The Temple football team hopes that junior Penn State tailback Evan Royster is feeling fine on Sept. 25, 2010, when the Owls fly back to Beaver Stadium for their next encounter with the Nittany Lions.

That’s because he was really feeling lousy last Saturday, and all he did was run for a season-high 134 yards on only 19 carries, sparking the first four scoring drives in undefeated Penn State’s 31–6 victory over Temple, before retiring to the bench in the middle of the third quarter to rest his aching body.

About a dozen Nittany Lions were apparently hit with the flu bug last week and missed various practice sessions with fevers, coughs, aches, sickness, and lack of energy. But none was feeling worse than Royster on Friday, when he spent the day in bed with a 102-degree fever.

By game time Saturday at noon, he said he was better, but “the whole first quarter my legs felt tired, and I was dragging.”

Nonetheless, his tired legs dragged many Temple tacklers 45 yards in that quarter and another 74 yards in the second, as he ripped off runs of 33 yards, 11 yards, 11 yards, 11 yards and 19 yards, while leading State on its first three touchdown drives for a 21–3 halftime lead. He scored State’s second TD himself on a 7-yard burst through the middle, following the blocks of Dennis Landolt and Stefen Wisniewski.

Royster’s 119 rushing yards in the first 30 minutes were more than the entire Penn State team had against Syracuse and nearly as much as eight Lion runners gained on 35 carries against Akron. His 7.9-yard average was more than double the Lions’ average per carry through the first two games of the season, which left them last in the Big Ten in rushing offense.

After intermission, Royster ripped off a 14-yard dash on a 3rd and 7 play to key the drive to Collin Wagner’s 27-yard field goal, before leaving the pigskin-toting duties to Stephfon Green, Brent Carter, Joe Suhey and Kevin Newsome for the rest of the afternoon.

“I think we had about six kids with a little fever, but the rest of them just felt lousy and had no energy,” Coach Joe Paterno told the media after the game. He indicated that many players did not participate in practice during the week because the staff didn’t want any infections spread to others, while the medical personnel worked diligently with those who were sick.

“We just practiced with the guys we had,” said offensive tackle DeOn’tae Pannell. “If guys were missing, we just had to keep going. People stepped up and practiced well.”

The offensive line had a slightly different look, as redshirt sophomore Johnnie Troutman got his first start at guard in place of redshirt freshman Mark Stankiewitch and redshirt sophomore Quinn Barham spelled redshirt junior Lou Eliades for much of the second half. Along with center Wisniewski and tackles Pannell and Landolt, the guards helped open more holes than the offensive line had against the Zips and Orangemen combined. Consequently, the fifth-ranked Lions’ 186 yards on the ground were way beyond their 107-yard average this fall.

“We played tougher on the line of scrimmage and were more precise with our running game,” is the way Paterno analyzed it.

On the other side of the ledger, the Penn State defense has allowed a total of only 139 yards on the ground through its first three contests, while recording 29 tackles for losses, to rank first in the Big Ten in rush defense and total defense.

Saturday the Lion D held Temple without a touchdown for the fourth consecutive time.

The visitors’ QB Vaughn Charlton tried to break that streak with a long pass down the middle to James Nixon, after the Owls got a turnover at midfield in the first quarter. But senior cornerback Knowledge Timmons stripped the ball from Nixon, as he tried to haul it in at the goal line.

The Lions did surrender a season-high 205 passing yards by Charlton, but allowed Temple to score only two field goals, as the Big Ten leader in scoring defense held its third opponent to no more than seven points, while its offense has tallied a total of 90.

Middle linebacker Josh Hull made a career-high 13 tackles, while senior co-captain Sean Lee earned Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week honors with 12 tackles, including 3.5 for 15 yards in losses. These all came in the first three quarters, before he retired with what looked like a minor injury to his left leg.

Temple’s defense made life tough for State quarterback Daryll Clark, who entered the contest as the Big Ten leader in passing and total offense. Blitzing defenders often rocked him just as he delivered the ball and once forced his toss to flutter aimlessly into the arms of linebacker Jordan Martin for Clark’s third interception of the year.

Even so, co-captain Clark completed 16 of 26 attempts for 167 yards and two TDs to raise his season total to 760 yards on 65 connections in 97 throws for a 67 percent completion average. His eight touchdowns this fall have raised his total to 14 in the last five games and 27 in his career to tie Wally Richardson (1994–96) for 7th place on State’s all-time list.

Clark moved into eighth on the career completions list with 276, passing John Shaffer’s 262 and Kevin Thompson’s 263. He also passed Shaffer by 30 yards to move into 11th all-time in career passing yardage with 3,499.

It was sophomore Chaz Powell’s turn to lead the wide receivers with four catches for 40 yards, in addition to his nifty 24-yard run on a reverse from Devon Smith on the Lions’ first touchdown drive. Derek Moye grabbed four passes for 31 yards, including a four-yard laser from Clark for Penn State’s third touchdown a minute before halftime.

Tight end Andrew Quarless caught three passes for 45 yards, including one that could have gone 70 yards for a touchdown, but was reduced to 21 because of an illegal block by one of State’s young wideouts. Tight end Mickey Shuler caught a one-yard TD toss for the second week in a row. Shuler was another of the players slowed down with flu-like symptoms, as was Green, who got his first touchdown of the season on a three-yard blast to cap State’s final 74-yard scoring drive in the fourth quarter.

Senior punter Jeremy Boone continued to help his team win the weekly battle for field position by booming four punts an average of 47.8 yards and dropping two of them inside the visitors’ 20-yard line.

“We were a little sloppy today in some situations,” Paterno said. “But overall, I think we played better than we have so far this year.”

Saturday the ESPN College GameDay crew of Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard will come to University Park for the fifth time in its 16-year history of visiting the site of what is considered the day’s best game. The program will air late Friday afternoon, as well as Saturday from 10 a.m. until noon, with other live segments throughout the day.

The Big Ten season-opening weekend is scheduled to kickoff with a “Rally in the Valley” at 8 p.m. Friday in Rec Hall. Penn State fans are expected to turn Beaver Stadium into a Whitehouse for Saturday’s 8 p.m. kickoff for a prime-time national telecast on ABC.

For the glory,