Temple football: A mind-blowing loss

A lot of things had to go wrong for Temple to lose on Saturday and they all did

Not very much still blows my mind.

Watching a 1950s TV game show interview of a guy who was an eyewitness to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was one. Knowing that the grandson (not great-great or even great but regular grandson) of the 10th President of the United States is still alive (as of 8:30 Saturday night) is another.

If Harrison Ruffin Tyler, 95, was watching the Temple at South Florida football game on Saturday, that probably would have killed him.

Fortunately for him, he’s not a Temple football fan so he didn’t care enough to grab the old ticker on the way to dropping dead on the floor in front of his TV.

Many other younger Temple football fans did and I hope they survived because I can’t remember a more agonizing (or avoidable) loss in a long, long time.

The record will show that the final score was 27-23, South Florida, but there is more to the story.

Temple won the coin flip but, with one of the worst defenses in the history of college football, decided that deferring was the smart move instead of giving the rock to the best quarterback in the conference.

It wasn’t.

For the fifth time this season, the Owls kicked the ball out of bounds. This was exactly a decade after Temple had the best kicker in the nation, Brandon McManus, who drilled the ball through the end zone on 58 of his 70 kickoffs.

Never once did McManus, a former soccer player at North Penn, kick the damn ball out of bounds.

What happened to Temple football in 10 short years from having the best kicker in the nation to having the worst?

Brandon McManus kicking the game-winning FG at UConn in 2012. Kicking has become a disaster for Temple since and it should not given that Philly is a hotbed of great high school soccer talent.

The Temple cornerbacks do what Temple cornerbacks have done all season, allow completions on long passes, and the Owls found themselves in the same 17-0 hole Navy found itself in last week.

To their credit, the Owls fought back.

Not to their credit, some head-scratching mistakes made it impossible for them to win.

One of their most reliable players fumbled after a long gain.

They jumped offsides after doing the good work to stop USF on one drive.

They inexplicably hit the quarterback out of bounds when they could have gotten the ball back for the game-winning drive.

Who to blame?

Certainly the overpaid brain trust is right at the top of the list.

You don’t recruit a Purdue reject to kick off when there were about 20 great FCS kickers who would have LOVED a Temple opportunity. Kicking has become a disaster for Temple. The Owls had a great kicker in Brandon McManus and two very good ones in Austin Jones and Aaron Boumerhi but have had no luck since. Cam Price missed a chip shot FG and an extra point that was the difference in the game.

The Owls brought only 69 players to Tampa but whose fault was that? They left their RB of the future, Joquez Smith, home for an “administrative issue.”

Sorry.

Unless your best running back was stealing signals and suspended by the conference, you don’t leave him back in Philadelphia when he was supremely motivated to show the hometown folks in Tampa what they missed.

Do you think Steve Addazio wanted to suspend Matty Brown a ton of times? Yes. Did he? No. He wanted to win more.

Win. The. Game.

That’s the only important thing.

I never thought I’d want Addazio back. I do now.

Punish Joquez Smith next week, not this one. He might have run for 300 yards against this USF defense.

Have to win the game. Save the high and mighty stuff for later.

You’ve got to coach up that it’s NOT OK to hit a quarterback five yards out of bounds under any circumstances. This has to be done in spring practice, and May, June, July and August and not for yelling at the guy after the fact in November.

The other mistakes–the DMR fumble and the E.J. Warner interceptions–were more forgivable because those two guys have been warriors for the Owls all season and the errors were of commission, not omission.

There have been many mind-blowing losses in Temple football history. It’ll be hard to top this one for a long time.

If you had a grandson who attended this game, maybe he will still be alive to tell the story in 2123.

More people will believe he was there than the story he tells about it.

Monday: The Opposite of John Chaney

9 thoughts on “Temple football: A mind-blowing loss

  1. Starting to wonder if this program will be salvageable in 3 years when Drayton will be replaced if TU is unable to eat his contract and get rid of him sooner. Hopefully make a clean sweep with Johnson as well. Sorry but with today’s game seeing no improvement over last season and Drayton just isn’t a head coach. Too many of today’s penalties showed and undisciplined, poorly coached team. On top of that the 2024 recruiting class seems underwhelming to say the least. Beginning to wonder how good of a RB coach Drayton was or did he just have the good fortune to have some great backs on the roosters of the teams he was coaching at the time. Not seeing anything right now that makes me hopeful for anything better next season

  2. Huge regression. You lose to Tulsa 29-16 one year and the next 48-26. You beat USF one year 54-28 and lose to the same team 27-23 the next. You lose to Rutgers 16-14 one year and lose to that same team, 36-7, the next. Looks like the Navy game is an outlier. Every other game indicates the Owls are a worse team in Year Two of the Stan Drayton Era than Year One. That gets any coach fired in any “normal” school. Temple is not a normal school. He will be here next year. Of course, if he was coaching men’s soccer or some other minor sport, Johnson would have no problem letting him go.

  3. The worse loss I have witnessed in 50 years. I was shell shocked, mesmerized in a partial coma! I actually stopped watching to put up Christmas lights on my balcony. I need to go to confession after spewing vulgar language like running water, HORRIFYING.When Drayton was hired I listened, I researched and spoke to others closer to the program than I but my first comment to the guys in “K-lot” was, “how is it possible that a guy in college coaching football for 28 years is getting his first HC (head coaching) position? Seemed weird to me. Well, I think I know the answer. This coaching staff, without a shadow of a doubt is in over their head. A good coach puts his players in the best position to win, to match their skills with the moment and the situation. Clearly this is not the case. At best, JV.It’s incredibly sad to watch week after week. I am coming into town for thanksgiving. Had every intention of going to the game on Friday and being with my loyal pals and X players. Honestly, I can’t waste my hard-earned money to throw it away. I’m still numb. I don’t possess the vocabulary to express my dismay.I do believe the transition from Scary Cary to the new Ad (Johnson) Temple has made decisions of convenience. Kraft hire the numb skull because it was convenient, Johnson hired Drayton because it was convenient, and the beat goes on. People in over their head making decisions at this level have consequences! And, they fucking dropped baseball. Idiots………….. I’m done!Sorry, Mike, to pen this off but I was awaken by water dripping on my head in bed from a drunken neighbor above. Then, I mistakenly looked and my phone for your ditty about the game. I think the end is near. There has always been a disconnect between the administration and the athletic program in my humble opinion. Back to the days where football camp was at the Cherry Hill Inn. I rode my bike every day to practice until I got my driver’s license. I’ll stop, I’m aggravated, and I have to change my bed sheets and clean up. I might kill the mother fucker upstairs. Last episode did about 80k damage to my home. Changed his dishwasher and did not reconnect his garbage disposal line. Ran his dish washer, left his home and we were out. My master bathroom ceiling caved in, our new California closet was destroyed, master bedroom, kitchen and hardwood floors destroyed! 12-29-20. We have family in for the New Year. I can’t put into words the mess it caused. Thank God Barb and my sister TACKLED me before I got out of the house. I’d be in jail today. Best Regards,

    Michael DiGiacomo mdigiacomo35@yahoo.com | 216.402.7034

  4. 1-Frustration.
    2-Discipline/concentration.
    Lots of the first for the fans. Not enough of the second from the players.
    Would Petine at Central Bucks West put up with this crap?
    Is it all on the coaches? – maybe for not repeticiously drilling it into the players, but some of those things are on the players too. At this level any player should know not to slam an already out of bounds player into the ground, especially on 3rd and long and the most meaningful point in the game. That one play stood out to me.
    Many things contributed to what truly coulda-woulda-shoulda been a win. EJ was off target a lot, too many penalties, too many long USF passes completed, missed FGs and that extra point – geesh.
    BTW, the D was pretty good again – is Withers still in charge?

    • Immediately got in the car after the game (about 3 hours and 38 minutes, the longest “real time” game all season) and heard Paul Palmer talk about that play for 10 minutes. He suggested that the player who pushed out the RB was having an issue with the RB and turning something personal into a personal foul hurt the entire team. I didn’t see anything yelping back and forth between those two but that’s got to be a point of coaching emphasis prior to Game 1 not Game 10.

    • Pretty good after 17-0. Pretty bad before that. The inconsistency is maddening.

  5. Jimbo Fisher is suddenly available. With his $76 million buyout, maybe he’d donate his services for a couple years to improve his image in the profession. He usually brings some decent assistants along.

  6. Temple is terrible this year. Next year could be worse. Incoming HS recruiting class offers zero hope, and TUFB can’t/won’t pay FBS starters from the transfer portal (the AD doesn’t support/promote NIL).

    Drayton doesn’t have the midas touch or magic wand. 2024 will probably be the last season for both Drayton and Johnson. Incoming president should drop the axe.

    Start all over (again) in 2025.., smh.

    Whoever gets the job must return to Temple Tuff and recruit size/strength on the line of scrimmage. Overmatched on both sides of the ball in every game except Norfolk St/Akron.

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