While the first two quarters had very few positives, Addazio was impressed by how his team bounced back in the second half and started to claw back into the game.
"We went in at halftime and took a hard hit," Addazio said. "You couldn't script a worse start to that football game and, obviously, that's not something that we've done or shown, but we did it. When we came out after the half, I thought we played explosively on both sides of the ball, I thought there was tremendous effort and great plays to be had. It truly was a tale of two halves.
"I thought our kids did a tremendous job at halftime. We came back out and we really played like a new football team and fought our way back into that game with 7 minutes left in the game and we couldn't get off the field [defensively]. We felt like we had momentum, the game had shifted but we couldn't get off the field. We just weren't able to finish the comeback."
In 2 weeks, the Owls will take the trip to Happy Valley to play Penn State. Addazio sees another talented team in the Nittany Lions that will give the Owls a challenge as they seek to collect win No. 2.
"We play Penn State in 2 weeks. I've watched two games and I think they're outstanding on defense. Jordan Hill, their defensive tackle, is as good a guy as I've seen. He's got a tremendous motor and him and No. 91, DaQuan [Jones], are two of the best inside guys I've seen in a long time. Gerald Hodges and Mike Mauti, the outside linebackers, I think they're both excellent.
"They have a lot of talent. They've been in two tough games that really were games that they had a great opportunity to win and they appear to be a team that's fighting and scratching, and I like the way their team plays."
The two teams played a nail-biter last season, with the Nittany Lions holding off Temple, 14-10, at Lincoln Financial Field on a Michael Zordich goal-line touchdown with less than 3 minutes left in the game.
The game kicks off on Sept. 22 at 3:30 at Beaver Stadium and will be televised on either ABC Regional or ESPN2.
