Author Archives: Mike Gibson

03.04.17
by

Rhule of Settled Law

markbright

Mark Bright accepting the MVP award

If you do a search for “settled law” on google most of the results revolve around the Roe v. Wade decision which gave women the right to abortion in certain cases. In a broader sense it is used to refer to decisions of the Supreme Court that have remained unchanged for a long time. Roe vs. Wade is not “in the constitution” as Whoopi Goldberg once moronically said, it’s just an interpretation of the constitution that can be changed.

In the court of public opinion, though, the results of the last two bowl games have resolved what might have been hotly contested cases among Temple football fans, maybe forever.

Which team is the greatest Temple team of all time, the 1979 Owls, who went 10-2 or the 2015 or 2016 Owls, who also won 10 games?

wayne-hardin

Temple TUFF, 1979 style

It’s not his fault, really, but Matt Rhule himself is as responsible for the tarnished legacy of those teams as he was for their success. Rhule, by his own admission, took it “too easy” on the Owls prior to the loss to Toledo and his quick exit to find Acres of Diamonds in Waco led to a poorly prepared team in a 34-26 loss to Wake Forest.  There is no doubt that if Rhule had put the pedal to the metal one year and told Baylor he would talk to them after Christmas, the last two Owl teams would have finished in the top 25.

The legacy of the two most recent teams will always be as great ones, but it won’t be as the greatest. To me, it isn’t even close and it is “Settled Law” because the 1979 team did it against a more difficult schedule and beat a Power 5 team (before the Power 5 even existed) in California at the Garden State Bowl.

finalpoll

Now, had the 2016 team won its bowl game and gone 11-3 and beaten a Power 5 team, they might have had a strong case but it would have been close. The Wake Forest team they would have beaten would not have been as good as the 1979 Cal Bears and they would have had to pummel them to enhance the case.

That 1979 team was also 16 points short of being unbeaten, losing only to No. 7 Pitt (10-9) and No. 20 Penn State (22-7).  Had the Owls pulled out those two winnable games, they would have been—hold on to your hats—national champions. Or at least they would have been placed into a better bowl, against the eventual national champion of that year.

Spoiler alert: Alabama.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

In those days, there was no discrimination between the haves and the have-nots in college football. If you won all of your games, you were national champions, period, end of story. It was college football in its purest form, not the corrupt form it now flaunts.

Does a future Owl team have a chance of finishing No. 17 or better? Sure, but what are the chances such a team loses its coach by bowl time? Probably very good. It’s not quite in the constitution, it’s settled law.

As it was, the Owls finished No. 17 in both major polls and, unless the rules change forbidding a coach from leaving—or even negotiating with another team—until after the bowl season is completed, it is hard to imagine any team ever matching what those Temple kids did in 1979.

Even if most of those kids are pushing 60 now.

Monday: Handicapping the 2017 QBs

Wednesday: The Spring Game

03.02.17
by

Owl City Walkers

tryouts

Sometimes the memory can be a funny thing, brain teasers allowing recall in great detail of things that happen 40 years ago, but the same brain failing to tell you why you walked into a room five seconds ago.

It is with that in mind that we caution you to not take this list as the top walk-ons in Temple football history, just the top ones that we can recall at this moment.

Obviously, some are going to slip through the cracks but readers are welcome to include their own memories of Temple walk-ons below.

The subject of walk-ons comes up today simply because yesterday was the walk-on tryout date for Geoff Collins’ first team at Temple.

Here’s my list, with a heavy emphasis on the more recent ones. In a school of 39,000 students—presumably 20,000 young men—maybe at least one will turn out to be as good as these five.

matt-brown

5–Matt Brown

Because of his size (5-5, 155 pounds), no Division I school showed an interest in Brown.  He walked on at Temple, where they tried to play him at a slot receiver, but Al Golden—perhaps intrigued by Brown’s open-field moves in the return game—moved him to tailback and the rest was history. He was the bug part of the “Bernie and the Bug” pair and had to fill as a starter on the numerous occasions where Bernard Pierce was injured.  Brown’s best game was his sophomore year against Army, where he gained 228 yards scored four touchdowns.

journey

4—Aaron Boumerhi

The kicker with the appropriate nickname of “Boom-Boom” walked on at Temple after making only four field goals his senior year at Phillipsburg-Osceola. He perhaps saved the season after starting kicker Austin Jones went down as a result of a cheap shot by a Memphis player on a kickoff.  At the time, Jones had made an NCAA-best 17-straight field goals.  Arguably, Boumerhi was just as good afterward.

hayes

3—Will Hayes

Hayes returned a blocked extra point for two the other way and that was the key play in a 25-23 Temple win at Massachusetts.  The 5-9 defensive back drew interest only from Division III schools, but always dreamed of playing Division I. He took the advice of a former Howell (N.J.) teammate and played a year at Milford (N.Y.) Prep to bulk up for a possible chance.  He was a regular starting free safety on a 10-win Temple team.

screwed

2—Bruce Francis

Francis joined the program as a true freshman in the fall of 2005 as a walk-on. He later earned a scholarship. Named the recipient of the team’s inaugural Gavin White, Jr., Walk-On Award in the spring of 2006, Francis earned All-MAC honors last fall by Phil Steele Publications after averaging a team-best 73.1 receiving yards per game and finished his senior year with 13 touchdown receptions.  He was the center of one of the most controversial plays in Temple history, with replays clearly showing him catching touchdown pass to beat UConn but the Big East replay official refusing to overturn the call. At the time, Temple was in the MAC and UConn was in the Big East. Francis is the Owls’ career leader in touchdown receptions (23) and tied with Gerald “Sweet Feet” Lucear in touchdown catches for a single season (13).

1—Haason Reddick

All indications point to Reddick being a late first-round NFL draft choice and it is pretty hard for any walk-on in Temple history to top that.  Reddick started as a linebacker in Temple’s 41-21 win at Memphis to close out the 2013 season, but later earned first-team All-AAC honors as a down defensive end.

 

02.28.17
by

Mike Pettine and Temple

beckster

Dick Beck might have been Mike Pettine’s greatest contribution to Temple football.

Simply by virtue of chance, I got to know without a doubt two of the greatest coaches in the history of the game of football on two levels.

One, Wayne Hardin, is in the College Football Hall of Fame.

The other, Mike Pettine Sr., shockingly passed away on Friday while playing golf in my favorite Florida town, Land O’Lakes in Pasco County.

The two men have a lot in common.

One retired from Temple at the tender age of 55; the other retired on top of the Pennsylvania High School coaching world after leading Central Bucks West to its third-straight state title at the age of 56.

Both loved the game of golf.

Both loved the state of Florida.

Both were fiercely competitive.

Both paid meticulous attention to detail.

son

The two Mike Pettines.

In a football offseason a long time ago, I played a two-on-two basketball game with both Mike Pettines, the 40-some coach and his 12-year-old kid. Pettine guarded my taller teammate, a 6-foot-2 reporter named Jay Nagle, while the young Pettine guarded me. After I hit my third-straight jumper at the top of the key, Pettine yelled: “GUARD HIM!!!”

Just a friendly game of two-on-two, but that’s how competitive Mike Pettine Sr. was.

Both Pettine and Hardin are reasons why I do not suffer coaching fools lightly, and why, for instance, I was appalled that Temple had 120 yards in penalties against Penn State in a 34-27 loss last season. When I was a reporter at the Doylestown Intelligencer, I did a story on why Pettine’s Bucks had so few penalties each and every year. (Hell, CB West went one year with less than 100 yards in penalites.)

In it, I quoted players—past and then present—who said that Pettine would run a play until it was executed perfectly.

bruceletter

Arians made Beck his 25th recruit in one of his final classes

“Run it again,” Pettine would say if a lineman had jumped a count or something else went awry. “Run it again!” was a phrase you would hear as twilight turned to dark at every CB West practice. When the play was run four or five consecutive times to perfection, Pettine would move on to the next play.

That’s how you eliminate penalties, in the five practice days before a game, not by yelling at players during a game.

To me, penalties are mostly completely needless factors that cause losses and are directly traceable to the head coaches.

Pettine approached the entire game that way, squeezing every ounce out of the talent he had. He would study opposition film as if cramming for a final, which was a trait he had in common with Hardin. His final state championship win, a blocked punt in the last minute won the game and it was by virtue of design and not luck. “We had two punt blocks designed specifically for that opponent and the one we called we had a greater degree confidence in it working,” he said.

What Pettine did by posting a 346-42-4 career record might never be accomplished again at a neighborhood school, or a “town” school, which CB West really was sharing the same town with CB East.

I talked to Mike every Thursday night for 10 straight years in doing the Friday football previews for the Doylestown Intelligencer. Once, at the end Dick Beck’s senior year, I casually asked him: “Where is Dick Beck going to school?” He said, “probably West Chester or Towson.”

Knowing how good Beck was, I told him that wasn’t happening and I would talk to Bruce Arians. One thing led to another, as Bruce called Pettine and got game tapes. Four years later, Beck was only captain of the 1990 7-4 Owls.  Now Beck is the head coach at North Penn.

Pettine knew I was friendly with coach Hardin and often our game preview talks would venture off into other areas, talking about the players he sent to play for Hardin like Doug Shobert, Tom Duffy, Jeff Stempel and Dr. Pat Carey, among others.

When my other alma mater, Archbishop Ryan, was working on a long winning streak, I suggested to Pettine that he play Ryan. I gave him Ryan coach John Quinn’s phone number and Pettine, who never backed away from a challenge, scheduled a home-and-home with Ryan.

The Bucks won both games, 22-14 and 14-7, and, after the second win, Pettine took me aside afterward.

“Mike, me and (assistant coach) Mike Carey were talking about what we would be able to do if we were coaching a high school of 2,000 boys,” Pettine said of Ryan. “I’d love to have that luxury.”

At the time, CB West had 600 boys. Most of them weren’t as talented as Dick Beck or Doug Shobert. They would fall into the category of a 5-8, 150-pound wingback named Michael Smerconish who made contributions by running the same plays over and over again. Smerconish now has his own political show on CNN.

Pettine made all the ones who played for him men.

When Bruce Arians was fired at Temple, I suggested Pettine throw his hat into the ring.

Mike politely declined.

“Mike, I think Gerry Faust ruined it for all of us high school coaches,” he said, referring to the guy who went from Cincinnati Moeller straight to Notre Dame.

“They got the wrong high school coach,” I said.

And they did because I wish everyone got to know how great Mike Pettine was the same way I did and why so many of us are heartbroken today.

02.26.17
by

Fake News: On Campus Stadium

templestadium

Long before Donald Trump popularized the term “Fake News” it applied to one story surrounding Temple football.

At least for me.

From this perspective, the proposed new stadium on campus is and has always been “Fake News.”

Yet every thread on a message board about it will have about 1,000 responses, more than any other issue involving Temple athletics.

The term “done deal” about the stadium was first spoken by a member of the board of trustees to a big-time donor at the North Carolina State vs. Temple basketball game in 2013.

moody

Moody Nolan: Spilled Beans

It is now 2017 and there hasn’t been a single shovel in the ground or a bulldozer on site.

I hate to tell this to the stadium backers, but there won’t be.

To understand that is to understand the political climate in the city.

It’s frosty toward Temple. Downright frigid.

Former President Peter J. Liacouras had to fight tooth and nail to get the Apollo of Temple built, and the reward for that fight was taking that great name off the facility and putting his name on it.

Liacouras had to resort to the “Nuclear Option” to get it done: Threaten to move Temple out of the city. There is no more “Nuclear Option” anymore simply because of the result of the investment Temple has made its campus since then.

Temple’s current leadership doesn’t have the stomach for the threat or the Capital to bribe the city for getting this done. A bare-bones $130 million price tag is all you need to know about how little money they want to spend. There is no extra money set aside for a community center, a health clinic or anything else that might sweeten the pot for the community.

Sure, they have done all of the requisite things to pave the way for the stadium, including clearing the Geasey Field area for the build.

It will not matter, though, if they cannot get the proposal through City Council and Temple has very few if any votes to get that done.

That’s why the most recent  development–a CEO for Moody Nolan telling the press that the whole idea is “on hold” for now, followed by a hasty denial from Temple, tells you all you need to know about the project.

Temple, no doubt, told Moody Nolan that the whole idea was on hold, while mantaining the difficult balancing act of telling its big-ticket donors that it is not.

Who to believe?

When real news conflicts with fake, go for the preponderance of evidence. In my mind, it leads to one conclusion: They have realized they cannot do it with the makeup within this current City Council and, unless Mayor Kenney and Councilman Clarke show up with hardhats and shovels soon, on hold means tabled.

They never had all of their ducks in a row and that’s why this never was a real story in the first place.

02.24.17
by

Never Forget

endlosing

This is what ending a 20-game losing streak looks like.

The phrase “Bowling Green Massacre” jolted me out of my seat a couple of weeks ago, probably not for the same reason it jolted the nation.

How could Kellyanne Conway, the President’s Media Director, know about a football massacre involving Bowling Green and Temple in the mid-2000s?

That’s the only Bowling Green massacre I knew about but it turned out that she was talking about something entirely different.

In a little over a decade, though, that’s how far Temple football has come. From not just one, but two, Bowling Green Massacres (70-7 and 70-16) in consecutive seasons to flirting with the Top 25 in the last two seasons.

For those of us who were there then and are here now, it would be wise to Never Forget.

patience

I  thought about that when I heard that Geoff Collins was heavy on the Daz-like slogans while giving a halftime pep talk to the assembled—it would be a stretch to call them a crowd—group at the UCF vs. Temple basketball game on Wednesday night.

So far, Collins has been light on the recruiting and heavy on the slogans in his two months on the job.

We won’t really know about him until after the first two games, but so far he comes up a little short in comparing him to the guy who avenged the Bowling Green Massacres.

Al Golden in a little over a month to work in his first year (December, 2005 was his hiring date), Golden signed 29 players including future NFL players like Junior Galette, Andre Neblett, Alex Joseph and Steve Manieri.  That was without the benefit of signing a single target of the former coach, Bobby Wallace, WHILE hiring a staff. There was a method to Golden’s madness, too, as he said it was his intent to recruit captains of winning high school teams so they could bring that same mindset to a poisoned well at 10th and Diamond. In that first class of 29, he signed 18 team captains and all had winning seasons in their final years. Ten of the captains won league championships.

Collins has catching up to do to get to that standard, but Golden did all this on the tail end of a 20-game losing streak and helped turn this thing around.

After two months, we really don’t know if Collins will be as good as Golden, Matt Rhule, Steve Addazio or better than all three or somewhere in between.

Right now, the start is not as good as the Golden one but maybe because the culture is in place  it does not need to be. All that matters is the finish.

We should know a lot more after the Notre Dame and Villanova games.

Sunday: Fake News

02.22.17
by

Temple’s Hairy Relationship

fullbacksnow

Nick Sharga is the only one not pointing fingers in this photo.

Every time someone posts a head shot of Temple football fullback Nick Sharga on social media, a comment or two will run below it like this:

“Sharga has got to do something about that hair.”

“Sharga needs a haircut.”

My response usually is two words:

“Who cares?”


Any defense that gets
pounded by Sharga inches
up the linebackers and
safeties closer to the
line of scrimmage and
becomes susceptible to
the play-action
passing game

As long as Temple has the best blocking fullback in the country—and a guy who proved more than capable the few times he had the ball in his hands—I don’t care if people think he has too much hair or is completely bald. To me, it’s always how you perform between the white lines. Everything else is superfluous.

That’s where head coach Geoff Collins comes into the story.

Collins’ added the responsibility of “coaching the fullbacks” to his duty as the CEO of the Temple football operation and this match between the follically challenged and the follically gifted should help turn the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard into an adding machine this fall.

That’s because one of the chief concerns any Temple fans felt after the transfer of power between Matt Rhule and Collins would be that the new coach would mess around with a good thing and Sharga’s impact on the team the last two seasons has been a good thing. By coaching the fullbacks, Collins has to study film of what worked well in the past and he must have been as blown away by Sharga as was this South Florida cornerback.

 

In a recent interview with Chris Franklin, new offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude mentioned a lot of his ideas but did not mention Sharga by name. That might have been disconcerting if it were not for the fact that his boss coaches the fullbacks and will want the fullbacks to be featured in any offensive game plan.

“We ran an I-Formation at Temple because we had an NFL fullback,” was the way Matt Rhule answered a question at his first Baylor press conference.

Nothing opens up passing lanes for Temple’s wide receivers—among the top group of six in the country, according to Patenaude—than establishing the run first. Nothing establishes the run better than the tailback following Nick Sharga through the hole. Any defense that gets pounded by Sharga inches up the linebackers and safeties closer to the line of scrimmage and susceptible to the play-action passing game. Fake it into the belly of, say, Ryquell Armstead or  Jager Gardner, after a few 20-yard runs and Temple receivers will be running so free through the secondary that quarterback Anthony Russo will not know which one to choose.

At least that’s the plan.

Or should be.

Collins coaching the fullbacks takes that plan one step closer to fruition and that’s the kind of hairy proposition Temple fans can get excited about.

Friday: Never Forget

Sunday: Fake News

02.20.17
by

Learning From Wake Between Now and C&W Day

It was hard watching in person but even harder watching on TV but a necessary exercise.

In between riding as a passenger on a helicopter and making up catchy slogans to give to a newly minted graphics coordinator, hopefully new Temple football head coach Geoff Collins found time to break down some film in the E-O’s spacious viewing room.

Specifically, the film of the one Temple game in 2016 that Collins saw in person, the Military Bowl against Wake Forest, because, as horror films go, it’s right up there with Poltergeist as scary TV-watching.

NCAA Football: Military Bowl-Temple vs Wake Forest

                   Temple football must resolve not to let the season end like this again.

Over the last month or so, I eschewed some Temple basketball watching (ECU, for instance) to fast-forward past the commercials on my DVR and watch the Wake Forest game tape. The results pretty much confirmed what I saw with my own eyes: It was a poorly coached game from a poorly prepared staff that was too preoccupied with Baylor recruiting to devote their full time to the kids who needed them.

Eight days of missing defensive practices led to some gaping missed assignments (specifically the tight end) and those assignments probably would have been installed into the game plan by, say, the fourth missed practice. As a result, Owls found themselves down, 31-10, and that was too big a hole against any Power 5 team.

me

“I thought you had him?” “No, we never went over that in practice because only the offense practiced that day.”

Looking at the film, though, and the camera doesn’t lie when it showed the offensive line being beaten up by a pretty good Demon Deacon defense.  If Collins needs to work on anything this spring leading up to the Cherry and White game (which should at Horvath Field, but will be at the E-O), it’s instilling a toughness in the returning offensive line members.

In all fairness, that could be a talent problem and not something that can be solved in a couple of months. It also explained why Collins is going hard after Georgia Tech grad transfer Trey Klock to replace NFL first-round pick Dion Dawkins but the alarming physical beating of the Owls’ OL that night has to raise some eyebrows.

Ed Foley brought much of that upon himself by running to the right side on 14 of the 15 running plays, perhaps forgetting that he had a first-round NFL draft pick at LEFT tackle and perhaps the best blocking fullback in the country to overload one side.

Still, it was hard seeing the Owls’ line beat up, even if it was only on one side. They will need both sides this fall and that’s a fix that should begin now and probably the biggest learning curve the Owls between now and then.

If the Owls master this lesson, they won’t have to watch as another team celebrates the end of their season again.

Wednesday: Geoff Collins’ Best Job

02.18.17
by

Saturday: Fun With Graphics

baller

If anyone needs help to dress up his message, it’s Geoff Collins.

 

Four days ago Temple football made a little history by hiring college football’s first SWAG (Specialist With Advanced Graphics) and, if Geoff Collins’ handwritten slogans are any indicator, no one needs a SWAG more than Collins.

You can do a lot of fun things with graphics and no one is more perfect for that job than new coordinator Dave Gerson, who I have known since he was coming to Temple games as a pre-teen in the first year of the Al Golden Era. No one loves Temple football more than Dave and that love will translate into some fun times for Temple fans in the future. It even got a mention on ESPN. Until a five-star recruit has three hats on the table (Alabama, Ohio State and Temple) and puts on the Temple hat, it might be the last time Temple football gets mentioned on an ESPN crawl for anything but a score.

Golden was the first to realize that video was a good vehicle to promote the program and, in his first year, he hired a video coordinator named Fran Duffy (not to be confused with basketball coach Fran Dunphy). At the Owls’ first Golden football banquet, the coach introduced him this way: “Despite his age, he’s the best in the business.”

Golden must have been onto something because now Duffy is the Philadelphia Eagles’ video coordinator.

So it is in that spirit that we’re going to step away from the heavier topics like recruiting and coaching carousels and revolving doors and the viable long-term future of Temple football and provide some fun with graphics. So far, Gerson has just scratched the surface with some spruced-up slogans Collins thinks about at 3 in the morning and a couple of videos but the possibilities with images are endless.

In this case, images, the separated at birth ones.

Collins looks a little like Tony Soprano. There is even a parody twitter account dedicated to the resemblance.

collinstwitter

Former Owls’ linebacker Tyler Matakevich singer Ed Sheeran look like brothers (dirty red).

redsmall

Frequent Owl photographer Zamani Feelings and District Attorney Seth Williams have never been seen in the same room and that’s probably a good thing.

together

If you have any more Temple-football related resemblances, be it a current or past player or coach looking like someone else in the public sphere, post them in the comment section below.

Monday: Back to Serious Business

02.16.17
by

Mulligans and Aliens

americansked

Temple should have capitalized on having this to recruit a decent class this season.

A friend who is an amateur astronomer posted a photo of some far-off galaxy on Facebook and apologized for the quality of the photo due to atmospheric conditions.


A Virginia Tech model,
where you make a bowl
every year and reach
up and win a title
here and there, should
be a realistic
expectation for Temple
at the G5 level

My response was that someone from that galaxy probably posted a photo of the Milky Way with the same apology on, say, Cleon Facebook.

In other words, we’re not alone.

It’s a lesson Temple football fans would be wise to understand today, a couple of weeks after Signing Day. The prevalent feeling on the major Owl message board (Shawn Pastor’s OwlsDaily) is that we’re giving new head coach Geoff Collins a Mulligan on this class, but the next class better be good.

The lesson should have been don’t look back because the other beings in this football universe might be gaining on you.

That’s where the other guy comes in because new coach Charlie Strong did not need a Mulligan to haul in a significantly better class for USF and former Temple head coaches Al Golden, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule did not need a Mulligan in their first transition classes. Despite working about a month, the classes that Golden, Addazio and Rhule brought in their first time were ranked significantly higher than Collins’ first class.

In between preparing for a medical procedure I should have done 10 years ago but had been putting off, I found a little bit of time to look at those classes.

The Charlie Strong class was easy to find. The other classes were much harder to quantify against this one. (You really only know four years from now but you can compare them against how they were ranked at the time.)  According to Scout.com, Strong’s USF transition class this season was ranked No. 95th with seven three stars. In roughly the same time frame to recruit, Collins had Temple was 127th with only three three-stars. In the same conference, both teams with a new head coach, a significant gap in results.

Strong did not have a championship trophy to carry around on a helicopter, either. It’s fair to compare the two classes. Because we have evidence to work with given roughly the same circumstances, Collins should have done better. You can talk all you want about how it is the “Temple Way” to recruit two stars and coach them up to four stars but if you get three stars, your mathematical chances of coaching them up to four- and five-stars improve. Temple should be OK next year, but the impact of this class won’t be felt until three or four years down the road and that is how a foundation is laid for sustainable success, not just one “up” season followed by a “down” season. At Temple, the goal should not be “up and down” seasons like so many other schools seem to have. A Virginia Tech model, where you make a bowl every year and reach up and win a title here and there, should be a realistic expectation for Temple at the G5 level.

An AAC trophy should have meant a better haul than the 2017 class Collins was able to bring to 10th and Diamond and long-term is where the impact will be felt. Without helicopters or AAC trophies, Temple coaches have done better with roughly a month to recruit.

transition

 

While it might have been tough to expect Collins to do a whole lot with this class, the evidence is there in black and white that he should have done better. In college football, getting to the top is tough but staying there is tougher so capitalizing on a championship season when you can with recruiting should have been prioritized.

There are a lot of football teams in this universe and, if you slip up one year, they could be passing you in two or three. There are no Mulligans when you are not alone.

Saturday: Fun With Graphics

02.10.17
by

The Schedule: You Never Know

amcosked

Getting Stony Brook on someone else’s schedule is a plus.

Watching some of the recent episodes of Saturday Night Live, I miss some of the old characters like the ones played by the late John Belushi and Gilda Radner. (It’s still pretty good and Melissa McCarthy hit a home run with her skit on Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer, but most of the skits are dribblers to second base, pop ups or strike outs.)

That’s not what it was like in the old days when Radner and Belushi were hitting home runs and guys like Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd and Billy Murray were routinely hitting doubles off the wall.

I thought about Gilda while thumbing down the recent release of the Temple 2017 schedule.

americansked

I would like another one of these bad boys, but it’s going to be tough.

One of her catch phrases was: “You never know.”

Look at the Philadelphia Eagles’ 2006 season. Before that year even started, fans on every talk radio show penciled in the team as losing three December games, at the Redskins, at the Giants and at the Cowboys in consecutive weeks and the doom and gloom got worse when Donovan McNabb was lost for the season with a broken leg before those three games. His backup, Jeff Garcia, came in and beat the Skins (21-19), Giants (36-22) and Cowboys (24-7) to win the NFC East.

You never know.

This time a year ago, many Temple fans (not me) were saying that the losses of players like Tyler Matakevich, Matt Ioannidis, Robby Anderson and Tavon Young meant Temple would take a step back from a 10-4 season of 2015.

templesked

I looked at a still-loaded roster and argued otherwise, that this was the “step forward” year and not the step back one. Since this year’s 10-4 included a championship, I was right.

You never know if I will be as right about this one but here it goes. I hope not to be as right about this season but I already knew about the teams Temple would play in 2017 and have always said this would be the “step back” year and not the step forward one.

It’s only a step, though. Owl fans can relax because we’re not falling into the mine shaft. Most Owl fans do not know how good Anthony Russo is. Having seen pretty much his entire high school career, I do and this how I will describe his upcoming Temple time: He won’t be as impressive as P.J. Walker was in his first season, but he will make you forget Walker in seasons two through four. (He’s not as elusive as Walker, but let’s not kid ourselves. P.J. was no Fran Tarkenton, Bobby Douglas or even Russell Wilson in the important skill of eluding pass rushers.)

So I stand by that prediction that it will be a slight step back, not a huge one.

I thought before Matt Rhule left that it would be a positive year for him to go 7-5 with a bowl win in 2017 and I think that is the measuring stick for new head coach Geoff Collins. If he goes 7-5, he’s just as good a coach as Rhule but I think there is a good chance he could go 8-4 or better. Listen, no one expects him to go 10-4 again and, if he does, Ed Foley is probably coaching Temple’s third-straight bowl loss.

The expectation here is eight wins and a bowl win and that’s in the “step-back” year because 2018 figures to be even better.

There is plenty of talent left on this team, even if you do not expect them to beat Notre Dame, Tulsa, Navy or South Florida. I’m not buying Houston. Wasn’t Temple the champion in the same league Houston could not win last  year? Didn’t Houston struggle on the road against teams like SMU, UConn and Navy in the last two years? Did not Temple win at all three of those places? I rest my case. Ryquell Armstead running behind the lead blocking of Nick Sharga with the explosive receivers Temple has is a good way to start. The defense should be outstanding once again. Any line that has Jacob Martin and Sharif Finch as the ends, and Karamo Dioubate, Michael Dogbe, Greg Webb and Freddy Booth-Lloyd in the middle with a secondary of Champ Chandler, Mike Jones, Delvon Randall and Artrel Foster will bring Mayhem.

The way Temple seasons have worked recently, though, is that they always have beaten someone you penciled them in for a loss before the season (i.e., Vanderbilt, 2014; Penn State 2015 and South Florida 2016) and always lost to someone you never expected them to lose to in the same season. Can we break that cycle this year?

I think so. Just hold serve.

If Collins holds serve, he will be our guy and probably hang around to coach the bowl win.

However, as Emily Latella would say: “You never know” but, gun to my head, I would pick eight over six or even seven and I will stand by that number.

(No posts Sunday or Tuesday due to minor surgery but God-willing will return Thursday)