PHILADELPHIA — A disastrous last two minutes of the first half, turned brief moments of optimism into another disappointing finish for the UMass football team.
Temple scored two touchdowns in under a minute right before intermission and controlled the game from there as the Minutemen fell, 29-21, Friday at Lincoln Financial Field.
UMass shook off two first-half field goal misses and briefly took the lead late in the half. Quarterback Andrew Ford led a 64-yard drive with his arm and his feet and hit Nick Orekoya out of the backfield from 10 yards out to lead 7-3 with 2:29 left.
That celebration was short-lived. Temple answered quickly, covering 73 yards in 79 seconds, the last 30 coming on a Logan Marchi pass lofted over Isaiah Rodgers to Adonis Jennings to give the home team 10-7 lead with 1:04 left.
Starting from its own 22 with 58 seconds left, UMass tried to answer. Ford rolled left and had an open receiver deep, but he fumbled the ball when Quincy Roche hit him from behind. After several bounces off a handful of players on either side, Roche recovered at the UMass 18.
“That’s unacceptable,” Ford said. “That’s not how I’ve been coached. I can’t do that to our team.”
Two players later, Marchi zipped a pass to Keith Kirkwood with 7 seconds left. Temple missed the extra point, but still led 16-7 at halftime.
“Andrew just dropped the ball. It’s a terrible mistake. A veteran quarterback can’t make that play,” UMass coach Mark Whipple said. “That was a big play.”
The Minutemen spent the rest of the game unsuccessfully trying to dig out of the hole.
“Our guys fought hard, but you can’t drop three touchdown passes and miss three field goals and expect to win the game,” Whipple said. “That was really disappointing.”
UMass (0-4) is at Tennessee on Sept. 29.
Protecting Ford continued to be a problem for UMass as the junior quarterback was sacked eight times for the second week in a row.
“He’s got to get rid of the ball on a couple of them. He just hung on to the ball,” Whipple said. “He can’t do that on first down.”
Ford was 23-for-37 for 377 yards and two touchdowns. Sadiq Palmer finished with seven catches for 177 yards.
Temple’s Ryquell Armstead (13 carries, 91 yards) appeared headed for the end zone when he got past the line at the Owl 29 on the second play of the game and found nobody between him and the goal line. Rodgers sprinted diagonally across the field and caught him at the 15-yard line. The defense stiffened from there and forced Temple to settle for a 24-yard field goal that put it ahead 3-0, 2:17 into the game.
The kicking problems that have plagued UMass since its upgrade reappeared right away. Aided by a 29-yard tackle-shaking run by Marquis Young, the Minutemen got to the Temple 4, but after a loss of 2 on an end-around, UMass attempted a 23-yard field goal by Michael Schreiner, but it went wide left.
After Rodgers blocked a Temple field goal, Schreiner got another chance, this time for 39 yards. This one wasn’t close. It came off his foot like a golf shot when the club hits the ground before the ball, and squirted way low and left. He missed a 32 yarder later in the game.
Following the momentum swing at the end of the first half, UMass punted on its first drive of the second half. Temple stretched its edge to 19-7 with 10:18 left in the third quarter when Aaron Boumerhi hit a 52-yard field goal.
The Minutemen seemed close to a potential momentum-changing takeaway on the ensuing drive. The Owls fumbled the kickoff but recovered it themselves. Two passes that appeared to be inches away from being intercepted, weren’t, and the home team added a 37-yard field goal with 1:52 left in the third quarter to lead 22-14.
UMass drove to the Temple 28-yard line and went for it on fourth down. The pass to Brennon Dingle was incomplete, but an official threw a flag and the Minutemen appeared to have a first down on a pass interference penalty. But after some discussion, the referees announced the flag had been picked up giving Temple the ball.
“I’ve been really frustrated with the officials,” Whipple said. “That was a terrible non-call on the pass interference. You feel like your kids get a break and all of a sudden it comes back. … One guy overruled them. I told them, ‘This is national television, this is the (officiating) team you’ve got? You overruled one of them?’ It was JV.”
Marchi hit Isaiah Wright for a 13-yard TD pass with 3:48 left to all but seal the win.
UMass added a touchdown, with 1:41 left. Whipple opted not to try an onside kick, a decision he second-guess afterward.
“In hindsight we would have. I felt like we’d move the ball and get a shot at a Hail Mary,” Whipple said. “I didn’t think we’d stop them. My gut told me if we didn’t get the onside, the game was over. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t enough time.”
The defense held, but the Minutemen got the ball back with 26 seconds left and no timeouts. They were unable to produce a miracle finish. Whipple tried to be optimistic afterward.
“I like these guys,” Whipple said. “I feel for them more. They’re fighting and they’re good to be around.”
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage