by Mike Gibson

Temple football: You are here

You’ve seen those maps in every mall in the country, an arrow pinpointing your location with the words: “You are here.”

In Temple football’s case, “here” means simply this: You have a football team with a winning defense and a losing offense, and the faster you can match one with the other, the better the shopping haul for wins will be.

At some point, the defensive players will ask themselves, maybe subconsciously, what is the point of busting our ass if the offense isn’t going to help out?

Maybe the play on that side of the ball erodes as well.

What’s abundantly clear, though, is that the “easy” part of the season is over. It only gets tougher from here on out. The Owls weren’t competitive when it mattered against Duke and maybe the good effort against Rutgers wasn’t as impressive as originally thought. UMass almost beat Eastern Michigan (which did beat Arizona State) so the Owls getting 28 points on that team was encouraging.

Temple is significantly better than it was a year ago but so is the rest of the AAC. The UCF team that Temple faces next hung with a good Louisville team and blew out a Georgia Tech team that just beat Pitt.

Navy, which lost to Memphis by a worse score than Temple did, follows UCF.

After that comes a Friday home game against Tulsa, which played competitive games against two ranked teams, Ole Miss (35-27) and Cincinnati (31-21). Then a home game against USF, a visit to Houston, home against Cincy and East Carolina.

It’s hard to find more than two wins left on that schedule and, even then, those two wins figure to be a battle well into the fourth quarter.

“Rock Steadwell?” Toddy Centeio with the key block here.

The offense–which has some explosive players (Adonicas Sanders, Amad Anderson, Quincy Patterson, for example, produced at places like GT, Purdue and Virginia Tech before coming to Temple)–needs to get the ball in the hands of those guys and others in space. It needs to establish a representative running game to keep its freshman quarterback from getting killed and create space for playmakers.

Easier said than done.

Temple has some time to figure that out but the Owls have only 10 days to get significantly better than what they showed two days ago or the results of this season will be about the same as the last one.

You don’t need a map to remind you that wasn’t a good place to be.

Friday: Possible solutions

15 thoughts on “Temple football: You are here”

Jim Graham
October 3, 2022
12:41 am

As the captain of the ship, EJ Warner is very young but definitely shows promise. I believe that when given sufficient time, he will lead this team to better days. We need to see way more action from players like Sanders, Anderson and Patterson as you point out Mike. Couple a productive offense with a better than average defense and we will gradually return to national recognition and respect. But it will take time. How long? No one really knows. Hopefully not too long. Some of us are growing a bit long in the tooth you know! Go Owls!

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joninohio
October 3, 2022
9:43 am

We did ok into the 3rd quarter and then the wheels came off. The D got obviously tired and the O just isn’t getting the job done. The O-line was supposed to be one of the strong parts of the team but they can’t block for more than 2-3 yards on run plays most of the time. Too many penalties Saturday also. Somethings got to give…..

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- Jim Graham
  October 3, 2022
  10:42 am
  
  Warner was 18 of 37 for 245 passing yards but was intercepted three times. Owls had 7 first downs vs 22 for Memphis. They had 52 rushing yards total in 22 attempts (2.4 yards/rush). They were penalized 9 times for 74 yards. Compare that with 1 for 5 yards for Memphis. You don’t win football games with those kind of stats. Obviously Owls need to get the running game going and to play a more disciplined game, especially on offense.
  
  Reply
Jim
October 3, 2022
11:58 am

If there are two more wins, it’s a successful season. Even one more win is a good season. The idea this was a .500 team or a bowl-eligible team was delusional from the jump. This year is the start of the rebuild and it’s a big one for sure. Stan had his eyes wide open when he took the job.

The DC caught a lot of shade when he was hired but he seems to know his personnel. He may get some attention for bigger conference roles if this level of performance keeps up.

The offense is a work in progress. Rookie QB. Unsettled offensive line. Some high potential skill players. It’s a work in progress. Improvement will come.

Special teams are the best we have seen in recent years. Not Ed Foley level but much improved.

The most obvious thing is the change in the culture. Better body language. No slouching on the bench. No quitting on the field.

The arrows are pointing up. Improvement will not be linear, but it is going in the right direction.

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- Jim Graham
  October 3, 2022
  12:14 pm
  
  Agree! Give it some time.
  
  Reply
  - Mike Gibson
    October 3, 2022
    1:27 pm
    
    One more win is not a good season. That’s what you did under the worst Temple coach in modern history with essentially the same (or worse) talent. Two more wins? Arguably better but not much. Under that logic, four wins next year will be a “good season” and five wins in 2024 will be a “good season.” Gotta improve a lot faster than that.
- Rob Vaughn
  October 3, 2022
  3:25 pm
  
  Mike — I also agree with Jim, here. We weren’t supposed to be good — in fact, bottom of the conference. And everyone said, let Stan work — it’ll take time; a curve of a few years, etc.
  
  How much Stan have we had? 5 games! And the trajectory is already better than many expected. The D is surprisingly solid and fast; the O is a work in progress.
  
  Count me as excited. Better culture. Signs of improvement. Optimism. I’ll take it.
  
  Reply
kj101941
October 3, 2022
5:25 pm

TUFB Two Deep vs Two Deep

Bottom line: the defense does not have better players.

Man for man, the two-deep roster on offense is faster, stronger, bigger, and is more athletic than the two-deep on defense. At the very, very worst, they are of equal ability – Jimmy/Joes.

Reality is the DC can and the OC can’t/has never done (examine his track record), and apparently will never do.

The clock ticks: how long will the BS go on?

Examine the facts w/o bias.., exactly what P5 Universities do when they fire their HC in mid-season.

Folks will argue TU does not have the $$$ to make timely decisions like P5 money schools. That is shortsighted. The Poor are the least who can afford to make bad or delayed decisions. The BOT’s delay in a new HC made a bad situation worse.

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Mike Gibson
October 3, 2022
9:19 pm

Incremental progress is not progress. If you are going to win only four this year, you better jump to a 7-8-9 area next year. We have a two-year window. Colin Thompson is right here: https://twitter.com/Not4LongMedia/status/1548032055472033794

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- Jim Graham
  October 3, 2022
  10:23 pm
  
  As mentioned in the short clip, a two year window in order for the team to get back on track and regain national recognition and respect is probably what needs to happen. I know I have said give it time. But, as mentioned, taking into consideration the crazy conference realignment going on these days, the sooner the better. More successful AAC teams are likely to jump ship after an invite from a P5 conference thereby leaving slots to fill with teams of lesser status. So without a winning program and healthy fan support, Temple football may be destined to dwell in the realm of the forgotten. Oh to bring back the glory days of 2015 and 2016! We had finally “turned the corner!” But not for long. I keep hoping!
  
  Reply
  - Mike Gibson
    October 4, 2022
    12:18 am
    
    Two years max. Gotta do it now. If we win four, then it’s time to hit the portal for better running backs than we have now and better offensive linemen than we have now.
  - joninohio
    October 4, 2022
    10:26 am
    
    Yeah, sustainable success has never been in TU’s football vocabulary. Stan was a running back himself and coached running backs at big time programs. He needs to instruct his OC how to get things in the right run-game direction. Improvement does need to be fairly quick if we’re ever going to get back to the 2015-16 success years.
kj101941
October 4, 2022
4:57 pm

The facts:

1. Last year Colorado finished 129th out of 131 rated teams in total offense. Langsdorf was the PGC/QB coach.
2. The yr before that, UNLV finished 95th in total offense. Langsdorf was the PGC/QB coach. btw, TU finished 69th that yr and you guys know how bad it was.
3. Coaching does make a difference. With an effective new DL coach, TUFB is now third in the nation in sacks.
4. Langsdorf is now what he always has been, a nice guy who does not produce good results.
5. Fire him now and stop reinforcing failure.

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Oh_well
October 5, 2022
9:01 am

So, how can Temple win any more games this year if they can’t score? Only answer is the Defense scores. Is this possible….

And how can an OC like Langsdorf be so bad ? Is it possible he is merely OK and the O team just isn’t with it, doesn’t have it?
Maybe here a bit like old DC Snow, as in ;” Fire Snow !”. Eventually Snow pulled it off with a great D. Not saying Lags… is even good but just maybe not all the fault here.. BTW, I don’t know him, not family, just a Temple FB fan.

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- Kent Jacocks
  October 5, 2022
  10:59 pm
  
  Snow had good history prior to Temple. Langsdorf’s recent history is dismal.
  
  Snow proved his value, Langsdorf should resign.
  
  Reply