Urgency all around except Temple

Current UNC DC Geoff Collins wants to return to Temple as HC. Collins is the only TU head coach to never have a losing season here. The Owls have done much worse with their last two hires.

The “plan” for today was to be at the press conference at the Liacouras Center to cover, say, Chris Wiesehan being named interim Temple head football coach as Temple prepares for a national search.

Not happening and I’m not surprised.

Geoff Collins (center) supervises an Oklahoma drill before a game. This team could use a lot more of those drills.

Those plans came with the assumption that Temple operates with the same urgency of its fellow American Athletic Conference football members.

Three weeks ago, ECU fired Mike Houston and was rewarded with an energized group of athletes under new leadership that led to blowout wins over Temple and FAU.

Two weeks ago, Rice fired Mike Blomgren and, after that, the Owls played both Navy and Memphis tough.

Yesterday, FAU head coach Tom Herman fired his DC and associate head coach.

Geoff Collins had the Owls practicing outside during snowstorms and his teams were Temple TUFF.

Meanwhile, Temple DC Everett Withers still has a job after giving up over 37 points a game last year and over 50 points in his last two games.

None of these schools are satisfied with similar starts to Temple and are taking tangible steps to address problem.

At Temple, the thought process appears to be: “Is something wrong? I don’t see it.”

(Hell, even another Group of Five Owls’ team, Kennesaw State, fired its head coach yesterday.)

All of the above moves illustrated a sense of urgency that Temple does not seem to share. It is a sense of urgency that reflects the current reality of college football and the timeline of the transfer portal.

Gone are the days when a school can afford to wait until the end of the season and assess the progress of a program. Now, schools are hiring interim head coaches during the season for a reason and that reason is to stay ahead of the transfer portal timeline. For example, if Collins returns having his former top Georgia Tech assistant, Wiesehan, already here that puts the Temple Owls ahead of the recruiting curve. Definitely beats starting from scratch in late December.

It also gives them a chance to look at promising members of their current staffs to see how the players react and how the team improves or flatlines, all the while keeping contacts with current recruits and current portal targets.

Other AAC schools realize there is no time to waste. It’s well past time for Temple to not only get with the program but fix it.

Friday: FAU Preview

19 thoughts on “Urgency all around except Temple

  1. I like the  Collins – Wiesehan connection!

    • Me, too. Looked up all the Temple head coaches between 1894 and now and found one who never had a losing season here: Geoff Collins. Even Pop Warner and Wayne had losing seasons. You can say it was Matt Rhule’s talent but you have to coach the games, too. Not a whole lot of 51-3, 55-0, 56-34 and 52-6 defeats in those two years. In fact, not a single one.

  2. No reason to hire a new coach when you plan on shutting down the program… they’ll ride it out with him and then shut it down.

  3. Buy out Drayton, offer half of what he’s making for a good, proven HC (the difference will be made up soon enough considering how much they’re wasting now).

  4. Fry doesnʻt have the political capital to kill the program, and itʻs not one of his stated priorities.

    So what will he do? The best bet is the tried and true Temple standard – nothing.

    Pernetti remains the only hope for us TUFB followers. He can/will play the Rice and ECU cards on Fry. Will that be enough?

    Firing Drayton and letting Johnson pick another loser will result in more losses. Beyond stupid, but TU has bad decision history.

    IMHO moving the AD out first is the key. Will it happen? If Fry keeps Johnson weʻll all know he doesnʻt know enough or care about TU Athletics.

    • And, if you are an aspiring HC where would you want to go? Rice, ECU, or Temple?

      What upcoming coach in their right mind would want to work for Johnson?

    • If I had a choice between moving the AD and moving the HC, I would pick the AD first. But it’s got to happen fast, like this week, due to the transfer portal situation. Can’t wait until after the season because a lot of the bigger fish who care more about playing time than NIL money will be plucked from the creek by then.

      • Temple has bad history. Just look at the timing of the Drayton hire during the coaching carousel that year. He was the last HC to sign and de facto missed an entire recruiting cycle.

        Johnson waited, vetted, and ignored the impact of a late cycle hire.

        My biggest fear is Fry will do one of three terrible things:

        1. Nothing. Johnson, Drayton, and Withers all stay. Remember Withersʻ daughter works for Johnson.
        2. Drayton gets fired but Johnson stays. Johnson names Withers as HC. OMG it could happen.
        3. Fry fires Johnson after the portal closes,well into 2025. New AD makes another late cycle HC hire. They waste an entire talent acquisition cycle. The bad thing about late cycle HC hires is you are getting bottom of the barrel leftovers. All the worthy and reputable candidates will be gone.

        I sent Pernetti an email. We should pen an open letter and distribute for online signatures.

        Vegas has option 1 as the clear favorite.

    • Fry publicly coming out and stating that he would not end football at Temple spoke volumes. I think it was a requirement by the BOT in hiring him. They knew he was anti-football but there are enough pro-football people (including a former player) on the current BOT telling him hands off our football or you’re not going to be hired. Plus, that’s a decision above the President’s pay grade.

      • KJ’s No. 2 is exactly the reason why I’ve been floating Chris Wiesehan’s name in the last two posts. I fear that is the most likely scenario. Everett Withers has been an unmitigated disaster for Temple way above the NIL and transfer portal and Stan’s loyalty to him compounds the problem.

  5. Call Todd Mcnair, he knows how to win! The prodigal son returns….to any detractors, what does he have to lose?

    • Wish Todd had been a head coach somewhere before investing $2.5 million a year on him. He was a RB coach at USC. Stan was a RB coach at Texas. Not much difference in the resumes.

  6. Mike and TFForever folks — we want to go to 1 game this year, just because we enjoyed past many years of Temple games. So any idea what I can expect to pay for a set of cheap tickets for this Saturday as weather should be fine? I am tired of being so mad and disappointed , just need 1 game live, ‘can you dig it ? ‘ ? Thanks , That old Pennridge guy here. Losing is an option now.

    • Temple is the only game where the scalpers will probably pay you to take the tickets off their hands. I’m not going.

    • I am going to the game by myself this Saturday and paid $7.50 (total including fees). I don’t know if you’ll find anything that cheap, but you can probably still get two tickets for around $25 total. I used stubhub.

  7. the differentiator being that Todd knows this area and is an owl that would be coming back to the nest in North Philly after NFL and top level NCAA coaching exp. Isn’t that what interests people about Infante, his local connections and name recognition?

    • Yeah, but Gabe actually had years of winning championships as a head coach under his belt so it puts him ahead of the curve vs. someone like Todd. The two best head coaches I ever knew were Wayne Hardin and Mike Pettine Sr. and Pettine never coached a game above the high school level. No doubt in my mind he would have succeeded in college.

  8. Unmitigated disaster:

    https://theamerican.org/stats.aspx?path=football&year=2024

    The Temple Offense is conference dead last in:

    Total Offense, Rushing Offense, Scoring Offense, and Red Zone Offense

    The Defense is next to last in:

    Total Defense, Scoring Defense, and Rushing Defense

    The HC and both coordinators need to go. If I were Johnson, I would fire Drayton for cause and save my job.

    If I were Drayton, Iʻd fire both coordinators, continue to bemoan NIL, and save my job before I got fired.

    Realistically, none of this will happen. Fry will take the academic time for assessment. Everyone should be rooting for Pernetti.

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