Author Archives: Mike Gibson

01.09.16
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Powerball Could Yield Best TU Stadium

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Without a large endowment or big-ticket donors, fans of the Temple football team will have to hope one of the school’s season ticket holders hits Saturday’s $800 million Powerball Jackpot because the school’s current plans to build a stadium are woefully inadequate.

Then, they have to hope that fan has a large and generous heart and a warm and fuzzy feeling toward Matt Rhule’s team.

Temple is planning on spending $100 million to build an on-campus stadium similar in size to Wake Forest’s BB&T Stadium and that is just not good enough if the Owls hope to position their football team into a Power 5 Conference a few years down the line. Wake Forest’s stadium seats 31,700 and that is the smallest of the P5 schools, just ahead of fellow ACC member Duke (33,941) and Pac-12 member Washington State (32,952).

apollo

The difference between those schools and Temple is that all three of them have been grandfathered into the P5, charter members of established conferences long before the latest round of musical chairs added some new money from a former Big East school like Louisville. The schools Louisville left behind became the AAC, of which Temple is now a member. Louisville brought with it a 55,000-seat stadium that was filled on a regular basis.

No new teams bring 30,000-seat stadiums and surely the Owls’ administration has to be smart enough t realize that.  Fellow AAC teams with P5 aspirations bring larger stadiums, as Memphis seats 61,008, Connecticut 40,642, Houston 40,000 and Cincinnati 35,097. Temple is going to have to build a stadium of similar size or its entire athletic program could be marginalized into oblivion when the P5 splits from the G5, a fate many believe is inevitable.

That’s why the athletic department fund raisers are certain to check the roll of season ticket holders against the names of the Powerball winners next week. It could be their last best hope to build a functional stadium.

Tomorrow: Package Deals

01.08.16
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Lurie Doesn’t Have to Look Far For Best Guy

chipmatt

“This is a pretty sweet gig, Matt, you should think about it.”

 

If Jeffrey Lurie, the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, is to be believed, then he really does not have to look far to find the next coach of his team. Lurie can grab a pair of binoculars, walk outside of his office at Lincoln Financial Field, and look four miles up North Broad Street. If he can see past City Hall, his guy is just north of there.

That’s where he will find Matt Rhule, the current head coach of the Temple Owls, who seems to fit all of the criteria Lurie outlined when he described his vision for the next Eagles’ coach. If Lurie was carrying a notepad around, Rhule certainly would earn a lot of checkmarks.

Smart, strategic, thinker? Check. Communicator who understands Philadelphia fan base? Check. Attention to detail and NFL experience? Check. Personal style of leadership that relates to players? Check.

No one knows if the NFL is in Rhule’s future, but he gave a clue in a four-hour appearance on 97.5 Thursday. A caller asked him if he’d rather have the Alabama job or the New York Giants’ job and he didn’t flinch. “Giants,” he said. “Temple is the only college job I want.”

Matt's communications skills passed the ultimate test with Sam Ponder.

Matt’s communications skills passed the ultimate test with Sam Ponder.

With all the clowns Lurie is bringing in for an interview–including a Chicago Bears’ assistant who is four years younger–he’d be crazy for not picking up  the phone and making a local call before the Giants do.

Lurie said he wanted a smart, strategic, thinker, who looks out for the long-term interests of the organization, and Rhule certainly has proven to be that in taking the Owls from 2-10 to 10-4 in three years. He did it by recruiting two- and three-star athletes, giving most of them a red-shirt year to get stronger and faster and he sacrificed short-term gain for long-term goals.  There are no redshirts in the NFL, but the thought process should be appreciated.

Lurie also said he wanted a communicator and anyone who saw Rhule talking to Sam Ponder on ESPN College Football’s Game Day knows Rhule certainly is that. He wanted someone who knows what it is like to coach the Eagles, and understands the fan base of Philadelphia, and Rhule gets a checkmark for that as well. If you can concentrate enough to give a coherent answer while looking at Samantha, you are a great communicator.

Lurie mentioned attention to detail and, as an assistant to Tom Coughlin in 2012 with the New York Giants, Rhule said that was his biggest takeaway, an attention to detail. Lastly, Lurie wants a personal style of leadership that relates to players and is not aloof.

With those comments, Lurie made clear he was looking for the anti-Chip Kelly—in other words, Matt Rhule.

01.06.16
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Recruiting Overview: Brace Yourself

Montel

 

When it comes to Temple recruiting, I’m from Missouri.

Show me.

Trust the film is one way to put it, but  numbers and rave reviews in the newspapers is verification.

We’ll always have Montel Aaron, the Player of the Year in the Sacramento area.

Aaron, a known quantity, figures to be the jewel of the 2016 class.

The others, we’re going to have to trust the film because there is not a whole lot in terms of the written word to go on but the key question is whether Houston seems to have out-recruited the Owls.

Unless you are Stevie Wonder, the answer has to be yes.

aac

Here’s the deal with Temple recruiting: In all of those years where Temple was No. 1 in the MAC under Al Golden, the theme on recruiting night was that Temple was No. 1 in the MAC. When Temple is not No. 1 in the AAC on the first Wednesday night in February, the theme will be “trust the film.”

You can book it, but it seems to me that you can’t sell it both ways.

John Chaney would say always go  by the known. It was a good philosophy about both  basketball and football recruiting. Coach always knew when he had Rick Brunson, Eddie Jones and Aaron McKie to allow one of those three guys to shoot the ball. If anyone else shot it, he’d call time out and ream out the guy.

Here’s what we do know: Houston, a team that Temple should be on par with, is out-recruiting Temple by a large margin.  Temple had 100 big-time recruits in for the Notre Dame game and failed to land a single one after that night was over.

fredster

Not good. That was the night to make hay while the ABC-TV lights shone.

Maybe if Will Hayes had knocked down that pass, we would be talking about adding a dozen big-time recruits that night. Now we’re talking about zero.

To me, this was an important class not for next year but for two years down the road. Temple could (should) win as many as 11 games next year, but will slip below six in two years if this is not a dynamite class. I’m not seeing the TNT in this class.

One month until signing day and Temple has 17 recruits signed and the best is a quarterback from California. At least we have him.  Maybe Rhule and the staff will shock us all in the final eight, get Anthony Russo to de-commit and add seven more four-stars who everyone sees the film and trusts it. That’s what I’m hoping for, but not holding my breath about.

The final eight will tell the tale. There is a lot of work to do in the next 30 days.

Fortunately, Missouri won’t be clogging up the phone lines.

Tomorrow: Why Philadelphia Should Love Matt Rhule

Saturday: A Functional Temple Stadium

01.05.16
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The Case for Mike Locksley

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Ten years of exemplary service at Maryland makes Mike a good fit here.

The  least popular individual on a football team when an offense is misfiring is usually the coordinator, so that’s why there were few tears shed on Sunday afternoon by Temple football fans when the news broke that Marcus Satterfield was leaving to take the head coaching job at Tennessee Tech.

After a 7-0 start, the Owls stumbled to a 3-4 finish and the fingers pointed directly to Satterfield, whose offense produced 17 and 13 points in the last two losses. Temple looked incapable of running a hurry-up offense in the AACchampionship loss to Houston, and Satterfield’s call of throwing into the end zone on third-and-3 with Temple down 24-13 and driving at the Cougar 38-yard-line with 7:18 left was widely second-guessed. That’s because the Cougars were giving Owls wide receiver Robby Anderson a 10-yard cushion at the line of scrimmage and a simple pitch and catch could have moved the sticks.

Satterfield bore the brunt of the blame but likely would have survived, because head coach Matt Rhule is widely considered “too nice a guy” to fire assistants. The process that Rhule likes to talk about broke down on one side of the ball late in the season and needs to be fixed.

Fortunately for Rhule, convergence of both time and circumstance has made a more qualified replacement available. Just last week new Maryland head coach D.J. Durkin said offensive coordinator and interim head coach Mike Locksley will not be retained. Unlike head coaching contracts, contracts for college assistants usually are not guaranteed meaning Locksley needs a job. Rhule so happens to have one available, and he should grab Locksley before someone else does. Locksley is a big believer in the play-action passing game Temple likes to run and has put up numbers using a similar system in the past. Locksley was OC for a Maryland team that averaged 28.5 points per game in its inaugural Big 10 season (2014), the most points the school was able to produce since 2010 (32.5). Locksley is also a top recruiter, at three schools — Maryland, Illinois and Florida. While at Florida, he engineered two top 10 recruiting classes in each of his two seasons as recruiting coordinator.

Locksley has plenty of recruiting contacts in an area where Temple usually recruits heavily called the DMV (Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia). The Owls could give Locksley the keys to both the offense and the DMV recruiting area and trust the process once again.

Tomorrow: A Recruiting Overview

01.04.16
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5 Possible Names to Take Temple OC Job

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Without a doubt, Mike Locksley  is the best candidate available for Temple.

The top talk in Philadelphia football this week will center on potential coaching hires, but chances are Temple fans are not as interested in who succeeds Chip Kelly as much as who will succeed Marcus Satterfield. Satterfield, who took the Tennessee Tech head coaching job on Sunday, was a three and four wide receiver guy who was running an offense ill-suited to Temple’s defense-first, run-the-ball, style of play. Fortunately, head coach Matt Rhule put his foot down prior to this season and told Satterfield that he wanted to run the ball. That is the very definition of Temple football and head coach Matt Rhule is most comfortable with that style and now has an opportunity to find guys who are better-suited to that system. Here are five possible candidates:

Adam DiMichele

Adam DiMichele is a fan favorite.

  1. Adam DiMichele

Currently Temple’s director of player development, DiMichele—one of Temple’s greatest quarterbacks of all time—was wide receivers’ coach in 2014.  DiMichele spent the 2013 season at TU as a graduate assistant coach, working with the offense. DiMichele was part of some of the most imaginative plays in TU history, including the fake kneel down in the final seconds before halftime that found Bruce Francis open for 55-yard touchdown at Navy in 2008.

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  1. Mike Gibson

Probably the best pure name  🙂 among the five, Gibson—a former Temple offensive coordinator (and no relation)—currently is the head coach at the University of Regina (Canada). He was offensive coordinator at Rice, Temple and Rutgers before embarking on career in Canada in 2001. An offensive coordinator in the states makes more than twice as much as a head college coach in Canada, so the former Western Maryland center could probably be enticed back to his native land. Since the name already was mentioned on Pravda as a candidate, we figured we research his credentials.

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Todd has a NC and Temple ties.

  1. Todd McNair

On Dec. 7, a ruling by a three-justice panel in the 2nd District Court of Appeal affirmed that McNair “has demonstrated a probability of prevailing on the merits of his defamation case (against the NCAA),” Justice Richard D. Aldrich wrote in the 30-page opinion and that probably clears the way for the former national championship assistant to be hired by Temple or any other school. The former Owl would be a great recruiter and coach here.

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Probably the least “sexy” choice (see Lockley’s wife), that’s why he probably will get a bigger office.

  1. Glenn Thomas

Rhule has shown a propensity to promote from within, so that probably makes him the leading candidate. His credentials, though, other than being Atlanta Falcons’ QB coach, don’t seem nearly as impressive as the other candidates. From 2001-07, Thomas spent his coaching tenure at Midwestern State. Four of those years were as a grad assistant coaching wide receivers (2001-04). From 2005-2007, he was the OC there.

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Mike Locksley: Could be recruiting coordinator or OC.

  1. Mike Locksley

Four days ago, it was reported that Locksley, this year’s interim head coach at Maryland, would not likely be retained on D.J. Durkin’s new staff, making him a free agent. During Maryland’s debut campaign in the Big Ten in 2014, Locksley coordinated the highest scoring offense for the program in four seasons. The Terps averaged 28.5 points, which is the most since the team averaged 32.2 points per game in 2010. Locksley is also known for strong recruiting skills. He was listed as a top-25 recruiter in the nation three different times (2003, 2005, 2006) and was a finalist for 2007 recruiter of the year by Rivals.com. He also engineered top-10 recruiting classes during each of his two seasons (2003-04) as running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at the University of Florida. This is just the guy Temple needs to overtake Houston recruiting next year in the AAC.

01.02.16
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5 Plays We’d Like to See More Of in 2016

This would be a great first play on 9/17, P.J. to Cortrelle Simpson.

When Temple head coach Matt Rhule scraped the multiple receiver formations used in the 2014 season, that was a major step forward that resulted in 400 points in 14 games, the most points scored by an Owl team since the 1979 team scored 399 in two fewer games. Now, with some minor tweaking, the 2016 team appears to be talented enough to score more. These are five tweaks.

thompson

When you have a 4* TE, got to get him ball more than 1x per game.

  1. Seam Pass to Tight Ends

That is the same pass former Florida recruit Colin Thompson went for 53 yards down the middle in the Memphis, the 12th game.  It also went for 37 yards to Kip Patton in the Penn State game, the first game.  In between, it was not called much, if at all. Thompson is a four-star recruit, while Patton might be the fastest tight end in Temple history. The AAC doesn’t have a rule limiting tight ends to one catch per game. You could not tell that by the way Temple underutilized those weapons in 2015.

rollout

Having P.J. fake, then rollout, makes him much more effective.

  1. Roll Out Deep Throw by P.J. Walker

Walker completed two pinpoint throws of well over 50 yards, but both were in the 2014 season–one at Connecticut and one at Penn State. He was able to do it by rolling away from the pressure where he was better able to see the field. This season, he was strictly a pocket passer. Next season, the Owls should roll him out of the pressure and he won’t have to look over 6-foot-5 pass rushers and he can have a run-pass option.

patton

  1. More Options for Tight Ends

When you have athletes like Thompson and Patton, a seam pass isn’t the only way to get them the ball. Short roll outs by Walker and quick 5-yard passes will get them in space where they can use their running ability much like the Owls did with former tight end Evan Rodriguez (see Maryland game film, 2011). Also a jump pass where Walker takes the snap and feigns a run, jumping just before reaching the line of scrimmage and releasing the ball into the back of the end zone worked for the combination of Chester Stewart and Steve Manieri at Miami (Ohio).

thomascatch

  1. Put Jahad Thomas in Slot

Despite scoring 17 touchdowns and rushing for 1,287 yards, tailback Jahad Thomas was nicked up in the final few games of the season. Keeping him fresh should be a priority and one way to do that would be to put him in the slot, where he can get the ball in space and occasionally run a reverse or two. That will enable talented sophomores Jager Gardner and Ryquell Armstead to emerge as featured backs.

  1. Quarterback Draw

If Walker were not a quarterback, he would make a terrific tailback because of his moves in the open field. Using him as a strictly a pocket passer plays into the hands of the defense. A few designed quarterback draws, in addition to the aforementioned rollouts, would drive opposing defenses crazy and that’s the very definition of a well-designed offense.

01.01.16
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Owls’ Top Plays of 2015

Penn State v Temple

(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

In a long but historic season, limiting the great plays Temple’s football team to just five is an impossible task. Some just made the cutting-room floor, like All-American linebacker Tyler Matakevich’s two tipped interceptions against Cincinnati and a clutch fourth-down catch against Notre Dame by Robby Anderson. These five plays stood out as the team tied a school record for 10 wins.

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  1. John Christopher’s Throwback Pass

After Penn State took a 10-0 lead, the Owls scored 27-str

to win, 27-10. The key play in the drive that tied the game at 10-10 was a wide receiver throwback from John Christopher to quarterback P.J. Walker that was good for 25 yards and a first down on their second drive in the second half.

Memphis v Temple

(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

Kip Patton’s Tight End Reverse

The Owls absolutely had to win a late-season game against visiting Memphis and Kip Patton’s 13-yard score on a tight-end reverse sealed it in the fourth quarter. That put the Owls up, 21-12, and Austin Jones added a 35-yard field goal to make it 24-12 on the next drive. Patton is the kind of athlete who the Owls will have to get in space in 2016.

Notre Dame v Temple

(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

  1. Brandon Shippen’s Spin

In the highest-rated college football game in the history of Philadelphia television, senior wide receiver Brandon Shippen made one of the biggest plays, catching a ball at the Notre Dame 2-yard line. He appeared to be stopped just short, but maintained his balance, bounced off two tacklers and spun in the end zone, reaching the ball across the goal line.  The Owls lost, 24-20, but led with 4:41 left in the game.

Tyler Matakevich, Temple, Notre Dame,

  1. Tavon Young to Tyler Matakevich

In the same game against Notre Dame, the Irish were driving in the first half with a chance to go up 21-10 but cornerback Tavon Young reached around Will Fuller to break up a touchdown. With the ball in the air, Tyler Matakevich was opportunistic enough to pick it out of the air and return it out of further danger.

finch

  1. Sharif Finch Fools Christian Hackenberg

Perhaps the play that made the Owls true believers against Penn State was with the score tied at 10-10 and PSU quarterback Christian Hackenberg dropping back. Hackenberg never saw Owls’ defensive end Sharif Finch, who dropped back in coverage and returned an interception to the 2. The Owls then took a 17-10 lead.

12.31.15
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Owls’ New Year’s Resolution: Find a Game for Stony Brook

hawaii

Hmm. … a home game against Stony Brook or an away game at Hawaii?

fioravanti

TU’s last trip to Hawaii.

On the day before New Year’s Eve, athletic directors all over the country are probably taking out the yellow legal pad and making some resolutions. One has to stick out like a sore thumb for Temple University athletic director Pat Kraft and that has to be getting Stony Brook off the 2016 football schedule.

There is no reason Temple should be playing Stony Brook in football, now or ever. It doesn’t make sense from a number of standpoints for the Owls and the first is that the American Athletic Conference, of which Temple is a member, strongly discourages its institutions from scheduling FCS teams. Stony Brook is not only a FCS team, but a bottom-feeding member of the Colonial Athletic Conference. Playing Stony Brook, almost a certain win for the Owls, brings down the entire league.  It has nothing to do with the Owls being “too good” or “looking down their noses” at the Seawolves or “dishonoring commitments” as it does with common sense. Delaware State didn’t expect it was going to get beat, 59-0, by a 6-6 Temple team, but that’s exactly what happened before about 60,000 empty seats. That’s exactly the TV look the conference will get for a Temple-SB game and it’s not a good look. Hula girls, a trip to Hawaii, maybe late night TV for the conference, that’s a better look.

The second reason is that Temple has seven home games and that’s one more than almost all of its fellow AAC teams.  Temple needs to trade that seventh home game for a sixth road game against a FBS school and, if Kraft has any skills as an AD, he will be able to devise a workable solution by helping Stony Brook find another opponent for Sept. 10.

martin

Tennessee-Martin’s mascot.

One solution would be to get on the phone with Hawaii, which hosts Tennessee-Martin on the same date. If Kraft can convince the Rainbow Warriors to back out of their deal with that school, he can arrange a Stony Brook at Tennessee-Martin game. Kraft then calls back Hawaii and volunteers the Owls to fill the open Sept. 10 date. Tennessee-Martin has as much business playing Hawaii as Temple does Stony Brook, which is no business. Bringing Hooter out there would be a treat for the Hawaii kids, certainly more than bringing out Martin’s creepy-looking alien mascot.

There are plenty of reasons this makes sense and a lot of Temple-Hawaii connections. The new head football coach at Hawaii, Nick Rolovich, is a good friend of current Temple head coach Matt Rhule. Rolovich was offered and accepted the first Temple OC job under Rhule, only to back out of it a few days later to remain as Nevada’s OC. Herman Frazier, a former assistant AD at Temple, was the former AD at Hawaii. Keith Kirkwood, a Temple wide receiver coming off a redshirt year, was a former  starting wide receiver at Hawaii. Dr. Linc Gotshalk, who many consider Temple’s greatest strength coach ever (for Bruce Arians),  went to Hawaii where he now is on the faculty at the University of Hawaii (Hilo). It is also the site of Temple kicker Ron Fioravanti‘s greatest athletic achievement, a field goal to win at Hawaii in 1979, 34-31. Fioravanti is now a sheriff in New Castle, Del.

linc

It doesn’t have to be Hawaii, but it should not be Stony Brook. For example, Rutgers is playing Howard that day and Duke has an open date. There are 125 other FBS teams. With a little creative thinking, something should be worked out.

That’s why athletic directors get paid the big money, to fix problems such as these, and that is the one task Kraft should put at the top of his New Year’s resolutions.

12.30.15
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A Primer for Temple AD Pat Kraft

If SMSC leaves …

Only on Pravda would you read a serious comment about the Philadelphia Eagles being interested in St. Matt of State College.

I kid you not, that’s what I red on the Red (Cherry) Square website on Tuesday night.

Just in case I’m the one who is delusional and not the SMSC fans, we offer this primer to Temple athletic director Pat Kraft.  If, in the unlikely event Matt Rhule leaves to coach the Philadelphia Eagles, Temple would do very well to follow the guidelines that led to these great five hirings of 2015. The next Temple head coach should be a guy who has done it someplace else before multiple times in the same position. It would help if that place was a harder place to win than Temple, but Kraft should not consider another assistant coach who would be learning on the job.

Here are the top five college hires of 2015. These guys are gone, but the next Temple coach should be a guy like four of these guys (Toledo is the exception here):

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Matt Campbell

  1. Matt Campbell, Iowa State

Campbell turned 36 on Nov. 29th, and his present on that day was a six-year contract as new head coach in Ames for $2 million-a-year. The investment will prove to be worthwhile, because Campbell crammed a lot of accomplishments into his short time as a head coach at Toledo.  He went 35-15 in four years, including wins over Iowa State and Arkansas this year.

Marmot Boca Raton Bowl - Temple v Toledo

Jason Candle

  1. Jason Candle, Toledo

Candle was the offensive coordinator under Matt Campbell before being promoted to head coach. Hiring from within proved to be a wise move because Candle led the Rockets to a 32-17 win over favored Temple in the Boca Raton Bowl. While Temple tried to balance fun and preparation, Toledo was focused on football and the businesslike approach paid off now and probably will in the future, too.

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Dino  Babers

  1. Dino Babers, Syracuse

Some might make the comparison between Babers and former Kent State coach Darrell Hazell, who has flopped at Purdue, because Hazell went 11-1 at another MAC school, Kent State, before being hired. The comparison ends there because Hazell was a one-year wonder while Babers has won at two places as a head coach over four years, Eastern Illinois and Bowling Green, capturing first-place finishes in all four years.

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Bronco Mendenhall

  1. Bronco Mendenhall, Virginia

As the head coach at Brigham Young, Mendenhall guided the Cougars to 11-straight bowl invitations—an amazing feat considering the school has played an independent schedule for the past five seasons. He was able to recruit enough talent to win 10 or more games in five seasons despite dealing with severe admission standards. That ability should serve him well with the Cavaliers.

Georgia State v Georgia Southern

Willie Fritz

  1. Willie Fritz, Tulane

Until recently, Fritz was the best head coach in America virtually no one knew about because he was toiling in relative obscurity at Georgia Southern. Pretty soon everyone will know Fritz because what he did there should be able to translate into success at Tulane. In two years at Georgia Southern, Fritz ran the ball 83 percent of the time out of a triple-option and finished 9-3 and 8-4.

12.29.15
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G5 Teams Need Own Playoff System

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If this had been a G5 playoff, maybe the emphasis would have been more on football and less on bowling alleys, boating and volleyball.

There is a pretty slick ad running on national TV regularly that mixes traditional New Year’s Eve music with the message that the four-team playoff is not to be missed.

The only thing missing from the promotion is a Group of Five team in the Final Four playoff and that’s why the Group of Five schools need their own. Sure, the BCS throws the G5 a bone and allows one of its teams into a New Year’s Six game, and this year that team is American Athletic Conference champion Houston, which will be playing Florida State in the Peach Bowl. Yet that bowl has no impact on the national championship and the AAC representative will be the only G5 team among the dozen in the featured bowls.

bocalogo

Would have been a nice G5 Final Four game.

The process by which the college football playoff committee is rigged so that a G5 team will never get into the championship picture, so the G5 participating in a process that gives them only a crumb slot in a non-championship game like the Peach Bowl should be unacceptable.

As it was, even if Houston went 13-0, it would not have made the final four teams because its most impressive out of conference victories were against middle-of-the-pack Power 5 schools like Vanderbilt (34-0) and Louisville (34-31).  Had Temple run  the table, it would have been a different story because the Owls had a team which made a NY6 bowl, Notre Dame, on the schedule. The same can be said for Memphis, which beat a Mississippi team (37-24) that handled Alabama. Those two G5 teams, though, ran out of gas late.

Still, to ask one group of schools to go unbeaten and still not guarantee a spot in playoffs is an unreasonable requirement when three of the four P5 teams in the playoff currently have one loss. That’s why the G5 needs to break off and hold its own championship and surely can get some of the middle bowls to sponsor their own final four.

The reward of claiming a G5 national championship trophy surely outweighs the risk of giving up the one NY6 crumb the group currently receives.