Monthly Archives: April 2020

04.27.20
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Owls dominate the NFL draft again

Screenshot 2020-04-26 at 1.16.42 PM

Penn State might be Linebacker U. and Miami (Ohio) The Cradle of Coaches but Temple is developing into NFL U.

At least in the G5 football world.

Hard to come to any other conclusion than this for current high school recruits based on the  2020 NFL draft. If those players have an eventual goal of making the NFL and are on the fence between picking a P5 or a G5 school, Temple is the place to go.

It’s not just the 2020 draft. It’s been that way for a while. The Owls have been the No. 1 Group of 5 team for nearly a decade in producing NFL draft choices.

Screenshot 2020-04-26 at 1.24.48 PM

Over the three days of the 2020 draft, center Matt Hennessy was drafted in Round 2 by the Atlanta Falcons, defensive back Harrison Hand drafted in Round 5 by the Minnesota Vikings, and linebackers Shaun Bradley (Round 6, Philadelphia Eagles) and Chapelle Russell (Round 7, Tampa Bay) also were picked.

The reasons have been simple. Al Golden re-established a Temple TUFF culture that carried over into the next four coaches. Golden did it by making running, lifting and toughness a 365-day deal at the Edberg-Olson Complex. His practices were legendary for the level of hitting involved.  It is now up to Rod Carey to sustain that culture. Tyler Matakevich explained it perfectly once. “Our practices are harder than the games, so we’re really prepared to hit come game time,” he said.

Playing in an NFL stadium around an NFL culture also helps.

A couple of interesting things about this current draft: Had Quincy Roche come out instead of going to Miami, he would have been no lower than a No. 4 pick out of Temple. He was unquestionably the best player on a defense that included Bradley, Hand and Russell.

Hennessy will be joining former Temple center Alex Derenthal as a resident of Atlanta. Derenthal is the strength coach at Georgia State (which beat Tennessee last year).

Bradley is the first Temple player drafted by the Eagles in a long time and has a chance to stick if he can cut down on the targeting penalties. He plays hard through the whistle and sometimes beyond. I thought Mel Kiper’s analysis of Bradley was way off. He said Bradley “didn’t pack a punch” but I don’t think I’ve seen a Temple player hit as hard as Bradley over the last four years, and that includes Roche. If anything, he packs too much of a punch.

I wish the Eagles drafted Hennessy as well since Jason Kelce is getting long in the tooth. Yet the Eagles were set on Jalen Hurts in the second round. It might be just me, but Justin Jefferson was the best wide receiver in the draft and the Eagles could have had him in Round 1 and either Hennessy or Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins in Round 2 and been much better off. If they were concerned about the backup QB position, they could have upgraded from Nate Sudfeld and picked some better options in the lower rounds.

No doubt in my mind that the Owls had a better three days at the NFL draft than the other birds playing in the same stadium but only time will tell.

Russell will get every opportunity to shine as Bruce Arians has pretty much an all-Temple staff at Tampa Bay.

Getting drafted his one thing. Sticking in the NFL is another and, based on watching their careers here, I think all five of these guys have a good shot. The last 12 Temple players drafted currently are still on active rosters and only eight schools–all Power 5–have that kind of streak going. For the fourth time in five years, Temple has had more players drafted than any other G5 school. Only the “mythical national championship” team of UCF had more players drafted than Temple in the last five years.

Whatever happens, Temple should parlay NFL drafting success into attracting better recruits starting now.

Friday: Temple in the 2021 Draft

Monday (5/4): 5 Best Next-Tier Wins

Friday (5/8): Suspending Campaigns

Monday (5/11): Virtual Press Conference

Friday (5/15): Recruiting Patterns

Monday (5/18): Smoking Out The Winners

04.24.20
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Spring Football looking more likely

Screenshot 2020-04-22 at 11.22.09 PM

The number on my cellphone flashed as unfamiliar the other day so I let it go to voice mail. The guy on the other end said he was from Temple and wanted to tell me that “the deadline for season ticket renewals” had been “extended” until May 1.

What’s the rush, I thought? Has this guy read the news recently?

The biggest Temple football news a year ago at this time was the absence of real hitting in the spring for the first time in memory for a lot of Temple fans.

season

 

In April of 2019, the faithful crammed into the seats–with no social distancing–to watch this drill: Punt returner catches the ball, then runs through a line of players on both sides who hit him gently with pads.

That’s not the Temple TUFF I had come to know and love. It became apparent I wasn’t going to go over a stat sheet and see Jadan Blue with 119 yards and three touchdown catches, as I did after the 2017 game. There was no “Cherry and White” game anymore.

At that point, a lot of us (raising my hand here) got up out of the seats and walked out of the Olympic sports complex.

Now it appears that we will have hitting in the spring, but it will be next spring and in real games, not practices. According to a column in Wednesday’s Forbes, the writer assumes it is pretty much a given that there won’t be football in the fall. His reasoning is that since the students probably won’t be coming back, it doesn’t figure the athletes will, either.

Bummer.

Since the coronavirus has turned the world upside down, it only figures to turn college football upside down as well. Fall becomes spring. Spring becomes fall.

That was the latest in several stories that first started out as speculation, then assumption. Until a few days ago, I thought it was possible that my beloved Temple Owls would be playing this fall. I thought we’d have to wear masks and gloves and they’d sell only every other seat in the 70K stadium but that doesn’t seem plausible now.

If we have to wait a few extra months for Temple football, so be it. I’d rather have all of our fans healthy in the spring than worrying about a recurrence of these quarantines in the fall.

Since I don’t think that the May 1 deadline will be set in stone, that phone call will remain unreturned until some kind of concrete announcement is made.

Monday: Owls and the NFL Draft

04.20.20
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TU: One Step back, two steps forward?

pophead

Temple’s best two football eras came by hiring guys who were successful head coaches at other big-time programs, as witnessed by the BOT’s putting their money where their mouths were here to hire Pop Warner.

Every time Temple changes a head coach, and that’s far too many recently, we argue against a line of thinking in the AD’s office that Temple should take one step back for two steps forward.

That is, hiring a “promising coordinator” from a big-time program and essentially giving up one year so he learns on the job how to be a head coach and gives Temple a good back end of that contract to make up for the learning curve.

When Geoff Collins left, we argued that Temple was past all of that and the Owls could not survive this pattern of one bad year and a couple of good ones. Fortunately, it took Manny Diaz leaving after 18 days for Pat Kraft to adopt that strategy.

It worked in the sense that the Owls went sideways, not backward, in Rod Carey’s first season, unlike what they did in the inaugural seasons of Matt Rhule and Collins. While Collins went 6-6 in his first regular season, it represented a four-loss drop from the previous two with essentially the same talent.

Every new coach since Wayne Hardin left was either a failed head coach at the place before him (Jerry Berndt was 1-11 at Rice before coming to Temple) or a coordinator (Ron Dickerson, Clemson; Al Golden, Virginia; Steve Addazio, Florida; Rhule, Temple via New York Giants and Collins, Florida).

Screenshot 2020-04-19 at 11.46.30 AM

Bob Mizia (left) and Pete Righi with coach Wayne Hardin in 1975

 

Bobby Wallace doesn’t count because he was a Division II head coach and it could be argued jumping two divisions eliminates any game-day coaching advantages he might have had because the CEO aspect of a FBS job is so much different.

 

The only person who had a good first season was Addazio, and his inexperience as a head coach was somewhat ameliorated by his hiring key members of a staff coming off a national championship (Chuck Heater, Florida DC, and Scot Loeffler, Tim Tebow’s QB coach, among several).

Pop Warner had two regular winning seasons his first two years at Temple. So did Hardin. If Carey’s next regular season is a winning one, he will join that elite company.

Friday: Spring Football?

Monday: (4/27): Temple and The NFL Draft

Friday (5/1): 5 Best Next-Tier Wins

Monday (5/4): Suspending Campaigns

Friday (5/8): Virtual Press Conference

Monday (5/11): Recruiting Patterns

Friday (5/15): Smoking Out The Winners

 

04.17.20
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Once things return to normal, what next?

infante

Gabe Infante is a legendary high school football coach in Philadelphia.

In as perfect a world as possible for Temple football, Rod Carey would go from eight wins his first season to double digits his second and win two championships every six years along a couple of bowl games.

I’m not greedy enough to think Temple winning a championship every year is possible because a lot of schools like SMU, UCF and Cincinnati are also trying to do the same thing. Still, Temple is in a perfect geographic spot–the exact middle of 46 percent of the nation’s population–and should be able to pan enough gold from that mine to dominate the AAC.

The world has changed a lot in the past two months, but that doesn’t stop us from dreaming about what could be once everything gets back to normal. Everything will get back to some semblance of normal because the Spanish Flu–which killed far more people in 1918 than this virus will in 2020–did not last forever.

MO-gabe-infante-colin-lenton-940x540

National High School Coach of the Year Gabe Infante will have a positive impact on both Temple’s game plans and recruiting

After a year of watching Rod Carey, here is what I think is more likely to happen when things return to normal: Rod wins 6-7-8 games a year, probably doesn’t get Temple a championship and, as a consequence, does not become the hot prospect Al Golden, Steve Addazio, Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins were seen as. Temple, for its part, does what Temple always does: Keep mediocre coaches around forever.

There is, though, a possible third scenario where Carey makes Temple the NIU of the AAC and grabs a lot of championships and increases his 5-2 record against Big 10 teams to an even more healthy number. Maybe even wins a bowl game for once but that probably won’t happen at Temple if he delivers a title first (see Matt Rhule).

That means someone will eat Carey’s hefty buyout ($10 million this year, $8 million next and $6.5 million after Year Three), Temple would get another championship and everybody will be happy.

What happens then?

Temple could go back to hiring promising coordinators or grab another successful MAC-level head coach.

Or do something different, like elevate an assistant.

IF they go in the latter direction, they could do a whole lot worse than Gabe Infante, who is local, knows the recruiting landscape in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and, for a decade, had the second-best coached football team on the planet in St. Joseph’s Prep. (I will concede that the Bill Belicheck teams of this century were better-coached in a tougher place to win, the NFL.) Side note: As a long-time afficianado of high school football, there was no better-coached, least-penalized team I’ve ever seen at that level than St. Joseph’s Prep. The Hawks’ offensive line sprinted to the line of scrimmage–every other team walked–and then would pummel the defensive line on each and every snap. That’s damn good coaching right there.

If Infante can take an inner-city school six  blocks from Temple to being the Pennsylvania power of this century, he can work wonders up the street with a lot more resources and a $17 million practice facility.

Something for Temple AD Pat Kraft to put in the back of his mind when things get back to normal.

Monday: Two Steps Back, One Step Forward

 

04.13.20
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The fallacy of the Pandemic

cherryhelmet

There’s no more serious a threat to college football than the current pandemic.

In 1918, all of the Philadelphia high school Thanksgiving Day games were canceled due to the Spanish Flu.

In 2020, there currently is a serious threat about the entire college–maybe even the NFL–season being canceled due to CORVID-19.

helmetstickers

Hopefully, the Owls will get some helmet stickers on ESPN this season

In my mind, that only happens if there is a recurrence after the social distancing ends in May. There are signs where other countries–particularly China and South Korea–are getting back to some form of normalcy so it logically follows that the U.S. will, too.

The fallacy part is that all of the teams are in the same boat and no one program has an advantage over the other. Take Miami and Temple for instance. Miami got a full week of hitting in before suspending its spring practices. Temple doesn’t hit and got one day in before suspending.

Miami is at least a week ahead of Temple, maybe more, and there’s nothing the Owls can do about it if the teams resume summer camp at the same time.

Also, the areas that were harder hit–the Northeast and the Southeast, for instance–probably will lag behind the other more rural areas of college football.

Every day we are hearing about this famous person or that famous person coming down with the illness. So far, we haven’t heard any Temple or Miami players coming down with it and we probably won’t due to health privacy protocols.

Nor do we need to hear about it.

For now, though, let’s just hope that no one on the Owls or anyone they play come down with it because any Temple win should be hard-earned and there should be no excuses coming from either side for personnel issues.

Otherwise, with Miami having that week of practice in the bag, that’s a head start that probably will not be overcome and that’s a legitimate reason for a possible loss, not an excuse.

Friday: Keeping An Eye on the Staff

Monday (4/20): Smoking Out the Winner

Friday: (4/24): Spring Football?

Monday: (4/27): Temple and The NFL Draft

Friday (5/1): Smoking Out The Winners

Monday (5/4): Suspending Campaigns

04.11.20
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Real Temple football (Kinda sorta)

 

In the movie Westerns, the good guys always won.

The robbers would come into town on their horses, rob the banks, get away and then the sheriffs would hunt them down and either shoot them or send them to trial for a hanging. In those days, the trials would last a couple of weeks and there were be no appeals.

Nowadays, in college football, the bad guys almost always win.

billboard

These days the robber barrons are the larger schools who get the best recruits, steal the small town coaches and now–with the transfer portal–steal the small town best players for the big schools down the road.


Still, the portal facts
are that Miami got
Houston’s best player
in the 2018 season and
Miami got Temple’s best
player from the 2019
season and Temple got
nobody’s best player
from any season.
It’s got to have an
impact in a real game,
not just a video one, right?

We don’t know if we’re going to see things play out that way this season but, on Friday night, we got a preview in the way of a “simulated game” between Temple and Miami on a Miami fan website called “Coach Copp.”

The good guys lost, 64-17.

Now let’s just say this is a video game and video games in the past have been proven to be wrong. This was CPU vs. CPU with 2020 rosters for each team but, from the Temple standpoint, there were a couple of red flags. One, “Mike Mitchell” (a scout team player) was the Temple leading rusher despite the fact that Ray Davis played. Two, Jadan Blue–in my mind a potential first-team All-American wide receiver–had only one catch for seven yards. Anthony Russo was pulled for Toddy Centeio but the computer forgot Toddy was at Colorado State, not Temple. Temple even had a fullback in the game on goal line offense with 29 seconds left in the first quarter and we know that’s not going to happen under Rod Carey.

So there.

Beyond that, without any real sports to watch, it was at least something and Miami fans were all happy. Let’s hope the Temple players watch this and use it as bulletin board material and reaffirm themselves to proving that video wrong. Still, the portal facts are that Miami got Houston’s best player in the 2018 season and Miami got Temple’s best player from the 2019 season and Temple got nobody’s best player from any season. It’s got to have an impact in a real game, not just a video one, right?

Maybe not.

Friday night’s simulation small reminder that the good guys don’t always win and, in college football, the good guys are falling behind the bad ones each and every passing day.

Hopefully, the Temple players are determined to watch this video simulation every day before lifting and running and it will light a fire under them to prove games are decided on the field and not by computers.

Monday: The Pandemic Fallacy

Friday: The Case for Grooming

Monday (4/20): Smoking Out the Winner

04.06.20
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Rooting for just one TU player who left

 

Great short video about a time where players were loyal to a coach.

We’re going to proceed under the assumption that there will be a college football season this fall.


The fact two Temple
defensive linemen the
last decade were NFL
first-round draft picks
indicates that another
AAC Defensive Player of
the Year award would have
moved Roche from a projected
No. 4 pick to a projected No. 1.
Someone was giving him very bad
advice if they told him a season
at Miami would have improved his
status over another at Temple

It could be an entirely different one than we’re used to (maybe one without crowds) but it will also be different in another way as well.

Rooting for at least one Temple player to succeed on another college team.

That player would be Toddy Centeio because he used the transfer portal the way it was meant to be used as someone who wasn’t starting and succeeding at his former school but looking for an opportunity to move up at another.

narducci

Sorry, not going to root for Quincy Roche or Kenny Yeboah to succeed at Miami or Ole Miss because they used Temple, not the system. Temple did all of the hard work recruiting and developing them, giving them a chance to shine and they thanked the school by going to another school.

The transfer portal never was meant for starters and guys who were relatively happy in their prior locations. There was no sign that Roche was anything but a team player here and happy to be with his teammates. The fact two Temple defensive linemen the last decade were NFL first-round draft picks indicates that another AAC Defensive Player of the Year award would have moved Roche from a projected No. 4 pick to a projected No. 1. Someone was giving him very bad advice if they told him a season at Miami would have improved his status over another at Temple.

Same with Yeboah. A statisical analysis shows Temple threw to the tight end more than Baylor (his first transfer choice) and Ole Miss (his second). I kind of doubt that Kenny will catch more than 19 passes for 248 yards and five touchdowns down there. I suspect he would have done more here.

Hard lessons, though, are learned the hard way.

Not rooting for either one to fall flat on their faces, but if Roche sacks anyone in an ACC game don’t expect me to get up from my seat and applaud. Hell, I’ll probably turn the channel.

Centeio, on the other hand, I hope throws a zillion touchdown passes and runs for 1,000 yards and leads Colorado State to a bowl game. His advancement here was blocked by a better player who won the job fair and square.

The only time I won’t be rooting against him is if Colorado State plays Temple in a bowl game and there’s no reasonable bowl tie-in scenario where that happens.

Saturday: Real football (sorta)

04.03.20
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Missing Cherry and White today

Cherry and White Day primer

When the football season starts, and I’m inclined to think it will, taking the one step back approach to take two steps forward probably will be at least one reason for it.

Unfortunately, the step back is tomorrow when the realization hits that there will be no Cherry and White Day.

Mitigation of crowds now is just one thing that hopefully will be able to allow such gatherings in September. Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly, among others, said team activities will have to start by July 1 in order to have a season. I’m not buying it. For years, the Ivy League didn’t allow team activities until August (not even spring football) and they were able to field football teams in the fall. It might be sloppy football, but I still think there will be football. Instead of hugs and handshakes in Lot K, there might be a lot more fistbumps and that’s OK. As long as my beloved Owls are on the field, that’s the most important thing.

Temple football spring game, Cherry and White game, Temple football,

Nothing newsworthy has come out of a spring game since Jadan Blue caught three touchdown passes in 2017.

There hasn’t been a Cherry and White game for a long time, but I do miss the day itself.  Aside from the commaderie with people you’ve gotten to know for years, the surrounding festivities have been well worth the trip itself.  For one, there is no better place to be Temple gear. Much of it will remain on the shelf like the $33 “Mayhem is Coming” T-Shirt purchased before Geoff Collins’ first game.

No need to wear that now since Mayhem never came and it sure has left.

Others are keepers, though. At one of the Al Golden “games” I was able to purchase a game-worn Temple football jersey from the Big East days and another Temple sweatshirt for more than reasonable prices–even lower than the Mayhem shirt–and support the program at the same time.

Last year, at the Olympic facility, there were a number of tables set up with a lot of interesting items. The “football” itself? Err, not so interesting. I left after a punt return drill early in what would have been the “second half” when the “tacklers” waved at the ball carrier with tackling dummies. No wonder we sucked at punt returns in the fall. Still, though, it was a must-see day for festivities, if not for the football portion. I really haven’t seen a good Temple spring game since Al Golden was here and he was trying to establish a culture of toughness that would carry over to the fall.

We’ll have to wait until next year for that, though, and that’s a small price to pay if we’re going to see real games come September.

Monday: An ex-Temple player to root for

Saturday: A Look Ahead at Miami

 

04.01.20
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Nothing foolish about this April

Devonte Watson’s unannounced arrival at the E-O is the biggest sensation of camp so far.

Normally in this space on this day in the past, we’d make up some story with enough of a kernal in truth to raise eyebrows.

Not this year.

April is here but, for the first time, it doesn’t feel like April. There will be no Cherry and White game for one difference and that’s a first in my lifetime. When I go for a jog in the park, everyone has gloves and masks. All winter long while freezing talking my daily walks on the trail, I’d yell to my bicycle friend Les “I can’t wait until April” as we both noted how freezing it was.

It’s April, but it’s not how I thought it would be.

This will be a memorable April if we get through it and hopefully we won’t see another one like it. So instead of an April Fool’s story this year, we’ll republish the one that got the most reaction in terms of page views. I still think there’s some innovation left in football and one of those things would be to find a 6-11 guy with a 41-inch vertical leap and a 97-inch wingspan, plant him behind the nose guard and have him block field goals all day.

Here is that story:

For the rest of his football coaching life, new Temple University football head coach Matt Rhule will probably do a lot of the same things old Temple coach Al Golden did.
Why not?
Look where it got both Temple and Al.

Devonte Watson’s Temple ‘][‘ gloves had to be specially
ordered and reinforced with extra padding so that he doesn’t
sustain a hand injury from blocking so many field goals.

So I was only amused and not surprised when I heard that Rhule is making folks visiting the Edberg-Olson Football Complex to sign a sheet asking “not to report anything football-related” they see at practice.
Golden used to do the same thing.

watson

“What’s he doing there, enriching uranium?” I asked when someone told me that Rhule adopted the Golden Rhule regarding secrecy.
Enriching uranium  at football facilities is not a new thing.
Enrico Fermi did the same at the University of Chicago in the early days of World War II.
Well, it turns out that Rhule is enriching uranium (in a football-science way) and the result could be of nuclear proportions in the college football world this fall.
At least in the science of sport according to a report in this morning’s Temple Times.
About 150 years ago, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell created a sensation in science with these few words:
“Watson, come here, I need you!”
Thomas Watson was his assistant and Bell had just spilled acid while inventing the phone.
The moment changed the science of communication forever.
Another Watson, this one named Devonte, may have helped change the science of football last week at Temple University’s football practice.

This morning’s Temple Times broke the news.

A freshman on a basketball scholarship, Watson showed up unannounced at Edberg-Olson Hall, the school’s football practice complex, the day after the basketball Owls were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by top-seeded Indiana.
“All I could see was this tall guy ducking under the door,” Rhule told The Times. “He shook my hand and said, ‘Coach, I’m Devonte Watson, I want to come out for the football team.’
“I mean, he’s 6-foot-11, I thought he was a basketball player and I asked him flat out: Are you on a basketball scholarship?’ He said he got permission from coach (Fran) Dunphy. So we got him in the biggest uniform we could and told him to get out there.”
First off, Rhule said, they tried him at wide receiver.
“He was OK there,” Rhule said. “You see he could catch the ball but he wasn’t comfortable running routes. He’s 6-11, got a wingspan of 97 inches, and we figured we could use him on red zone offense but then some of our other coaches had other ideas.”

“We’re all about giving youngsters college experiences they’ll never forget and Devonte won’t forget this. Look, I didn’t bring him here with the intention of blocking field goals for our football team but that’s where his road led. He obviously has a gift.”
_ Fran Dunphy

Special teams coach Allen Mogridge had the best suggestion, Rhule said.
“Allen asked Devonte what he was known for best as a high school player,” Rhule said. “Devonte said, “Blocking field goals.’
“That’s it, Allen said. Allen suggested that we put Devonte on the special teams, blocking field goals.”
For the better part of all last week, that’s what Watson did.
Block field goals.
Boy, did he ever.
When one of the Temple kickers launched a field goal attempt, the freshman with a vertical leap of 39 inches stuck his big paw out and blocked it almost every time. Kick thud, followed by block thud.
“He’s amazing,” Rhule said. “Nothing gets by him. He’s not only 6-11 but he’s got these incredible instincts to block field goals. He just stands there behind the nose guard and jumps up and the kicker has got no chance. Think about it. In basketball, all of these great athletes are driving in a full speed and he still blocks their shots. In football, all he’s got to do is stand behind the nose guard and time a kick. It’s easy by comparison.
“We tried all three of our kickers and he must have blocked 10, 11, 12 field goals in a row. He’s like Bernie Parent was with the Flyers. Nothing gets by this guy. I don’t want to jinx him, but it’s really going to be hard to kick field goals against Temple this season.”
When asked about Watson going out for the football team, Temple basketball coach Fran Dunphy told the Temple Times he gave his OK.
“We’re all about giving youngsters college experiences they’ll never forget and Devonte won’t forget this,” Dunphy said. “Look, I didn’t bring him here with the intention of blocking field goals for our football team but that’s where his road led. He obviously has a gift. All I asked Matt was not to get him hurt and Matt said he’d do his best. Matt won’t let him catch passes. He won’t allow him on the kickoff return or receiving teams. He just wants Devonte to block field goals. That’s good enough for me.”
Err, one more thing.
Happy April Fool’s Day everyone.

Other notable Temple Football Forever April 1 stories in the past: 

Big 10 Explores Idea of Adding Temple

Addazio’s First Five-Star Recruit

Prodigal Son Returns