Sweet Home Recruiting

alabama

There’s three seasons of Temple football, the fall, the spring and recruiting.

Temple did well in one, not so well in another and the jury is out on the third.

Of course, the most important season is the fall but without the other two there can be no tangible success. The jury is always out on the spring, because that’s always the good guys versus the good guys. For the elation of every great touchdown class in the spring, there’s the nagging thought that maybe the secondary is not as good as advertised. That happens every year.

Now we’re in recruiting season.

So maybe that’s why it was heartening to hear that Geoff Collins sent some of his staff down to Alabama for a recruiting seminar.

A lot of people among us felt that the Owls should have had a better recruiting season off an AAC championship, even with a new coaching staff. There was enough evidence to support that theory as Al Golden, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule all had significantly higher-rated recruiting classes in their transition years than Collins did in his.

There was definitely the term “mailing it in” used on the recruiting effort of this staff and it’s hard to defend against it. It certainly seemed like that from my perspective, considering a new coaching staff without a lot of local ties would “settle” for not building a long-term foundation and instead look to live off Rhule’s recruits and move on to the next job.

It’s hard to scrub that image from the minds of a lot of Temple fans, including me. A top-rated AAC class in 2018 would erase that perception but we are not off to a good start.

aacrecruits

That’s why they have to get their act in gear for the season that takes place most of the summer.

Maybe going down to Alabama to listen to what Nick Saban has to say will help, but probably some good old-fashioned hustle and shoe-leather might do more good.

“I’d like to welcome our group from Temple,” we can only imagine hearing Saban say. “The best advice I have to improve your recruiting is to get in the SEC, play all of your games on Saturday and pack the house.”

Golden did it by coming to Temple with built-in relationships with high schools within the recruiting focus area and Rhule did it by enhancing those relationships. Maybe after listening to Saban, picking up the phone and calling Al or Matt might be worth the dime.

Friday: Fizzy’s Corner Returns

Monday: Sustainability

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10 thoughts on “Sweet Home Recruiting

  1. Time to find a new topic , rather than recruiting, or predicting when Coach Collins will be leaving the program. Lets start focusing on the great players on this team . Unless you going to predict when the players will start transferring from the team.

    • So glad I did not listen to the critics who asked me to stop calling for a fullback, an emphasis on the running game and play-action passing and extra backfield protection for P.J. after the first two years of the Rhule Era. This site has always been the anti-Pravda for Temple football and will always praise the good and criticize the bad. The facts are that Collins’ first recruiting year was piss-poor and his second has not been much better. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out he does not have to recruit on a high level to get out of here fast. I will keep calling him on it until he brings some great players in here to sustain this thing.

      • Amen

      • I’ll wait till 2-8-18 to evaluate his next recruiting class. But in the meantime, I’ll be expecting the BOT to name you the next head coach , after Collins is chased out of here by you. You seem to know more about football than Coach Collins and his staff.

      • If he is chased out of here by a blog, he isn’t thick-skinned enough to coach at Temple (or anywhere else, for that matter). From the time he was hired here, everything he has said or done is paving the way for a quick exit. I don’t see a whole lot of evidence to the contrary, unless you count the snappy slogans.

      • So again, when are you going to start focusing on the great players in this team ?

      • Once the season begins ….

  2. I like the mix of new coaches. They’re from all over the country and have great resumes.

    • I’m not a big fan of the Taver Johnson resume. Chuck Heater had a far better one. Patanuade, he’s got some appeal.

      • Whaaat? Did you have hoagies with Heater? Roast pork with Patanuade? Scrapple with Taver? 🙂

        We were downing Nat’s Dog with the dude when I asked him a relevant question that invoked a stare that could have froze the bile in Jeffrey Dahmer’s lymph nodes. Bill Bradshaw shared harsh news to me over a Ben’s Chili Bowl Half-Smoke. Gene Mauch revealed much that was hidden at the buffet table. Food is like sodium pentothal to coaches and managers.

        Temple would never allow a coach-food interview with the likes of Bob Costa or Keith Olbermann. Never. Kevin and Morgyn don’t know the power of a pizza pie.

        So unless you manage the undercover all night Russian buffet in Northern Liberties, you’ll have to wait until the ND game to see if they can recruit and coach.

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