02.09.14
by

Who blocked Todd McNair?

Todd McNair, coaching the Cleveland Browns, has Temple running through his blood.

Todd McNair, coaching the Cleveland Browns, has Temple running through his blood.

When he was at Temple, Todd McNair was know as the quintessential back, a guy who could run, had moves and who wasn’t afraid to block for others.

Well, now it appears that someone at Temple blocked Todd McNair.

From being hired.

Kudos to Matt Rhule for reaching out and trying to hire McNair as a member of the Temple staff. Boos to whomever blocked Todd McNair from being hired.

This raises another, more important, question: Can the football program be ultimately successful if decisions made by the CEO are being vetoed? And, if the powers-that-be are making decisions that should only be made by the head coach, why hasn’t Phil Snow been fired?

Here is the statement by Todd McNair:

“I would like to thank coach Matt Rhule for reaching out, and attempting to hire me. I would have loved to come back and help get our beloved Owls back on the winning track. But I guess:

• Playing, and being named captain
in the NFL.

• Coaching in the NFL, on the only
Cleveland Browns staff to make the
Playoffs since they’ve been back

• Coaching 6 years under National
Championship, and Super Bowl
Winning coach Pete Carroll, on a
Team that won 5 straight BSC
Bowl games and was ranked
NO.1 IN THE NATION FOR 33
STRAIGHT WEEKS

• Coaching in 2 NATIONAL
CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES, while
personally coaching a HEISMAN
TROPHY WINNER

• Being the primary recruiter on an
absolute Recruiting Juggernaut,
and ranked the 3rd best recruiter
in the ENTIRE COUNTRY

• Growing up 9.8 miles from campus,
and a HALL OF FAME HS PLAYER
from Temple’s recruiting back yard

• Having coached and mentored 2
kids from the inner city (Camden)
that are BOTH current members of
the Temple football staff

• And being a former TEMPLE
UNIVERSITY ALL-AMERICAN,

Somehow doesn’t qualify me, lol.

And any situation that may give cause to pause, has been addressed and clarified by the attorney’s involved.

Thanks again to coach Rhule. And good luck to him and the boys this season, and going forward. Go Owls!”

_ Todd McNair

29 thoughts on “Who blocked Todd McNair?”

  1. It’s always difficult to comment on stories when we don’t have the full picture but this situation does beg for some more specifics from the administration. I agree with everything you said in your article regarding mcnairs experience and legacy and violently agree with senior management exercising their veto power on the wrong coach.

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  2. Although we don’t know the whole story and there might be a plausible reason for nixing his hiring, on its face there is no obvious reason. The only thing that might explain it is that he was Reggie Bush’s coach and everyone is familiar with that scandal. That being said, unless there is direct evidence showing that he had a role in the scandal, that should not foreclose his being hired given his C.V. Decisions like this make me thing that too many of those in charge don’t want a successful football program.

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  3. Yes, Matt Rhule had a terrible first year coaching but any standards but without support at the top for HIS decisions (and, if he’s the head coach he should get to make these decisions, even keeping Phil Snow) that does not bode well for the future of the program. With Robby Anderson and this we seem to take two steps back for every step forward.

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  4. how many starters return? …., impact of the loss of Anderson can’t be overstated, he was the most explosive player at that position since Rod Streater…, offense would have been at the top of the AAC with Anderson in the lineup…, is it just me, but who is coaching our O-line this year? a guy who has never played or coached an O -line!!! hard to imagine our O-line reaching their potential without great coaching…., this represents THREE steps back…,

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  5. make it Four steps back, we lose Anderson and hire a great kid, but he hasn’t played or coached at the WR position…, remember when Rhule was the QB coach and OC? expect the same poor results at the WR position…., O-Line had the potential to be one of the best in the conference…, but not now.., wholly crap 😦

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  6. We should make ADM the QB coach and reshuffle the staff around to make someone else the WR coach. It only makes sense. The only time ADM was a wide receiver, he inadvertently tipped a ball that was caught by Bruce Francis for a td to beat UConn. … no, a BE replay official over-ruled that TD. As much as I love ADM, don’t think that qualifies him to coach WRs.

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  7. yep.., another case of Rhule trying to ‘take care of someone’ at the expense of the team (Snow, ADM, etc..,).., what would be the results if an outside observer were to grade each member of our coaching staff? OC, RB, DL: B+…, everybody else including the head coach C+ or worse.., last year’s team should have won 7 games or more, we were outcoached in the second half in 9 of the 12 games…,

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  8. Don’t know if ADM will be a good or poor choice as WR coach what I don;t get on some of the other boards is how being able to coach is considered on a minor part of the job. All people seem to want on the staff are aggressive, young recruiters. While I understand that is an important part of college coaching but sooner or later when you have the talent that is on par with or better than the opposition then coaching is what makes the difference. What I’m starting to see with this staff is good recruiting but poor coaching and eventually if you keep losing even with good talent, those kind of players will stop being interested in Temple.

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  9. Our gameday coaching was piss-poor. There is no other hyphenated word I can think of to describe it. There is a singular word: Shitty. From Sean Daniels over-running the Fordham QB and making him throw to his right (comfortable) side on the Hail Mary (geez, if you are not going to put him on his ass, then at least make him throw ACROSS his body), to the 50-yard bombs against the worst running defense in the country (Idaho), to the 100 passes with a 28-7 lead at SMU and the 100 more passes to start the second half with a 21-0 lead vs. UConn, do we REALLY think this will change in 2014? That’s a leap I’m not willing to take right now. QBs coaching WRs doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies.

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  10. Don’t forget the 4th and three inches five-yard handoff in the backfield to Kenny Harper when you have the best center in the AAC (Kyle Friend) and the best QB in the AAC (P.J. Walker), who could have fell forward for 4 inches and three knees to win that game. Now I have to listen to Rutgers’ assholes until 2020 because of that bit of genius from our head coach.

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    • Has rhule ever manned up and stated he was disappointed in his ability to assess and leverage talent (eg Chris coyer) manage a game (see above) or demonstrate mature leadership by taking accountability rather than laying it off on his twenty year old kids?

      As a diehard owls fan it pains me to lose but it pains me more to think he’s selfishly toying with kids futures by giving them a half-assed college experience. Btw…there’s another hyphenated adjective that might work for year one

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      • That is a good one to describe Captain Imbecile

      • Good point about Rhule throwing the players under the bus so much this past season. Not trying to say it is anywhere near the same but for as tiresome as Andy Reid’s “I’ve got to do a better job” quote got, he didn’t publicly blame the players.

      • You can’t line up in that defense with so many DBs close to the line of scrimmage against UCF (no timeouts, 17 seconds and 67 yards away from paydirt) and then blame it on Anthony Robey. At some point you have to come out and say: “Phil Snow didn’t do what he was supposed to do” and not Anthony Robey. He doesn’t have the balls to publicly criticize his assistant coaches, but he has plenty of balls to throw the kids under the nearest bus.

  11. As you previously pointed out Mike, against CFU, Snow blitzed someone off the corner and the kid ran right by the QB. Had the kid come under control and simply contained the QB, TU wins the game. I’m getting so tired of woulda, shoulda, coulda. I’d rather lose by 50 than lose the way the Owls have.

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  12. Yes, that was UCF and the kid not only over-ran Bortles, I thought he looped all the way to the end zone to come back. I thought, “Where the bleep is he going?” He looped so far around Bortles. It could have been a much shorter circle and he would have been to Bortles before he threw that ball that was a great catch by J.J. Worton. As it was, Nate D. Smith almost sacked him from the front. Almost. That’s the operative word of the 2013 season.

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  13. So like I said in a earlier post I am friends with Robbie Anderson’s father and I talked 2 him thru text the other day. Here is what he said when I asked him about his son leaving the team.

    “He did. don’t know why but he’s 20 and you can’t tell them anything.
    Damn shame he had one foot in the nfl and he was fun to watch.
    It’s a damn tragedy they (the team) were gonna be special.”

    I them asked him can anybody talk some sense into Robbie? His response was

    “You want his number ??? He won’t listen. I don’t know what’s up with him he doesn’t know how important he is to a lot of people. honestly I’ve had folks in bergen talking to him a long time about who he is and how special his team can be to a lot of people I truly thought he cared but he’s going in a different direction broke my heart brotha.”

    I then asked him does Robbie wanna play football anymore? His answer was…

    “Yes but every time he goes back to Florida he just loses all direction and this always happens. i can’t explain it”

    So u have a father who is devastated by his son’s decisions. A father who seems to have tried to talk some sense into his son. I could sense his father’s frustration. Just seems like a 20 year old who thinks he knows everything. Lets hope this young man comes to his senses.

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  14. but his mom says the whole story hasn’t got out … she knows it. I don’t know who to believe. I just wish he would come back, enroll in a couple of summer school sessions, and get a chance to play again. He’s a potential First-Team All-American.

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  15. My guess is that this (not hiring Todd) was the work our “carpetbagger” AD. Clark and Theobald are off to a horrendous start and would be wise to model Temple’s 1st president Russell Conwell, who said: “The officeholders can never be greater than the people; they should be honest servants of the people.”

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  16. Great quote. I’m not all that excited about bringing Indiana basement-dwelling football to Temple in the guise of “saving money.” They haven’t proven to be anything but bean-counters so far.

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  17. I guess Todd not being hired has nothing to do with the fact that he’s suing the NCAA.

    “The disputed issues in McNair’s appeal centered on the believability of one of the NCAA’s key witnesses in the case, Lloyd Lake, the would-be sports marketer who allegedly provided substantial amounts of money to Reggie Bush’s family over a two-year period while the star running back played for the Trojans. McNair, the NCAA ruled last June (2011) either knew or should have known about Bush’s relationship with Lake and purposely misled investigators. But McNair said that he did not know about the relationship between Lake and Bush, and that the NCAA itself committed misconduct in the process of its investigation.”

    Also

    “McNair was twice convicted on misdemeanor charges related to mistreatment of dogs. In July 1993, McNair was convicted of animal neglect, fined $500 and put on probation.[14] In October 1996, McNair was convicted on 17 counts of animal cruelty and failure to license dogs and ordered to pay nearly $25,000 in fines and perform eight hours of community service. Case investigators alleged that McNair was involved in dog fighting with pit bulls, but the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence for a conviction on those charges.”

    Odd too that he’s hired by Arians and then a month later decides not to take the Cardinals job??

    Of course those pesky details don’t matter in a a Gibson article.

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  18. Look at Indiana sports. Football has been for the most part a disaster and BB almost as bad since Booby Knight left. Mediocrity seems to have been okay with them. Unfortunately, they have brought that mentality here as evidenced by what they’ve done since arriving.

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  19. Indiana was a No. 1 seed last year. Mediocrity.

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  20. Exactly right Mike. Indiana basketball recent records with bad years:
    03-04 and 04-05: 14-15
    05-06: 19-12, 08-09:6-25, 09-10:10-21, 10-11:12-20. Like I said, Indiana BB has not been all that great.

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  22. 2014 conference schedule:
    Temple will play Cincinnati, East Carolina, Memphis and Tulsa at home. The Owls will travel to Central Florida, Connecticut, Houston and Tulane. Dates and times for the games will be released at a later date.

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