Another Notre Dame road game, another primetime kickoff. With Temple ranked for the first time since 1979, the Owls will host the Irish in Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field at 8:00 p.m. ET on an ABC national broadcast.
The game is a sellout crowd, with Notre Dame drawing another large audience. As Pete Sampson pointed out, 69, 176 tickets have already been sold. Last week’s Temple game against UCF drew 31,372 fans.
Temple head coach Matt Rhule will be bringing a much different team to the game than the one that showed up to open Notre Dame’s 2013 season. The Irish jumped ahead early against the Owls with two first quarter Tommy Rees to DaVaris Daniels touchdowns, before coasting to a 28-6 win.
Rhule has also seen his star rise—the 40-year old served as Al Golden’s offensive coordinator before returning to replace Steve Addazio as the Owls’ head coach. Rhule won just two games in his first season, rallied to a 6-6 record in 2014 and has matched that win total already in 2015. He appears to be a top fit for a program like Maryland that’s already looking to replace Randy Edsall.
This year, the Owls are 6-0 on the season, including 3-0 in American conference play. They have a Top 10 statistical defense, giving up just 14.7 points a game so far this season. Temple opened the season with an eye-opening win over Penn State and has done nothing but win since.
The Owls will play at night against East Carolina this weekend before welcoming the Irish to the City of Brotherly Love on Halloween night.