When Stan Drayton was first hired as Temple’s head football coach in December of 2021, very few people attending that first press conference would have told you that the 3-9 season that preceded him would be followed by a couple of more 3-9 seasons.

Drayton seemed to be that enthusiastic about winning, if not the first year, then certainly his second.

Temple certainly has been treading water since.

Winning is the only measuring stick. It always was and always will be.

Manheim Township coach Mark Evans greets Temple football coach Geoff Collins and o-line boss Chris Wieshan. pic.twitter.com/CYcFH0N1FW

— Tim Gross (@TimGrossLNP) January 12, 2017

If 2024 is another 3-9 season (or worse), Temple will have some tough decisions to make. Under normal business circumstances, the logical move would be to get the next head coach.

The nuclear one would be to give up all together on football but that will be determined probably if the new President is a more egghead type (David Adamany) than an ex-Division I football player type (Jason Wingard).

Give me the football player type any day but that’s a decision for the BOT to make.

Everyone around here is rooting for Drayton to go 6-6 or better but it doesn’t look good right now. There isn’t a single AAC-level starting quarterback on the roster and the defensive coordinator who allowed both FIU and Temple to give up nearly 40 ppg. is still here.

The fact that Drayton was hired by his Texas buddy and that Drayton kept his Texas State buddy here as DC doesn’t present the best optics to the rest of the college football world.

Or even the Temple BOT.

Let’s say business as normal and Temple is determined to succeed in football. Then you have to start thinking about a succession plan right now.

A blueprint of success already exists even in the G5 space. New Mexico State made a couple of straight bowl games by hiring a proven Power 5 head coach (Jerry Kill). Troy did the opposite by grabbing a guy (Jon Sumrall) who worked under Neal Brown there and knew the formula to succeed at Troy.

Temple probably won’t have the option of hiring a proven P5 head coach but does have one of those other kind of guys in Chris Wiesehan. Chris was here under both Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins and knows what worked at 10th and Diamond and what did not.

I had text convo with someone who is in the building every day and he said most of Drayton’s staff is standoffish to outsiders with the exception of Wiesehan, who takes time to talk to everyone. That was Collins’ personality. It was also Rhule’s. Drayton himself has the same personality but, for some reason, most of his staff does not.

The thought here after the recent revolving door situation that it would be a good idea to name a “coach in waiting” instead of going through an exhaustive search should Drayton bolt.

Maybe Wiesehan is that guy. Maybe he’s not but a lot of people smarter and closer to the program than me have told me this: “Mike, that guy is the real deal. He would make a great head coach at Temple.” Here are just a few things I like about the guy: 1) He left Hawaii to come to Temple; 2) He left a Power 5 program to come BACK to Temple; 3) He was part of the recent past Temple greatness.

That would make for a pretty good Temple football trivia question. Keith Kirkwood also left Hawaii to come to Temple but Keith was never a P5 assistant who loved Temple enough to come back to take the same job in the G5 realm.

That’s a demonstrated affinity to the school not just through words but through deeds and that should count for a lot.

Some of the same things the same people told me about an unheralded assistant named Matt Rhule a decade or so ago are the same things they are saying about Wiesehan now. There’s a lot of street cred in that.

I’ll have to take their word for it. Certainly, makes sense from the standpoint that Wiesehan knows the landscape from the perspective of three different coaching staffs and was once a nominee for the Frank Broyles Award as the best assistant coach in the country (2018) while …. wait for it … at Temple. He knows every nook and cranny of 10th and Diamond unlike any other “national search” guy would. He was part of success stories under both Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins.

He already knows the blueprint to succeed at Temple. He might be the only one in the building who does.

Just like Sumrall did at Troy.

Friday: How Others View Us

Monday: The way too early game by game