07.21.24
by

Last in the American for a reason

Long before Wayne Hardin coached Temple, he was a guest on What’s My Line?

The great sportswriter Charles Dryden once dropped this line about Washington, D.C. in 1904:

“First in War, First in Peace and last in the American League.”

(He was referring to the Washington Senators back then.)

Except for the War and Peace part, you could say the same thing about Temple football Monday and Tuesday as the American Conference holds a two-day football media extravaganza.

It’s pretty hard to get everyone in any field to agree on anything but the assembled media has agreed on one thing:

Temple is the worst team in the “American League.”

While a slight bit of hope could gleaned from the fact four of the five recent last-place picks didn’t actually finish in last, it’s not a good look for Temple with a little over a month to go before the opening kickoff.

Temple is picked last for a reason and, a lot of the writers who cover the league have been looking around and seeing what teams were most aggressive in the transfer portal and which were not.

While Temple did add a lot of quantity in the portal, the perception is that the quality is lacking. Temple went after a good share of JUCOs while the rest of the league scoured the FCS ranks for established starters or at least took a good look at P5 (now P4) backups who made some noise when they were in a tougher player group.

The Temple Board of Trustees once paid a Princely sum to bring Pop Warner from Stanford to Philadelphia.

Temple has one of those players in running back Antwain Littleton II. Almost all of the Owls’ fellow league members have four or five of those type players.

Also it doesn’t help that the school is coming off an unacceptable stretch of 1-6, 3-9, 3-9, and 3-9 seasons.

Perception has been a problem at Temple for awhile now. A school that was able to hire one of the best coaches in college football, Pop Warner, once followed that up 40 years later when it hired one of the best coaches in college football then in Wayne Hardin (see his appearance as the “new” Navy coach on What’s My Line? above).

Making that kind of investment paid off handsomely for Temple both times as Warner got the Owls in the Sugar Bowl and Hardin secured the first bowl win ever for the school.

Now, all Temple can afford is a running backs’ coach who will spend the better part of the next two days explaining why the perception of football at the school has plummeted to the bottom.

You get what you pay for.

Friday: The Answers

8 thoughts on “Last in the American for a reason”

  1. Facts and Reality.

    1. ESPN says we are the second worst team in all of college football. TUFB will be dead last after Week 1, and it may get worse.

    www.espn.com

    2024 College Football Power Index – ESPN

    View the 2024 College Football power index on ESPN. The FPI is the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season.

    2. We are poor, the NIL coffers are league bottom. We can’t recruit competitively because we are poor.

    3. Drayton’s Hot Seat will remain on fire until he gets fired.

    www.cbssports.com

    2024 College Football Hot Seat Rankings: Evaluating the job security of all 134 FBS coaches

    From ‘win or be fired’ to ‘untouchable,’ every college football coach gets rated by Dennis Dodd

    www.cbssports.com www.cbssports.com

    4. Fry goes to Tulane for his first in game experience.

    5. Institutional mey and student apathy is chronic.Do we really want to own the worst football program in America? Absent a Stage 4 like Intervention (>$50M in commitments over the next 5 yrs) the TUFB reality will get worse.

    Is TUFB a “buy” or “sell” in the marketplace?

    It is impossible to be competitive given the current set of facts and circumstances.

    Reply

  2. In this day and age of college football, what you do in the offseason determines what happens from Sept. to December. It’s all about getting the best players from the transfer portal and NIL should not be an issue because everyone with the possible exception of Memphis in this league is in the same NIL boat. Temple is located in a great city with a great academic reputation and should have been able to bring in a team full of P4-level backups and sometime starters eager for a larger role. Temple just hasn’t done enough and the die is cast. I hope I’m wrong.

    Reply

  3. Trouble is, Temple is not getting what it’s paying for presently. Temple is paying a premium salary compared to other AAC schools and is rated last in the conference. Yes, choices (for coaches) make all the difference, but you have to make the best choice!

    Reply

    • $2.5 million should have attracted, if not a big-time coach, a coach who was a proven winning head coach at every stop he was prior and someone who also had a history of recruiting the East Coast.

      Reply

      • Like I said Mike, choices make the difference. We’ve all been moaning and groaning about the choices Temple has made and this last choice is an absolute head scratcher. Maybe with a couple wins in close games and an upset here and there we can at least improve some. We may want more than 5 wins but that may be the ceiling for this season and it would be an improvement with a little promise – please don’t shoot me for saying that, lol.

  4. Now there’s a floor for NIL if you’ll be in the league:

    (From On 3)

    As revenue-sharing model nears, AAC has its eyes on salary floor

    by:Eric Prisbell•07/23/24•

    ARLINGTON, Texas – As power conference schools explore whether they will have the revenue to approach the salary cap of some $22 million to share with athletes as early as fall 2025, the American Athletic Conference has its sights set on the other end of the radically new financial model:

    Establishing a salary floor – a table-stakes investment to compete in the league.

    “I do think it’s important that we set a floor, so all our institutions are investing at a minimum level – it’s important just to create more competitive balance,” AAC Commissioner Tim Pernetti told On3 on Tuesday.

    Pernetti, four months into the gig amidst unprecedented industry disruption, met with his football coaches until 11 p.m. Monday night. He said there is universal membership support for a salary floor. 

    The rationale: Letting everyone invest at a baseline level and then giving schools the opportunity to go up from there signals a commitment across the conference that everyone is in it together.

    “To be part of this conference, we expect you to invest at a minimum level,” Pernetti said. “Understanding what coaches need to have access to with NIL and on campus to invest, will give us a steer on maybe what the right floor is. But that’s the conversation we’re going to spend our time on.”Is salary floor more important than salary cap?

    The revenue-sharing model that will take hold from the House v. NCAA settlement is considered permissive legislation – meaning schools don’t have to take part. But Pernetti knows that’s “not the real world.” To compete in the cutthroat world of player recruiting and retention, sharing some revenue will be mandatory.

    New business enterprise strategies that the league is exploring, he said, are all about enabling schools to be able to compete and share more revenue. Pernetti said he does not yet know how many, if any, AAC schools will even come close to sharing as much as $22 million with athletes. 

    UAB coach Trent Dilfer told On3 that his school will not be coming close to that cap figure – “No, God, no” – and that maybe only a couple of teams in the conference would come somewhat close to that but “we’re not even in the stratosphere.”

    Dilfer thinks a salary floor is more important than a salary cap to “get everyone playing the same game.”

    “You’re going to a Blackjack table and some are going to the $5,000 minimum hand and some are going to the $5 hand table,” Dilfer said. “We all need to be playing at least the $100 hand. And if someone can go play $5,000 [table], good for them. Every institution at least has to be committed to at least getting to a floor. 

    “We all have to be in the game. If you want to be the Yankees, more power to you. But at least be the Royals.”AAC leaders say now is time to figure it out

    Jeff Traylor, UTSA‘s coach, said he’s excited about the coming revenue-sharing model because it will alleviate some pressure on coaches so they won’t have to fundraise “around the clock.”

    Echoing Dilfer’s sentiments about a floor, Traylor believes there should be a baseline institutional revenue-sharing investment that is required.

    “If not, it’s not fair just to ride on the coattails of a few other programs,” Traylor told On3.

    Like the rest of the industry, the AAC has a year to figure out how best to navigate a historic paradigm shift. 

    “Most people would say, ‘Oh, we’ve got a year – a year is plenty of time,’” Pernetti said. “A year is not plenty of time. Like, a year is now.”

    Reply

    • Striking, you never hear Drayton or Johnson bemoan TUFB’s lack of NIL…,

      And, why would anyone in the right mind grab a falling knife? Giving to TUFB w/Stan Dickerson Drayton is like throwing a few dollars to the homeless.

      It might make you feel good for an hour, but it won’t make a difference.

      The service academies will get a waiver for the conference minimum. Fry will question the return on investment. Meet the minimum for last place in conference, and worst teamin all of college football? Is it worth it?

      The worst team in all of college football, w/o a Div QB plays Oklahoma!!!

      Reply

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