Beautiful day, ugly (but needed) win

Having been to the last half-century of Temple football Homecomings, what happened on Saturday might have been the most impressive of them all.

OK, maybe I fibbed.

This overflow lot of mostly Temple students was completely full after the main lots were sold out. Those kids missed a helluva game. (Photo courtesy of me)

The 2015 Homecoming against Tulane was more impressive, simply because Temple fans filled the entire lower bowl in a 48-14 win. They even did a wave across the entire stadium.

On a gorgeous Philly day (74, sunny, no wind) this one was like that one in the sense that the crowd outside the stadium was at least as impressive on Saturday as the one back in 2015.

The difference was that time 35,145 made it inside the stadium and this time only 18,871 did. The flip side of that was Temple was 6-0 then and 1-5 now so maybe the fans deserve more credit. No doubt in my mind if Temple was 5-1 instead of 1-5, a dozen thousand or more people would have wanted to go inside.

Weather-wise, it doesn’t get better in Philadelphia on any Oct. 19. A month from now we will be here freezing our asses off against North Texas.

Yes, there were about as many people who partied the whole day in the lots as the people who made it inside in a 20-10 Temple win.

10 for 104 is way too much

The honey needed to attract those bees inside going forward for Temple is to turn a 17-0 lead into a 34-0 win and the Owls have shown they don’t know how to execute that killer instinct yet.

Penalties were the big reason why, at least in the second half.

On offense, whenever the Owls had a big play, they had a holding penalty.

On defense, whenever they made a big stop in the second half it was either a PI (pass interference) or defensive holding.

That’s why Tulsa–arguably the worst team in the AAC–was able to cause those fans who made it inside (raising my hand here) to bite our fingers until about the 2:40 mark of the fourth quarter.

Eliminating the penalties is the way to beat these teams like East Carolina and FAU coming up. Continuing with this season-long trend is a formula for joining Tulsa at the bottom of the league standings.

If Temple ever wants to get those fans to go from the parking lot and into the stadium, it is going to have to clean up now what should have been done in spring and summer practices.

You could say that about a lot of things, including the swing and miss on who should have been the starting quarterback at both Oklahoma and Navy.

A lot of things that need to be cleaned up by now should have been done by Aug. 31 and that’s on Stan Drayton. Whether it costs him his job or not will depend on his sense of urgency now.

Monday: A Different Kind of Homecoming

12 thoughts on “Beautiful day, ugly (but needed) win

  1. An awful lot of penalties, but a much needed win nonetheless. So we have a chance for post season play if we win four of the five remaining games. It is certainly a possibility IMO. The team seems to be coming together with Evan Simon at the helm. But he needs to stay healthy. Oh and BTW, I will never forget that fabulous 2015 season! Go Owls!

    • Really stunned at the little amount of time Simon gets to throw on a consistent basis, even against the Tulsas and Utah States of the world. We need both run- and pass-blockers in that portal. If we can’t get them from backup spots on P4 teams, get the best OL candidates from the FCS level.

      • Still not totally onboard with this coaching staff, particularly when it comes to questionable play selection, especially at QB, to which you alluded. Let’s see how the remainder of the season goes, but I sense major changes may be in the offing. That is if the university administration is serious about the program.

      • I’m feeling the ceiling is 5-7 for this team and it really needs to be 6-6 IMHO. That UCONN loss is going to come back to bite them in the butt unless they pull off a miracle of miracle and beat both Tulane and North Texas while holding serve against ECU and FAU.

  2. Much needed win at home. This game should not have been as close as it was.

    Also, what was up with us trying to get an extra play off at the end of the 3rd Quarter? Ultimately it didn’t matter as we didn’t get it off, but still. And why were we running hurry up at the beginning of Q4?

    Regardless a win is a win, let’s get another one next weekend in Carolina.

    • Mike Houston=27-38 (fired)

      Stan Drayton-8-23 (retained)

      Which school is more serious about winning in football?

      • Athletic director Jon Gilbert said in a statement that “a change is needed to move the program forward. We have high expectations and those are not changing.”

        In what world would anyone from Temple make such a statement?

        Would Temple fire Drayton after a loss to ECU?

      • Unfortunately, no. I like to see what a Temple team can do when it cleans up the penalty problems. I’ve given up on protecting the QB and running the football.

      • And that may be an indication as to how the BOT and the university administration view the program. I read somewhere that the details of Drayton’s contract have not been made public. Would love to be the proverbial fly on the wall.

      • We know what Drayton made his first year. It was $2 million, which was also the same thing Temple paid Carey the first year he didn’t coach. That’s $4 million for three wins in one year. We will know Drayton’s figures for this year two years from now because these financial reports to the state always lag behind by 24 months.

Leave a reply to jamesg14460b2149a7 Cancel reply