Author Archives: Mike Gibson

03.14.12
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Big picture looks good at practice

Steve Addazio talks about the new additions on the staff.

Much has changed about Temple football spring practice in one year.
That big ugly project in the background has been replaced by beautiful buildings on one side.
On the other side, a $10 million addition to a 12-year-old $7 million football facility is going up (and will be done by fall practice).
Not only is the scenery looking good, Al Golden’s “core value” of stockpiling talent at the redshirt level is kicking in for the good of the team.
Expect many of the “true freshmen” who Golden redshirted (16 of them) two years ago to make an immediate impact. We’ll talk about those redshirts in the coming days.
So while the scenery around the practice field improves, so will the talent level on the field, despite whatever losses to graduation and NFL the Owls experience in April and May.

03.11.12
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Selection Monday: TU practice begins

Despite what this looks like, Daz is not thinking basketball these days.

While many, including me, fill out their NCAA brackets this selection Sunday, Temple head football coach Steve Addazio is making a list and checking it twice, scratching out some ideas and coming up with other ones.
Spring practice begins on Monday and this is Addazio’s most intriguing one because, unlike last year, he’s fully aware of all the moving parts he has on the team.
Last year’s spring was a “get to know” process while this year’s spring is fitting the right round pegs into the round holes and the square ones firmly into the square receptacles.
The results on the field this fall should demonstrate that knowledge for the good of the Owls.
I won the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News “for amusement only” basketball pool last year, but Addazio’s pool is more fascinating to me because he’s bracketing the best athletes into the best slots to help the Owls win in a BCS conference.
And it’s way more important.
This spring’s priorities, in order, as I see it:

Two of these OL guys return to open holes for Matty Rock.

REBUILDING THE OFFENSIVE LINE _  Even though Temple returns only two starters (Sean Boyle and  Martin Wallace), this area is not  as  in bad a shape as some opposing fans think. If I read one more time “Temple loses its entire offensive line” I’m going to go crazy. Temple does NOT lose its entire offensive line. Boyle and Wallace, starters throughout last season, are back. An oft-time starting tight end from two years ago, Alex Jackson, returns. Adam Metz, a Big 33 player from two years ago, is ready to make an impact somewhere only the offensive line. Daz is an offensive line guy and Justin Frye proved himself as a top-notch offensive line coach last year. Still, it should be interesting who emerges in a tight fight for a couple of positions there. Whoever emerges as “Temple TUFF” will earn a starting spot. (On a side note, I’d check with Steve Caputo to see if his knee as improved to playing shape. Nobody was more Temple TUFF than that guy and he still has eligibility left.)

The last time Nate Smith was a feature back: 32 TDs, 2,734 yards
(in one senior year of high school )

GETTING A BACKUP FOR MATTY BROWN _ They don’t come any tougher and more elusive than Matty “Rock” (ice is already taken) Brown, who had over 1,000 combined rushing and receiving yards and six touchdowns last year in part-time duty. Let’s face it, though. He’s 5-5 and 150 pounds. I don’t like the current alternatives. Daz seems set on giving Kenny Harper a chance but he typically does not make a first defender miss and is, at best, a 2-3 ypc back. He was an out-and-out stud, though, as a safety in high school on the other side of the ball. I see Harper as a future NFL player and Jacquaiwn Jarrett clone on the defensive side of the ball.  Jalen Fitzpatrick, while being elusive, is a small “slot receiver” type. On other hand, Nate Smith (currently a fullback) has the entire package. Speed, size, elusiveness, a nose for the end zone. I hope Daz uses this spring to give him an extended look at tailback. If not, hope someone from the gang of three (Brandon Peoples, Jamie Gilmore or Khalif Herbin) transforms from a high school star to a BCS one when they get here in July. Hope is never a good plan, though.
REPLACING ADRIAN ROBINSON _ Arob was the chief pass-rusher, but the Owls should be in good shape there. Sean Daniels showed Arob-type playmaking ability when forced to play extensively in 2010.  Still, Arob had a motor like nobody’s business and installing  that motor in talented bodies like  Daniels’ becomes a priority. It would be nice to collapse the pocket with two guys meeting at the quarterback in every third-down passing situation.

Matt Falcone (15) sprung James Nixon with a great block for 6 on this
KO return in the 2009 season. Falcone is rehabbing his knee now.

REMAKING THE SPECIAL TEAMS _ Brandon McManus, in my mind, is the 2012 most valuable player. He’s the one player TU cannot afford to lose. Even though he was one of the best punters in the countryin 2011, it makes me nervous every time I see an NFL placekicking leg back in punt formation. The nervousness was unfounded last season but I still hope Daz finds a serviceable backup punter. The special teams has a new coach. I hope he does as well as Zack Smith did.
GETTING JUICE UP TO SPEED _ Now that Mike Gerardi is gone, I’d like to see Clinton “Juice” Granger brought up to speed as Chris Coyer’s backup. I’m hoping by the end of the day on April 14, we’ll be saying that Juice is significantly better than Gerardi and I thought Gerardi was serviceable. The best thing Kevin Newsome can do when he arrives is to volunteer to help out the team in any way he can and if that means defense, so be it. Nothing will demonstrate to Daz and the staff that Newsome is a team-first, me-second, guy than volunteering to play defense. If Coyer keeps the job, and I suspect he will, Newsome needs to get on the field in some capacity and he was an all-timer on the defensive side of the ball in high school.
Maybe he can take a few reps at QB each practice just in case Coyer goes down but he’s too good of an athlete to sit on the sideline wearing a headset and holding a clipboard for the 2012 season.
That’ll be determined, though, in July.
There will be enough work to do starting tomorrow.

03.09.12
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Temple TFF: New conference, new look

Temple Football Forever logos through the years.

Occasionally, like maybe once every tailgate, someone will ask me what possessed me to start Temple Football Forever.
Well, as a 30-year season-ticket-holder for Temple football games (there can’t be many of us, right?), along came a president who threatened the very existence of Temple football and, therefore, the way I spent my Saturdays however many years I have left on this earth.
The guy, David Adamany, handpicked a committee to “determine the future of Temple football” in December of 2004 and promised that the committee’s “complete report would be released” after the determination had been made.
That report was never released.
Never.

Our new look.

I’ve never found out why, but I think I have a pretty good idea.
The vote did not go the way Adamany, infamous for killing football at Wayne State, had planned. Nine people voted to continue Temple football. Eight voted against it.
I’d like to think I had a little something to do with that.
Months before the vote I found the addresses of each committee voting member and send them clippings of past Temple football successes on the field, with a cover letter basically stating a university cannot buy that kind of publicity.
I found an ally in the late, great Howard Gittis, who was not a football fan per se but who saw the value of football. He wrote me a nice response saying he would not allow football to die on his watch.
Gittis was Adamany’s boss and he kept his word.
I promised Gittis I’d do my best to drum up support in return.
Without Gittis, Temple does not play in the MAC or  Lincoln Financial Field or even have football today. (Adamany’s famous quote: “I can’t see why playing at Franklin Field isn’t good enough.” Ugh.)
Temple Football Forever was born the day the Owls joined the MAC on May 17, 2005.
I got up from my folding chair at the press conference, turned to my friend Sal the Owl, and we breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing full well the size of the bullet (really, rocket-propelled grenade) we dodged that day.
“Temple football now, Temple football forever,” I said.
So I went home and blogged my first post about that day and had my title.
Wednesday, the Owls made like the Jeffersons  and moved on up  to the (Big) East side and all signs point to them doing it right this time.
Thursday, I added a new logo for the occasion, thanks to my good friend, Owlified. I think it perfectly illustrates the future of a sea of folks wearing Cherry in a packed Lincoln Financial Field in a BCS conference along with how much fun it is to be an Owl football player and a winner in a great sports city like Philadelphia.

03.07.12
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TU football is in the BE to win

*Tentative TUFB schedule:
Villanova
Maryland
@ Penn St
@UConn
Syracuse
Rutgers
@ Louisville
Cincinnati
@ Pitt
South Florida
@ Army
*Need 1 more game

I was somewhat dismayed to read a distinct minority view of Temple football from a former Temple basketball great.
Now that the Owls are officially in the Big East (noon today), you are going to get naysayers from throughout the league but I thought our own people knew better.
The guy, who shall remain nameless but shares the same first name as I do, posted on his Facebook page:
“What if Temple doesn’t make a bowl game for seven years in the Big East?”
“Huh?” I wrote back. “Have you seen a Temple football game in the last three years? Temple’s chances of making a bowl increase, not decrease, in the Big East.”
“I don’t see how you come to that conclusion,” he replied.
Simple.


We are now officially a BCS blog.

 The Big East has more (and better) bowl tie-ins than the MAC and a 6-6 BE team is guaranteed of going to a bowl. An 8-4 MAC team is not guaranteed of a bowl game, as we’re all painfully aware of here.
Then there is the competition element.
Even with Penn State in a “down” year like it was last year, do you see Rutgers or Cincy or Louisville giving the Nittany Lions the kind of game Temple did last year?
No.
Had Temple played Chris Coyer, MVP of the New Mexico Bowl and 5-0 as a Temple starting quarterback, in the PSU game, the Owls win that game by double-digits.
There is no doubt in my mind about that.
The Owls have Coyer for two more years.
West Virginia, which had been the flagship program of the Big East for a long time, struggled to a 37-31 win at Maryland.
Temple went down to Maryland, took a 31-0 lead at the half and coasted to a 38-7 win. Had Steve Addazio not subbed his third-team defense in, Maryland would not have scored on its final drive. Had Addazio not taken three knees inside the Maryland 1 to close out the game, the final score would have been 45-0.
Yeah, 45-0.
That’s the kind of guy Addazio is. He won’t rub it in the noses of a defeated foe (unless that foe is Villanova next year; he gets a pass on that one).
Rutgers and Army fought tooth and nail to a 6-6 tie at halftime before the Scarlet Knights pulled that one out, 27-13. Temple had a 32-14 lead on Army at halftime and won, 42-14. The Owls also took knees deep in Army territory to avoid the half-century mark in that game.
Ask the Army players if Temple is ready for the Big East.
Temple has a national championship SEC coaching group, led by Steve Addazio, who was head coach (that’s right, head coach) at Florida (for three months) and an SEC defensive coordinator in former Florida DC Chuck Heater, who was 11-0 at Utah as a DC and had the Owls ranked only behind Auburn and LSU in scoring defense last year. Both Addazio and Heater were high-level coaches on Florida’s last national championship team.
There’s enough empirical evidence out there to suggest Temple is Big East ready. Ready enough to win a Big East championship right away?
Too early to tell and the answer to that question could depend on a number of factors, including injuries at key positions.
Still, if you don’t think Temple can’t at least compete and win in this league RIGHT NOW, you don’t know football.
Right now is the time to make money off the doubting Thomases and other-named folks who don’t think Temple can make a bowl game out of this league right away.

03.06.12
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The latest on Temple to Big East

Temple’s (reported) Big East Deal:
MAC gets $6 million
Temple gets $2.5 million loan from BE
A10 gets a year’s notice and $1 million
Temple plays 2 hoop games vs. MAC teams and one football game vs. a MAC team (presumably UMass this season)

We’re a little gun shy about posting information on Temple’s possible re-admission to the Big East for football, which seems imminent.
Gun shy, because I believe in the old adage “if it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t.”
Well, Temple’s football team moving to the Big East for the 2012 season seems too good to be true. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
Or doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
I’ll just believe it when I see it.
Tuesday a week ago, I posted that “Temple could be in the Big East tomorrow” meaning Wednesday.
(I meant this Wednesday. Just kidding.)
For what it’s worth, Temple wide receiver C.J. Hammond posted “it’s official” last night on his twitter account. Word must have spread quickly throughout the Edberg-Olsen Complex on Monday that the deal with the MAC was wrapped up.

Woodward and Bernstein have nothing on C.J. Hammond.

Nobody at Temple, not Steve Addazio, not Bill Bradshaw, is saying a word to the press but kids and social media being what they are, word sometimes gets out.
I don’t think C.J. pulled that tweet out of thin air or anywhere else for that matter.
Here’s what it looks like, though, from a number of good sources inside Temple:
The Big East held a straw vote a couple of weeks ago, designed to give Temple the “go-ahead” to get out of its MAC and A10 contracts. The “formal” vote, which is expected to be the same, comes this Wednesday (tomorrow).

It looks like Temple will join the Big East for football in 2012, but delay the Big East admission in basketball until 2013 to save $1 million and to avoid paying a “territory” fee to Villanova.
Temple will pay the MAC a total of $6 million, with $2.5 million to be advanced by the Big East (and made up by Temple in TV  funds later on).
When will the “official” announcement come?
Not soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.
Temple is running out of Wednesdays and tomorrows.

03.02.12
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What, me worry?

What, me worry?
That’s what Alfred E. Neuman used to say in Mad Magazine.
My old high school football coach, John Quinn, noticed me reading Mad Magazine once before a practice and said:
“Mad Magazine? Gibbs, you’re too smart to read that crap.”
(He was the only person ever to call me Gibbs. Most called me Gibby or Mike.)
“Geez, thanks, coach,” I said, “but it’s funny. Err, sometimes.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about Alfred E. Neuman the last couple of  days.
What, me worry?
Well, yeah.

My head tells me not to worry, that this is a no-brainer, but my gut tells me I don’t like this delay.
Why is this taking so long?
If Temple does not join the Big East, it will be Temple’s call, not the Big East’s.
Temple Board of Trustees Chairman Patrick J. O’Connor said as much in an interview on CSNPhilly.com posted on Tuesday.
So I’ll be a lot more hissed off if this doesn’t go through.
Temple would not be discussing all of this buyout stuff if the BE had not given them approval to do so. That said, if Temple backs out now because of a short-term large financial commitment, it will be the biggest athletic mistake the university ever made.
Maybe the biggest overall mistake the university ever made.
You can spend $150 million on a science lab, but that science lab won’t bring the kind of return a $10 million investment on a Bowl Championship Series conference upgrade will.
The BCS train only stops once at Temple U. Station and a wise Owl better be there with the money in hand 10 minutes ahead of time.
The  ACC and Big 10 run on other tracks and the Big East train made this diversion because it needed to pick up some immediate help. It will not come back next year or the year after.
No BCS conference will.
That’s important because the BCS schools will eventually break off from the non-BCS schools, the MACs and CUSAs of the world, and they will be left behind playing something resembling the old Division IAA football.
And no one will care about those teams.
Temple, by joining the Big East, will always have a seat at the BCS table.
Right now, it’s about finding the fare money before getting on the platform. There is one scheduled stop and it’s going to come in hours and days, not weeks and years. That train is not coming back.
Heck, even if you have to borrow it, you know that train is going to take you to a job where you can pay back the benefactor tenfold.
If you miss it, you’ll kick yourself until you are a dead person. A homeless dead person who no one cares about.
So, yes, I’m worried because, as a contributor on this site who goes by the name Temple Os noted so succinctly and perceptively, it should not take the Temple Board of Trustees any longer to facilitate this deal than to say two letters:
O and K.
OK?
OK.

02.29.12
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Just say YES to Big East

If Temple enters the BE, every home hoop game could have this kind of crowd.

Today was supposed to be  D-Day for Temple.
Decision Day. It’s been canceled, but hopefully that’s just to finalize exit contracts for the MAC and the A-10.
The item on the agenda of today’s Board of Trustees conference call  was to be  “a discussion on athletics” but it is really much more than that.
It’s a discussion on the future of the school and its nationwide image.
Temple has two great coaches in place of its two marquee sports programs, Steve Addazio and Fran Dunphy.
If you believe in these guys, and I do, then you know the Temple brand is in good hands.
You know they will make Temple a marquee name not only regionally but across the country.
Nothing would help these guys advance the brand better than a BCS conference affiliation.
As I see it, today’s decision is, to use a sports term, a slam dunk.
Just say yes to the Big East.
I hated the Big East for years because it allowed a small private school to have the power to block Temple. A small private school afraid of competition. Contrast that to Temple, which sponsored a small private school, LaSalle, when it attempted to re-enter the Atlantic 10.  Temple, though, belongs in the Big East, with fellow like-minded Eastern institutions.
I’m on pins and needles waiting for the good news but because I’m a Temple fan I’m  used to bitter disappointment and I realize this could easily go the other way with our teams sentenced a lifetime of mediocrity in the MAC and A10.
In 2010, the Owls were the only 8-4 team in history who beat a BCS conference champion (BE) refused a bowl and that was a bitter day. That day would have never happened if the Owls were 8-4 in the Big East. Heck, the team they beat, UConn, was 8-4 and headed to the Fiesta Bowl.
ESPN basketball analyst Doug Gottlieb said the Owls  moved up to a deserving No. 2 seed in NCAA hoops a couple of years ago but instead got a No. 5 and a game against a 24-1 No. 12. (Gottlieb, by the way, is the best at what he does and should be doing the seeding.)
Another disappointing day.

Then I read an article that will appear in today’s Inky that says Temple should turn down the BE.
Huh?
Turn it down for exactly what?
Are the representatives of the ACC and the Big 10 waiting outside the BOT’s door?
No.
I hope the rest of the BOT doesn’t read or put any credence in that guy’s misguided and misinformed (he didn’t even know it was an all-sports invite) opinion.
On a day the columnists should salute Temple’s persistence, this is what we get?
The official call at 3  p.m. to discuss athletics has been canceled, but there is an executive committee call at 2 p.m. to discuss “contracts.”
Hopefully, that will include getting out of the MAC contract.
Temple is running out of time to get this done and should be operating post-haste.

02.28.12
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Temple could be in the BE tomorrow

O’Connor presides over important call.

Call it a coincidence or symbolism, but on Hump Day of Leap Day of Leap Year, Temple athletics is poised to make a Bob Beamon kind of leap and get over a hump that has seemed to block any progress for almost a decade.
If you don’t remember the Olympic triple-jumper, think former Temple wide receiver Willie Marshall and his 37-inch vertical leap.
Hump Day/Leap Day/Leap Year 2012 could be the biggest day in the history of Temple sports thanks to some visionary leadership provided by Temple University Board of Trustees Chairman Patrick J. O’Connor.
Heck, I’ve always had a soft spot for  O’Connor.
Despite the fact that he graduated from Villanova, the Chairman of the Temple University Board of Trustees is a likeable guy and a loyal Owl. He happens to have the same last name as maiden name of my mother, who passed away on Jan. 14 of last year.
Plus, he’s always proven to be a Temple guy at heart and knows the mission of the school and he’s always moved the school forward and not backward or sideways.
The second reason is why I’m more convinced O’Connor will guide the Board of Trustees in the right direction in the most important conference call in the history of Temple University when they vote on accepting a Big East offer tomorrow.
According to this excellent story by Michael Bradley on CSNPhilly.com, O’Connor said that Steve Addazio and Fran Dunphy are great coaches and deserve a national stage at Temple.
They can’t get that stage in the MAC or A-10.
While we sports fans know you don’t get two better coaches than Daz or Dunph, it is nice to know that the guy at the very top feels the same way.
The Big East isn’t perfect, but in the national college football game of musical chairs, once the music stops the Big East will be able to find a seat at the BCS table.
The MAC won’t.
It’s not personal.
It’s business.
I think by the time a packed house sends the remarkable senior men’s basketball class off at the Temple vs. UMass game (good tickets still available by clicking on the banner above this story but not for long), the day will take on a festive party atmosphere unlike anything at the school since the road hoop win over No. 1 Cincy in 2000 or the hoop win at North Carolina in 1988 that made the school No. 1 in the AP poll for 11 straight weeks.
Still, as big as those days were, hump day this week could be the best-ever because of the implications for the school’s two major teams.
Imagine, if you will, Temple winning the Big East title in 2012. It’s not a dream. Al Golden and Steve Addazio have built the talent level at Temple to compete in the upper tier RIGHT NOW. If all things break right (no Matty Brown injury, for instance), Temple could win this league right away.
Picture the kind of pub Temple would get on a national scale if that happens. No amount of money can buy that kind of advertising.
If the board accepts the Big East invitation, it will be the greatest day in the history of Temple sports and maybe one of the greatest days in university history as well.
I can’t think of another opportunity in any endeavor to promote the Temple brand nationally than this provides. This will have positive implications for the school that goes well beyond the realm of sports.

02.25.12
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The unofficial official announcement

“If this helps my old Temple guys, let’s move the
South Florida game,” Al Golden seems to be saying.

This week was the 50th anniversary of the John Glenn orbital space flight, the first by an American.
I’m too young to remember the TV broadcast of that re-entry, but I do remember the replay of what one of the ground crew guys said to Glenn after he successfully re-entered despite a heat shield that was about to burn up.
“Roger, John Glenn,” the man said, “you’ve got a lot of guys on the ground here about to turn blue.”
Well, I’ve been holding my breath for a few days and I’m about to turn blue waiting for another re-entry: Temple back to the Big East.
So is just about every fan who cares about Temple sports.

“Obviously I think Temple’s a great fit for the Big East. I think clearly we began the process of establishing you can recruit, and there’s so many great things that have occurred at Temple University. I think they’re worthy of taking that next step.”
_ Al Golden,
May 24th, 2011

One of the guys covering Miami (Fla.) football I’ve gotten to know after he asked me questions about Al Golden last fall provided a clue this morning.
“Mike, we had to move our game with South Florida to accomodate a Temple game on the Big East schedule,” the man wrote in an email. “Good news for you guys. Congratulations. Al Golden can’t say anything specific, but I assume he’s happy.”
That’s about as official as it gets these days.
I looked on the internet over the last few hours and a half to get this information “sourced” and the best I could come up with was a report in the Tampa Tribune that confirmed the move and mentioned the Temple talks as a possible reason.
That, combined with calls to the Temple ticket office where the man answered “we’re waiting on the Big East” for the schedule to be finalized indicates to be that Temple and the MAC must have reached a settlement of their $2.5 million exit fee and the two years’ notice.
Those two pieces of the puzzle seem to fit nicely. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to come to a conclusion based on that evidence.
Otherwise, it would not be logical to move games to accomodate a Big East schedule about to be released in a few days.
It’s not the official announcement we’ve all been waiting for, but it will have to do for now.