Filed under: Temple, Big East, FCS

PHILADELPHIA — The college football world was delivered a beauty of a game Friday — at least for the 32,000 in attendance and perhaps hundreds more who witnessed the otherwise untelevised 31-24 thriller between Temple and Villanova on ESPN3.com.

Al Golden’s resurgent Temple Owls rallied from a 21-13 fourth-quarter deficit to topple the defending FCS champion Villanova Wildcats and claim the Mayor’s Cup. Owls quarterback Chester Stewart committed what Golden termed a “critical error,” fumbling the snap on third-and-one from his own 22-yard line to set up a wild finish.

Before the fumble, Temple had scrapped to a 22-21 lead, and was looking to ice the final two minutes of the game. The lower-division Owls had steadily dominated Temple through nearly three quarters of play, something the Wildcats’ coach readily admitted. Villanova’s faithful were soon frothy as the Wildcats kicked a field goal for the 24-22 lead, spotting the Owls just 1:43 to attempt a rally without any remaining timeouts. Stewart and his teammates promptly rallied, collecting four first downs against the dwindling clock to set up a frenetic field-goal attempt from the 26 with eight seconds left.

From there, kicker Brandon McManus drove the 43-yard attempt through the uprights for the wild victory. In so doing, major college football outpost Philadelphia gifted observers with one heck of a ballgame, perhaps the best game of the opening week with an entire Saturday still to be played.

“I feel like the people in Philadelphia should really embrace college football in the area because you have two teams that can put on a game like that. I just thought it was tremendous … for college football in general,” Temple coach Andy Talley (pictured above) said afterward.

Added Temple’s Golden, “There are a lot of irrelevant games in college football this weekend (but) this is not one of them.”

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