Some much-needed respect

Respect is earned, not given, and, honestly, the Temple football Owls didn’t deserve much respect over the first eight games of this rapidly ending season.

When Temple wins, the Owls have more people talking about them than an Insurrection, Tucker Carlson and Trumpers.

It took until Game 9 for the Owls to earn it, though, and earn they did, with a 32-18 win over a Navy team that already did enough to earn respect on the basis of its prior games.

Had not one player fumbled twice on consecutive plays, it probably would have been 39-11 instead of 32-18.

The worst thing, though, about Temple’s five-game losing streak was reading so many of the comments that “Temple should drop football” and “give it up, we’re not good at this” because other schools lose games and don’t have to listen to that garbage.

Nobody on any Navy site is calling for the Middies to drop football and concentrate on basketball after the Temple loss and neither should anybody from Temple overreact the other way when adversity faces the Owls.

It was just seven short years ago that Temple pummeled No. 22-ranked Navy in the AAC championship game, 34-10, proving a couple of things.

Temple can win in this sport and a fan base that has something to cheer for will show up, as 10,000 Owl fans who traveled 120 miles proved that afternoon.

Just win, baby.

This slap made my day.

We’re not going to overreact either way today because the Owls looked so bad in those five games there is a strong argument to be made that the Navy game was an outlier. Even the other two wins were nothing to write home about. Akron hasn’t exactly set the world on fire since losing to the Owls and Norfolk State still has a Division II blemish loss on its record.

Here’s what we do know, though. Temple is a representative team with quarterback E.J. Warner in the lineup. In my mind, UTSA will win this year’s AAC title because it has a seven-year quarterback and a great coach but the Owls were still within shouting distance of that team late in the fourth quarter with Warner. Even coming off a concussion, Warner finished an insane 27 for 33 with 402 yards and four touchdowns against Navy.

For that, he became the first Temple player in history (I wasn’t around in 1934) to be carried by his teammates in the lockeroom.

I’ve never seen a Temple player carried off the field in my lifetime (Dick Beck and other Owls carried Bruce Arians off the field in 1988). If Warner wins four-straight to close out the season, expect him to be carried off the field after a win over visiting Memphis. (Temple has beaten Memphis the last two times it came into Philadelphia.)

As Temple head coach Stan Drayton said after the win over Navy, “You can’t spell Warner without a W” and E.J. slapped that W on the Lincoln Financial Field wall with some added gusto.

Scary, though, because what happens to the Owls without Warner? Obviously, all three backups are light years behind him so let’s enjoy the Owls while we have him.

Navy isn’t great, but is pretty good. The Middies beat both Charlotte (14-0) and North Texas (27-24). They hung with USF (44-30) and a really good Memphis team (28-24). Temple has both USF and Memphis left on the schedule. It will have to win those games plus scratch out a win at UAB to get a bowl bid.

Impossible?

No.

Likely?

Also no.

If the Owls are able to keep Warner clean and avoid fumbles, they have a shot and, at this point, this is all we can ask.

After being a national laughingstock for five-straight weeks, any morsel of respect is both needed and appreciated.

Monday: The Road Forward

11 thoughts on “Some much-needed respect

  1. Didn’t seem like Withers actually coached the D – the D was solid and tripped up navy’s triple option to a T. And the way Temple came back after the faultering 3rd quarter fumble-itis to win was impressive. Maybe an outlier, but now a chance for 4-5 wins, an actual improvement! As always, we’ll see….but this was a solid game for once, best played game of the season. Like I said, changes in the D leadership?

    • Stan is pretty stubborn. I like all of the firings of coordinators done in the middle of this season. Look at Georgia Tech. They fired Andrew Thacker after a loss to Bowling Green and beat Miami and also won 45-17 today. Would have loved to see Stan turn to USFL defensive coordinator Chris Woods for the final few games but if giving up more than 40 points a game for five-straight games doesn’t do it, nothing will.

  2. ‘Twas an uplifting day for discouraged Owl football fans, that’s for sure! We now realize how much one EJ Warner means to this team. A good offense seems to energize the defense, which was obvious today. People are now talking about winning the remaining three games and garner a bowl invite. Huge task of course. Beating USF, UAB and Memphis will be tough. But who knows? I never thought today’s game against Navy would turn out like it did. Let’s hope EJ does not disappear through that awful portal. Go 🦉s!

    • Shocking to me that we cannot generate a run game no matter how much we try to force-feed it. I think Danny Langsdorf probably will go the short passing game as the “effective” Temple run game. One step drop and five-yard passes. Unfortunately, that takes away play-action effectiveness on deep balls because, if you can’t run, nobody is buying a play-fake.

  3. Good win today, even though TUFB made it a little tougher than it needed to be with the turnovers, but still not convinced that Drayton is an FBS level HC. That series at the end of the first half had me scratching my head, take 3 TOs to save some time on the clock then call a kneel down😖 Haven’t seen any growth in his game day coaching and not impressed with his recruiting so far

  4. The clock mismanagement at the end of the 1st half was totally inept, again. This has happened all year long. Apparently, clock management wasn’t under the forte of a running back coach at Texas. And, running the ball well also doesn’t fall under that forte, either. Hopefully the defense will continue to rise up in the last 3 games. Still not sold on Drayton as a Division 1 head coach. Better options are out there. Ken Niumatalolo, anyone?

    • The clock management at the end of each half EVERY DAMN GAME should be spliced down and made into a teaching film on how not to use timeouts. They needed those timeouts on the offensive series, not the defensive one, and E.J.’s interception can be totally blamed on him looking at that clock winding down and saying, “I have to get rid of this ball.” Give the kid a couple of options to throw it to the middle of the field if something isn’t available on the sidelines. That’s where you use the timeouts. You use those timeouts in the last two minutes on offense. You don’t call three timeouts in the last 22 seconds on defense.

  5. A big problem has been building the team on recruiting high schoolers while opponents are getting portal players from p5 and FBS. The result is boys against men, and the boys get pushed around. The military schools cannot go to the portal. That helped us compete with Navy, that and superb play by EJ and our receivers. Rabbi Dick White salisrab@comcast.net

  6. Yes, but no stopping us from going into the portal to get a great running back and some great OL and DL guys next year. Light on the high school guys, heavy on great P5 players (stuck behind better ones) and FCS guys who are All-American “types” looking for a higher-profile spot. Generally, you don’t have to pay those guys NIL money (see the two Florida transfers and the one Texas A&M transfer, plus the Colorado State transfer, etc. on this current Temple squad).

    • To get really good talent from the portal I think TU needs a lot more NIL money to throw around.

      • Plenty of other schools are thriving without a whole lot of NIL money. Tulane, Troy, South Alabama come to mind. Temple needs to follow that model if it is not going to get the money (and it is not).

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