Football Preview: Temple Wildcats vs. Harker Heights Knights
The Temple Wildcats will host the Harker Heights Knights at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday. Temple knows how to get points on the board -- the squad has finished with 31 points or more in their past six matchups -- so hopefully Harker Heights likes a good challenge.
Last Friday, Temple was fully in charge, breezing past Copperas Cove 42-14. The Wildcats might be getting used to big wins seeing as the team has won four matches by 22 points or more this season.
Champ Mayo continued his habit of posting crazy stat lines, throwing for 310 yards and three touchdowns while picking up 14.1 yards per attempt.
Temple didn't go easy on the quarterback and picked off four passes before the game was over. Jason Bradford led the group effort, picking up two of those interceptions all by himself. Deavonte Carr also set a new season high mark in total tackles with six. Temple got some further help from Dederick Colbert: he picked up a sack, made ten total tackles, and defended a pass.
Meanwhile, Harker Heights had already won four in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 32.3 points) and they went ahead and made it five on Friday. They strolled past the Wolves with points to spare, taking the game 26-7. The 26-point effort marked the Knights' lowest-scoring game of the season, but in the end it didn't matter.
Harker Heights' success was spearheaded by the efforts of Hudson Humble, who threw for 197 yards and three touchdowns while completing 85.7% of his passes, and Kaden Butler, who rushed for 123 yards and a touchdown on only 13 carries. Butler's rushing production has been exceptional as that marked his sixth straight game with at least 123 rushing yards. Harker Heights also got a significant boost from C2 Evans, who ran away from the competition to the tune of 101 yards.
Harker Heights was unstoppable on the ground and finished the game with 227 rushing yards. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now rushed for at least 155 rushing yards in nine consecutive contests.
Temple's win was their fourth straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 7-2. As for Harker Heights, their record is now an identical 7-2.
Temple ended up a good deal behind Harker Heights when the teams last played back in October of 2023, losing 35-21. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Butler, who rushed for 143 yards and five touchdowns while picking up 8.4 yards per carry. Now that Temple knows the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
