Introducing Tony ‘Soul Train’ Cornelius


By Mike Gibson
Tony “Soul Train” Cornelius plans to major in business.
It looks like he already has the concept of risk/reward mastered.
If only Eric Reynolds were so smart.
Cornelius announced today that he has de-committed from his verbal to Iowa to attend Temple.
There are at least two reasons why this stands out Cornelius’ first excellent business decision.
One, Temple has the top-ranked undergradute business school in the nation, The Fox School of Business.
You think of Penn and you think of Wharton, which is the top post-grad school.
You think of Temple and you think of Fox.
Second, risk/reward.
Temple wants to move one of last year’s featured backs, Daryl Robinson, to lock-down corner.
That opens a spot.
If Cornelius is the player we think he is and the player he thinks he is, there’s a good chance that he’ll grab it. The position of tailback is essentially open, between two Florida guys, Boca Raton’s Cornelius and South Broward’s Joe Jones and Bethlehem Liberty’s Ahkeem Smith. Maybe holdovers Jason Harper and Robinson.
That’s it.
The risk is negative and the reward is positive.
Take a look at the video and judge for yourself.
We like the daytime clip that shows him on the left side outrunning two guys who have angles on him. It’s hard enough to outrun a guy in a Florida high school game.
It’s almost impossible to do it when one guy has an angle on you.
It is impossible when two of them do, but Cornelius proves the impossible is possible in the above clip.
If you don’t believe me, look for yourself. Even if you do believe me, look for yourself.
The music isn’t NFL films quality but the football is.
Now that Cornelius has the concept of risk reward mastered, we’ll package him with a nickname: Soul Train.
The Iowa Hawkeye website reports that Soul Train creator Don Cornelius is Tony’s grandfather, but we haven’t been able to confirm that elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the nickname is good enough to stick.
Soul Train. It befits the way he transports the football.
I like that.
Hopefully, he will, too, in time.

7 thoughts on “Introducing Tony ‘Soul Train’ Cornelius

  1. Hopefully he can make it to running back, and we get that nice 1 …2 punch. Only thing that concerns me a little is losing our offensive coordinator. But then again our coordinator did hold back Charlton a little. Our offense was rolling with Dimicheles at qb. We did recruit another qb a dual threat one, hopefully we can pull off some more trick plays with 2 qbs on the field. The one we recruited Jeffrey Legree can switch to WR if need be, at 6-2 he would be a good target.

  2. Now we got to make sure everybody gets a chance to come to campus and see why “regular students” have made Temple the hottest destination school on the East Coast. Everybody wants to come to school in an urban setting now and Philadelphia a major boost in the hip category when it was featured on MTV’s The Real World.

  3. Did you switch your site layout out? I couldn’t find the previous place we had a discussion about next years team makeup-specifically freshman/sophmores from this year returning as 2nd year starters.Ok, so 2008’s starting 22 will be mainly 14-17 juniors/sophmores that started the 2007 year. About 5-8 of the remaining starters will be either: seniors, freshman starting right away, or sophs/juniors with little game experience. What was 2007’s team makeup like? I’m guessing the starting 22 was mainly 16? freshman and sophmores starting for the first time, with the remaining 6? starters being juniors or seniors.Besides McMichael, who else is known to be really good at their position? Are there any players that could make a big jump and become very proficient at their position? Any NFL caliber players on the team?It seems to me that since: Temple lost very, very few players from last year, the teams first decent recruiting class is totally contributing as juniors, the second good recruiting class is now able to be reasonably productive as sophmores, the very good freshman recruiting class can add a little depth or help primarily at skill positions, and common sense says the depth and special teams is clearly going to be better, that the team is going to be very much improved. The difference in a NCAAFB team going from 2007’s 16? new starters (out of 22) to 4? is immmeasurable. The most amazing thing to me is that in the 2009 year, the team will probably be filled with 16? 3rd year starters, and the team will be ready to reload with recruiting classes that have been steadily improving each year. Am I right with all my estimates on the impact, and the number of players/specific class years of returning starters? I dont think its a far stretch to assume Temple will win at least 2 extra games this year to finish 6-6, and very possibly achieve a bowl game while maybe even win the MAC. What do you think?What about the kickers/punters?

  4. I think we’ll win at least four extra games. Freshman impact has been pretty much the same the last two seasons, with double-digit starters.There were only three areas of weakness on this team that I saw:1) offensive line … with Caputo and Tribue that now becomes a strength;2) Running back … Cornelius and Smith and Joe Jones (wow, we have a Smith and Jones in the backfield) … it’s a strength3) Kicker … our kicker made a very clutch kick against NIU but missed way too many chip shots … Ohio … Western Michigan … and Penn State come to mind …maybe Patrick Campbell pushes him to do better, maybe Pat Campbell does better. … we’ve gone from a quarterback who had a hard time producing points to someone who has a history of producing points (Adam DiMichele) on off-the-charts levels. Points, not yards, is all I want from my quarterback. Get me touchdowns, not field goals.

  5. and don’t forget James Nixon at RB …. he could be the starter. …I can’t wait to see him in the spring.WE now have an NFL-potential corner in Daryl Robinson. …Plenty of good stuff to look forward to ….

  6. Ok, so for the last 2 seasons TU has had 10+ freshman starters. Will this finally be the first year that the team has a significantly lower number of freshman starters?Wow, you think TU will go from 4-8 to at least 8-4, if not even 9-3. That’d be amazing. I almost cant imagine. I actually thought TU should drop down to Div IAA or 2 prior to 2006-2007. Once I saw they found a more appropriate conference, had a coach that was recruiting well, and the nice stadium/facilities plus solid backing for football future then I changed my opinion.So Caputo and Tribue are freshman lineman that will probably start?What took McMichele so long to start, if he’s so good? Was he Juco? Didnt the backup charlton(?) do ok in replacing him? Did the team get the QB recruit from SW Pennsylvania that was supposed to be a dual threat qb? Who’s the QB after MCMichale leaves (or injured)? My earliest real sports memories were when I was 10 in 1989 and I payed more attention to Philly pro teams, and a little college like Penn st or Temple bball, so I dont recall them doing much besides having long, long losing streaks. I’ve had college football video games and always chooose temple because their the closest team, and I always built them up from scratch. Its weird knowing they could be on the verge of winning a lower echelon conference and playing in a bowl game. In your most educated opinion, where would Temple be if they stayed in the Big East, with and without Golden?..better or worse shape? The best thing they couldve done was exit the Big East,right? They were getting killed by BC, Miami, VT (although somehow won a game or two against very highly ranked VT I remember)How easy are tix to get…you can buy them game day right?

  7. anywhere from 4-8 starters from this incoming class (remember, James Nixon and Big Moe Wilkerson are not really freshman; also a JC DE williams who is pretty good)My guess is closer to 4 than 8.ADM took a year off to play baseball.It takes time to shake off that rust.The rust is off now and watch him shine in 08.

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