01.01.24
by

TU’s New Year’s Resolution: Extreme urgency

TU can’t compete with Ole Miss to get P5 portal players but it certainly can get its share of FCS players.

About halfway through the disappointing 2023 football season for the Temple Owls, I found a way to drown my sorrows that did not involve alcohol.

Bet against the home team.

My reasoning was that if I was going to suffer–and, believe me, watching Temple football lose, 45-13 and 55-0 in consecutive weeks was extreme torture–I was going to get paid for it.

After the college football season ended, I adopted that philosophy for my hometown NFL team.

With Temple going 3-9 and the Eagles 1-4 after that, needless to say, it’s been a profitable few months at the betting window.

All things considered, though, I would rather lose the bets and see my teams win.

The Temple losses stung hardest, though, because no matter what happens, the Philadelphia Eagles will never go out of business. That can’t be said for the other tenant in the same stadium. Since the end of the season, the Owls have lost their best quarterback, best offensive lineman and best cornerback via the portal.

They have not accounted for any of those personnel losses and that doesn’t bode well for the bottom line in 2024.

Gotta think if Temple brought in a couple of experienced FCS pass blockers a year ago, E.J. Warner would not have had been out for two games with a concussion.

With each Temple football loss, though, the bean counters in Sullivan Hall get more ammunition to ask the question: “Are we getting any return on a significant investment?”

(Hell, does Temple have a larger investment not including the hospital than the football program? I doubt it.)

The answer for the last three years has been a resounding no. Three-straight lousy, stinking, 3-9 seasons and this last one might have been the smelliest of a rotten trifecta. This coaching staff had all last year to get a big-time running back via the portal and to load up on both lines.

They did neither.

Instead, they left three scholarships on the table when there were experienced pass protectors and pass rushers still in the portal who could have helped them better than the two freshmen starters they had. It wasn’t as though they weren’t warned. On the day Darian Varner left, we wrote in this space that this was a time to get two FCS starters better than Varner via the portal.

Being forced to play offensive linemen who weren’t ready got their franchise quarterback concussed and caused him to look elsewhere.

Their leading rusher, Edward Saydee, only had 629 yards last year. We wrote in this space that the priority was to get a 1,000-yard rusher. What did they do? Get a 247-yard rusher from FIU.

Everything they did from a personnel standpoint screamed half-measures when they needed double measures.

The No. 1 New Year’s resolution now for this coaching staff has to be extreme urgency and it has to start today because what they did last month was just not good enough.

They need to bring in established FCS stars starting with the quarterback position. They went 3-9 with E.J. Warner last year. To go 6-6, they need someone twice as good as Warner and, in Albany’s Reece Poffenbarger, that option is still available in the portal. (Hell, Matt Sluka is still in the portal and he may be better.) Both are better than anyone Temple has on the current roster by a good bit. They haven’t had a big-time running back since Ray Davis played for Geoff Collins and Rod Carey.

They need to get one and a JUCO doesn’t cut it.

Plenty of really good FCS players are in the portal now and there won’t be FBS scholarships for all of them. Temple needs to scour the portal for the best of those players and show them some love.

Does this coaching staff understand that?

Do they even care?

They didn’t last offseason judging from the results.

Right now, even extreme urgency might not be enough, but it is worth a try. The football franchise depends upon it.

Friday: At Least We Had This

Monday: Comparing Apples to Apples

19 thoughts on “TU’s New Year’s Resolution: Extreme urgency”

  1. It is unfathomable to leave scholarships on the table in this era. Drayton does not know what he is doing.
    How many winning teams have done that?

    I’m in Philly in February and wanted to talk $$$.., but no way now. I’ll keep the powder dry until the new uni pres comes on board. I don’t have a big hat, and very little cattle to throw away.

    IMHO, BB is probably the best bet for TU athletics. Football has been dead for several seasons and counting, the immediate future holds little hope.

    ‘Nova is giving an average of > $75K per BB player. Sponsoring one kid for one year will not make a difference….., smh
    Happy New Year

    Reply

    • If this NIL and transfer portal stuff doesn’t change in the next six or so years, there won’t be any decision to make. Temple will have to pull the plug. Meanwhile, the staff can do a MUCH better job than JUCOs to bridge the gap if there is any gap between this year and 2030. This team has to mine the motherlode of talent that is in the FCS, just like Marshall, New Mexico State, Ohio (not State), Troy and South Alabama did with worse resources than Temple. New Mexico State’s Jerry Kill got out and in an interview with an Alburquerque TV station said the No. 1 reason was NIL. He said every other G5 team had more NIL money than he had and he didn’t feel like asking supporters for any. Meanwhile, he takes unpaid talent and kicks the living bleep out of highly paid talent (Auburn) proving to a school like Temple it can be done. He had a masterful game plan that milked every second of the clock before getting the snaps off. The fact that NMS had twice as many snaps as Auburn was not a coincidence. That takes a lot of practice. There were times this year watching Temple I feel they didn’t practice at all so I don’t know if this staff is capable of outsmarting teams.

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  2. Drayton is not Kill, Hardin, Arians, AG, or MR.

    He doesn’t know how to play without and win. He has only played with a full deck. His experiences have not required him to develop and nurture football genius. He is floundering and it won’t get any better.

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    • Also, for all of the talk how much “better” the culture is now as opposed to under Carey, that sure isn’t translating into any improvement in TUFB. I was looking at the incoming transfer portal players versus who is transferring out of the program and just like under Carey more talent is still leaving than is being replenished. I mean Carey was always accused of recruiting for a MAC team, at this point that might even be an step up from how Drayton is recruiting.

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  3. On another note, former Temple star and NY Jets first rd pick, Mo Wilkinson, was arrested AGAIN in New Jersey for driving under the influence. Lost count here, but what does that make it for him? Three times?

    Add in a handgun and hollow-point bullets to boot. How can this bozo keep his license?

    Reply

    • Did not know that, Joe. Thanks for the information. Being an NFL first-round pick can be an incredible high but coming down from a career like that must be challenging. A lot of guys deal with it and use the money to have successful careers in business later. Some, though, fall through the cracks and it appears this has happened to Mo. I hope he gets it together. Good guy when he was at Temple.

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      • Yeah Mike, really sad case for the former Owl. Have to say that I soured on Mo pretty quickly when he signed that huge contract with the Jets and basically tanked it afterwards.

        Went from an All-pro to a bum no one would touch in less than a year or two.

  4. Watching Liberty leading Oregon, 6-3. Really hoping against hope the G5 gets their last punch in before the gap between the two widens again next year.

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  5. Your best question Mike was “does the coaching staff even care?” Does anyone at Temple even care? From the BOT on down, there’s plenty that could be done to improve the program – but SOMEBODY has to care enough to start changing all the bad decisions from coaching hires to refusal to make obvious necessary changes – if the school cares at all about being even somewhat relevant. The money spent (wasted actually) is unbelievable compared to other smaller schools. How did Liberty become so successful in most all their sports so quickly and TU wallows in less than mediocrity (especially FB where most of the millions get wasted)? A ridiculous situation and no good reason for it! But looking back, Temple has had even worse periods in their FB history and kept on going. So again, it begs the question why persist in a losing mentality unless something is going on? Oh wait, Lurie is making out like a bandit – and no one cares?

    Reply

    • It’s becoming increasingly apparent that Drayton has given up. Don’t know why but I suspect it’s because he decided in the back of his mind that he can’t navigate building a program via the portal and NIL and wants to go back to being a RB coach. You don’t bring in a runner half as good as Saydee last year (Wilson) when you needed to bring in someone 2x as good (Dae Dae Hunter). You don’t bring in a quarterback half as good as Warner (Simon) when you needed to bring in someone 2x as good (Poffenbarger).

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      • Mike, if that is the case and to be honest it sure looks that way, does anything get done about it before a new president is in pace? I can’t see going beyond 2024 with Drayton, even that may be too long, if the admin and BOT want to get this program moving forward again. I fear that may not be the case and TUFB is just going to go out with whimper.

      • If Arthur Johnson was any other AD and not the TEXAS director of football operations, he would have taken Stan aside and said we’re bringing in Geoff Collins as the DC and the head coach in waiting. (Making clear that the waiting part was that unless Stan got his shit together next year, Collins would slide into the job.) I’ll take 15-10 and a bowl win any day over 6-18.

      • Yeah, he’ll go back to being a running backs coach AFTER he runs to the bank with his guaranteed 2.5 mil per year for the next 3 years. How can Temple be so damned stupid unnecessarily handing out contracts like that – I still think there might be stuff going on under the table. Yes we’ve seen bad periods before but never with these amounts of money being squandered – it’s all become so outrageous that an investigation is in order.

    • If Withers isn’t eventually part of the defensive coaching changes then the rest is window dressing. Maybe Elliot might be looking for a new job in a couple of weeks or I’m all in with Mike’s suggestion of Collins as DC/HC in waiting. Wasn’t a big fan of some of his schtick like the $$$ down but he brought some passion, one example of that which I remember is when our TE was targeted along the TU sideline which wasn’t called and Collins was immediately on the field and in the refs face. Doubt would ever see this out of Drayton

      Reply

      • I was hard on Collins because of a lot of the smaltz (spelling?) like money down and mayhem but he won here, not at GT. Winning here means everything. He got Temple more than any other outsider, including Drayton. Loved the kids. Loved the city. Loved the support staff. Loved the building he worked in every day. Built a roster good enough to beat UConn 58-8. UConn wasn’t any good but I loved pounding the crap out of them.

  7. Looks like more changes on the staff in addition to Clecidor, safeties coach, being let go I see that Jafar Williams contract is not being renewed. Why do I have a feeling I’ll be seeing Weisahan’s name on this list, who I think is one of the better coaches on Drayton’s staff. Yet Everett Withers is still here.
    Also see 2 more entered the transfer portal, McCargo and Brenyen Scott bringing total outbound transfers to date to 14

    Reply

    • Here is the deal. 60 players have entered the portal on Drayton’s watch. Add the players who have departed through normal graduation. It comes out to over one complete team.

      2024 is Drayton’s team. This is the roster he built. There are no excuses, zero.

      Now look at the 2024 projected roster vs the schedule. How many wins do you see? Progress or regression in the last three years? Facts are facts, there are no ‘alternative’ facts.

      Fox School of Business Case Study material. We are paying Lurie over $660K per game, plus he takes all parking and concession sales.

      Financially, and on the field, TUFB is at a severe competitive disadvantage.

      Reply

      • The numbers are not adding up. We have a $2.5 million coach who consistently gets beat by $500K coaches, no NIL to speak of, few kids who are/were here believing in the program enough to stay and a placeholder for President with a BOT who doesn’t care enough to follow up on their plans for a stadium. If they hire a beancounter for the next president, expect the doomsday scenario for Temple football.

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