Temple-SMU: Quitting time?

You know the worm has turned when the national broadcasters who used to rave about “Temple TUFF” eight years ago are mentioning another four-letter word about Temple football:

Quit.

While quitting time for the week for most workers usually is 5 p.m. on every Friday, it will be less than three hours later the rest of the nation decides whether the Temple football Owls have punched the clock out for the rest of the season.

With good reason.

Bud Elliott of CBS Sports’ Cover 3 podcast casually stuck in that word at the end of his analysis of tonight’s Temple-SMU game (ESPN2, 7 p.m.).

“Temple might be on quit watch,” Elliott said.

In a tribute to his hometown in New Jersey, Jahad Thomas channels his inner Fred Sanford eight years ago yesterday when the Owls’ made No. 22 in the AP poll.

It’s not a phrase he uses lightly. Unlike most national experts, Elliott has watched a lot of Temple. In fact, the “Cover 3 podcast” really is the only national podcast other than the “College Football Show” (Gary Seagers, Kyle Hunter and Parker Fleming) that ever talks Group of Five football. (Josh Pate, we are looking at you. The next time Pate mentions a G5 team will be his first.)

For the record, I don’t think the Owls have quit yet but NFL fans saw the Philadelphia Eagles “allow” the Jets to score a touchdown on Sunday and the entire defensive effort for Temple looked like that pretty much all year. In reality, the Owls aren’t laying down as much as they are following the schemes of an inept defensive coordinator, Everett Withers, who allowed 39.7 points a game in his last full-time DC job (FIU, 2021) and he’s doing his best to exceed those dismal numbers at Temple this season.

We warned everyone about that in this space back on St. Patty’s Day and we weren’t even drinking then.

Elliott is expecting SMU to put a “50 burger” on the Owls and it’s up to the players to disabuse him of that notion tonight and make it a competitive game.

Mostly the defensive players.

I will grant Bud this point: Last year the defensive side of the football fought like hell. Just think back to the Rutgers’ game when Layton Jordan was sacking Big 10 quarterbacks like it was going out of style and teammate Tre Thomas was the best defensive player on the field that day. Temple’s defense was taking off RU heads, figuratively of course.

I don’t see the same “Temple TUFF” his year. We are running out of days and nights to see that same kind of toughness again. The current Temple players owe it to the past Temple teams to try to shut out SMU. Show some life. Sack the quarterback and strip him of the football. Pick balls off on defense and take them the other way.

That’s what Temple football teams used to do not all that long ago.

The really sad thing about this is Temple was on the opposite of “quit watch” eight years ago this week.

On Oct. 18, 2015 the 7-0 Owls moved up from No. 25 the prior week to No. 22 in the AP ranking. That was the highest the Owls made it in that all-important poll since they finished No. 17 in both the AP and the UPI polls in 1979. By Halloween, they would make it to No. 21 and play a knockdown drag out battle with Notre Dame in the ABC Saturday Night Game of the Week before the largest Philadelphia TV audience that watched any college football game.

Ever.

Temple University as a school could not buy that kind of publicity and the result was a record freshman enrollment for the 2016 scholastic season.

Only four years ago this week Temple also made the Top 25 of the Coaches Poll.

Since then, we’ve seen a Midwestern coach flop his way out of Philadelphia like a fish out of water and the next guy hire a defensive coordinator “friend” with a terrible record of allowing points turning a group of better-than-average players into a team that seemingly doesn’t know where to line up and are tentative when they should be attacking.

Some friend.

Another blowout loss tonight and we know what four-letter word the nation will be uttering about Temple football.

Hint: It won’t be TUFF.

Tomorrow: Game Analysis and Saturday picks

16 thoughts on “Temple-SMU: Quitting time?

  1. When the going gets tough, Owls fans, like me, will be watching Phillies baseball. At least they sometimes play defense. Let’s just hope that the scoreboard doesn’t run out of batteries during the SMU game

  2. The school doesn’t care about the team obviously. They must make money off of the football program from conference revenue sharing. However, if Temple doesn’t care about the program, just drop it. I’d rather no football team than one that is a joke. DROP THE PROGRAM!!!!! I will also be watching the Fightins. If you are going to keep the program, stop with the single digits, the “Temple Tuff” and the ridiculous Insta vids about uniforms. Uniform Release: Here is what we will look like when we get dominated. Today’s fan and athlete are perplexing. How could one care more about uniforms than winning???? UGH.

    • Ironic since the 18.1 rating Temple pulled down in 2015 will probably be the same rating the Phillies pull down tonight, give or take 1 or 2 points. College and NFL football usually do much better than baseball but this Phillies team seems to have captured the interest not only of the city but of the nation. An 18.1 would be a very good rating for a NLCS in the fourth-largest market.

  3. I’ll admit, I haven’t watched alot this year due to various reasons. I tuned in tonight and have watched about 12 minutes so far….its worse than I thought. They are horrendous, there is no other way to describe it. Get 7 out of there just to save his mental health. No one on this team on both sides of the ball can make a play….sad fact.

    • I said if they didn’t beat UTSA I would not go to another game this year and I’m true to my word. As a coach half of your job is to build a roster and with the transfer portal there is zero excuse for Stan Drayton to take off the whole offseason. Plenty of great players at the FCS level who would love to play for Temple but Drayton and company was asleep at the wheel.

  4. The defensive backs cannot cover anyone. Who is coaching the defensive backfield? It is sad to see Temple fast becoming irrelevant.

    • Sad, and depressing to go from playing and nearly beating No. 9 Notre Dame on national TV and kicking the living crap out of Penn State eight years ago to being a national embarrassment. Thanks, Stan. Somewhere Rod Carey is laughing.

      • And counting his money….I can’t even explain how bad this is….no words….and I’ve been on some really bad teams! I just showed the 15 ND highlights to a great friend from DC this weekend who was at my house in South Jersey and asked if TU ever had ESPN GameDay here. He was impressed and then asked what happened? We’d all like to know! This might be worst I’ve seen at TU….now they’re talking shyt….huh?

      • Temple is paying him $2.5 million this year. FAU is paying Tom Herman $700K. Who is getting the better ROI?

  5. 41-0 on ESPN. When’s enough to leave TUFB behind on my Saturdays (or Fridays and Thursdays)?

  6. I don’t know what some people are watching on ESPN but sitting in the stands tonight this is brutal yet reading some comments on the TUFB Facebook page TU there are still folks posting “it’s not the coach” and “relax”. This season is a train wreck

  7. arguably the the worst defense in TUFB history.

    Going for The TUFB record next game – surrender >40 points in six straight games.

    We are the live witness to historic events in historic times: COVID-19, the demise of TUFB, no House Speaker first time ever, El Nino, etc., etc.,

  8. I think we’re as close to the Rose Bowl as we’ve ever been.

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