Five Guys who didn’t make COVID excuses

Found it curious that Temple head coach Rod Carey was quoted to the effect:

“We had to fight COVID and COVID won.”

Guess what, Rod?

Temple wasn’t the only program that had to fight COVID. Let’s eliminate all of the other schools in just Temple’s conference and find five guys in supposedly lesser conferences who faced the same challenges that Carey did but did not make excuses. Let’s also eliminate the Power 5, which has the advantage of better players. Doing Carey a favor, let’s even eliminate BYU.

We found at least five guys (trust me, there are more) who did a much better job under similar (or worse) circumstances than Carey:

Jamey Chadwell, Coastal Carolina

No. 18 Coastal, despite losing the same number of league games as Temple to COVID (one) is now 9-0, 7-0 with a win over Power 5 Kansas. Coastal beat league power Appalachian State by 11 last week in a showdown and does not back away from anyone, signing a contract to host BYU today. It is a 10.5-point underdog but would not be surprised to see the Chanticleers come away with a win. They have already clinched the Sun Belt regular-season title and will play Louisiana Lafayette in the league title game.

Doc Holliday, Marshall

Quietly, in the G5, no one consistently does a better job year after year than Holliday. He was the same guy who gave Temple DC Chuck Heater a shot after Matt Rhule picked Phil Snow for the same job. The Thundering Herd are now 7-0 overall, 4-0 in the league. With games left against Charlotte, Rice and FIU, they could run the table and be 10-0.

Lance Leipold, Buffalo

One of those prominently mention to replace Manny Diaz at Temple, Leipold–who beat Rod Carey’s 8-5 Owls last year–is now 4-0 after scoring 70 points on another unbeaten MAC team, Kent State, last week. Looks like the Owls picked the wrong MAC head coach. The Bulls started almost a full month later than Temple. Leipold has a Heisman Trophy candidate running back in Jaret Patterson, who is much more likely to leave Buffalo for the NFL than he is any P5 school. That’s an indication that Leipold’s bond with his players is stronger than Carey’s.

OwlsDaily.com editor Shawn Pastor feels the COVID issue has been exaggerated at Temple. I agree.

Brett Brennan, San Jose State

Brennan didn’t say “woe is me” after California canceled all home games in the San Francisco metro area. He just moved his game today to Hawaii. He has the Spartans, one of the toughest jobs in all of G5 football, at 4-0 overall, 4-0 league. SJS beat Air Force, 16-7, which beat Navy (40-7), which beat Temple, 31-29.

Willie Taggart, FAU

Taggart has the FAU Owls at 5-1 overall, 4-1 league despite having had three games postponed by COVID. Taggart, who was one of those G5 guys who failed at P5 programs (Oregon and FSU), is proving that he can do a great job at any G5 school this second time around after doing a great job at South Florida. His only loss was a 20-9 loss to Holliday.

While Carey is making excuses, these guys are doing their jobs at a high level with no high profile players leaving their programs. Hopefully, the Temple administration is taking names and preparing to kick some ass.

Honorable mention: Nevada (under Jay Norvell) is 5-1, No. 25 Louisiana Lafayette (under Bill Napier) is now 9-1, University of Texas (San Antonio, under Jeff Traylor) is 7-1, 5-2.

Picks today: We’re 7-4 against the spread for the season. Love that 10.5 points Coastal is getting against visiting BYU. Still think BYU wins this game on the order of 30-24 but those double digits are too hard to pass up. Also going with FAU getting the 2.5 at Georgia Southern.

Monday: Losing the Room

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9 thoughts on “Five Guys who didn’t make COVID excuses

  1. Last time I checked, none of those schools themselves had team covid problems. It was their opponents that had to cancel. Second, none of them were as restricted as TU pre-season. As much as anyone thinks that it would have been easy to switch to Ambler, it would have been a logistical nightmare since they don’t have dorms there. Also, cramming the kids into buses would have violated covid rules.

    • To add to your points regarding Ambler, outside of Philadelphia, Montgomery county was one of the hardest hit areas of the counties surrounding Philly and I have to think their health commissioner would have had some issues with Temple doing that

      • Nowhere near as stringent as Kenney and Philly. I think they would have allowed Temple to practice. Guys could get there in separate cars. We will never know for sure but I think Golden would have not laid there and take being f*cked by Philly.

      • Ambler has large nursing homes and senior communities that bump up the Covid numbers.

        Temple FB needs to leave Philadelphia for so many reasons. The corrupt city council on Jeff Laurie’s payroll and the hostile community/neighborhood groups will always cause problems. My recommendation: buy a bankrupt small college. Temple Doylestown campus? How’s Cheney State doing?

  2. Coastal Carolina plays the way TU should; long time consuming drives on offense and punishing defense.

    • 100 percent. They found their coach. Temple has not. Now watching Daz play at San Diego State for laughs. My TV guide says San Jose State at Hawaii is on Spectrum but I have Spectrum on my Pluto app and there are two guys fighting. Rather watch Hawaii but will settle for CSU.

  3. I doubt any of those coaches you listed are making 2 mil a year, and Temple passed on every one of them. I still can’t believe the deal Temple threw at Carey and now is stuck with him because of their own making. Even if things improve (and that remains to be seen) they’re spending too much on him – typical Temple.

  4. Management has pissed away the buyout loot from Collins and Diaz?

    • Can’t be certain but a lot of other schools had to drop so-called “minor” sports due to COVID (ECU for one). Temple hasn’t and might have used the football money to keep those Olympic teams going. To me, football money should stay with football.

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