08.21.23
by

Drayton deserves credit for one statement

If, and this is a big if, Temple posts a winning season this year, a lot of the “credit where credit is due” can be traced to this statement Temple football head coach Stan Drayton made at his Aug. 18, 2023 presser.

Talking about schemes Drayton hit the nail right on the head when he said this:

“We have to play to the strength of our players. That’s a daily deal. The strength of our players, not the strength of the scheme. That’s what we have to do. We have to be somewhat multiple. … we put our best 11 out there. Certain players come out there, the strength of our team might change.”

Hopefully, Stan is explaining the 3-5-3 defense or double tight end offense to the team here.

At least this year.

It’s pretty clear to anyone that five of the best 11 defensive players on the team are linebackers so the challenge is to keep those five guys on the field at all times. They are the best pass rushers and, in many cases, the best run-stoppers so the Owls should be at least be considering the 3-5-3 as their base defense. Two DE’s, a nose guard, five linebackers, one safety and two corners. It’s not the same 4-3 or 5-2 everybody else plays but Temple isn’t everybody else.

Of course, all coaches SAY they want to play to the strength of their players. Even the last guy, Rod Carey, said as much about the offensive side of the football yet he went out and did the exact opposite by running a read/option offense with a classic dropback passer in Anthony Russo.

As a result, he almost got Russo killed and did the offense no favors. Temple should have run an NFL offense with Russo at quarterback, not a college one.

Successful coaches follow up on what they say by doing it. Carey got cold feet and went with what worked for him at Northern Illinois.

If you look at some of the great Temple teams in the past, they had coaches who were willing to adapt the scheme–even change it–to fit the personnel.

After trying the spread offense for this first two years, Matt Rhule went to a running game with a blocking fullback (Nick Sharga) and that led to consecutive 10-win seasons. It was the same offense Rhule ran under Al Golden, who benefited from fullback Wyatt Benson’s blocking in front of tailback extraordinaire Bernard Pierce. Steve Addazio adopted that approach the next season and won Temple’s first bowl game in over 30 years.

This year, the Owls’ strength on defense is their linebackers and on offense is their tight ends.

It’s up to CEO Drayton to put his words into deeds to accentuate those positives. In less than two weeks, we will know if he means what he says.

2 thoughts on “Drayton deserves credit for one statement”

  1. Mike

    Chris Vaninni of the Athletic has the Owls ranked at #115 on his board, only ahead of Charlotte in the AAC. Needless to say, I’d disagree with that assessment.

    The only team that is ranked lower than Temple on the schedule is Akron, who only beats out UMass on his lit of 133.

    Sounds like the Owls are getting the short end of the stick from some of the pre-season rankings and that they absolutely MUST beat Akron.

    Reply

    • Yet Bill Connelly of ESPN crunched some numbers and provided data on how the Owls will be one of this four most-improved teams. I think Vaninini is relying more on feelings than data. Connelly has the Owls improving by 3.7 wins (I will round that out to four).

      Reply

Leave a reply to Mike Gibson Cancel reply