Temple football: At least one head needs to roll

Just when every Temple football fan thought we’d never sink to the depths of the Rod Carey Error, the Mariana Trench could not hold how far the program sank on Saturday.

Put it this way: Twice this season, Temple’s defense performed on a lower level than that of both Abilene Christian and Arkansas Pine-Bluff.

Much lower.

Lower than whale shit.

The Mariana Trench, near Guam and Saipan, is 36,000 feet under the surface of the earth–the lowest place near the center of the earth.

Temple Football Forever, March 17, 2023

Arguably, Temple’s defense was lower than that in a 45-14 loss at North Texas on Saturday.

You could make an argument that multiple heads need to roll but there can be no argument that one head needs to roll.

Everett Withers.

Withers inherited nine starters from a defense that didn’t wow anyone but did “hold” Navy to 20 points and Navy was a team that beat current Big 12 team UCF.

Withers also inherited the same players who “held” Tulsa to 29 points. That seems like a comical hold but not when you consider Withers took those same players and “held” Tulsa to 48 points less than a year later.

Temple Football Forever on Dec. 3, 2021–a dozen days BEFORE Stan Drayton was hired as head coach here.

How do Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Abilene Christian factor into this?

Well, APB held Tulsa to fewer points (42) than Temple did and Abilene Christian gave up the same number of points Temple did to North Texas.

Temple was a once-proud program. It is not that anymore. It cannot be dragged to the depths of Abilene Christian and Arkansas Pine-Bluff. It needs to rise to respect level of at least Syracuse, Maryland and Pitt.

You have to ask this question: How did Temple devolve from a team that beat Penn State in 2015 and Maryland in consecutive years (2018 and 2019) to a team that is performing on a worse level than Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Abilene Christian?

The answer is bad hires.

Stan Drayton’s hire looks very bad right now. Everett Withers’ hire looks much worse.

Drayton, to his credit, didn’t have a track record for being a head coach and maybe Arthur Johnson deserves a pass for that hire. Still, if you are a Temple person, you have to question a “Texas director of football operations” hiring a “Texas assistant coach” for the top job at 10th and Diamond.

Drayton himself does not deserve a pass for his hire of Everett Withers. Everyone in America knew Withers had a terrible record as a DC before Drayton hired him in March but for some reason nobody understands, Drayton looks at Withers like Travis Kelce looks at Taylor Swift.

Temple was trending nationally at 3:30 Saturday for all the wrong reasons.

Somebody needs an eye exam and it’s not Kelce. It’s not like Drayton doesn’t have good options. Chris Woods is a former USFL defensive coordinator and he’s working at 10th and Diamond now. He could not do worse than Withers and there’s a real good chance he could do much better.

If Drayton doesn’t fire Withers no later than Monday, he is telling you in as many words he cares more about long-term friendships than he does about Temple or his players or even you the fans.

If he tells you that, more than one head will need to roll and the sooner the better.

Monday: The Fix Is In

11 thoughts on “Temple football: At least one head needs to roll

  1. Unwatchable….embarrassing for the university.

    • Agree, Gregg. BOT should have told Arthur that coaches he knew at Texas would not be hired at Temple. Plenty of great coaches in America with at least coordinator positions would have loved the Temple job. No need to hire a RB coach.

  2. The whole coaching establishment needs to be evaluated and changes made where necessary. Certainly the DC must be shown the door. And the HC is not looking very good right now. Anyone who watched that TU/UNT debacle this past Saturday should see the need for changes, especially at DC. Face it, our once proud football team is a national embarrassment!

    • Frankly shocked Temple did an un-Temple-like thing and ate $6 million of a Carey contract. They aren’t going to eat $6 million of a Drayton contract. Sorry. Not with the student population dropping from 39K full-time to 32K full-time in a year and other more pressing concerns. Drayton is given too much leeway here by Johnson and Johnson needs to have a heart-to-heart tomorrow with him. This DC is not working out here and he did not work out at the last five schools he was at. That’s the best we can hope for. If Drayton doesn’t bring 70 FCS superstars in here next year, his contract won’t be renewed two years from now. He needs to recruit hard like the Charlotte guy did.

      • Who the hell is behind OwlsDaily.com/@TempleOwlsDaily (Twitter/X)? Strongly defending Withers and discounting anyone who disagrees with their take. Also conducted a ‘softball’ interview with Drayton after the game. Making excuses for Withers/Drayton. SAD!

  3. Hi Mike, I don’t know what to say! I feel we are in a spiral to an Endless pit. Other Teams got asked to Join bigger Conferences. We just got STUCK in the AAC, which was OK when we had respectable Teams in it. No offense to the Teams now! They are trying to be better, and improve. We seem like we just don’t have the grit to improve the Sports Teams (Meaning every SPORT) Probably don’t know how. But Pitt Pathers (ACC) does it as a STATE SCHOOL. Temple and Navy are the only Schools from the Norteast region (really Mid-Atlantic) The Conference(AAC) knew how to survive by going to the South as a Headquarters. But Temple needs to do something about their situation. Big Ten is NOT in the Cards with Penn State, Rutgers, and Maryland gobbling up our TV Region. So, the Last Place is the ACC. Which could take Temple as a Research School to Counter the BIG TEN in TV rights. Temple would have to do something big to improve their other Sports. I Hope something can be done. I’m NOT optimistic, as I am complaining to you with this Rant. Other Schools have done it, why not Temple. Plus save Money. and don’t use the Lincoln Financial. Use Franklin Field, there must be a way! Its better than using a Field you can’t fill. Then use that extra money to improve the other sports to look more attractive to the ACC, Big 12, there isn’t many left. Hurry before the options are gone! God Bless you and Temple!

  4. I seriously think Temple football should consider rejoining the MAC for the time being. It is a much better fit right now. Playing (and getting beat) by these second tier Texas schools week after week does nothing for the program other than bulge the travel budget. Might as well play teams that are closer to home. Hoops could then return to the A10 where they belong.

    • Playing the second tier Texas schools isn’t the problem. Getting beat by them is. Temple went from nearly beating Houston (a non-second-tier Texas team) to getting hammered by freaking North Texas in less than 12 months. There’s something wrong and it can’t all be blamed on injuries.

  5. Considering the total package of problems at TU, Withers is a microcosm of bad decisions – and he’s making 1/2 a mil per year? How the hell can the BOT and AD justify what’s going on? They can’t manage to get an OCS and have a terrible deal with Lurie but they don’t mind paying out an outrageous amount for a truly lousy football program. Something’s going on behind the scenes, under the table (?), but something. How about a independent investigation? It’s just unbelievably ridiculous. ANOTHER 45 point disaster. Makes one wonder what will happen during BB season – they should start out 5-0, but we’ll see…

  6. Why hire a guy who gave up astronomical numbers in his last job at FIU? Modern offenses have changed since the 1980s when this guy stopped anybody. Bring in a guy with a history of stopping offenses as a DC. If Temple needed to dip into the FCS ranks to grab such a guy, so be it.

  7. I am not sure if TU Athletic Department hired an outside consultant for their coaching hire, you don’t get the right coach and you are screwed (i.e. today). I’d rather spend $ on making sure you hire the right guy, paying out Carey probably hurt the budget and made the consultant scenario untenable. The NIL Collective has raised just over 100k in two years, that is laughable. You don’t change that, forget being competitive in Football or Hoops. I don’t care if you have Knute Rockne coaching, no NIL $ and you are done. Kaput. Don’t give me this “we can coach them up”. You can and then they will leave when somebody offers your two top players 100k a year.
    Arguably the most important person for TU football should be the head of NIL Fundraising. That is how this game is now played.

    C E SPEED

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