No. 23 Temple Looks To Take Care Of Business At SMU

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The No. 23 Temple Owls are down in Dallas, Texas to take on SMU tonight in American Athletic Conference action.

Temple is coming off that thrilling match-up with Notre Dame, which saw them suffer their first loss of the season on Halloween night, 24-20. That dropped the Owls to 7-1 on the season, but Temple is 4-0 in the AAC and that has them alone in first place in the conference's East Division.

The Owls will not have center Kyle Friend tonight, he is out with an injury. Several other players are questionable, including star running back Jahad Thomas who hurt his ribs against the Fighting Irish.

It has been a struggle for SMU here in 2015. The Mustangs are just 1-7 and 0-4 in the American. Their lone win came back on September 12th against North Texas.

Despite their struggles, the Mustangs have shown the ability to move the football on offense. SMU averages 28.8 points a game. Their quarterback Matt Davis has thrown for 14 touchdowns and run for seven more. Redshirt freshman wide receiver Courtland Sutton has 38 catches for 719 yards and nine scores.

However, on the other side of the football, the Mustangs struggle to stop anyone as they are being lit up on defense to the tune of allowing 43.6 points per game.

These two teams last met in 2013, also in Dallas. Temple lost a shootout that game, 59-49, on their way to a 2-10 record.

KYW's Matt Leon spoke with Marc Narducci of the Philadelphia Inquirer about tonight's game and what to expect.