10.14.18
by

You Get What You Need

There’s no way Mick Jager could have been inspired to write “You can’t always get what you want” unless he would have stepped into the H.G. Wells’ Time Machine and watched Temple’s football game at Navy yesterday before going back to 1969.

If you are a Temple fan, you can’t always get what you want, but, at least yesterday, thanks mostly to the kids who tried all the time, they got what they needed.

A win.

That’s the bottom line but it’s not really all that mattered.

If this team is ever going to achieve the potential it both wants and needs, it is going to need fundamentally better coaching. We haven’t seen very much evidence of that in this 4-3 season. Seven and Oh talent, a 4-3 season because in part of what of the kind of head-scratching play-calling and personnel packages we witnessed on the first and penultimate drives of the game.

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What I–and I suspect a great majority–of Temple fans wanted after the Owls got a first-and-goal at the 1 on the first drive of the game was to put a fullback in the game and pound Jager Gardner behind him for the easy six. Somehow, though, offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude got his 147th brain cramp of the year and put two defensive players–Freddy Booth-Lloyd and Dan Archibong–in the game and that pushed the ball back another five yards due to an illegal procedure penalty on the second play of that series. The first play was an unnecessary quarterback sneak. The First and goal from the 1 is no time for a sneak or exotic personnel packages. Asking defensive players to rush into the game and hear a snap count they are unfamiliar with is a recipe for disaster.

Disaster went down like sewer water yesterday.

It is high time to put Nitro in at fullback (his natural position) and giving the ball to Jager Gardner for the easy six. If Gardner doesn’t get it on first down, he almost assuredly does on second or third. Don’t try to be a rocket scientist when you know basic geometry–the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

Memo to Patenaude: This SHOULD be Temple football on every first and goal. Do you think Matt Rhule ever cared what defense Cincy was in here?

But …. nooooooo … these guys are so stubborn they don’t want to use a traditional fullback behind a pretty good tailback.

Twilight Zone was revisited on the penultimate drive of the game, with 1:48 left and the Owls getting a first down at the 9. All the Owls had to do was put a fullback in the game and run Gardner behind him for three downs, using the clock, perhaps scoring. Instead, this genius from Coastal Carolina decides to throw a ball into the end zone, committing two unpardonable sins–stopping the clock and turning the ball over.

Less than two minutes left with a first down inside the 10 is not the time to get greedy.

Or stupid.

Speaking of stupid, the very smart announcing team–led by former All-Pro Randy Cross–was aghast (aghast, I tell you) about the Owls approach to running down the play clock which could be described in two words: Ignoring it. On just about every play, the Owls were snapping with 11-13 seconds left on the play clock, when they could have run that down to 2 or 3 seconds before snapping. Cross estimated that the Owls wasted “about a minute and 42 seconds” by snapping the ball early.

“What’s the rush?” Cross said.

Randy, meet Dave Patenaude, who seldom makes any sense.

The Owls got what they needed yesterday. To win a title that these kids deserve, they better start getting both what they need and what they want and that is an offensive coordinator who understands even the most basic elements of Football 101.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

Tuesday: What We’ve Learned

Thursday: A Special Homecoming

Saturday: How Good is Vegas?

Sunday: Game Analysis

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17 thoughts on “You Get What You Need”

  1. I think the fan base would agree because I tweeted “you’re getting too cute again” @Patenfraud and got quite a few likes. What in gods name could they be thinking? And then Collins had no concept of being wrong on the Russo pass after the game and put the blame on Anthony. He said he had an RPO and an elite WR to throw to and that we were in attack mode. I may be wrong but i thought we were in “kill the clock, get a first down” mode given we were up, they had no timeouts and about 2 minutes left in the game. You nailed it, these coaches dont teach the basics and its extremely frustrating to watch as a fan. I am very happy for the win and look forward to homecoming but again this is why Collins is not endearing to the educated fans. For lack of better words, he and Dave are full of shit. Thacker has been doing a better job so give him credit. Be real with us Geoff. Admit your mistakes. And please move on from Dave. Your friend is killing any chance you have for a big payday.

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  2. The D played well again holding a Wishbone Offense to 17 points. The academies utilize this offensive scheme so they can be competitive with the athletes that they recruit. Can you imagine if they ever snagged a quarterback that could actually throw the ball.
    Credit Thacker and D for grinding out a hard fought victory.The only thing holding the offense back is the OC. They have the talent and they have a QB who will only get better. When your beating a team with solid football and you call a wildcat or gimmick play it isn’t about the team or winning it is about showing everyone how smart you are. We are stuck with Patenude because Collins hired him. Brian Kelly changed ND OC’s until he found the right one that fit the talent he recruited and a style of football that could carry them to the playoffs. Temple is NOT a finesse team. It is a carry your lunch pail, smash mouth football team. And when they play like that on both sides of the ball (Maryland) they will win. Collins gets it, so does Thacker and Foley. Coach P doesn’t. For all I know he could be a great guy but his view of Temple TUFF is not in sync with his game day calls and the fans know it.

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    • Don’t think we are stuck with Patenaude because Collins hired him. Collins knows Rhule demoted Satterfield because he saw that was for the good of the organization and Rhule hired Satterfield. Does Collins have the same foresight that Rhule has? That will determine the success of the organization and, ultimately, Collins’ career.

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      • … and, for what it’s worth, a big donor who I trust knows Patenaude does say he’s a great guy. I told him I’ve known a lot of great guys who were stone-cold incompetent and from what I’ve seen the last two seasons, Patenaude falls into that category. I’m sure Coastal Carolina would hire that great guy back. I would like to hire an SOB who gets the most out of the talents of our explosive players, uses play-action effectively to get separation on passing routes, runs a tailback behind a fullback and plays Temple TUFF. Patenaude does none of those things.

  3. I’m a fool to cry, but I can’t get no satisfaction from the red zone mistakes. The fumble, interception, and FBL going down gave me my 19th nervous breakdown, Niumatalolo blamed the loss on the refs “holding call” on the called-back Navy TD (block in the back call). No sympathy for the devil, so he’ll be reprimanded by the league.

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  4. In every TU game I’ve listened to and watched, this season, at least one of the announcers, if not both, have said that TU should be using a blocker for the tail back, be it an H back or fullback. Are Collins and Patenfraud not doing it just to be contrary? As far as Patenfraud goes, the guy is caught up in trying to be known as a great play caller. He has to stop running that ridiculous split set and the trick plays.Teams that are winning don’t need trick plays. He just doesn’t understand that a great coach is one who wins, not one who has trick plays in the play book and loses. Ask Woody Hayes. As I said yesterday and Mike reiterated above, the pass on the penultimate drive had to be one of the worst calls I have ever seen. A field goal would have guaranteed victory. Don’t care that they had nine in the box. which was as lame an excuse as I’ve ever heard, because even having Russo kneel would have been better that what happened. When they intercepted, I had flashbacks to the Army game last season where a stumble on the five on what should have been six and the failure to get any points opened the door for Army to tie the game and win in OT. At least the defensive coordinator did not go into a prevent, which I believe he did when Perry ran for the TD that was nullified by the penalty. Finally, this Saturday’s game is as big a game as was USF was 2 years ago. Despite the bad start, TU can still win the division and play for a championship. USF is not very good and Memphis showed that UCF is not invulnerable. I hope the rest of Philly recognizes the importance of the game and 30 grand plus attend.

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  5. WOW!!!!!!!! Ball o 9yd. line, less than 2 min. , field goal ices the game. My wife watching game with me makes call of 3 runs and a hopefully a game clinching fied goal or at worst not much time on clock. NOPE, we call a corner to the endzone pass interception!!!! Does he draw a play out of a hat for each call???? This team is talented, please allow to play TEMPLE FOOTBALL!!

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    • Ken S.: Collins said during his post-game press conference that it was the back up call to a run, His primary play was a run but that because Navy had nine men in the box, he told Russo to throw the fade. Just shows that this guy and Patenfraud still are clueless. Almost as bad a play as Seattle’s in the Super Bowl and had TU lost it would have been just as bad.

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      • Since the time Walter Camp invented football, offenses have dictated and defenses react. That’s how it was at Temple under Pop Warner, Wayne Hardin, Bruce Arians, Al Golden and Matt Rhule. With these clowns, they let the defense dictate what they are going to do. If that’s so, as former Owl great Brian K. said in an earlier comment, it’s worse than we thought.

  6. The offensive coordinator should be fired for such an idiotic play call (among other things) when all we had to do is run the ball and at the very least get a game clinching chip shot FG.
    With that being said, a lot of guys on this site need to embrace the fact that for the first time since I have been following temple FB (class of ’90) that we have a qb who can make all the throws and should get the chance to play on Sunday, so I am OK if we pass the ball more than we throw (as long as we are fairly balanced). We still can be Temple Tuff throwing the ball!

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  7. Completely agree about the poor play calling, especially in critical situations. He has done that to every QB who has taken snaps in a game. If he was a good play caller, Nutile would still be the starter. DP looked like a deer in the head lights against the 3 down scheme with leveraged LB’s Villanova ran. Villanova had every Temple tendency leveraged, whether it was a run or pass. LB leverage to the one and only run play Temple ran that day, and 4 over 3, and 3 over 2 on pass strengths.

    That defensive scheme was so successful, Buffalo used the copy cat affect and played a large amount of snaps playing 3 down even though they were a predominantly 4-3 team in 2017. They only played 3 down in nickel or dime in 2017, yet chose to play a large amount of snaps after seeing what Villanova did. Those two games were by far DP”s worst play calling: no verticals, no post routes, no digs or crossers, no H-back, no FB, only one play in the run game, awful play calls.

    He spent all spring emphasizing play faster instead of realizing to prepare for their opponents. The shocking thing to me is no other opponent has run that scheme since Villanova and Buffalo did. The pass on the goal line was Army all over again.

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  8. The deal with Patenaude is in my opinion the same old same old. I have less confidence in both he and Collins than I did at the low point of Rhule’s tenure before he somehow managed to catch lightning in a bottle during both the 2015 and 16 seasons and then promptly lay eggs in both of the bowls. Prior to departing on his Mission For God in Waco, we were all present and saw with our own eyes and heard his words Rhule telling us in the K Lot outside of the Linc and hearing with our own ears him telling us how was at Temple for the long haul? Well, that was just rich… Shame on him for insulting our intelligence. Now, to say I have even less confidence in these two dudes (Patenaude and Collins) somehow managing to succeed with the craziness they are attempting to dazzle and mystify with the ridiculous scheme worthy of the finest carnival barkers or carpet salesman, and the lads somehow manage to score enough to put a nice win streak, and then they both together become the new hot commodity (more likely the talent will succeed in spite of rather than because of) they will be getting the next flight out of Philly faster than Bill Cosby’s last date. They obviously have a good line of BS. But in reality, that’s all it is. And none of us are fooled. Fool me, well how many times would that scenario make? This nonsense reminds me of a modern day Barnum and Bailey Circus

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  9. With P-Fraud , what we’re are seeing another cycle of superior thinking , like we witnessed with Chip Kelly.
    What we have here is People who are smarter than the game.
    Trouble is we in Philly are still ‘Neanderthals’ compared to the Superior types, we who can’t appreciate that type elevated FB Logic.

    Why would we run for a TD when we can take big chances instead.
    What is a mere win , when compared to Superior Thinking anyway….
    And NOVA Lost again, can’t figure that out, how they beat us.

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  10. Fear then is Luke Fickel and his DC will look at Buffalo and ‘nova film and say “why not us?” Can we hope Patenaude reviewed them as well to know what to do just in case?

    Thacker figured out what to do late in the game when Navy was in a definite passing situation. At least one coordinator can react to or dictate what is happening. Means he also has the players practicing the different schemes so there’s no confusion. Might be tough to keep him on staff.

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  11. We will probably catch a break because the copy cat syndrome normally occurs in spring when you had time to watch film, break tendencies, visit other staff’s, add wrinkles during the spring and summer which is what Villanova and buffalo did.

    It is very rare for a team to scheme up something unless you have it in your playbook already and it is not that big of an adjustment during the week. Def Coord will come up with “blitz of the week” and attack one or two protections, one solid run blitz keeping “fits” similar, etc….

    Nova and UB did not bite on anything because you had only one back with no play action and literally only running zone scheme (inside/outside); why waste time penetrating when you can hold up OL so they cannot get off to second level and just run N rally to the ball with that limited pop warner scheme. On the backend play 4 over 3 and 3 over 2. Call it a wrap because you shut everything down. You could not put your players in a worse scenario offensively.

    I wont even get into them moving #92 Malik Fisher (?) all over the place.

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