Click on the photo of TU student section for story.
Ranking the Top 5 Temple Recruits
Author Archives: Mike Gibson
#WTF is Matt Rhule Talking About?
If this is merely just about a “visit” and not a commitment or a new stadium, it’s a disappointment. Click over image for story.
5 Reasons Why bOWLes Will Do a Great Job
Click on the photo of Todd making a tackle for Temple for more.
5 Reasons Why TU’s Klecko belongs in Hall of Fame
Thirty-seven years ago, Temple sent Joe Klecko to the Jets and four years ago the Owls sent Muhammad Wilkerson to the Jets. Now Temple will send Todd Bowles to the Jets (more on that tomorrow but click on the photo for 5 reasons why Joe belongs in the Hall).
TU’s January Recruiting Surprise Could be An Adonis
Click on the photo for details.
Matakevich Winning Butkus Award Would Be Big Boost for Temple Football
Football fans of Temple can give their fingernails a rest. From standout linebacker Tyler Matakevich‘s twitter feed in December, it looked like he would return for his senior season with the Owls in 2015.
Now that the deadline for declaring is about to pass, it’s all but official.
That’s no small commitment because, according to most mock drafts, Matakevich would be one of the top 10 linebackers selected in the NFL Draft if he decided to come out. Now that Matakevich has decided to do something for the Owls, Temple must decide to do something for him in promoting him for the Bednarik Award that goes to the nation’s best defender and Butkus Award that goes to the nation’s best linebacker.
I think he has a decent chance of winning the Butkus Award and that would be a big feather in the cap of Temple football. He doesn’t need to do anything superhuman to win it, either. Just keep doing what he’s been doing and help the Owls win two or more additional games in 2015 than they did in 2014. With Notre Dame and Penn State on the schedule and both figure to be highly rated TV games, his name is fast-tracked to the head of the LB class.
Temple did the same in 1986 for running back Paul Palmer, when the school came up with a clever comic book idea that promoted him for the Heisman Trophy. He did not win it, coming as close as possible — losing to Miami’s Vinny Testaverde and ahead of such luminaries as Oklahoma’s Brian Bosworth and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh.
Matakevich is driven by a desire to get Temple to a bowl and sitting and watching others play seems to fuel the flames for next season.
Matakevich is one of the few players to earn all-conference honors in two conferences, the now-defunct Big East and current successor AAC. He also currently is the NCAA’s leading active leaders in tackles among all five divisions (FBS, FCS, and Divisions I through III). For his entire time at Temple, he has given the Owls his best.
Promoting him heavily for the Bednarik and Butkus is the least the Owls can do for him now.
Temple is Bluffing with Football Stadium Talk
What an on-campus stadium might look like, without the parking lot surrounding it.
Comparatively speaking, there are so few major supporters of athletics at Temple that the word of someone who is should mean a lot. Temple is not like Oregon, where you can see a billionaire like Phil Knight on the sideline of every football game.
The supporter, who makes several billion less than Knight, said he was told at halftime during the Temple vs. North Carolina State March Madness basketball game that a stadium for football was a “done deal.” The Temple vs. North Carolina State game—won by the Owls, 76-72—was March 22, 2013. In a little over three months, that game will be two full years in the rear-view mirror.
No one has seen a shovel yet and that’s why football stadium talk at Temple is just that. Right now, Temple plays its football games in the $521 million Lincoln Financial Field, home to the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles want triple the current annual rent Temple pays from $1 million to $3 million.
It’s a steep price, but the Owls should pay it for a number of good reasons. First, it would cost over $300 million to build their own and you to not have to be a bargain-hunter to know that something that costs $3 is a better buy than $300 .
Also, the Owls currently have a beautiful on-campus stadium and it is called The Liacouras Center. After Temple beat No. 10 Kansas and defending national champion Uconn, it was less than half-full yesterday for a conference game against UCF. The LC is a 15-year lab experiment that predicts how life will be in a future on-campus football stadium.
Plenty of seats available at Temple’s beautiful on-campus stadium yesterday.
There is a much more important reason the Owls should continue to play football at the Linc, though, and that’s to make them a much more attractive option for a Power 5 conference somewhere down the road. Although Houston, North Texas, Tulane and Akron have built nice 30,000-type seat stadiums in the last five years, none of them are options for a Power 5 invite any time soon. Very few Power 5 teams not grandfathered in (like Wake Forest) have stadiums with 30,000 seats.
Temple, with the fourth-largest media market and a 70,000-seat stadium and a great basketball program, would be a candidate down the road if it is ever able to figure out a way to just fill more than half of it. Temple has to figure out a way to do that and its money would be better spent supporting football head coach Matt Rhule’s efforts to do that, not chasing some on-campus stadium pipe dream. If Rhule is not able to do the job, Temple would still be better off spending money on a big-time coach who is and not a small-time stadium.
An on-campus stadium jeopardizes any chance Temple has of putting on big-boy pants. A stadium is a nice dream for many Temple fans who want to camouflage a paltry lack of support, but winning and winning big in football is the larger issue that needs to be addressed first.
Spending $300 million on winning is a much more cost-effective option than bricks and mortar.
Temple Football Could Learn a lot from Paul Johnson
Click on the photo for more. Temple football’s whole offensive outlook could improve in 2015 by just looking at the way Paul Johnson uses the fullback to open up the entire offense. P.J. can have the same kin d of season this Thomas kid did for GT under this scheme.
Ted’s Excellent Temple Adventure
Ted’s own photos from the more recent past, including these from the New Mexico Bowl. Hopefully, the current coaching staff delivers with several of these bowl experiences starting next year. Note spelling is not a strongpoint of the New Mexico Bowl scoreboard operator.
There is a great Temple fan named Ted DeLapp out there who went searching for Temple football history like one of those guys with metal detectors you see on beaches.
To say Ted is a great fan really is a misnomer. He’s The Greatest Fan, until I stumble upon another with his credentials of investing in the program by purchasing way more season tickets than he really needs for a 30-plus year period.
He hit on gold with some nuggets this week that we think deserve a wider audience than his own personal facebook page.
The first one involves a challenge game between the New York Giants of the National Football League and the Temple Owls. Turns out both the Owls and the Giants had an open weekend and Giants’ owner John Mara, eager to gain some credibility for his team, challenged the Temple Owls to a game in 1935. That year the Owls were 7-3 with wins over Texas A&M and Vanderbilt. Here’s what Ted found:
Another was Temple luring Pop Warner from Stanford. Love the way sports pages used cartoons back in those days:
Not often you find one coach with two nicknames “Pop” and “Scobey.”
Temple lured him for the princely sum of $18,000 after Stanford refused to match the offer. Temple’s BOT in those days was forward-thinking, learning that the only way to make money is to spend money and go after the top head coaches available. Unfortunately, due to an arm’s race that would make the Cold War look like Kid’s Play, Temple is now out of that high-stakes poker game.
Interesting that a clause in Warner’s Temple contract allowed him to hold a job at a bank on the west coast during the six months between Jan. and June. Bobby Wallace had no such clause, but was away for much of the time of his eight-year contract, maintaining a home in Gulph Shores, Ala.
Temple TUFF about 100 years ago.
Dvoracek Would Help Unwrap Owls’ Running Game
See that block at the 11-second mark on Gray’s first TD? That was a blocking FULLBACK (No. 32). Until Temple also employs such a player, talk of a revived running game could be just that.
Do not know what Temple football coach Matt Rhule got under that Christmas tree on Thursday morning, but do know what he needs more than anything else.
A running game would have been nice to unwrap. A blocking fullback would have been nicer.
When you dead last, running the same kind of offense over and over again is the very definition of insanity.
If there has been one constant about all of the bowl-winning teams this year, it’s that every one of them have had a 1,000-yard plus runner this season. I think it’s possible that one of the current players in the program can do that—most notably Jahad Thomas, Zaire Williams, Jabo Lee and Jamie Gilmore—but none of them have a chance to do it under the current offensive philosophy. Lee is coming off two years of inactivity and Williams one and Thomas became a forgotten man after running for 157 yards against Tulsa, so to expect any of them to do it would be too much. Gilmore is a third-down back and his ceiling is Matty Brown, but that’s a pretty good roof.
So that leaves one of the incoming guys. Maybe they can do it under a spread system with a rebuilt offensive line. Bernard Pierce proved that a true freshman can make an immediate impact as a runner, but Pierce had a blocking fullback like Wyatt Benson running interference for him in addition to a good offensive line.
Maybe there is a mystery running back yet to be recruited but, until then, these three guys have the best shot since they are current commits:
Rob Dvoracek could be the key to unlocking the Owls’ running game in 2015.
Ryquell Armstead _ He certainly has the stats to match Bernard Pierce’s high school numbers from Glen Mills. Playing for Millville (N.J.), Armstead is exactly the same height (6-0) and weight (205) coming out of high school. Armstead ran for 341 yards and four touchdowns in Millville’s 44-40 win on Thanksgiving Day over rival Vineland and fellow Temple recruit Jeremiah Atoki. Like Pierce, Armstead holds a PR of 10.81 in the 100-meter dash. Pierce’s 10.8 won him a Pennsylvania indoor state championship. Interesting that Philly.com lists Armstead’s weight as 185 and his hometown Vineland paper lists him at 205. We’ll go with the hometown weight. Armstead finished with 1,488 yards and scored 18 touchdowns as a senior (Pierce had 2,005 yards and 26 touchdowns as a senior).
Chapelle Cook _ He’s probably ticketed for a strong safety or linebacker position on defense, but can help the Owls’ running game if asked. He’s 6-2 and 215 and played a running quarterback on offense at Lakewood (N.J.), home of a Phillies Class A farm team. As a quarterback, he carried the ball 31 times for 197 yards in a loss to Rumson-Fair Haven.
Raekwon Gray _ At 5-8, 170, he’s more of a Matty Brown-type than a BP type but would you have not given a right arm for Matty Brown last season? Still do not know if this coaching staff would have been smart enough to figure out what it had in Matt Brown if he did stick around a few more years . I have my doubts based on what they did with Thomas after his 157-yard day. Gray’s best year came as a junior, when he averaged more than 8 yards per carry over 12 games. He finished with 2,295 yards and 30 touchdowns on 283 carries on his way to being named to the Consensus Maryland All-State team for Urbana High.
The key guy could be someone who is already here, like Rob Dvoracek. With a glutton of good linebackers, the Owls would be wise to move Rob to fullback, where he enjoyed great success at Parkland. As good a runner as he was–he had 347 yards and six touchdowns in a District 11 win over Allentown Central Catholic–he was even a better blocker. Rob is fully recovered from an infection and would be a big key to unlocking the Temple running game from a fullback position. Plus, you think Rob would not at least help solve Temple’s documented problems on 3d and 1, either as a short-yardage runner or blocker?
Hopefully, that’s one gift Matt Rhule decides to unwrap.
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Temple Football Forever 