Author Archives: Mike Gibson

04.24.11
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Helmetgate



“After all I did to change the helmet to TEMPLE, Addazio is doing WHAT?”

I could see Al Golden was doing some of the right things way back when he was getting some wrong results.
Nothing made me jump for joy after a 1-11 first season like something in did in the off season after that year.
He ditched the T logo on the helmet for the classic throwback TEMPLE helmet.
It might not mean much to you and some of the other younger TEMPLE fans, but TEMPLE on the helmets meant a lot to me.
“We’re doing it to get back to our brand,” Golden said at the time. “When I was growing up Temple had a lot of  really good, tough, physical, teams and they all had that distinctive Temple on the helmet. We want to get back to those days.”
Those were pretty good days as I recall.
Let’s see.
In the Wayne Hardin days of the TEMPLE helmet, the Owls won 82, lost 50 and tied 1, regularly scared Penn State, beat the crap out of West Virginia (38-16) AT WEST VIRGINIA, beat the crap out of a bowl-bound Syracuse team (49-17), WON a bowl game, beating a PAC-10 team (28-17) … etc., etc.
In the Bruce Arians days of the TEMPLE helmet, the Owls twice won six games (against the 10th, not 119th toughest sked in the country) and had a Heisman Trophy runner up in Paul Palmer. Also, they were 5-0 against MAC teams, beat a bowl-bound MAC team (Toledo) by a 35-6 score and beat Pitt in 3 of 5 seasons.
In the last two years of the Al Golden TEMPLE helmet, the Owls won 17 and lost 8 in consecutive regular seasons.
In the T years, the Owls were largely the biggest joke in college football.
Can you see why I don’t like the T?

Final Poll Results:
Keep it TEMPLE: 53%
Go to the T logo: 46%


Bad Karma.
I know it’s the school logo and all, but put it on the field. Hey, you can even put it on the stripes down pants. The coaches can wear baseball caps with it featured.
Just don’t put it on the helmets.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big a deal but it feels like a big thing to me now.
Tennessee has a T on its helmets. So does Tulane.
TEMPLE was telling people who we are and where we came from.
I liked that distinction. Plus, I think it looks better.
“I talked with a lot our coach Hardin’s guys,” Steve Addazio said his first day on the job, “and I appreciate some of you guys.”
Addazio wouldn’t have appreciated ANY of those guys on Cherry and White Day because, trust me, I talked to them and nobody liked the new helmet.
If he really appreciates those guys, and he should, he would rethink this ill-conceived idea.
If there’s a way to go back to TEMPLE on the helmets, I think that Steve Addazio should find that GPS and right this wrong Karma before it gets too far.
Only one of the T teams did anything worth a damn and that was the Dick Beck-captained 1990 Owls, who won seven games and were screwed out of a bowl after beating Boston College, 29-10, in Boston. Those Owls also beat Wisconsin. At Wisconsin.
If it can’t be done, I won’t like it but I can live with it especially if the Owls can beat the only Big 10 team on their schedule this year.
Then, as one of the ex-Owls alluded on Saturday, he can put a photo of himself on one ear flap and Chuck Heater’s mug on the other for all I care.

04.17.11
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Plenty to like about Daz’s first C&W Day

Steve Addazio said he was sitting out Adrian Robinson and Bernard Pierce because they “had great springs” and quarterback Chris Coyer “was fine” in this video that features iconic SID Al Shrier walking around in the background wearing the worst possible logo on his hat.

You can tell a lot about initial impressions.
I thought about that while walking into the Edberg-Olson Football Complex, oh, about 9:59 a.m. on Saturday morning.
The sound blasting in the background was Ce Lo Green’s hit “Forget You” which featured the cleaned-up version of the original viral hit lyrics.
I thought how nice to dedicate a song to Villanova, the next Owl opponent.
Or, someone said walking next to me, Al Golden.
“Ouch,” I said.
I understood where he was coming from, though.
My school of thought on Al Golden is, simply, this:
There was no man alive who Bill Bradshaw could have hired at the time who could have pulled Temple’s football program out of the quick sand better than Al Golden.
He was the right man for THAT time.
If yesterday showed me anything, Steve Addazio might be the right man for THIS time.
One of the players’ dads might have said it best.
“These guys are big-time SEC coaches,” he said. “Can you imagine these MAC coaches having stuff thrown at them like these guys are going to throw at them? Their heads will be spinning.”
I say might because we won’t know until the real numbers start pouring in from the West Coast precincts, but here are some real numbers I’m looking for this season:
1) A 35-14 (or better) win over Villanova on Sept. 1 (55-3 would be preferable);
2) A 10-2 (or better) record.
If the first number comes in, go to Vegas and place a sheckle or two on the second number coming to fruition.

“These guys are big-time SEC coaches. Can you imagine these MAC coaches having stuff thrown at them like these guys are going to throw at them? Their heads will be spinning.”
_ Temple player’s dad


The first number is important because, for all of Al’s admirable qualities, he couldn’t put away a seven-win FCS team and he lost to a national champion FCS team with a nine-win FBS team. That should not happen.
The second number is important because Golden set the bar high with that nine-win season two years ago and also because Al left Temple a wonderful parting gift:
Players.
Plenty of good ones.
Plenty of returning starters.
Plenty of really good talent he stashed away with a red shirt last year.
Myron Myles was one of them.
He gained 187 yards and caught a 22-yard touchdown pass from Connor Reilly.
Even Michael Doty, the less famous sibling of UConn superstar women’s basketball player Caroline Doty, caught a long touchdown pass.
They didn’t release depth charts but my guess is that Mike wasn’t on the first or second team.
Just a hunch.
There was sooooo much talent on that field yesterday it’s hard to know where to start.
James Nixon is going to be the greatest kickoff returner in America next year. You read that here first.
ERod and AJax will be the best tight end combo in the MAC. It’s not even close. Let’s stretch the field with the spread and watch the seams open up on the inside with dump offs to Eric Rodriguez and Alex Jackson.
I hope they put Nixon back on offense where he can stretch the field out of the spread with Rod Streater and Joe Jones and company.
The difference between Al and Daz as I saw it on the field yesterday was that Daz seems to be able to put these guys in better spots to utilize their talents. I just hope he finds someone else to punt by Sept. 1 because I don’t want to expose my NFL leg to a season-ending injury on a roughing-the-punter play. I want to use him for kickoffs and extra points only. Maybe a couple of field goals.
My friend, Ray, knows more nuts and bolts football than most guys I know.
“It’s hard to tell from a scrimmage,” Ray said. “But I know what I know and this is the most excited I’ve been coming out of a Cherry and White game in years.”
It’s nice to think that on your own, but it’s doubly nice when you can get that kind of validation from several good football sources.
Speaking of whom, Eagles’ coach Andy Reid was there. I thought I saw him over by the food trucks saying this was the greatest campus in America.
Reid sent his son to play for Daz, so that tells you all you need to know about how Andy Reid feels about Daz and being Temple TUFF.
Speaking of Temple TUFF, loved the T-shirts. I walked up to the table, wanted to buy one and the beautiful young lady there said, “Sorry, sir, this is for students only.”
Nice.
I thought this was Alumni Weekend.
On the way out, I saw the classic Temple football helmet being sold. The one with TEMPLE on it.
I thought that might be the last time I ever saw one, so I bought it.
In the parking lot afterward, I ran into some ex-Temple football players holding their tailgate. I told them about the T on the helmet.
Nobody liked it.
Nobody.
Hey, Daz has stepped up to the plate and gotten a hit most times since Dec. 23. He can afford a few swings and misses.
“If we beat Penn State, I don’t care what he puts on it,” I said.
“Hey,” one of the players said, “if we beat Penn State, he can put his picture on the side of the helmet if he wants to …”

04.14.11
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Cherry and White kickoff now at 10 a.m.

… Due to work and other time constraints, Cherry and White report will appear around noon on Sunday … Go Owls …. and go T helmets (that means leave)….

Chester Stewart has drawn high praise from Steve Addazio recently.


Rain coming in earlier than expected (2 p.m.). Kudos to Temple for changing time of kickoff to 10 a.m.

Every so often, people ask me about the Temple gear I rock.
When it comes to Temple, there are few people who represent as well as I do.
Always the Temple hat, always in the gym with the Temple T-shirts and about once a week with my official Penn State game worn Al Golden Sweatshirt, circa 2008.
“Mike, where’d you get that?” someone will ask.
Invariably, with the exception of Al Golden sweatshirt (Patti Hagel in Temple athletics sold that to me), I will tell them four words:
“Cherry and White Day.”
“Sweet,” they’ll say.
Then I always invite them to c’mon down.
You can get more good Temple stuff on the cheap at Cherry and White Day than all of the 364 other days put together.
It’s sold right there.
Last year, I got a sweet cherry-colored Temple-UCLA Official Eagle Bank Bowl T-Shirt for $10.
You can get official game jerseys for $20.
Just bring cash.
That’s my No. 1 priority every Cherry and White Day.
As far as the game itself, call me Allen Iverson.
“We’re talking about practice.”
Any way you slice it, Cherry and White Day is still practice.
A glorified practice, a necessary practice, but still practice.
I go, though, because I enjoy everything about Temple football.
I enjoy talking Temple football to my friends.
I enjoy watching Temple football players.
I enjoy watching how coaches coach.
And I buy Temple stuff because I can’t get it at Kohl’s or Walmart.
So this is the one “practice” I make every year.
Not much to take away from the football end of this endeavor, though.
Last year, Chester Stewart looked like the best quarterback in the program on Cherry and White Day.
On game days in the fall, not so much.
I had enough of Chester Stewart, probably forever, after a putrid performance at Penn State when he threw three interceptions that, if I didn’t know any better, I could swear he thought those PSU guys were wearing White jerseys and not Blue ones.
It took Al Golden a little longer to reach his tolerance level.
Too long.

Adam DiMichele was an OK practice quarterback who lived for a pass rush. I never saw a kid duck out of one so courageously and make positive plays after positive plays in the middle of a tornado like DiMichele did. The damn kid was freaking Houdini


Once he did, though, the Owls got back on track, survived a huge scare against Bowling Green and then beat Buffalo (42-0) and Kent State (28-10) largely due to poised, if not spectacular, performances from Mike Gerardi.
This year, who the bleep knows?
Mike McGann was a great practice quarterback who crumbled under a pass rush. Ditto for Vaughn Charlton and, IMHO, Stewart.
To be a great quarterback in college football these days, the pass rush must not fluster you. Bother, yes. Fluster, no.
Adam DiMichele was an OK practice quarterback who lived for a pass rush. I never saw a kid duck out of one so courageously and make positive plays after positive plays in the middle of a  tornado like DiMichele did. The damn kid was freaking Houdini. The more clutch the situation, the more clutch the play. How about the game-winning touchdown pass to Steve Manieri in the rain against Ohio on national TV? Or the should-have-been game-winning drive at Buffalo with 38 seconds left? Or the six touchdown passes against Eastern Michigan?
Will I get to see the next Adam DiMichele on Saturday?
Probably not.
We’ll have to wait until Villanova.
Hopefully, Steve Addazio and Scot Loeffler will pick the right guy.
Al Golden did a great job in just about every area of his tenure but in picking a quarterback post-DiMichele he was a huge failure. His whole offensive scheme was out of whack without DiMichele.
Addazio needs to get this right.
He needs to find someone with the “it” factor. Addazio talked about the quarterback “it” factor his first day on the job here. Al Golden never talked about the it factor.
Addazio gets the it factor.
Other than that, I want to see a pass rush and a good offensive line. The schools that win championships in college football are the ones who protect their quarterback and who put the other guy’s quarterback on his ass.
I want to see someone help my main man, Adrian Robinson, collapse the pocket. Maybe it will be Highland’s Sean Daniels, who I have high hopes for, or maybe it will be North Catholic’s Paulhill or maybe it will be Neumann-Goretti’s Kadeem Custis.
I’ve got an idea.
How about everybody just meet at the quarterback?
Most of all, let’s get out a this scrimmage healthy and I’m talking about my favorite future Heisman Trophy winning Owl, specifically.
It is, after all, only practice.

04.12.11
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Villanova rejection: The gift that keeps on giving

I guess this is what Villanova fans look like to Villanova revisionists.

Full disclosure.
I like Villanova football.
I always have.
It was pretty much been my second-favorite college team from the time I was, oh, about 10 until just about two years ago when the Mayor’s Cup series started.
I still (secretly) root for Villanova when it plays anyone but Temple only because Villanova wins make Temple look good, especially last year when Temple won the game.
Andy Talley is one of my favorite coaches of all time. As great a coach as Andy Talley is (and he is a great coach), he’s an even better person.
But I’ve had it up to here (I’m holding one hand way over my head while typing with the other) with Villanova fans.
And because of them, with Villanova football itself.
There’s some delicious irony in this story in that Villanova blocked Temple from full all-sports admission to the Big East in 1991 and, 20 years later, Temple’s ironclad 15-year lease to Lincoln Financial Field is blocking Villanova football from admission to that same conference.
It’s a beautiful thing.
That’s why I’m not weeping for Villanova today.
They were, as Walt Frazier says in the Just For Men commercial:
REE-JECT-TED.
The Big East courted them the last few months like a girl who looks good 40 yards away.
In college, we’d call them 40-yarders.
The closer they got, the uglier they looked.
As you walked closer with two drinks in hand (one to offer her), you would veer off at the last second.

There’s some delicious irony in this story in that Villanova blocked Temple from full all-sports admission to the Big East in 1991 and, 20 years later, Temple’s ironclad 15-year lease to Lincoln Financial Field is blocking Villanova football from admission to that same conference.


“Mike, that’s a dude,” my friend would say.
“Not a dude, but not as pretty as I thought she looked.”
Then we’d both veer away, drinks in hand.
Any way you slice it, that’s pretty much what the Big East football members did to Villanova on Sunday.
For Big East courting purposes, if Villanova isn’t a dude, it’s one butt-ugly girl.
No stadium.
No fans.
No hope of getting a stadium. (Temple has an ironclad exclusivity clause in its lease on Lincoln Financial Field through the 2018 season and probably well beyond that.)
No hope of getting fans.
It’s over.
Villanova is not going to the Big East for football, no matter how its Board of Trustees votes.
If it ever does vote.
Heck, the Villanova fanbase makes Temple look like Penn State by comparison.
The Mayor’s Cup figures show it.
By most objective estimates, Temple had 22K of the 27K fans for the first Mayor’s Cup.
Temple had about 25-28K of the 32K last year, maybe more.
Yet you have some crazy revisonist Villanova fans saying it was more of a 60-40 split in favor of Temple. It was, if Villanova fans were wearing Temple sweatshirts and hats and painted in Cherry and White and filling both sides of the lower bowl of the stadium.

Eigthy/20 if anything.
It’s important because if one thing Al Golden accomplished in five years, it was to make Temple Philadelphia’s No. 1 college football team in terms of interest.
Temple not only proved that in two meetings with Villanova on the field of play, it proved that in the TV ratings when the Temple-UCLA bowl numbers showed it was the highest rated bowl game on ESPN in the Philly market since the 2007 Alamo Bowl that featured Penn State.
Temple delivers hard numbers in football.
It is also the best option for delivering the nation’s fourth-largest TV market.
Those numbers only figure to get better as a team that has won 17 games over the last two years returning 14 starters is handed over to a battle-tested national championship level SEC staff.
If I was Temple, I would take that fourth-largest market and deliver it to Conference USA tomorrow. The Big East doesn’t figure to come calling and Temple should act in its own best interests if it doesn’t.
Villanova?
All I heard about was how it was “a lock” for the Big East for the past few weeks. Done deal, they said.
Done deal.
Yeah, I guess it is.
I’m enjoying seeing a lot of people wearing blue wipe egg off their faces.
Almost as much as I’m looking forward to the epic level beatdown that now becomes mandatory for Steve Addazio and company on Sept. 1.

04.06.11
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Red flags and green flags for the Owls




The Owls probably won’t even need Matt Falcone (15) to punt because they
will  be scoring touchdowns on every possession like depicted here. Still,
it would be nice to save Brandon McManus strictly for the 157 extra points
he will need to kick in the 2011 season.

Follow Temple football for 30-plus years, like I have, and you might have seen a lot of red flags along the way.
A red flag, by my definition, is one thing that leads a person to believe that the outcome of a particular endeavor probably won’t be desirable.
I saw a red flag in Temple’s hiring of Jerry Berndt, for example. How could Temple hire a guy to coach one group of Owls when he was coming off an 0-11 season coaching another group of Owls (Rice)?
I saw a red flag in the hiring of Ron Dickerson. Joe Paterno called him the best assistant coach in the country. If so, how come Dickerson, as defensive coordinator at Clemson, gave up 55 points in his last game?
Bobby Wallace? Don’t get me started. How do you expect a guy who has no East Coast roots to coach an East Coast team?

This is the only red flag I care about.

Red flags all.
Big red flags.
I’ve met Steve Addazio.
I like Steve Addazio.
Spring practice, by all accounts, is going very well.
That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have to jump over some red flags to earn my trust or really the trust of every Temple fan.
I’m willing to overlook the one red flag that every Florida fan seems to hate the guy because, in my mind, the buck stops with a head coach and he hasn’t been a head coach since Cheshire, Conn. If Addazio has any Florida sins, they were forgiven because no less a football expert than Urban Meyer saw fit to forgive them.
Still, I have some concerns.
I have not heard yet that there is a plan for a reliable, explosive, backup to Bernard Pierce. Maybe there will be. Geez, I hope so.  I don’t see a kid with close to Pierce-like talent in the program and that includes Matty Brown. Maybe when Nate Smith gets settled he will be but we don’t even know if he will  play running back.
No Pierce-like backup in sight so far. That’s a red flag.
Having Brandon McManus punt?
Not a big deal to Steve Addazio.
It’s a big deal to me.
I don’t want that valuable leg exposed to twice the injury risk so, by Villanova, I hope I see Matty Falcone punting (I know he’s injured now). Falcone was a first-team all-state punter at Palmerton High. Falcone was a special teams’ star for the Owls in the 2009 season, who missed all last year with a leg injury. Hopefully, he’ll get to kick some by July. If Matty can’t do it, somebody can. I find it hard to believe that in a school of 37,000 full-time students (OK, 18,000 boys) you can’t find a kid who can punt a football dependably.
Other than that, more green flags so far.
According to a few of the players I’ve spoken to, to a man they say “Addazio has us working twice, maybe three times, as hard as Golden did.”
Not one kid complained about it, either, saying that the extra conditioning will pay off in November and December.
Maybe even January.

Cherry and White game, 2:30 p.m., April 16



Practices are superbly organized and everyone seems ultra impressed with the way offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler and defensive coordinator Chuck Heater go about their business.
Loeffler is a professional at moving the ball and scoring touchdowns and Heater is the same way about stopping the ball and going the other way with it.
Addazio seems to be respected and hands-on, but not a micro manager like the last guy was.
That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
Being a big-time college coach requires wearing too many hats to be a micro manager. You’ve got to hire great people and give them shared responsibility.
Addazio seems to have done that.
If all we have to worry about are backups at punter and running back, I’ll take it.
For now.

04.01.11
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Addazio’s first 5-star recruit: Urban Meyer

Steve Addazio and Urban Meyer: Reunited and it feels so good.

When Steve Addazio got the head coaching job at Temple, I was one of the first to post my reservations. I wanted someone who had been a head coach somewhere else before Temple, not someone who had to learn on the job.

The next day I got an email from a search committee member who shall remain nameless.

“Mike, this guy is a dynamo, you are going to love him,” the person wrote. “After he spoke, we all were sitting there in the room with our mouths wide open. Mark my words. As surely as he sold us, he’s going to sell 5-star recruits into coming to Temple.”

Well, signing day came and went and there were no 5-stars in sight.

Yesterday, though, that all changed when Addazio announced former Florida head coach Urban Meyer was going to join Temple’s staff in an as yet-to-be-determined capacity. He’s Addazio’s first five-star recruit.

“Urban and I are best friends,” Addazio said. “I kid him. He kids me. After I hired Chuck (Heater, defensive coordinator) and Scot Loeffler (offensive coordinator), I said, ‘Let’s make this an all-Gator staff. Why don’t you join me?’

“He just laughed. A couple of weeks ago he asked how he could help. He’ll be living in New York in the fall but ESPN needs him only on Friday and Saturday. He said he’d be free to help us at least three days a week.

“I’d be nuts not to take him up on it, so he’s going to come down to Philly and work with us three days a week.”

“He’ll be living in New York in the fall but ESPN needs him only on Friday and Saturday. He said he’d be free to help us at least three days a week.”

Someone asked Addazio what Meyer’s title could be.

“I don’t want to call him an assistant coach,” Addazio said. “That wouldn’t seem quite right.

“We thought about a title like ‘Quality Control Specialist’ and that sounds like he’s working for General Electric. We’re a football team, not a company, so I rejected that. Then someone mentioned ‘Czar of Football Operations’ and I thought that sounded old world and I rejected that.

“Maybe we should open up a title contest for the fans. We’ll figure it out. When I mentioned the idea of a contest to Scott (Walcoff) in promotions, he said sure. He also asked what I thought of changing the name of Oscar Meyer Dollar Dog Day to Urban Meyer Weiner Day. I said I’d have to think about that one.”

Already, Addazio knows how a typical Urban Meyer Day at Temple will go.

“He’s going to get off the train at 10th and Diamond and two Temple police officers are going to greet him there and walk him down the steps to the complex.

“He’s going to stop at (secretary) Nadia Harvin’s desk and she’s going to give him a pen and a yellow legal pad and Urban is going to have the run of the place, making notes and suggestions. At the end of the day, he’s going to leave the yellow pad on my desk and I’m going to follow through.”

Addazio broke out into a broad smile.

“I had to run this idea past (athletic director) Bill (Bradshaw) and he just loved it,” Addazio said. “Bill said something really profound. He said that every time Meyer said something on ESPN on Saturdays, it would say Temple such-and-such coach Urban Meyer right there on the screen.

“He said you can’t buy that kind of publicity, that it opens the door for Temple to every five-star recruit in the country.”

Just then I woke up and realized everything Steve Addazio just said was in a dream.

Happy April Fool’s Day everybody.

Also worth reading:
Big 10 shows renewed interest in Temple

03.28.11
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NFL lockout would not be a bad thing for "Philadelphia State"

Do you see any families in this photo? I didn’t think so.

There’s not a lot of empirical evidence out there to suggest that a prolonged NFL lockout would help Temple football.
Logically, though, it could not hurt.
First of all, Temple football would be the only game in town and that’s a “good thing, not a bad thing” to use an offhand reference by Bill Parcells.
The NFL had strikes in 1982 and 1987 and, while attendance seemed to increase at Temple home games in both those years, it was 3-4 thousand per home game, not a noticeable 10-15.
I thought about this NFL labor dispute while watching the Owls’ hoop team play San Diego State recently.
Why San Diego State?
Because I thought one of the main reasons why Temple football never captured the imagination of the “Joe Philadelphia” fan was the name Temple.
Let’s face it. Temple has been trying for years to court “families” as part of the fan base.
They haven’t responded. Temple needs to get Temple people to the games and that’s students and mostly adult male alumni. It would also help to convince Eagles’ fans to start liking the other birds in town.
We don’t need no stinkin’ families (I’m not referring to the families of Temple football players who, of course, are the greatest).
In my 30 years of following Temple football, I observed no more than five families who had no connection to players attending a game. Yet Temple promotions spends more damn money going after that group than all the other groups put together.

“While we have all come to love the name Temple,
the name Philadelphia University
would be a truer reflection of 
the school.” _ Dr. Peter J. Liacouras

So, as Celo Green says, forget them.
Temple needs to get the “hard-core” beer-drinking, “700-level” fan, the Joe Philadelphia Guy. That’s a base that has yet to be, err, tapped. That’s a rowdy base, but think of the home field advantage the Owls could have.
Even though Temple is every bit Philadelphia’s school as Pitt is Pittsburgh’s school, I thought Pitt always had inroads to a blue-collar fan base in Pittsburgh that identified with the town. Pitt has plenty more “Joe Pittsburghs” in the stands rooting for the university than Philly has “Joe Philadelphians.”
It has a lot to do with the name.
Temple president Dr. Peter J. Liacouras alluded to such in the 1980s when he suggested the school should “consider” changing its name to Philadelphia University.
“While we all have come to love the name Temple, the name Philadelphia University would be a truer reflection of the school,” Liacouras told the Rotary Club one day at the Union League.
I was there as a guest of a Rotarian and heard the speech. I walked up to Pete and told him it was a great idea.
It was never realized because a school named The Philadelphia  College of Textiles and Science adopted the name a decade later.
Damn.

Liacouras was the one guy who could have pushed through a name change and he never followed up on his own terrific idea.
A lost opportunity.
Maybe not.
“San Diego State?” I said out loud while watching the Owls play. “San Diego isn’t a state.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the guy next to me said. “San Diego University was taken. They took the next name available.”
Philadelphia State University.
I like it.
Even though you might not now, you would get used to it, too, and it couldn’t hurt attendance.
They could even keep the nickname of Owls.
Changing the name of this blog to “Philadelphia State University Football Forever” might take some getting used to, though.

03.23.11
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Practice? Yeah, we’re talking about practice

There’s a saying in the deep south about the three biggest sports seasons being college football No. 1, NASCAR No. 2 and college football spring practice No. 3.
I have no doubt that’s true in places like Alabama and Georgia and, maybe, Florida.
Baseball and basketball have yet to make inroads into that Holy Trinity.
Up here, not so much.
I doubt very many people in Philadelphia realize Temple football spring practice officially begins today.

I do.
Now you do, too.

Somebody please find that sheet and burn it once and for all.

I say officially because being a big-time college football player in today’s world is really a 365-day-a-year job.
Steve Addazio, the new Temple football coach, will talk to the media after practice today.
Expect him to talk intangibles, rather than X’s and O’s.
He’ll talk about developing a toughness, a work ethic, a pride, all of those things that Al Golden pretty much took care of in his four years.
Truth be told, he’s got no choice.
His starting quarterback (Clinton Granger, maybe) is not here yet, nor are we totally 100 percent sure he will be. (For the record, I think he will.)
So is the quarterback “competition” really that much of a story now?
I don’t think so.
My storyline this spring revolves not around the quarterback position so much as the running back position.
I’ve said this until I’m blue in the face and, trust me, I’m blue in the face:
TEMPLE NEEDS TO DEVELOP A VIABLE BACKUP TO BERNARD PIERCE SHOULD BERNARD PIERCE GO DOWN.
This was true last year.

Temple fans know this sequence all too well (thanks, Owlified)

It is even more true this year.
Look, the preferable route is to pray to God that Bernard stays healthy for 13 games and puts up the kinds of numbers I know deep down in my heart he can: 2,000 yards, 20 touchdowns, more importantly, leading to a 12-1 (or better) record.
I know he can do it.
I also know that it’s never smart to put all your eggs in one basket, especially this close to Easter.
Quite frankly, if the last two games proved anything last season, Matt Brown wasn’t a viable backup to Bernard Pierce. His tank ran on fumes the final two games and the Temple offense sputtered and grinded to a halt as result. Hopefully, Addazio will utilize Brown for what he is: The Best Third Down Back in the MAC, not Pierce’s backup. That way, he’ll be fresh for the final two games and can do some damage teamed with Pierce on third-down situations.
I’m more interested in developing a backup to Pierce  with what Addazio calls “explosives” than a quarterback. Note Addazio uses the word “explosives” and not explosiveness. Pierce has what I would call H-Bomb type explosives. We have no A-Bomb to back him up.
I don’t think there’s a talent in the program even close right now.
Does Myron Ross have explosives? Does Ahkeem Smith have explosives? Does incoming recruit Spencer Reid have explosives?
Based on what they’ve done so far (high school and limited college), I have serious doubts about all three.
I know incoming recruit Nate Smith has explosives, but they have him listed as a linebacker. I hope they think outside the box and make him a running back again. At least for this year.
So the challenge this spring is finding that “other” Bernard Pierce  egg and, in the process, destroying that playbook or whatever Matt Rhule called it.
My good friend, Dave Gerson, wrote appropriately that Temple, post-BP, had five plays in its offensive arsenal and kept calling the five plays in sequence over and over again. He said it with a hint of tongue-in-cheek but, to Temple fans, there was a lot of a sad truth to the critique.
I have a lot of confidence that new offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler is going to bring a different approach to moving the football and I’m excited to see what it will be.
Addazio said his offensive philosophy will be tailored to Temple’s personnel so, if that’s true, this is what I want to see:
Hand the ball left, right and up the middle to Pierce behind a 320-pound offensive line. Create so much fear in the running game that play-action off it results in receivers running free through opposing secondaries and the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard being turned into an adding machine.
It’s a simple but time-tested philosophy but you have to have a great running back to execute it.
Temple’s got at least one of those.
The trick this spring is to find some more of that dynamite.

03.19.11
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Temple: The power of the ‘stache

Hopefully, some of coach Dunphy’s lucky ‘stache will rub off on coach Addazio.

I’ll be the first to admit that my favorite sport is football followed by baseball.
Basketball has always been a distant third.
Not these last couple of weeks, though.
I’ll also admit that I’ve been caught up in this run by the Temple men’s basketball Owls because of the prestige this brings our great university and because I got to know a few of the kids on the basketball team and met coach Fran Dunphy, who I’ve always admired.
I admire him not just because he’s a winner but you know he loves Temple. You know there’s no question he’s here to stay. I could never say the same about the football coach who preceded Addazio.
Heck, I don’t know if I can say that about Addazio yet.
Meet coach Dunphy just once and he will make you feel like the most important person in the room.
I often see coach Dunphy in the hallways at Lincoln Financial Field and always say “Hi Fran.”
He doesn’t know me from Adam but he always stops and says, “How ‘ya feelin’? All right?”
I talked to other Temple fans and they tell me they’ve had a similar experience.
I don’t know if coach Addazio is the football version of coach Dunphy but, geez, I hope he is.
If coach Addazio can do what coach Dunphy has done, three league championships in his first three years, then he will match what coach Dunphy has done from a regular-season perspective.
If coach Addazio can win three league championships in his first three years and then win the bowl game in the fourth, then his postseason will have matched what coach Dunphy did on Thursday.
Winning a first-round NCAA game is very much the equivalent of winning a bowl game, especially the kinds of bowls MAC teams are sent to.
I love the way the two interact in the above video, which has a corny premise but both took in good humor.
Whatever happens now for the hoops’ squad is gravy, but I like gravy.
Hopefully, Addazio will serve up delicious mashed MAC potatoes with the same kind of gravy on top.
Good luck, Fran.
Good luck, Steve.
Hopefully, Temple basketball will still be playing on a national stage when the football team opens up spring practice in four days.

03.12.11
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Boardwalk Bowl: Site of some great Owl wins

An actual photo from the 1984 Temple football win in A.C.

Today and tomorrow, some 10,550 fans are going to be packed into Boardwalk Hall, otherwise known as the Atlantic City Convention Center, to watch (hopefully) a couple of great Owl wins.
There’s no secret to Temple’s success there.
Mix in about 9,000 rabid Temple fans with some great coaching and you have three straight A-10 basketball titles.
Hopefully, that will be a fourth by Sunday.
Yet Temple football once held the spotlight there, too.
I was last there in the Orwellian Year of 1984 to watch Temple play an out-of-this-world football game.
That year, the Owls posted a great football win before a big and enthusiastic Temple following. It beat MAC champion Toledo (8-1-1 at the time) like a drum, 35-6.
Toledo went off to the California Bowl after that and Temple went home with a 6-5 record against the 10th toughest schedule in the country.
Atlantic City: Temple’s home away from home.