was in 2016, as it absolutely dominated Navy. Temple led by as much as 18 points in the fourth quarter before the Mids would generate a couple of garbage time TD’s in the remaining six minutes to make it look more respectable than it was. Temple had its way with Navy and in the process, restored market faith in them. Temple can still make a bowl game if it wins two of its final three contests. The schedule sets up for Temple to have a decent shot at doing so, as it has a 2-8 Tulsa team to round off the season and this Cincinnati outfit that is a shadow of its former self compared to years’ past. Sandwiched in between this contest and the Tulsa affair is the nation’s best Group of Five team, Central Florida. That’s one of the keys here, as this game for Temple is sandwiched between last week’s ESPN game against Navy and next week’s epic clash with the Knights at home in Philadelphia. We also love the low number that the oddsmakers hung on the Owls here to cover.

Because of one lousy victory, the Owls are now road chalk? They have four wins this year with the other three victories coming against Villanova, UMass and East Carolina. Those are theree of the worst Division I teams in the country. Incidentally, Villanova has dropped three straight to James Madison, Elon and Richmond respectively while being outscored 71-22 by that trio. Temple beat Villanova by a FG. UMass and East Carolina couldn’t beat half the basketball teams in the country in a game of football and Temple beat UMass by just eight points, 29-21.

Cincinnati, despite its weak 3-6 record, is clearly not a team to sleep on. The Bearcats pulled off an upset of their own last week when they upended Tulane in its own house on Saturday. However, the result went unnoticed because Tulane is a low-market team with just three wins this season. However, the week prior, the Bearcats hosted SMU and took the Mustangs to overtime and came up on the losing end of a heart-breaker. The Bearcats have also played Michigan and scored 14 points against THAT defense. While Temple was hanging 16 on Villanova, Cinci was hanging 14 on the Wolverines.

Temple’s offense has been running on adrenaline for two weeks now and especially so last week with the entire country watching. Don’t overreact like the rest of this market, as we’re suggesting that the the low hanging fruit on the Owls here is pure poison but it does provide us with a great opportunity to get behind the host in a game they have a better than 50% chance of winning outright in.

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