Temple-Tulane comes down to a question of trust

This could have been at 12th and Norris had Lewis Katz had not gone way too soon.

Back in 2014 when Temple was beating Vanderbilt on the road, 37-7, fellow AAC member Tulane was opening Yulman Stadium.

It was a 30K on-campus stadium for a school used to playing in a big NFL stadium and it revitalized campus life and the football component.

In Philadelphia at the same time, Temple’s Board of Trustees was going in the same direction, approving a 35K on-campus stadium that had all the same intentions of Yulman Stadium, only bigger and better. Yulman was a big-time donor.

On Memorial Day of that same year, Lewis Katz died in a private jet crash.

What Yulman was to Tulane, Katz was to Temple.

Who knows?

Jon Sumrall is a great head coach. Stan Drayton is not. Temple needs a guy like this.

Maybe the Temple Stadium would have been named Katz Stadium and maybe Temple’s upward trajectory would have continued well past the Matt Rhule years.

Now Katz is gone Temple plays Tulane on Saturday (4 p.m., ESPNU). Katz had a lot to do with both the hiring of Steve Addazio (bowl winner) and Matt Rhule (AAC conference champion) as the head of the athletics committee at Temple both times.

Had Katz lived, do you think he would have hired guys like Geoff Collins, Manny Diaz, Rod Carey and Stan Drayton?

I don’t think so but we will never know.

Saturday’s game comes down to a matter of trust.

Do you trust Temple with Drayton and his sieve-like DC Everett Withers or do you trust a guy who made Troy a national power (Jon Sumrall)?

Not a betting man when it comes to the school I love but, if I was, I would lay the 25.5 points on the Green Wave and not blink an eye.

At Troy, Sumrall was a guy like current Temple OL coach Chris Wiesehan–an assistant who had the blueprint of success at that school drawn up by current West Virginia head coach Neal Brown. Wiesehan has all the secrets of Geoff Collins and Matt Rhule, two guys he worked under, at Temple.

When Brown went to the Moutaineers, Troy said, hey, we have a diamond in our own backyard in Sumrall. We don’t need to go elsewhere.

Sumrall took those receipts and made Troy better.

Now he parlayed that into a better job at Tulane, bringing with him his DC and OC and faces a RB head coach in Drayton and a DC who hasn’t been able to stop anyone in the last two decades. It’s Homecoming there. In a packed on-campus stadium that revitalized Tulane football from a few thousand fans rattling around the New Orleans Superdome to a college experience students will remember the rest of their lives.

Tulane went out and hired a head coach who proved he could get it done.

As a head coach, not a running back coach.

Who would you take?

I’ll be rooting hard for my team but I don’t trust my coaches. Have no doubt that my kids will play hard but I don’t see a DC who has ever believed in putting the other quarterback on his ass to my satisfaction. In fact, he lets every QB Temple faces pick his defense apart. Bruce Arians famously said while head coach at Temple that the best pass defense is putting the other quarterback on his ass. Everett Withers’ philosophy is to drop way to many guys into pass coverage and never risk sending way too many guys to force sacks and fumbles.

That’s a passive defensive philosophy and definitely not Temple TUFF.

Hate to say this, I trust the bad guys’ coaches a lot more.

Tulane 48, Temple 10 is about the right prediction. Praying for Temple to win, 24-23, but God might be saying: “Mike, hey, I’m God, but I can only do so much.”

Late Saturday Night: Tulane game analysis

11 thoughts on “Temple-Tulane comes down to a question of trust

  1. A post from Houston fan Sam:

    Hope you don’t mind a different perspective from a Houston alum. I think our two schools have a lot in common, with similar size cities and problems. We each have two large state universities and local private school who don’t work and play well with others. Texas is worse that Penn st. They do not want to share. The biggest opponents to athletic spending are on campus academic departments who also don’t want to share and are short term thinkers.

    I started following Temple in the 1970s when I spent a lot if time Malvern area at a company facility, and really enjoyed the two schools success 2015-2016. I like college football and

    I remember the astrodome era, and playing in a pro stadium and how much better it was moving back on campus in a rehabilitated track stadium. My favorite road trip was to Tulane at both Yulman and the Superdome. On campus was a much better experience with the tailgating and just being on campus. Yulman is a nice stadium. It is small, but the Linc will always be there if needed. Houston has scheduled a couple of games at NRG. Temple is there for the long term your complaing neighbors are only there short term. Good luck to Temple and there are opportunities in the chaos of college football!!

  2. TUFB is the outlier. Look back at the AAC from 2013. Seven of the ten teams are gone. SMU, UCF, Houston, Louisville, Cincy, UConn, and Rutgers gone.

    They all had one three things in common. A clear vision from the BOT, vertical alignment, and talented coaches to execute the vision.

    Only Temple, USF, and Memphis remain as the original members of the conference. USF is building an on campus stadium, Memphis has the Liberty Bowl. Both schools now have an articulated vision for football, vertical alignment, and are aggressively pursuing talented coaches.

    TUFB doesnʻt have a vision, alignment, or talented coaches. Nor will it ever have an on campus stadium.

    TUFB is the outlier and will forever be left behind.

    Wretched facts.

  3. Agree with kj. The big question is why the uni and BOT care so little about being competitive, especially in football, but don’t think twice about spending millions on the fb program – it just doesn’t make any sense.

  4. Just checked and TU is ONLY down 0 to 21 to Tulane. There is still hope Lads, still hope. This is with 2 mins left in the 2nd Qtr — Geeze.

  5. Well, this game is going just how I imagined it would.

  6. It’s sad how far Temple has fallen since I was a freshman in 2015. We beat Tulane that year 49-10.

  7. It’s sad how far Temple has fallen since I was a freshman in 2015. We beat Tulane that year 49-10.

  8. I wonder what the announcer teams say to each other when they realize they’re doing a Temple game?

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