Author Archives: Mike Gibson

05.13.14
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The Temple (Football) Brand

This ad appeared on "Owlsports.com" on Monday morning, illustrating the fact that while we all know and love the Temple ][, it doesn't mean crap to a copy writer for Under Armour or the outside Temple public.

This ad appeared on “Owlsports.com” on Monday morning, illustrating  that while we all know and love the Temple ][, it doesn’t mean crap to a copy writer for Under Armour or the outside Temple public.

To me, Al Golden had it right when he restored the Temple football brand to the program at the beginning of his second year as head coach.

At the MAC Media Day in 2007 this is what Al said:

“There are several reasons for the change,” Golden said. “The first is for our current team to discover our tradition. The 2007 uniform brings us back to the most successful TEAM period in the history of Temple Football; a time that produced a 10-game winner and a final Top 20 ranking in both polls. The second reason is quite simply branding. When I was growing up in New Jersey, Temple’s helmets were unique. It was one of the most recognizable helmets in the East, let alone the country. Somewhere along the way that got lost, so I wanted to bring it back. The last reason has to do with our overall football operation. Our goal is to be first in every endeavor that we believe impacts our football team. We now feel like we have the best uniform, not only in the MAC, but on the East Coast. We have our brand back and it is here to stay.”

Golden stayed for five mostly wonderful years but the brand did not because some bald-headed bastard changed it back to the Temple T and then skipped town.


“When I was growing up in New Jersey,
Temple’s helmets were unique.
It was one of the most recognizable
helmets in the East, let alone the country.
Somewhere along the way that got lost,
so I wanted to bring it back …”
_ Al Golden

An ad that appeared on “Owlsports.com”  on Monday morning, May 12, illustrated the need to put the name  “Temple” back in the helmets. A copy writer for Under Armour confused the Temple ][ with the Texas Tech T (see photo at the top of this story) and nobody from Temple caught the mistake before it appeared on “Temple” website. While we all know and love the Temple ][, I have long felt that it doesn’t mean a hill of beans to fans from Texas or Tulane or Tulsa. That’s why Wayne Hardin put TEMPLE on the helmets and why Golden felt it was important to put it back.

Matt Rhule, in my mind, had the right idea in experimenting with a number of attractive helmet combinations but this one won the day by a good margin for me:

To me, this would be the perfect helmet to stick with this season ... marrying the school brand ][ with the football's brand.

To me, this would be the perfect helmet to stick with this season … marrying the school brand ][ with the football’s brand.

To me, the beauty of that helmet is that both promotes the SCHOOL brand and says what the brand stands for, and for that, Matt Rhule may have stumbled upon a “King Solomon-Like” solution that restores the Temple helmets to the national prominence they had under both Al Golden and Wayne Hardin. After all, those were three pretty smart guys: King Solomon, Al Golden and Wayne Hardin.
That kind of Karma might have a positive effect on the won/loss record, too.

05.01.14
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Two Ways To Look at Cherry and White

Not much to take from the Cherry and White game other than this:

Either the defense is much improved or the offense has a lot of work to do. I’m leaning toward the former. I liked the play of the safeties and I’m not concerned about P.J. Walker’s “off” game, if it really was that.

P.J. Walker is a proven commodity. The Owls’ defense is not. However, if you put two safeties in the middle of the field and are able to find two good cover corners that the defense is 100 percent improved. I have a feeling Cequan Jefferson could be a better cover corner than anyone Temple had last year.

What I don’t like about the offense is that Temple seems to have two similar-type players as receivers. I’d prefer a tall receiver, a Rod Streater-type, to go along with a Jalen Fitzpatrick-type. Maybe that will happen, but there is just as good a chance that both Khalif Hebin and Fitzpatrick will be on the field at the same time. To fix that, I’d move Herbin to a running back and hopefully have one of the taller freshman wide receivers win the WR spot opposite Fitzpatrick.

Plenty of time to fiddle. Hopefully, the Owls will put the right pieces in the right spots.

Why We Post Rant.com stories:

Before the Cherry and White game, I received a few inquiries about why readers have to click on a Rant.com story to get to a post I would normally put on Temple Football Forever.

The answer is simple: For every click on Rant.com story, TFF gets a very minimal fee, as small as a penny and as high as 5-10 cents. Since we’ve only had two donations so far this calendar year (one at New Year’s and the other a couple of weeks ago), we’ve used this method to generate income off the website. This is a labor or love but, with two other jobs, putting time into this has to generate some income. Thanks for supporting TFF however you can.