Temple, Houston coaches on Saturday's game at the Linc
Geoff Collins on the blowout loss to South Florida: "We've had a couple of days to really digest the game and make some corrections, a lot of corrections."
Houston will be in South Philly on Saturday to play Temple at Lincoln Financial Field.
The Owls have been hammered twice (Notre Dame, South Florida), needed a last-minute field goal to beat Villanova after getting badly outplayed in the second half, and beat Massachusetts.
Houston lost Saturday to Texas Tech, ending a 16-game home winning streak. The Owls and Cougars played in the first AAC regular-season game and the first AAC conference championship game.They have played five times in all, with Houston winning every time.
The coaches were on a conference call with the media on Monday.
Houston's first-year coach, Major Applewhite, on how Temple is different under first-year coach Geoff Collins than Matt Rhule: "Little bit different schematically on defense, but they play with tremendous effort, very physical, very tough group. To me, I think the record and some of the statistics are misleading. They're just a a very good football team. I don't think their won-loss column reflects who they are a a team. I don't think their statistics defensively reflect who they as a defense."
Collins on his team after getting blitzed on national TV by South Florida on Thursday: "We've had a couple of days to really digest the game and make some corrections, a lot of corrections. They came out [Sunday night] and had a really good practice."
On the quarterback competition which Collins said is between Logan Marchi and Frank Nutile: "Everything will be determined by how they perform in practice."
Collins on the running game issues against USF: "There were a lot of tackles for losses that you can't have."
On the defense in general against USF: "They had nine plays that got half of their yards. You take those out we had a really clean game defensively."
Collins on the turnover problem: "We talked all week, we wanted to go plus-3 in the turnover margin. We ended up going minus-5 in the turnover margin, which is hard to win football games."
On Houston: "They've got a very explosive offense. They always have."
On the 2-2 record so far and his team's response to it: "The common theme is we've been here before, had this record in the past, come back and gotten better every single week."