10.27.23
by

Deja Vu All Over Again

SCOTUS judge Potter Stewart said “I know obscenity when when I see it” and this is obscenity.

Like many of my tailgate buddies for many years, I met a couple of future good friends in front of Veterans Stadium one day long before Temple Football Forever was ever conceived or before I even wore Temple swag to the games.

I was wearing an “Upper Bucks YMCA” sweatshirt and they were from Upper Black Eddy, which I only knew as the Upper Bucks’ home of then National League baseball President Bill White. (I knew Bill because he was one of our biggest local celebrities and I worked for the local newspaper at the time.)

My newest friend at that time pointed to the sweatshirt, I explained the connection (I lived in Quakertown at the time), talked a little Bill White and The Riegelsville Inn and we became fast Temple tailgate buddies for maybe 30 years now, if not more.

The last year Temple played at The Vet, both of us would point to the stadium going up across the street and say: “We need to get into that stadium next year.” We did.

I only remember this story because he said his wife said something last week: “This reminds me of the Ron Dickerson Years.”

Hmm, I thought. This season sounds and feels very Ron Dickersonish. She might have had a point. I looked it up and found a gem of a tweet from a guy named Hayden.

I’m sure Hayden means “following the week 3 win, not loss” but his point is well-taken here.

Just by crunching the numbers, a Temple football season hasn’t been THIS BAD since Ron Dickerson was the head coach.

This is even worse than the 20-game losing streak Bobby Wallace left Temple first-year head coach Al Golden, who by some miracle, was able to beat a Bowling Green team in his first year that dropped a 70-burger on Wallace in consecutive years.

Stevie Wonder could see the 1-11 Owls improve in that first year under Golden. Superman with X-ray vision cannot see the 2-6 Owls improve in this second year under Stan Drayton. They were 3-9 last year. It will now take a miracle to achieve a third-straight 3-9 season. You fire a 3-9 coach and pay off $6 million of his contract to go forward and not sideways.

Right now, this is going backward.

This is almost a carbon copy of the 1994 Temple season and that’s historically bad.

Who to blame?

x

Certainly not the players. They returned 15 starters from a team that was competitive in many more games in 2022 than 2023. They hired a defensive coach who has no idea how to stop a modern offense after having a defensive coach who was competent enough to be hired by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Do you think Everett Withers has a chance to be hired by the Philadelphia Eagles next season?

I think even the Rockledge Eagles might pass on his services if he became available.

The 1994 season was one where Dickerson resigned on the spot following a 53-52 loss to Pitt, only to renege on the resignation a couple of days later. Temple had a 4th and 2 at midfield at Pitt Stadium only to go for it, give the Panthers a short field and see them score a last-second touchdown. Had the Owls merely punted there, Pitt would have had to go the length of the field with 52 seconds left no timeouts.

A lot of people are blaming the NIL and transfer portal for Drayton’s failures this season but I’m not buying it. This season is the result of a bad hire in a key spot. Thirty-four points against UTSA and 26 points against Tulsa should have been enough to win if the defense just performed to last year’s level.

That’s flipping a horrid 2-6 to a representative 4-4.

The fact that Drayton hasn’t fired Withers in this off week is a clear signal he’s willing to go down with the ship rather than plug the holes to save it. That message is received loud and clear not only by Temple fans but his players, the staff and the administration who have to be wondering what the hell is going on here.

Unfortunately, that means we all go down with the ship and if it reminds you of the time you spent shivering in a raft looking at an iceberg 29 years ago before being fished out of the sea then you are correct.

Major props to Mrs. Winkel for pointing out that cold hard fact and to a guy named Hayden Bandel for providing the receipts.

Monday: Navy Week

12 thoughts on “Deja Vu All Over Again”

  1. As a retired “leader” and a seasoned veteran of attracting, developing and retaining talent, I listened to the narrative related to coach Drayt

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  2. All I can say is :
    ‘ Hey, I’m getting about $2.5 Million per year for 5 years !. I ain’t gonna pull in that much anywhere else. So, just dig in and let my savings pile up for a nice retirement fund. And, Gee, I wonder if Temple will give me some extra retirement benee’s for 5 years work here ? Let me check into that too.’

    HC Football logic here.

    Why all this mess ? I say, perhaps because the AD wanted to promote a brother, no other possible reason, nope ,no other…
    IMO here.

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    • He looks like a beaten man in these press conferences. Injuries this, “misfits” that, no mention of bad defensive coaching. That never comes up as an issue. No responsibility. No nothing. He can go back to a running backs’ coaching job after this is over. I’m not sure Temple fans will be able to go to a game again. If you read every single post on this site from the last game of last year to the first game of this year, the overriding theme was getting the best players in here from the portal and the best coaches available. No high school recruits. Light on the JUCOs, heavy on the FCS stars and high-character P5 guys stuck in backup roles on great teams. No DCs who gave up 39.7 ppg in their last job. Get proven big-time transfer portal guys, above the high school and JUCO levels. Urgency was the keynote. There was no sense of urgency and we are where we are because of it.

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  3. So when the current situation is compared to the Dickerson 1994 Owl football edition, there is hope. We somehow partied on! Let’s hope we can do it again. But there are more obstacles to deal with today what with the player transfer portal, the NIL and stadium issues. It costs big $$ to field a competitive FBS program these days. Can the University afford to remain where we are? Is the BOT even interested? So many questions. BTW – I am quite familiar with the beautiful Upper Bucks area, having been born and raised in Perkasie. Pennridge HS. Quakertown has been our traditional Thanksgiving Day football game. since 1930. Great rivalry!

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  4. Funny, I told my son about the legend of Ron Dickerson three weeks ago and informed him how much I missed those days. Back then, It was funny. All the drama with quitting, coming back, losses of epic proportions, me being at the Vet with three other Temple fans…it was comical. Then, we got a taste of success. I guess the brief period spoiled me quickly because I can no longer find this funny. The school obviously doesn’t care about the program. So drop it. Bring back baseball. Bring back wrestling. I’d rather no team than this. It’s embarrassing. Right or wrong, many associate a school with the success of their athletic programs. Back then, I could point the basketball team as source of pride. “Hey, we’re a basketball school that has football for comic relief.” That’s no longer true. Drop the program. Let’s call it a day.

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  5. Why does Temple have a football team?
    “Because we have always had one” appears to be the answer, and it is not a good one. Purpose and vision?

    The leadership treats athletics like just another mandatory budget item.

    The portal and NIL era represents a cosmic change in the football landscape. Capitalism will always win out in our society. Same as our society, there are three tiers in college football.

    Upper class/P5
    Middle class/G5
    Lower class/FCS

    It is clear we don’t have the support of the TU average Joe, and we don’t have TU billionaires lining up to save the day. We will never be competitive in this era. Plus our AD is an NIL denier. So we are stuck in the lower half of the G5, which is just fine by our BOT. They are content with our social status.

    Why does Temple have a library?

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    • I haven’t been to any library since google was invented. I can find any book I want online and any quote from any book with a simple search term. Libraries are nice but not necessary. They should have put the stadium right smack in the middle of campus instead of the library.

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  6. Mike,
    Let’s dream that a very well heeled alum could buy out drayton’s contract. Would Sean Desai go from a D Coordinator in NFL to Head Coach at Temple, assuming it would be a pay raise?
    I don’t know if he would make that move knowing the headwinds at TU now. So the question then becomes, how do you try and pick a young, on the rise coach w boundless energy, enthusiasm that is infectious and can sell the program- they are out there, you just got to pick the right horse.

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