Author Archives: Mike Gibson

06.07.17
by

Sweet Home Recruiting

alabama

There’s three seasons of Temple football, the fall, the spring and recruiting.

Temple did well in one, not so well in another and the jury is out on the third.

Of course, the most important season is the fall but without the other two there can be no tangible success. The jury is always out on the spring, because that’s always the good guys versus the good guys. For the elation of every great touchdown class in the spring, there’s the nagging thought that maybe the secondary is not as good as advertised. That happens every year.

Now we’re in recruiting season.

So maybe that’s why it was heartening to hear that Geoff Collins sent some of his staff down to Alabama for a recruiting seminar.

A lot of people among us felt that the Owls should have had a better recruiting season off an AAC championship, even with a new coaching staff. There was enough evidence to support that theory as Al Golden, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule all had significantly higher-rated recruiting classes in their transition years than Collins did in his.

There was definitely the term “mailing it in” used on the recruiting effort of this staff and it’s hard to defend against it. It certainly seemed like that from my perspective, considering a new coaching staff without a lot of local ties would “settle” for not building a long-term foundation and instead look to live off Rhule’s recruits and move on to the next job.

It’s hard to scrub that image from the minds of a lot of Temple fans, including me. A top-rated AAC class in 2018 would erase that perception but we are not off to a good start.

aacrecruits

That’s why they have to get their act in gear for the season that takes place most of the summer.

Maybe going down to Alabama to listen to what Nick Saban has to say will help, but probably some good old-fashioned hustle and shoe-leather might do more good.

“I’d like to welcome our group from Temple,” we can only imagine hearing Saban say. “The best advice I have to improve your recruiting is to get in the SEC, play all of your games on Saturday and pack the house.”

Golden did it by coming to Temple with built-in relationships with high schools within the recruiting focus area and Rhule did it by enhancing those relationships. Maybe after listening to Saban, picking up the phone and calling Al or Matt might be worth the dime.

Friday: Fizzy’s Corner Returns

Monday: Sustainability

06.05.17
by

Timing Is Everything

logos

Any Temple football fan since the days of the MAC knows that planning ahead can be a tricky thing.

You set aside the day for the home games and hope you can get to at least some of the nearby games.

You very rarely know more than a few weeks, sometimes a few days, what the exact kickoff times will be.

Such is life in the television-dominated world of college football these days.

Something different happened this season, though.

Temple fans now know the kickoff times and the days for many of the games and that can be a good thing.

Of course, the most important game time is the one on Sept. 2 at Notre Dame, perhaps the highest-profile remaining game on the TU sked until 2024. That game will start at 3:30 on NBC and probably be on in every bar and tavern in the country.

Three-thirty is perhaps the best time for a home Temple game and the Owls lucked out by hosting Villanova on 3:30 on Sept. 9. That game will not be on over-the-air television in Philadelphia, which is probably a good thing because that means there will be more fannies in the seats than usual. If the Owls don’t get at least 35,000 for this one it will be a major disappointment considering they drew 34,000 for the home opener against Army last year.

On Sept. 15, the Owls host UMass on ESPNU at 7 p.m. The less said about that game the better.

On September 21, the Owls travel to hot Tampa for a 7:30 (or 8) ESPN game. Probably best for them that game is not being played in the daytime.

Another time etched in zone is the revenge match against Army, high noon, on Oct. 21. That game will be on CBS Sports Network. Owls also host Navy in another revenge match (for them) on Nov. 2 on ESPN. That is either a 7:30 or 8 p.m. start.

The final known starting time is the Nov. 10 game at Cincinnati, 7 p.m., on ESPN2.

Still unknown are the times of games against Houston, East Carolina, UConn, UCF and Tulsa but winning the AAC championship certainly seems to have put the Owls in a position where a lot of their game times are already known.

You could not say the same thing this time last year.

The Lineup

Sept 2 @Notre Dame 3:30 NBC
Sept 9 Villanova 3:30 ESPN3
Sept 15 Umass 7:00 ESPNU
Sept 21 @USF 7:30/8 ESPN
Oct 21 @Army 12:00 CBSSN
Nov 2 Navy 7:30/8 ESPN
Nov 10 @Cincinnati 7:00 ESPN2
Houston @East Carolina Uconn UCF @ Tulsa TBD

Wednesday: Sweet Home Recruiting

06.02.17
by

The Big Cheeses

Sometimes you wish everyone was Ed Foley.

At least I do, not necessarily for what they do but for what they say.

The Temple football video guys (and gal Morgyn Siegfried) have an interesting series where every Friday they take a Temple football coach or staff member for a Cheese Steak.

Hence, Cheese  Steaks With Coach was born.

All of the videos can be watched here.

When I viewed the first video with head coach Geoff Collins, I did not know what answers he would give but was nonetheless interested in what he had to say.

Then I watched the second one with Foley and Ed said everything I wanted Collins to say about Temple and Philadelphia was perfectly articulated by Foley and you know Foley meant every word he said.

“I love it here,” Foley said. “This is where I want to be. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

So far, we’ve heard Al Golden, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule say similar things that, in retrospect, could not have meant. We’re thinking mostly about Rhule’s specific comment about not wanting to coach anyone other than Temple’s players after he signed a contract last year in good faith at Temple and that no amount of millions thrown at him would get him to change his mind.

A year later, he changed his mind.

Collins nor any of his assistants have proclaimed their love of the place in their segments as much as Foley did in his. It might have been an oversight, but a lot of it is because this is home for Foley. A perfect coach for Temple would be a guy who loves Philadelphia as much as Foley has, a recruiter like Golden and a game day mastermind like Wayne Hardin was.

That perfect guy probably does not exist.

You can learn a lot about cheese steaks and more about the mindset of the current coaching staff.

They all love the food, but none gee Cheese whiz you kind of wish there was that same kind of enthusiasm about the place and the program Foley showed.

Monday: It’s About Time

 

05.31.17
by

Power 5 Misconceptions

The 2013 Temple signing class

A few years ago, a famous ex-Temple basketball player—who shall remain nameless—went on a sustained rant when he learned that the Owls were leaving the MAC for football and joining the then Big East.

“This is the worst idea ever,” he said. “We’re never going to win in the Big East. We’re going to be going back to 3-9 seasons. It’s just dumb. I like this winning thing. Let’s stay in the MAC where we can win. We haven’t even won a MAC title. Let’s do that first.”

I tried to explain to him then, as I do to others now, that when the Power 6 train (the old Big East was part of that cartel) pulls up to the station and asks you to board, you don’t say want to go back to 10th and Berks at midnight and look for the watch you might have dropped on the ground. You get on board. There might not be another train coming.

Just when you thought the Owls winning the AAC—the successor to the Big East football conference—drove a stake through that faulty logic, it reared its ugly head on the Temple fan facebook page the other day when someone said “we’re not ready” for the Power 5 and that a move to the Power 5 would mean a return to three-win seasons.

De Ja Bleeping Vu.

 

Oy vay.

Let’s deal with the first misconception, the so-called “fact” that  Temple is “not ready” or would “return to three-win seasons” in the Power 5.

Temple already has beaten Power 5 teams in Penn State (27-10) two seasons and Vanderbilt (37-7) three seasons ago. In 2011, the Owls beat a Maryland team (38-7), which was a week removed from a 32-24 win over Miami (Fla.), another Power Five team. They went toe-to-toe with the then No. 9 team in the country, Notre Dame, on national television in 2015 and lost pretty much on the final play of the game.

This is not your father or grandfather’s Temple football program.

It might not hit the ground running in the Power 5, but it certainly would not crawl and probably jog right into the middle of the pack if not better.

A year ago, only 120 yards in penalties kept one Group of Five champion, Temple, from beating a Power 5 champion, Penn State, on the road. Most of those penalties were of the kind that could have been avoided had the Owls paid more attention to detail in the week or so preceding the Penn State game. No one knows if Geoff Collins is going to be a more detail-oriented coach that Matt Rhule was, but you have got to hope that one of his Temple teams is not going to get 120 yards in penalties in such an important game again.

The whole conversation could be moot since there is no invitation on the horizon but should something come in the mail, every single Temple fan has to know that the answer is not subject to debate.

Friday: The Big Cheeses

05.29.17
by

5 Reasons Why Owls Could Repeat

NCAA FOOTBALL: DEC 03 AAC Championship - Navy v Temple

The AAC title would be a nice keepsake item for the Owls this season.

The Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium is a very nice place, one that Temple football fans called home for the last two games of the 2016 season.

One of them, a father of a recent player, mentioned to me that he would not mind if the thing could be placed on a forklift and plopped right onto the site that for years was Geasey Field. Not a bad idea, I said, if it could find into that spot.

As I walked out of that stadium in late December, I remember thinking another thing.

I liked that stadium a whole lot better the first week of the month than the last. It looked like the Taj Mahal on the first Saturday of the month and, after a 34-26 loss to Wake Forest, like Northeast High.

Playing and winning a meaningful game made it a whole lot better-looking.

Temple has been in the AAC championship game the last two years, losing the first, winning the second.

Few expect the Owls to return for a third-straight time, maybe even host it,  but I don’t think it’s impossible.

Here’s 5 reasons why the Owls could repeat:

sharga

Don’t Mess With a Good Thing

Offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude mentioned that the Owls would keep their identity as a run-first, pass second team, then talked the out the other side of his mouth in the same sentence, saying the Owls could go to multiple receiver formations as well. The Owls have the best blocking fullback in the country, Nick Sharga, for one more year. If they are going to go to multiple wide receivers, do it in 2018, not 2017. At his Baylor press conference, Matt Rhule said the Owls ran the ball simply because “we had a NFL fullback.” They still do.

maniac

Mayhem Takes Over

The T-Shirts the university sells isn’t just an empty slogan: Mayhem Is Coming. That’s because everywhere Temple coach Geoff Collins has been he has structured a defense based on pressuring the quarterback into mistakes, like fumbles and interceptions. In players like Sharif Finch and Jacob Martin (defensive ends) and tackles Michael Dogbe and Karamo Dioubate, they have guys who can get to the quarterback and strip the ball from him before he’s able to get a pass out of his hands. At least that’s the plan.

russo

Quarterback Separation

Anthony Russo is the best quarterback prospect out of the three Philadelphia City high school leagues (Public, Catholic, Inter-Ac) since Matt Ryan played for Penn Charter. Russo’s stats playing better competition than Ryan dwarfed the current NFL MVP (Russo had 35 touchdown passes his senior year as opposed to 20 for Ryan). Yet Russo hasn’t been able to establish separation with fellow quarterback contenders Logan Marchi, Frank Nutile and Toddy Centeio. If he does in the next few months, watch out.  Really, all any of the quarterbacks needs to do is match P.J. Walker’s first year (20 touchdowns, 8 interceptions) because the running game with Jager Gardner and Ryquell Armstead could carry this offense.

Infusion of Confidence

A win over Notre Dame in the first game would inject an infusion of confidence into the players that could carry over into the rest of the season. Face it: They all seem to like Collins, but nothing would give Collins credibility to his players like beating ND on national TV. They could ride that Tidal Wave through the AAC. How sweet would it be for Temple to beat Notre Dame and then see the Irish go on a six- or -seven-game winning streak after that?

kraft

Game Day/Week Coaching

While Rhule, like Al Golden, were great program CEOs and very good recruiters, they had some brain farts on game day that caused Temple fans and ex-players to shake their heads. Such an example occurred against Army in the opener last year when the Owls played their base 4-3 against a triple option, instead of plugging the A Gaps and forcing Army’s quarterback to beat them in in the passing game. Another example was a poor week of preparation prior to Penn State led to 120 yards in Owl penalties in a 34-27 loss. Cracking the whip during practice the week before might have cut those penalties in half and meant the AAC champ winning at the Big 10 champ. Huge opportunity missed not only for Temple but for the G5. If Collins does a better job at studying opponent’s game film than Rhule did, he could steal one or two more wins than the so-called experts expect.

Those one or two extra wins could make all the difference in the world.

Wednesday: P5 Misconceptions

05.26.17
by

Spread This

spreadthis

This should be the only spread at the E-O until Sharga graduates.

If you’ve listened to several of the interviews Dave Patenaude gave over the offseason, included in his comments are several references to wanting to keep the Temple offensive identity, which is to run the football behind the fullback and keep defenses honest with play-fakes to the halfback resulting in explosive downfield plays in the passing game.

So far, so good.

Then the new offensive coordinator throws in a curse word: Spread Offense.

emptyset

Under this kind of empty set, AAC defenses routinely audibled into a blitz  and often sacked P.J. Walker.

Actually, that’s two curse words but who’s counting?

If there is one thing Matt Rhule learned after his first two seasons (8-16), he said it was that the spread was something that rubbed against every fiber in his football body but indicated he was intoxicated by watching the big-time teams play that way.

“That’s just not the way Temple plays football,” he said before the 2015 season. “The sooner I came to realize that, the better off we were at the end of last season. Under Al (Golden), we were a run-first, utilizing the fullback  type of team and we forced the linebackers and safeties up so we could make big plays in the passing game. That’s who I am. That’s the way I coach and I got talked out of that.”

Rhule would not say who did the talking, but the speculation squarely centered on offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield. Once Rhule put his foot down, the Owls had back-to-back 10-win seasons.


With the run established,
linebackers and safeties
freeze for a split second
with that kind of fake and
Owl receivers would be so
open Russo won’t know which
one to pick out. With a
fullback like Sharga and
tailbacks like Ryquell Armstead
and Jager Gardner,
that’s the only way to play

Temple’s identity as a team which sets up explosive plays in the passing game off the fear of the run is as much the school’s own as Navy’s triple-option is today. To mess with that is to play with fire.

Plus, the Owls have the best fullback in college football, Nick Sharga, for one more year. While they have him, they should use him as another offensive lineman to open up the running game and occasionally running over linebackers with the ball in his hands. Under that scenario, the linebackers and the safeties inch up to the line of scrimmage to protect against the run and are susceptible to the kind of deft play-fakes a quarterback like Anthony Russo makes easily. With the run established, linebackers and safeties freeze for a split second with that kind of fake and Owl receivers would be so open Russo won’t know which one to pick out. With a fullback like Sharga and tailbacks like Ryquell Armstead and Jager Gardner, that’s the only way to play.

If they are really thinking about uttering curse words like “spread offense” 2018 might be a good time to tinker with that concept.

Not before.

Monday: 5 Reasons Why Owls Will Win AAC Title

Wednesday: Power 5 Misconceptions

Friday: The Big Cheese

05.24.17
by

No More Mr. Nice Guy

Despite the rain a month ago, a good C and W Day was had by all.

Some of the best sports journalism these days is not available to those of us who still purchase newspapers or read columns on the internet.

It’s produced electronically and shown via programs like ESPN’s excellent 30 for 30 series and the equally well-produced A Football Life by the NFL Network.

Other than the one on Bruce Arians, the best one was done on Bill Parcells and shown over the weekend. Parcells said his “coaching life” turned when, after winning only three games as a first-year head coach with the New York Giants, he made a conscious effort to go from being Mr. Nice Guy to being Mr. Hard Ass. Parcells felt that he was trying to be the player’s friend when he realized that to be their coach he could not be their friend.

coachcollins

“Hard Ass” was the nickname Wayne Hardin’s players had for him at Temple. When Hardin was coach of the Owls, he was a tough taskmaster and never got too close to his players. Those players got to love coach Hardin for it, not while they played for him but years afterward when they realized what he was trying to accomplish.

“Everybody hated the guy when he was our coach,” one of his ex-players told me on Cherry and White Day. “Maybe hated is too strong a word, but nobody liked him. We all got to love him only years later when we realized what he was trying to do.”

This brings us to Geoff Collins.

The first-year Temple coach comes across as chummy-chummy with his players in almost every interaction with his players and that could be a recipe for failure. At least those are the outside perceptions fueled by the multiple images of Collins body-bumping his players during practice. Although, Andy Reid has done it with TO, no one remembers Bill Belichick, Vince Lombardi, Wayne Hardin or Bill Parcells doing anything similar.

The last time we checked, Reid hasn’t won anything of note.

Parcells had to learn it after a three-win season and that was the hard way.

Hardin never had to learn it because that’s the way he always was.

Another great head coach, Bill Belichick, adopted his coaching demeanor from watching Hardin as a kid and being in the same room with Parcells as an assistant.

Another recent coach who passed away, Mike Pettine Sr., the legendary coach at Central Bucks West, was a classic drill-instructor type whose players cursed him beneath their breath on the practice field but got to love him only years later when they talked about how critical those practices were to the championship trophies they got to hoist.

Hopefully, it will not take a three-win season for Collins to learn that lesson and his required summer reading will be the stories of Parcells, Belichick, Hardin and Pettine.

Or at least he should sit down and watch the Bill Parcells’ episode of “A Football Life” and carefully listen to everything The Tuna has to say.

Friday: Spread This

05.22.17
by

Outside Perceptions

ndodds

Notre Dame fans seemed shocked by the line.

Every once in a while, it’s a useful exercise to step outside the box and view what other people are seeing.

Perspective is important. A year ago at this time we were incredulous that a lot of people had written Temple off, saying “Temple will take a step back.” We outlined five reasons why 2016 was the step forward year, not the step back one, and cautioned those know-it-all outsiders to not be surprised.

Winning 10 games, plus the AAC title, was that step forward. At the same time, we also wrote in this spot that 2017 would be the “step back” year, but we wrote step, not steps. To me, this team is an 8-9-win team, not a 6-win team, but only time will tell.

One outsider has completely gone off the rails, though, picking the Owls as the 111th-ranked team in the Orlando Sentinel preseason polls.

orlando

Not a very well-researched article. (Or even well-edited. In the first graph, she says the Owls are No. 111. In the second graph, it says “our ranking is 112.” Which is it?)

One-hundred-and-11th (or 12th) is not even six wins, but more like two or three. There was not a lot of thought process involved in that ranking.

Then there is this:

notredamepoll

Consider the above a baby step forward. “How many wins in a row will Notre Dame have IF it beats Temple?”

When this series was first announced seven years ago, the word IF would have been laughable but, after the inferior 2015 Owls (compared to the 2016 version) hung with the then No. 9-ranked Irish, it is best for ND fans to take this game more seriously than the 2016 Owls took their opener.  Last year’s Temple team beat Navy, 34-10. Navy beat last year’s Notre Dame team.

Plenty of variables for the 2017 Owls make this season harder to predict than the last two, but the defense should be as good or slightly better and the offense should be slightly worse. One is what kind of head coach Geoff Collins will be. You’ve got to assume he won’t be the stumbling bumbler Matt Rhule was his first two seasons. Also if  Anthony Russo can just duplicate the first season of P.J. Walker (20 touchdowns, eight interceptions), the Owls should be fine in that area, too. Having covered high school football in Philadelphia for much of the last 30 years, Russo is by far the best talent to come out of this city since Matt Ryan committed to Boston College.

At the end of the regular season the last two years, the Owls were ranked in the Top 25. One-hundred-and-eleven is just dumb, though. In the college football world of recruiting and redshirting, it is impossible to drop from the top 25 to the bottom 15 in just one season.

This team will compete for a third-straight spot in the AAC title game. Whether they can get there with eight wins, as opposed to nine, is a question too hard to answer right now.

Wednesday: Mr. Nice Guy

Friday: Spread This

Monday: 5 Reasons Why The Owls Will Contend 

05.19.17
by

Honesty Is The Best Policy

banner

With Temple football, the only thing “forever” is the fans, not the coaches or players.

When my mother was alive and I was in my more formative years, she used to repeat two phrases over and over to me which were not original, but at least profound.

“Honesty is the best policy.”

“If you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.”

Temple first-year head coach Geoff Collins’ mom must have said the same thing when he was growing up because, in the six months or so he’s been on the job, he’s been both honest and nice. I haven’t heard him say a negative word about anyone and he’s seemed to avoid the proclamations of loyalty to Temple that got past coaches criticism for hypocrisy, let alone lack of honesty.

I guess Temple fans should be thankful for that much, but the questions about what impact this will have on recruiting have yet to be answered.

Maybe that’s what Collins was thinking back in December when he answered the best question of the introductory press conference this way:

“I’ll tell them I concentrate on the here and now.”

rhuledenial

In true Jeopardy fashion, we will now give you the  question was posed by Temple-made 920 The Jersey sports talk show host Zach Gelb.

“Can you honestly tell kids you are recruiting you will be here when they graduate?”

It has been part of the sidebar of this website to print what I determine to be the best quotes about the program on the sidebar and I have included two quotes from in the past from former Temple coaches.

One, was this one from Matt Rhule:

rhulelast

That was last year after Rhule signed his second five-year contract.

Another was from Al Golden on the day he was hired. “I’m going to build a house of brick, not straw.”

While Rhule didn’t keep his promise of a year ago, Golden pretty much kept his made over a decade ago. Golden built the program the right way, recruiting a highly-rated (compared to league foes) class every year and making sure the program sustained itself by redshirting a large group of players in order to build depth down the line.

He left after five years, owing Temple nothing, making no promises he would be here for the long haul.

Rhule left the program in good shape, too, yet a lot of fans wished he had been more honest.

If you want honest, you’ve got him in Collins. While it might be nice for recruiting purposes for Collins to say he wants to be “The Guy” who wants to stay and build something more substantial than Golden or Rhule did, honesty certainly is the best policy.

His Mom should be proud.

Monday: Outside Perceptions about the 2017 Owls

05.17.17
by

After ND, Temple’s Non-Conference Games Lack Juice For Years

golden

It would be sweet if the Owls unveiled the traditional football brand at ND.

Attention Temple fans: It’s a long way from here to Oklahoma, and we mean in more ways than one.

In between now and the 2024 game in Norman, it’s slim pickings for Temple fans in terms of non-conference games.

There will be some attractive matchups against AAC foes, but those conference games can get monotonous at times.

As far as juice—a word invoked by head coach Geoff Collins a lot—there is the game at Notre Dame on September 3, and that’s really it.

Then, as far as non-conference games goes, there’s a lot of walking through the desert before getting to that other Oasis in 2024.

future

There’s the taste of water in South Bend in September, and a lot of parched throats in between.

That is, unless games against Idaho, UMass, Bucknell and Buffalo whet your appetite.

(We didn’t think so.)

That adds to the meaning of the Notre Dame game and makes it the Owls’ Game of the Century, especially if they can pull it out and the Irish and Owls go on to have a decent season. (Hey, Army beat Temple in the opener and the Owls still went on to a decent season, so Notre Dame can do the same as well.)

The game is important for a couple of reasons. One, it’s Notre Dame and it’s on national TV. Two, Notre Dame is in talks with the ACC to become an all-sports member. If those talks lead to anything, the ACC might need a 16th team to balance two divisions and, should Temple win, it would focus the spotlight on the nation’s largest available media market.

That’s a lot of assumptions, but that doesn’t erase the fact that Temple has had big-time games in the not-so-recent past (Penn State the last two years and Notre Dame in 2015) and will go many years after this one before getting a non-conference foe as juicy as its next one.

So fill up your canteens in South Bend, Temple fans. It’s a long walk in the desert after that.

Friday: The Quotemeister General