For Temple, a quick fix is a must

All over college football, Group of Five teams with resources similar to Temple’s are doing big things. The Owls are not.

My much older friend is irritated by my lack of patience in waiting for Temple to stack together some wins this year after teasing us with some close losses last season.

“Stick with us,” he says, “it takes a long time to build a program.”

Ten years or so ago, I might have agreed.

Heck, five years ago a compelling argument could be made for his case.

Not now.

Jon Sumrall was an assistant at Troy in the successful regime under Neal Brown. When he was asked to come back as a HC in 2022, he didn’t have to undergo a learning curve at his new school.

All over college football Group of Five teams are firing head coaches one year and turning things around the next.

Look at Troy, which went up to Army and won, 19-0, on Saturday.

Jon Sumrall turned Troy around in one year, (not two, three or five) last year. He replaced Chip Lindsay, who went 5-7 before getting fired in 2021. In one year, Troy went from 5-7 to 12-2.

Never expected Temple to go from 3-9 to 12-2 but 3-9 to 5-7 should not have been asking too much in 2022 and that should have set the Owls up for a winning season this year.

That’s progress. What we’re seeing is not.

Temple went from 3-9 in Rod Carey’s last season to 3-9 in Stan Drayton’s first season. It’s hard to imagine right now where Temple’s third win will come this season. The product the Owls put on the field this year is a disgrace and much more an indictment of the coach and the overall organization than the players. Last year’s “progress” was linear. This year looks like a regression. You could see the players fighting like hell last year, even in losses. I don’t see that same fight this year. They have a new guy pushing buttons on defense and he’s pushing all the wrong ones. Players who left were not replaced. Depth which could have been built with portal transfers was ignored. Three scholarships that could have gone to established FCS stars were left on the table and given to Temple walk-ons instead.

The overall plan needs to change.

Go on the Troy message boards and you will find the same posts ripping Lindsay’s incompetence that you found on the Temple boards ripping Rod Carey. They accused Lindsay of setting Troy’s program back five years, just like Temple fans did Carey.

Sumrall didn’t want to hear any of that. He rolled up his sleeves and went to work.

How did Troy do it?

They hired someone very familiar with the Troy recruiting base in Sumrall and a guy who hit the portal hard for (mostly) FCS players. That’s a real good level of football, a few steps up from Temple’s stated plan of recruiting JUCOs and high school players. With 19 new starters last year, mostly FCS starters who Sumrall identified in the portal, Troy went 12-2. Sumrall’s familiarity with a successful prior regime cannot be understated. The closest coach at Temple who currently fits that profile is offensive line coach Chris Wiesehan, who was a big part of both Matt Rhule’s and Geoff Collins’ success here.

Troy did not get a 70 burger dropped on it in Sumrall’s first season like Drayton got dropped on his first team.

There is no big bag of NIL cash at Troy to entice those players, just an opportunity for success at a next level up.

Betting against Everett Withers has been money in the bank so far this season, he’s been that predictably bad. I’d rather lose the bet and see Temple win but if I’m going to suffer I want to get paid for it.

Temple does not have time to recruit and develop high school recruits anymore nor should it. The Board of Trustees is watching the school’s athletic reputation dragged through the mud like Drayton is dragging down Temple’s reputation by losing big to no-names like Tulsa and North Texas. You’ve got to think that it is considering cutting its losses if some serious progress isn’t shown on the field soon.

Charlotte hired a new coach in Biff Poggi, who brought in 70 new players and none of them were high school kids. The Charlotte kids play hard and were within a touchdown at SMU in the fourth quarter this season. They lost on Saturday to Navy, 14-0, but they were not embarrassed by either Maryland (38-20) or Florida (22-7). There is progress there this year in his first year that hasn’t been shown at Temple in Drayton’s second.

Last year, G5 schools like Marshall (beating Notre Dame), Georgia Southern (Nebraska) and MTSU (Miami) had big-time wins and this year no less than 11 G5 schools have beaten P5 schools.

Temple isn’t one of them.

Schools like Troy and Charlotte have crafted a blueprint for Drayton to follow. Drayton is old school trying to build a program an old way that won’t work in the transfer portal era. He needs to get with the program fast or we might not have one to follow.

This year might be a wash but next year doesn’t have to be.

Hit the portal hard and get some great players from the FCS level who would appreciate the opportunity to shine. Recruiting high school kids and waiting for them to develop is something Temple does not have time for anymore.

The time to win is now. Last year should have been the developmental year.

Those who think it “takes a long time” to build a program will invariably find out they’ve run out of it.

Friday: SMU Preview

Saturday: SMU analysis

8 thoughts on “For Temple, a quick fix is a must

  1. The Temple Football program is, at best, in disarray. The coaches’ incompetence level has exceeded that of Rod Carey. Although Carey was in over his head, he did not, to my knowledge, lose to lesser light schools like North Texas State, giving up in excess of 45 points IN CONSECUTIVE GAMES!! I recommend that AD Johnson call these “coaches” on the carpet, and replace them, if necessary. This is a proud athletic program that produced many NFL players, including the Eagles’ Hassan Reddick. PLEASE DO NOT EMBARRASS THEM BY CONTINUING THIS FARCE!

  2. Mike, I couldn’t agree more, this post is much closer to reality these days then the “we’re rebuilding and need to give Drayton 4 years”. While a lot of good talent was lost during Carey’s time here, I don’t believe the cupboard was as bare as some make it out to be. At least on defense there is talent, depth is a different story. On offense the key deficiencies could and should have been addressed via the portal. Nowadays I think a G5 team needs to be recruiting a steady stream of players from the portal. The old school way that Golden and Rhule built a team just isn’t going to work for a team at Temple’s level. Even more so than coaching questions, I’m even more concerned regarding Drayton’s recruiting strategy

    • Amazing how some of the only real good efforts were made by people Carey brought in and Carey might have been worst coach in Temple history. I’m thinking of the one catch Amad Anderson made over the middle, a North Texas guy grabbed his helmet and Anderson kept fighting for more yardage and turned to the Temple sideline and gestured and yelled as if to say, “C’mon, let’s go!” I didn’t see much of that Saturday but I saw it in him. Plus, he played while injured.

  3. SOMETHING is going on behind the scenes. Blame NIL, portal, blah, blah, blah but as Mike points out other smaller schools manage to come along and have success. Why? And why can’t Temple. The coaching hires have been atrocious, especially given the salary levels, and no help or demands from the higher-ups. No excuses. Just poor decision making – unless its intentional – something has to be going on.

  4. Other than Everett Withers (because that was predictable), the biggest disappointment is that the kids are playing nowhere near as hard as they played last year (and that was not predictable). I posted a video last year of Stan Drayton telling the kids “I’ve never been around a bunch of fighters like you guys” and that was true. Look at that Rutgers’ game last year. They were taking the heads off people. This year they are backing off. No similar video of Drayton complimenting his team is expected over the next five games and that’s really sad.

  5. It has come to this. To my knowledge, only twice since 1930 has TUFB surrendered 40 points or more in five consecutive games. It happened in back to back seasons, 1993 and 1994. The Dickerson yrs, sandwiched between Berndt and Wallace, got us kicked out the Big East.

    Drayton/Withers approach the trifecta on Friday vs SMU. They are about to do something that has only happened twice in over 90 years. wow

  6. Interestingly I took a friend (who was a scientist/professor at Kent State) to the Kent State/Ohio U game in Athens, OH. OU has a top notch QB, I believe an NFL prospect who looked outstanding throwing and running. So I ask, why can’t Temple get players at that level – is it the coaches not doing a good job?

Leave a reply to JD01 Cancel reply