Why do 100,000 Owl fans see one and two head coaches see another?

Every time I watch Chester Stewart drop back to pass, and I’ve been doing a lot of that over the last four years, I think of the 2001 movie Shallow Hal.
In it, Jack Black can look at a 500-pound woman (played by a guy in a fat suit, presumably) and see only Gweneth Paltrow.
So far, we’ve had two coaching staffs fall in love with Chester.
One, led by Al Golden, was hit over the head during the first quarter of last year’s Bowling Green game after a pick six and pulled Chester in favor of Mike Gerardi.
Stewart never saw the field again in 2010.

The second, led by Steve Addazio, has yet to pull the plug. Maybe if Chester had tossed that pick 6 in the first quarter, the Owls might have recovered to be 4-1 in the MAC East, instead of 3-2.
Bowling Green 13, Temple 10.
What am I missing here?
I’m sure he’s a nice kid with a great personality and might look like a combination of Brett Favre, Randall Cunningham and Tom Brady at the Edberg-Olson Complex for six days of the week, but I feel like Jason Alexander.
I’m not seeing the beauty on game day. I have not for four years.
Alexander played the friend of Jack Black, who spent most of the two hours shrugging his shoulder and trying to knock some sense into him.
When I watch Chester, I see poor mechanics, terrible reads on the option, a penchant for holding onto the ball way too long, no touch on deep throws, blinders for field vision and not a whole lot of mobility. Any quarterback worth his Lee Saltz has to know whether or not he’s behind or in front of the sticks.
Other than that, he’s beautiful.
Now Chester wasn’t the ONLY reason Temple lost on Saturday.
Twelve penalties (to Bowling Green’s two) certainly did not help.
(I thought A LOT of those penalties on Temple were questionable and my suspicions were only re-inforced when Bernard Pierce landed what seemed like five yards into the end zone via the air on his touchdown and the refs placed the ball at the one. Hmm. Wishful officiating, perhaps?)
Still, despite all of that, one cannot underestimate the psychological impact to the defense when the offense constantly goes three and out. That was the 10th-best defense in this year’s MAC they were playing, not the 1985 Chicago Bears.
Moving the sticks on the field is on the quarterback, like it or not.
Fixing the problem and making the hard (or easy) decision off the field in this case is on the head coach.
Otherwise, we could all be seeing ugly.

Last year, I went on a wild goose chase in search of a Temple game that was listed on ESPN Game Plan, Direct TV (Channel 790).
I called a well-known sports, err, TV establishment and they said, “Sure, we have it. C’mon down.”
So I made the 45-minute trip downtown and one of the kids got up on a chair, fiddled with a TV for 15 minutes and said, “Sorry, we don’t have that channel.”
Fox and Hound Center City assures me they will have that channel today.
A guy named Jason Paxson, the managing general partner, emailed me that confirmation yesterday.
For those of you who don’t want to make the trip and are at home, the TV fates of Ole Miss and Temple are interwined today.
If you can get Arkansas and Ole Miss at noon (Direct TV, Channel 790), you will also be able to get Temple at Bowling Green at 3:30. Otherwise, you are stuck watching on computer (ESPN3). I hate watching on computer.

No words necessary in this video, although I wish I had the technical ability to dub in D.J. Khaled’s “All I Do is Win” as background music. Watch the reaction of Matty Brown at the 39-second mark to Vaughn Carraway’s big-time hit. Also love the “not again” comment during Chris Coyer’s touchdown run.

We take a break from all of this Big East talk for a special announcement.
Homecoming Day has finally arrived.
Well, technically, it will be here tomorrow (1 p.m., Lincoln Financial Field) and the occasion provides a “laboratory-type” environment to test a couple of theories.

1. Have the Owls learned anything from the Toledo loss?
2. Will not being on television provide a boost to the attendance figures?

After the Toledo game, several players pointed to the “lackadaisical” attitude that followed the Maryland game, indicating that the Owls were “full of themselves” and that was the reason they got their heads handed to them.
Head coach Steve Addazio alluded to it as well, saying he would create an environment that would insure that he’d had a “pissed-off football team” taking the field at Ball State.

My picks this week:
MAC GAMES (home teams in Caps):
TEMPLE (+21) 24, Buffalo 10 _ Owls have a solid outing, but fail to cover the high number due to the intense 40 mph wind forecast.
Toledo (+7 1/2) 29, BOWLING GREEN 14 _ I realize it’s a rivalry game, but the talent differential is too high and the number too low.
CENTRAL MICHIGAN (+13 1/2) 40, Eastern Michigan 20 _ Central Michigan seems to have gotten its act somewhat together after a big loss to Western Michigan.
Miami (Ohio, +4) 17, KENT STATE 10 _ Better bet is going under the 39 1/2 in this one.
Western Michigan (+1 1/2) 24, NORTHERN ILLINOIS 20 _ When in doubt, go with the better team. Broncos are clearly better this year.
OHIO (+14) 27, Ball State 10 _ Bobcats will be motivated coming off a loss at Buffalo.
Others:
NORTH CAROLINA (+3) 21, Miami (Fla.) 14 _ Phil Steele said he’s picking Miami in this game because it is the “better-coached” team. He must have not attended a Temple game in awhile.
PENN STATE (+12) 40, Purdue 24 _ Is 5-1 Penn State going to win the Big 10. Geez, I hope so for Temple’s sake.
RUTGERS (+4) 31, Navy 17 _ Mids are coming off a 63-35 loss at home to Southern Mississippi. Four points is a bargain.
Last week straight up: 6-2
Last week ATS: 3-5
Season SU: 35-17
Season ATS: 24-24.

That seemed to work.
Hopefully, Addazio duplicated the atmosphere this week.
If he went back to the post-Maryland practice routine, hopefully the Owls don’t produce post-Maryland-type results.
I’ve never understood the word “letdown” as it relates to college football, though. Being a Division I college football player is a 365-day-a-year job. You invest that much time and get three hours a dozen or so times a year to show the fruits of that effort and you can’t bring it 100 percent for that short period of time? Weak.
Since joining the MAC, Temple is 13-4 at home and it is time to re-establish that turf after dropping the last two MAC home games (Toledo this year, Ohio last).
As far as the TV, my theory as it relates to Temple fans is that every time Temple is on local television it costs the uni 5K-10K at the gate. We have a “hardcore” fan base who will show up anytime (like me) but unfortunately we have a much too large “softcore” fan base that is great for TV ratings but is far too lazy to push away the remote, chips and dip and get off the couch and into the car for the short trip to the stadium on TV days. You see this group a lot on days when games aren’t on TV. They are usually heavy-set, big-boned, people you see at the tailgates only once or twice a year (setting themselves apart from us heavy-set, big-boned, people you see every week).
Last year, the Homecoming opponent was Bowling Green, a cellar-dweller at the time, and the Owls drew a solid 23K with no local TV.
Anything less than 25K tomorrow with the game not on TV would be an extreme disappointment.
Anything more would be a pleasant surprise.
I’m going for the over.
Heck, if it’s under 23K, we really don’t deserve to be in the Big East anyway. Our fans will vote with their feet.
No time better than the present for Temple fans to show the Big East specifically and the world in general that this is a market that will support Division IA college football.

This week’s MAC Blogger Roundtable questions come from Let’s Go Rockets, the Toledo blog. His questions are in white, my answers are in yellow.

1.) This far into the season, what has been the single biggest disappointment from your respective team?
The lack of a sophisticated forward passing attack. Owls have had success with the short- and intermediate routes, but have struggled to throw the deep ball after some promising first couple of games in that area.

2.) If the first season to this point was replayed without any injuries or personnel loses to your squad, how different would your team’s position be at this point in the season? Would having everyone healthy and available drastically change where you sit now and the potential for the rest of the season?

I would say no different.  Penn State sold out to stop the run, leaving only a safety in the middle of the field and two corners and bunching the other eight players on the line of scrimmage. Temple’s used two quarterbacks in that game and neither one had a good day. Still, it came to a close spot on a fourth-and-one play that allowed the Nits to win it with 2 minutes left.

3.) We predicted winners in each division and a MAC champion at the start of the season – based on what we’ve seen of the teams now, revise your picks for MAC East, MAC West, and MACC winners.

Toledo and Temple. Either UT or TU will win the overall title. Not enough info at this point to determine that outcome.
4.) Announcements are surfacing this week that the Peace Pipe will be discontinued as the trophy for the victor of the Toledo / BGSU rivalry, but the rivalry will be rebranded the “Battle for I-75” and include a new trophy. Speak about what the loss of tradition and traditional rivalries would mean to your team and whether a trophy/name change, for example, would diminish from the rivalry.
I think a rivalry should be determined by an inadamant object. For example, “The Old Shoe” or the “bucket” or something like that, not by an interstate. Maybe an Ipod. Temple’s rival used to be Rutgers. Owls don’t have a “real” rival now.

5.) Rank ‘em.
Toledo
Western Michigan
Temple
Ohio
Northern Illinois
Bowling Green
Central Michigan
Miami
Ball State
Buffalo
Eastern Michigan
Kent State
Akron