Click over photo of Robby Anderson and P.J. Walker to see who could have a similar impact with Owls.
Recruiting class arrives in a week, but redshirts could make bigger impact
Monthly Archives: January 2014
Wayne Hardin and Mike Pettine, Sr., the two greatest coaches I have ever known
Click on the photo of Mike Pettine Jr. to see why I think he will make a great coach of the Cleveland Browns.
McNair Would Be A Great Addition to Rhule’s staff
Todd McNair, coaching the Cleveland Browns, has Temple running through his blood.
A little over a year ago, then Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw walked into a room full of Temple football players and told them their head coach at the time, Steve Addazio, was leaving for Boston College.
Partly out of courtesy, partly out of curiosity, Bradshaw asked the team what they thought he should do. The players shouted out one thing: “Hire Matt Rhule.” Bradshaw had other ideas, even mentioning to several fans that it was his desire this time to get a guy with winning head coaching experience.
Paul Darragh finished his first season as head coach at Bloomsburg with a 10-2 record.
As it turned out, though, what the players had to say carried an awful lot of weight when Bradshaw was weeding through the interview process. Like a couple of years before, Rhule interviewed well and was liked by more than just the players. The parents also liked him, as did some key administrators who remembered Rhule’s time as an assistant coach for both Addazio and the guy before him, Al Golden.
In the end, Rhule’s knowledge of the program and the kids and that support won Bradshaw over. That, and the fact at least one other key target was coaching his team in a bowl game and did not want to give that up to get to Temple early enough to secure a shaky recruiting class.
Rhule had a rough first year, going 2-10, but he has secured a couple of decent recruiting classes and one of the only things left for him to do is to hire a guy or two with Temple connections as a key position coach. It’s one thing to have Temple-made guys like former quarterback Adam DiMichele and former safety Kevin Kroboth as grad assistants, but it might be helpful to get a guy from Temple as a position coach as well.
I think the next step for a guy like Matt Rhule is to hire an assistant coach with Temple ties to a winning past, a guy like Paul Darragh or Todd McNair. Darragh finished the season as a 10-2 head coach at Bloomsburg University and McNair was one the offensive coordinator for powerhouse USC under Pete Carroll. McNair, a NFL running back, was also an assistant coach with the Cleveland Browns. Other coaches with Temple backgrounds include (but are not limited to) Dick Beck, the North Penn High School head coach and Rich Drayton, the Central High School head coach.
Even the Florida Gators once feared Todd McNair.
I thought about Todd the other day when he posted that he was happy with the addition of Elijah Robinson to the Temple staff. I thought, “Why not Todd?” Todd is a great guy and a great coach who has a National Championship under his belt at USC and, while at Temple, played in a game against defending national champion BYU in front of 52,945 at Veterans Stadium. (Temple lost that game, 26-24.)
Why not indeed? He would be a great role model for the present-day Temple kids.
You can never have too many good coaches on the staff, especially guys with “Temple-made” stamped on their farheads.
Schools could learn a lot from last year’s best hires
Click on the photo of Wisconsin’s Gary Andersen for the five best first-year coaching jobs of 2013
Penn State will get a great coach in Al Golden
While a James Franklin hire will be better for Temple fans, Penn State fans should not fret over landing Al Golden.
When his coaching career is over, Al Golden is going to sit down in front of his laptop and type the story of his life.
Like another coach who served time at Temple University, he’s already got the title of his book: Deserve Victory. When John Chaney coached basketball at the school, one of his favorite phrases was “Winning Is An Attitude” and that turned out to be a best-selling book about Chaney, who found his way into college basketball’s Hall of Fame.
Sometime on Monday, Al Golden is likely (though not certain) to be named head football coach at Penn State and even though he was a Nittany Lion football captain, very few Penn State fans know a lot about Al Golden. Temple fans, of which I count myself among the few and proud, do know a lot about him because his life was an open book for his five years of transforming the football program at that school.
Golden carried a binder around with him for all of those five years and, on the front cover, were the words: Deserve Victory. In its pages, were detailed notes on how to build a winning football program, from hiring a staff to recruiting to dealing with the fans and the media and minute details on how both spring and summer practices are organized. There was even a part in there on the importance of summer football camps.
As a Temple football fan, I got to know Al Golden during those five years and, while no man is perfect, Penn State could get no better man to lead its football program. His attention to detail is impeccable. When he walks into a recruit’s home, he usually closes the deal and he’s coached at two places where the home stadium is usually half-full. That won’t exist at Penn State.
Does he have flaws? Sure. He’s not a great game day coach, but there are very few of those around anyway. The current Temple head coach makes him look like Albert Einstein on game day. If Penn State announces Al Golden as its next head coach in a press conference on Monday afternoon, it will be getting a very good head coach with a lot of great chapters left to write.
Take it from a Temple fan who saw his work up close and personal for five very good years.
Recruiting: Embrace it or Fail
Arguably, the jewel of this recruiting class is cornerback Anthony Davis of Gateway and probably not arguable is that cornerback is the one position where Temple needs immediate help.
Say what you will about Matt Rhule and we haven’t been shy about saying a few thousand words about him over the last few months, the facts of life in college sports start with a head coach who excels in recruiting.
Sure, you need a little bit on the ball on game day but, if you have better players, you are usually going to make the better plays.
247Sports’ AAC recruiting rankings.
Back to Rhule, though. The guy’s most positive trait is that he’s embraced recruiting pretty much like Al Golden did and that’s a very good development for Temple football going forward. Kids like him and he seems to like hopping aboard airplanes and trains to solidify relationships. He’s also good on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and that’s just part of the recruiting game these days. For all of those reasons, I think Rhule will hold together a pretty good recruiting class and have Temple ranked No. 3 or No. 4 in the AAC in recruiting this season. That’s outstanding coming off a 2-10 season because a belief system that would have been there for 10-2 doesn’t exist at 2-10. At 2-10, you are asking kids to come to your school based on blind faith.
One of the reasons Bill O’Brien left Penn State was that I don’t think a whole lot of guys who spend extended time in the NFL have a zeal for recruiting. Reading between the lines of O’Brien’s comments today, it looks like he saw it as a necessary but not exciting part of the job. O’Brien also seemed miffed with the “Joe Paterno” faction of the Penn State fans.
Now he just has to concentrate on football and I think he will do a good job as head coach of the Texans.
Matt Rhule has got to get better on game day and I thought one step in that direction would have been hiring part-time CBS Sports Analyst Tom Bradley to be his new full-time defensive coordinator. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, but Penn State defensive line coach (and great recruiter) Larry Johnson is out there and probably will be looking for a job soon and Temple so happens to have an opening for a defensive line coach. (Unless, of course, Johnson goes to the pros.)
Seems like a no-brainer to me but a lot of things seemed like no-brainers this season that turned into brainers.
Happy New Year From TFF … bowl or bust this December
Hopefully, a New Year will bring the Owls New Luck in 2014.
Temple Football Forever 