A comedian in the 1970s named Rodney Dangerfield made a bundle on a routine that centered around one phrase:

“No respect, I’ll tell ya.”

Then Dangerfield launched into a litany of hilarious jokes about from the way his wife and kids treated him to the general public at large.

If Temple’s second-year head football coach Stan Drayton still had those Dangerfield 78s on a turntable, you could excuse him for playing them today.

A listing of the rankings of AAC head coaches came out the other day and Drayton placed 11th in the listing of “top head coaches” in a league that has only 14 members. Two first-year coaches were ahead of him in addition to a couple of CUSA head coaches joining the league.

Ugh.

To me, something like that is very superficial and doesn’t take into account all the variables.

I would have placed Drayton closer to sixth than 11th but I understand the process.

As Vince Lombardi once said, winning isn’t everything it is the only thing.

You could not judge rookie head coach Drayton on his first year by everything alone.

You could judge him on how he moved the ball forward.

At the end of 2021, Temple was at its own 3-yard line The Owls had a head coach with no charisma and someone no one liked. Hell, I doubt even if his wife and kids liked him. Temple got rid of that problem and told him to take our six million and sit at home for the next three years. No one in Philadelphia likes you and no one cared about you. Fast forward to hiring Drayton a couple of months later. If Temple had won six games in 2023–as we thought possible in this space a year ago–the Owls would be in enemy territory.

Not quite what we expected but better than it was.

Temple, entering this 2023 season, is about on its own 47.

Gotta keep fighting. Back to work. #TempleTUFF pic.twitter.com/n3tZ6nUBMB

— Temple Football (@Temple_FB) November 14, 2022

It’s time to get into the red zone and put points on the board in terms of national respect.

There were Temple fans (sadly) expecting Rutgers would blow out the 2022 Owls. We never did. We thought it would be a close game and that turned out to be true.

That’s thanks to two things and both can be attributed to Drayton. One, the 3-9 under him was much more impressive than the 3-9 under the coach who shall remain nameless. Two, after that 3-9, half the team could have exited stage right and, instead, about 90 percent of the team bought into Drayton’s vision for Temple to be a champion.

The Owls have a coach the team likes and respects and a quarterback who is dynamic. They have that now. They didn’t have that two years ago. In college football, that is everything. Put that in a pot, stir, and win.

Guys who write for national college football websites can’t possibly understand that nuance.

We who follow the program do.

What’s next?

The progress last year that turned 61-14 and 45-3 results against RU and ECU into 16-14 and 49-46 must be flipped to 16-14 and 49-46 for the good guys.

I believe it will.

It is a belief based on what I saw right in front of my own eyes. The national guys who don’t give a bleep about watching anything other than the scores don’t see the same thing. Pur it this way: Temple lost to Houston 37-8 in 2021 and with the same talent led Houston 36-35 with 1:13 left in the game last year. Temple lost to RU, 61-14, , and only a pick 6 by a rookie QB separated it from a 14-9 win. Temple lost and was disinterested in a 45-3 loss at ECU in 2021 and yet, with the same talent, was a failed 3d and 1 at midfield from falling on the ball and taking a knee for a 46-42 win.

Same talent, and different coaching.

By December, we will find out if that lack of respect was warranted or if respect of nuance should have been a prerequisite for ranking AAC head coaches.

Monday: Saying Goodbye to a Legend