Temple’s defense played like warriors, sacking UConn’s Lorenzen six times and stuffing the Huskies offense on a crucial 4^th and inches play. UConn failed again later in the fourth quarter on a 4^th and 1 at the Owls' 28 yard line. These big stops by the Temple D gave them the chance to win.

Owl quarterback Adam DiMichele drove Temple to the UConn 11-yard line on the ensuing drive, setting up the wild and controversial fourth-down play.

Temple called a reverse to wide receiver Dyonne Crudup, who rolled left and tossed the ball into the end zone. A UConn defender deflected the ball, but a Temple player caught it in the back of the end zone with one foot still in bounds.  The catch, however, was ruled out of bounds.

Despite indisputable video evidence that the ball was caught in bounds, the Big East replay official confirmed the ruling on the field, thus taking the win away from Temple.

This blunder didn’t have much of an impact on the season, but Temple was clearly in a position to win that game and they hadn’t done much winning in the recent past.  A big win over UConn could have done wonders for the confidence of the players, coaching staff, and fans and they were clearly robbed of that chance.

5 & 4.  Purdue vs. Penn State – November 3, 2007 & Illinois vs. Ohio State –

            November 10, 2007

We’ll get to the reason why we had to lump these two games together in just a second. The fact is that both games had a ton of horrible calls that affected the outcome as well. But the really interesting thing about this pair of Big 10 games played on back to back weekends is that they are linked by a common officiating crew.

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