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Degrees of Loss Separation: Temple > Penn St.

The Degrees of Loss Separation is a simple concept, I go out and find a highly rated team with some losses playing against a crappy team with lots of losses. Next I find a chain of losses which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt (not at all) that the underdog is going to pull the major upset and storm the field. The Final Outcome is calculated simply: Add up the scores of the losers, add up the scores of the winners in the degrees of loss separation and divide both by the # of degrees.

The Game: Penn St. Nittany Lions vs. Temple Owls

This instate 'rivalry' has been sporadically played throughout the teams histories. The matchup is usually one to pad Penn St.'s win total even in down years. In 1979 in one of Temple's best seasons, when they finished 10-2, on of these loss came to the Nittany Lions. Temple's largest crowd for a game they played in came last season when they were pounded 47-0 at Beaver Stadium.

8º of Loss Separation : Temple beat Miami (OH) beat Syracuse beat Louisville beat NC State beat Wofford beat Appalachian St. beat Michigan beat Penn St.

The largest degrees of loss separation thus far. This was all made possible by two stunning upsets this season, the Michigan crap show against Appalachian St. and the Syracuse stunner over Louisville. Every other game is not out of the ordinary with Temple not being completely miserable this season and beating Miami, Syracuse being terrible and losing to Miami, Louisville showing up and beating NC State, NC State beating a D-1AA team, App St. losing to a big time rival in Wofford, and finally Michigan beating Penn St. for the 9th straight time. No real surprises there.

Final Outcome: Temple 29 Penn St. 20

The Temple Owls have beaten a top 15 team already this season, but were not given credit for it when they scored a touchdown on the final play of the game against FraudConn. Well after this weekend the Owls via the Degrees of Loss Separation will garner a victory over a Top 25 football team with no ref there to steal it away.

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