Saturday: A clash of coaching styles

Temple has more talent than a 3-7 team should have. Coaching, not so much.

From about 1 p.m. in the afternoon on Saturday until a little past 6 in the evening, Temple fans will be able to gauge a couple different coaching philosophies.

At 1, Adam Fisher takes his unbeaten basketball Owls to the Liacouras Center where they will host Columbia.

What did Fisher say in his first press conference?

“I’m here to win right away.”

A couple of hours later, Stan Drayton will take his 3-7 football Owls to Birmingham in an effort to avoid another 3-9 season. Make no mistake, if the Owls don’t win tomorrow (3 p.m., ESPN+), they will finish a miserable 3-9 for the third-straight miserable season. The last guy who finished 1-6 and 3-9 got his ass fired.

What did Drayton say in his first press conference?

“We want to chase greatness.”

Well, Fisher is winning right away and Drayton is still chasing.

Greatness is way ahead of Drayton, almost lapping him on the track. Fisher is just where he wants to be, winning right away.

Our picks this week: SMU covering against Memphis, Navy covering the 2.5 against ECU, Army getting the 4.5 against Coastal and FAU to keep it closer than 9.5 against Tulane.

Sometimes setting the expectations and announcing an urgency to win pays off. We won’t know if it pays off for Fisher for at least a couple of months, but this “chasing” bleep has got to stop and the sooner the better. Fisher went out in the portal and got guys he thought would be able to win right away.

At some point, if you are chasing greatness you’ve got to show the few remaining paying customers that you are at least gaining on it.

Ultimately, when the story of this season is written, the Owls’ offseason failure to improve a running game that finished 129th (out of 131 teams) in 2022 will prove to be their undoing.

From the end of last season to the beginning of this one, we harped in this space that there were great running backs to be had from places like Ball State, Western Michigan, Liberty and even freaking Alcorn State available and ready to transfer to Temple in the portal and watched while the Owls were perfectly content to settle for the freshman running back from Tampa and the holdovers from last season that put them 129 on the totem pole.

That’s how you got to 129 in the first place. Get me at least two 1,000-yard backs in the portal. All the Owls did was get another E.J. (Wilson, not Warner) who had half the yards Edward Saydee had.

That’s not getting it done in the portal.

Worse, a great defensive end hit the transfer portal for the Big 10. The move there was to get three great defensive ends from lower levels. All the Owls did was get Davon Hood from East Tennessee. Nice pickup, but needed to attract two more Hoods to the hood.

That’s how you end up chasing the faster guys ahead of you. Go get me four Jamaican 400-meter relay guys and suddenly those guys are chasing you. That’s what you had all offseason to do. Fisher was pounding the pavement. Drayton might not have been getting a cheesesteak at Richie’s but he didn’t wear out any shoe leather, either.

Temple needs a Howie Roseman of the portal and it’s obvious the Owls don’t have that.

If the Owls beat UAB, an argument could be made that 4-8 is better than 3-9.

Not buying it.

Kyle Hunter picked up this tidbit: UAB is worst in the country in kickoff return yardage allowed. I wonder if this Temple coaching staff is even aware of this? If they are, tell Sam Martin to return those kickoffs. He might be able to recapture that magic and take one to the house like he did earlier this season.

If the Owls are clicking on all cylinders and leading late in the game, expect UAB head coach Trent Dilfer to be going ballistic and yelling at both coaches and players.

I have yet to see Drayton yell at an assistant coach, specifically his precious friend, Everett Withers, for their shortcomings and there have been many.

A guy named Settle might be playing basketball for the Owls but the football Owls certainly appear to settle for losing way too much.

Sometimes you get what you demand.

It’s high time Temple football demands more winning and less chasing.

Tomorrow would be a good day to start.

Late Saturday Night: UAB Game Analysis

4 thoughts on “Saturday: A clash of coaching styles

  1. Looks like , with 0 posts for this 2nd last game, nobody gives a ‘goodgoddamn’ about TU football any more.
    Sad, very sad.

  2. I do. I will be watching like I have all year with one eye covered and taking my hand off the covered eye and rewatching the replay for every good play Temple has. Sad indeed because when Temple has a viable winning team the Owls get great TV ratings. When it doesn’t, the ratings go in the tank.

  3. Our AD doesn’t believe in NIL…., Dabo City Swinney.., what happened to that non-believer

    • As long as there are teams that don’t use the NIL extensively and winning (Troy, New Mexico State, South Alabama and San Jose State come to mind), I’m going to believe Temple can win without it. They need a genius who monitors the portal. Two thousand players entered the portal last year. Just 849 found a new scholarship. Over 1,000 players were left holding an empty bag. I refuse to believe Temple couldn’t have found 25 guys of those 1,000 better than the 25 best players they have now (with the exception of E.J.).

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