Frank Piraino

 There’s this Planet Fitness commercial going around these days with a muscle-bound guy with a German accent getting a tour of the gym and repeating (apparently) the only English words he knows:
“I like to lift things up and put them down.”
The tour guide then shows him the door.
I used to look at strength coaches pretty much the same way until I met Dr. Linc Gotschalk, Bruce Arians’ guy at Temple.
Gotschalk had strength and the art of weightlifting down to a science long before his time. He could quote Shakespere and military history. A smart guy who had his Temple teams fit.
When Temple played Rutgers, for instance, Temple guys would hit the RU guys and they would routinely be carried off the field.
The same wouldn’t happen to Temple guys, who bounced off similar hits.
Linc Gotschalk would just smile.
He was one of a kind and Bruce Arians’ guy. Temple won 15 national powerlifting championships under Gotschalk, who is now at  Hawaii.
Strength coaches and football coaches have a similar bond.
Tony Decker was a good guy, but he wasn’t Steve Addazio’s guy.
Addazio has made two hires so far, Frank Piraino as his strength coach and Justin Frye as his offensive line coach. All I know about Frye is that he was a grad assistant at Florida. Geez, I’d like a guy with a little more than GA experience coaching my offensive line, but Addazio was the best offensive line coach Florida ever had so he might know a little more than I do about this.
I don’t know Jack (or Frye or Piraino) about both, but I know they are both Addazio’s guys and that’s important.
I’m hoping for Chuck Heater to be my defensive coordinator and maybe Ralph Friedgen or George DeLeone as my OC so maybe I’ll  have something to be more to be excited about in the next few days. But more than me being excited as a fan, they have got to be guys Addazio is comfortable with and loyal to him.
To succeed, you have to have your team in place.
It’s OK to borrow a player or two from another guy’s team (say Matt Rhule from Golden’s team to be LB coach), but it’s got to be largely your guys.
We’ll be getting more Addazio guys in here over the next few days.
Then it’s time to rock and roll.

Coach Daz takes his sunny disposition of positive attitude here today.

A sportswriter I know, who is the best at covering high school sports maybe in the country, has this habit of talking to himself.
Or at least I thought it was to himself.
He has one of those little machines, not quite a tape-recorder, but the functionality of which is to make those little mental notes to yourself permanent.
I haven’t gone that far but, for the past few years at least, I’ve become a list-maker.
I carry a little book around in my pocket and, when I have to remember something, I write it down.
The Steve Addazio Era Begins today at Temple and I hope he’s making his list and checking it twice.
Who knows what’s on it?
One the plane ride up today, Addazio is probably making this list:

Chuck Heater: Just call him Mother (Teresa)

1) Hire an offensive and defensive coordinator _ Florida defensive coordinator Chuck Heater is available and would be a great get for Addazio and Temple. All indications are that he will get the job as early as Monday. Heater has been such a miracle worker with Urban Meyer defenses in several stops along the way that Meyer calls him “Mother Teresa.” Ralph Friedgen of nearby Maryland is available for the OC job. He’s getting paid by Maryland even if he takes the Temple job (via buyout) and can be sold on giving Maryland some serious payback in a game between the Owls and Terps in Sept. A guy who was fired after being named ACC coach of the year can’t be too happy with Maryland right now. If he’s not interested, former Addazio coaching mate George DeLeone probably would be. These guys (Addazio and Heater at least)  are national championship-caliber coaches. Imagine Temple being run by offensive and defensive coordinators with national championship experience at the highest level? It can’t get any better than that.
2) Talk Muhammad Wilkerson out of going pro _ This could be tougher because it appears Big Mo had his heart set on going pro a few weeks ago. Bad move for Big Mo because his stock could go up significantly with another year at Temple and he’s likely to be no higher than a third-round pick this year. That’s not guaranteed money. In fact, there’s no guarantee that there will even be an NFL next year due to the messy contract negotiations ahead and the possibility (probability?) of a walkout. Give Big Mo the Vitamin A and Destination Temple speech. Getting Big Mo to stay here would be like landing a five-star recruit.
3) Lock up the current Temple recruits. If a current Gator recruit is wavering, convince him to get on the plane for the Destination Temple ride up north.
4) Investigate getting a blue-chipper, like Quinton Alston, a linebacker from South Jersey, who has de-committed from Pitt and now is open. I talked to Alston’s coach two years ago about a running back named Najeem Gibson. He told me to forget Gibson but that he had a “stud linebacker, a big-time linebacker” who “loves Temple.” That big-time linebacker was Quinton Alston. Give him the Destination Temple speech. Shake the bushes for similar guys, guys with BCS-level talent. That’s how to make Temple the TCU of the East. Get BCS-level talent.
5) Look into keeping a member or two of the current staff, like tight ends coach/recruiting coordinator Ed Foley, to ease the transition. Foley is a good guy, a consummate professional, who is easy to get along with, the fans like and who would be a positive part of the new team. He knows the Temple ropes and the current Temple targets.
6) Keep the support staff, like video coordinator Fran Duffy (not to be confused with Temple basketball coach Fran Dunphy) _ Al Golden said “there is no better video coordinator in the business” than Fran Duffy. I totally agree with Al Golden on this. In fact, anyone who has watched  the pre-game and the banquet videos produced and shot by Duffy has to agree.
That’s just part of the list.
Crossing items off that list will be tasks for the days and weeks ahead.

TFF’s winning Mega Millions numbers:
Tuesday’s Mega Millions is an estimated $290 million.
If these numbers (11, 6, 30, 12, 13, megaplier No. 9) come up, I win, and Temple gets a fully-paid-for
no-frills, 46K-seat, football-only (meaning the fans are right on top of the field, no track surrounding it) stadium to be called, simply, Temple Stadium.
11 _Big East Player of the Year Walter Washington
for the 2004 Owls. Despite getting kicked out of the BE, the voters could not deny Temple had the best offensive player in the league.
6 _ Paul Palmer, 1986 Heisman Trophy runnerup. You finish second in the Heisman Trophy balloting playing for Temple and that’s got to be a lucky number.
30_Bernard Pierce, the 2011 Heisman Trophy winner (I hope). He’s got that kind of talent. He’s faster than Palmer, just as shifty, and can knock over D-backs and LBs better than Boo-Boo ever did. What he hasn’t been able do to as well as Boo-Boo is stay on the field. All he has to do is that, get 20TDs and 2,000 yards and lead Temple to an 11-1 record or better and the Heisman is his. (Also a tribute to 1979 Garden State Bowl MVP Mark Bright, another No. 30.)
12_Brian Broomell, led the nation in passing efficiency in 1979.
13_Adam DiMichele, heck with the stats, the kid was tough as nails and a winner. Probably my favorite Temple quarterback of all time.
…. and the winning Megaplier goes to No. 9, Steve Joachim, the only Temple quarterback to win a major award as college football player of the year (Maxwell, 1974).
There you have it. If those numbers come up, I will walk away with $290 million. (Unless you play them and it’ll be half that and the best I’ll be able to do is a 23K stadium.)

I think Steve Addazio will be more loyal to our kids than Al Golden.

Something Steve Addazio said at this morning’s press conference really grabbed me and gave me better insight into the person he is.
It had nothing to do with Temple and everything to do with Steve Addazio the person.
He mentioned Florida.
In a 40-minute press conference when he was introduced as the new head coach at the University of Miami, Al Golden did not mention Temple once.
That snub by Golden really gored my goat.
Heck, if I was Golden I might have said:
“I want to thank Bernard Pierce,who gave me my two biggest wins, against UConn and Navy, and I want  to thank Adam DiMichele, without whom I would not have won nine games in my second and third seasons. Most of all, I want to thank my Temple kids.”
The first part of that would have been true and the second part of that would have been nice. That he said neither gave you a glimpse into Al Golden the man.

I always thought Al Golden looked after Al Golden first and Temple a distant second.
There is no doubt in my mind that if the Owls would have been fortunate enough to play in the New Orleans Bowl, Golden would have already flown the coup and taken half the staff with him before the bowl game and left the Owls with Matt Rhule and two grad assistants coaching against Troy.
No doubt whatsoever.
I like Steve Addazio The Man better.
Can Steve coach?
We won’t find out until the Villanova game nine months from now.
Temple returns 14 starters from a team that beat a BCS league chanpion and won eight games. Villanova loses 16 starters from an FCS team that lost six games.
If Temple doesn’t hammer the living shit (excuse my French) out of Villanova, Addazio can’t coach worth a damn. If Temple wins, 35-14, he’s a good coach.
If Temple wins, 55-3, he’s a great coach.
I’m hoping for greatness.
He already earned my respect as a man on Thursday with some casual offhand remarks he made about his Florida kids.
Addazio mentioned Florida a few times which was, to me, a good thing and bodes well for his future loyalty to Temple.
That tugged me at the heartstrings.
He mentioned the opportunity Urban Meyer gave him to run the program and thanked him for it.
Most of all, he mentioned the special bond he had with his players that dicates he coach them one more time in the Outback Bowl.
“I’m getting ready for a bowl game,” Addazio said. “I’ve got a bunch of players anxious to get started and I owe that to them and to the University of Florida to be there with them.”
Could you imagine Al Golden saying the same thing about his Temple players and coaching them in a bowl game after he got the job at Miami?
I didn’t think you could.

If Steve Addazio puts a 55-3 (or even 35-14) beatdown on Villanova, he becomes my new favorite head coach in a hurry.

This has never been a site that says everything we do is just peachy and let’s get behind the coach because he’s our guy, like a lot of college football blogs.

I’ve told it like it was since Day One five years ago.
Or at least the way I saw it was.
Five years ago, I thought Al Golden’s hiring was a good thing for the program and I wrote about it here.
I never said Al was perfect, but I did predict he would turn things around at Temple.
I trusted him with my team.
That was a bold prediction at the time when many people said this was an impossible job, but I went ahead and did it because everything I had read and heard about Al Golden until that point was positive. I have read a lot of about Steve Addazio in the last three days and I would say about 99 percent of it has been negative and this piece by a great writer named Dave Jones is just a small sample.
That doesn’t mean Al Golden was immune from criticism in this forum along the way.
I’ve criticized Al Golden a few times (the Navy fumble comes to mind).
I’ve criticized Al Golden’s grasp of quarterback recruiting.
Overall, though, I maintained that Al was the right guy to lead the only team I really go crazy over.
As much as I’d like to say the same thing about Steve Addazio,  I can’t because it comes with all of the red flags associated with bad Temple football hirings in the past.
With the talent in place to win now, this was a time Temple should have hired a head coach and not take a chance with an assistant coach. The best predictor of future success is past success and there is really no way to predict how Addazio will do as a head coach because his record as such is 0-0.
That would not have been the case if Temple went after a proven winning head coach, like former USF head coach Jim Leavitt (to use just one example) who was 94-37 in his prior job.
I don’t have children, so Temple football is like a child to me.
Coaches come and go, players come and go, players’ parents come and go, but Temple football and me and fans like me are always here _ and I’ll always love it because it’s my kid.
If you see your kid playing on the train tracks and there’s a locomotive coming, you don’t say, “Geez, I hope everything turns out OK for my kid.”
You yell for the kid to get off the tracks if you can’t get there and carry him/her off yourself.
I’m in yelling mode today.
Well, there’s a locomotive coming.

It might not be the Jerry Berndt Express or the Ron Dickerson Express or the Bobby Wallace Express, but it looks like it’s got the same kind bad brakes (or breaks) ahead.
Quite frankly, I’m stunned and appalled with this hiring.
I will go on record right here and now as saying I hope Steve Addazio takes Temple to the MAC championship in 2011 and wins it.
When you have 14 starters returning from a team that won eight games, have an improved quarterback situation ahead and a guy with Heisman Trophy talent (if not durability) running the ball, then that’s really the only standard he should be judged on right now.
Fall short of that and he’s an abject failure.
I will also go on record right here and now and say this hiring is a step backward.
I’ve researched everything I could about Steve Addazio over the last few hours and I did not find one (1) positive news or feature story about Steve Addazio, although I found 22 negative ones.
That’s telling.
The fans who know Steve Addazio and are more familiar with his play-calling than I am are pretty anti-Steve.
That’s alarming.

There’s a great blog that covers the Ball State football program called Over the Pylon. A few weeks ago, the name Addazio was connected with the Ball State job.
This post thanks God that he didn’t get it.
When Ball State fans are happy the coach you hired didn’t get their job, that tells you all you need to know.
Five years ago I was excited to write about Al Golden.
Forgive me if I’m a little underwhelmed writing about Steve Addazio now.
If he starts bringing Gator recruits with him up north, like Al Golden stole an Owl recruit last week, I might change my mind.
It will take something that dramatic in the short term to get my attention.
He’s married to my kid right now and, as Robert DeNiro says to Ben Stiller in Meet The Parents:
I’m watching you.

… ESPN analyst Bob Davie to be named head coach at Temple… unless a big-money PSU-connected donor dictates Temple give the job to Tom Bradley Steve Addazio named head coach …commentary tonight at 11 p.m. …

A crawl coming to the bottom of your TV screen soon (we think).

I’ve been hearing speculated on two web sites, Owlscoop.com and and OwlsDaily.com, that the decision to name a head football coach at Temple University could be a rush job.
That’s because Ann Weaver Hart, the school’s president, is set to go on vacation on Wednesday in Utah and they want her to be here for the decision.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a worse reason to rush into a decision of this magnitude.
First, I don’t think she needs to be there.
Second, I think it’s more important to get the “right guy” than for it to be the “right time.”
To me, the right guy is the current offensive coordinator with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Bruce Arians, but I’m also willing to accept the notion that there is more than one “right guy” for this job.
Look, unless some billionaire Steelers’ fan approaches Temple and says he will pay for a an expanded E-O, a bubble and Bruce’s contract and that of his assistants if they hire BA, I’m realistic enough to know that Bruce Arians is no longer on Temple’s radar like he was in 2005.
Would he do the best job of all these candidates?
In my mind, yes.
In my mind, too, it’s time to move on to get a head coach now.

Bob Davie, semifinalist for 2000 coach of the year in college football

If it’s not Bruce, I’m 100 percent sure I know who the “right guy” type is.
The right guy, right now, is a proven winner as a head coach (did I say head coach?) and brings instant national credibility and name recognition to the program.
That eliminates Penn State assistant Tom Bradley, it eliminates Florida assistant Steve Addazio and it eliminates Pitt assistant Frank Cignetti.
All good names, but I don’t want to find out they can’t make good decisions on the fly when they are already employed by Temple.
Western Michigan head coach Bill Cubit?
I think he can do the job and I know his body of work well, but does the Joe Philadelphia fan know who he is?
By all accounts, Bob Davie was a winner at Notre Dame, is a great recruiter and has name recognition from his college football TV work. He’s from Western Pennsylvania and knows the lay of the land on both sides of the state.
The only comment I could ever find Bob Davie making about Temple was a positive one.
“I remember watching Temple a year ago,” Davie said. “Watching Temple, we watched them against Boston College, we watched them against Pittsburgh, we watched them against Navy, West Virginia, Temple is a good football team.”
Davie was talking about the 2000 Temple football team in a Notre Dame question-and-answer session posted on Sept. 25, 2001.
If he liked what he saw then, he should like what he sees now.
I first met Bob Davie while working as a sports writer for The Daily Intelligencer in Doylestown in 1979.
Bob and I were both in our early 20s at the time, I a guy who covered the dynamite Central Bucks West football team, and he a lead recruiter for the University of Arizona.
Davie was in town to sign CB West superstar quarterback Kevin Ward.
I covered that press conference.
“Coach Davie is the reason I’m going to Arizona,” said Ward, who was recruited by every major school in the country.
Maybe Davie can sprinkle that recruiting dust here.
He could get recruits to come to Temple and it won’t take much to be a better game coach than Al Golden.
My guess is that he won’t line up in an illegal formation on the first play of the biggest game of the year after a nine-day layoff. I might be crazy, but I think he’ll take the victory formation rather than hand the ball off to a running back with 17 seconds to go. I hope he knows it’s probably not a good offensive philosophy to hand the ball off to a 5-foot-5 guy on every first and second down, then throw on third down when everybody knows it’s coming.
If he can avoid even little game-day brain farts like that, I’ll take him.

Temple should avoid candidates who are perceived to have underperformed elsewhere, like Dave Wannstedt, Randy Shannon and Ralph Friedgen.

Financial consultants talk about the concept of risk/reward.
Simply put, they say to receive a greater reward one must accept a greater risk.
That would normally apply if you have some money in reserve.
Temple’s betting the house and the farm (and maybe the program) on this new head football coaching hire and I’m of the contrary opinion that the less risk the administration takes in this hiring, the greater the reward.

360 Tomahawk Slam Dunk: Bruce Arians
Regular slam dunk: Bill Cubit
Uncontested layup: Bob Davie
Contested layup: G.A. Mangus
Jumper with hand in face: K.C. Keeler
Halfcourt heave (no head coaching experience): Matt Rhule, Steve Addazio
Turnover: Frank Cignetti Jr. or Sr., Curt Cignetti, any Cignetti, John Latina, Ralph Friedgen, Dave Wannstedt, Randy Shannon or Paul Guenther

 This is one hire Temple can make where there is little risk and great reward because the guy who already did this job very well (better than Al Golden, really) is out there.
He’s not dead.
He’s not retired.

Bruce Arians: Tomahawk 360 slam dunk

He’s really the one guy out there who would be well-received by the great majority of our fans.
Iowa coach Kurt Ferentz said it best in a 2005 unsolicted comment during an interview with the St. Louis-Post Dispatch, talking about coaching changes: “Look at Temple. The biggest mistake they made was firing Bruce Arians. They still haven’t gotten over it.”
This is an opportunity to right that wrong and move the program forward in the process with a guy still young enough to do the job.
Arians is still very much involved with football at its highest level.
Enough about Bruce Arians, though, the only coach I will put in the “no risk” category.
The argument about him “doing it 22 years ago” is ridiculous because the Temple job now, while hard, is 10 times easier than it was 22 years ago. Yeah, the landscape has changed _ for Arians’ benefit. When you go from a rock-strewn practice field (now the Student Pavilion) to a $7 million practice facility and a $500,000 sprinturf field, that’s some pretty damn good landscaping right there. Everything at Temple now is easier than when Arians had to walk through that mine field.
The other guy I’m “somewhat sure” can do the job is Philly native Bill Cubit. He’s the Western Michigan head coach. In his short time in Kalamazoo he’s had winning seasons, gone to bowl games, beaten Big 10 teams like Illinois and Iowa (with MAC talent) and never lost to Temple. He’d have twice as much talent at Temple and only needs to beat one Big 10 team to earn his paycheck in my mind.

Bill Cubit: Regular slam dunk

Yet he reportedly has expressed no interest in Temple. Maybe he’ll change his mind and elect to come home.
We can only hope.
Other than that those two, I’m hearing the same names as you are and, I must admit, I’m a little underwhelmed.
The top names on the list, in no particular order, are Cincinnati Bengals’ (what have they done?) aide Paul Guenther, Pitt offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, Jr., former Notre Dame head coach Bob Davie, Temple offensive coordinator Matt Rhule, Delaware head coach K.C. Keeler, Florida assistant Steve Addazio and South Carolina quarterbacks’ coach G.A. Mangus.
The second group talked about includes retreads like Dave Wannstedt, Randy Shannon and Ralph Friedgen. I don’t think any of those three are serious candidates. Let’s keep it that way. I think Temple should avoid those three at all costs because it would send a message that Temple is willing to take someone who is considered to have underperformed elsewhere. Bad message to send the fan base. Bad message to send the nation.

Bob Davie: Uncontested layup

If that’s all there is, as Peggy Lee once said in a song, don’t expect the fan base or whatever is left of it to get all fired up.
Five years ago, we were talking about Al Golden, Rick Neuheisel and Jim Harbaugh as Temple coach.
Maybe a big-time candidate with pizzaz will pop up at the last moment, but I don’t see it.
I think Mike Leach would have done a fine job here and his hiring would have sent a message to the world that Temple is serious about winning in football, but I think the university is too politically correct to do this. Yet Maryland doesn’t care about political correctness and appears poised to hire Leach now.
Guenther would be an absolute joke. Nobody knows him. Nobody cares about him. He’s never won as a head coach anywhere. He’s got no ties to Temple. If they hired him, you can board up the Edberg-Olson Complex right now because Temple would not draw more than 5,000 a game next year sans Penn State.
I know Rhule is well-liked within the E-O, but there’s a big world outside the E-O and there was no more underachieving facet of Temple’s football team in 2010 than its offense. To give the top job to the guy who was in charge of a failed endeavor would be a huge mistake and probably sell maybe five more tickets than the 5,000 who would show up to watch Guenther’s Temple team.
K.C. Keeler, I think, would prefer to stay in Delaware. His success was based on D1A transfers and he wouldn’t get those here, so I have doubts about him doing the job in Philadelphia even if he was interested.
So, in my mind, it’s down to Mangus and Davie.



G.A. Mangus: Contested layup

 I think Mangus can do the job. He might be the most intriguing of the non-Arians’ candidates.
He was a head coach at Delaware Valley and he was a legend in Doylestown. If that was his last stop, I’d say no but he worked for The Old Ball Coach (Steve Spurrier) at South Carolina and is every well thought of down there. He can recruit. He can head coach. He’s an offensive mind. I like him. I think he can do the job. I’m not sure, though. There’s that risk thing again.
Davie was a winner at Notre Dame and brings more of a recognition factor to Philadelphia. He was 35-25 at Notre Dame, is a great recruiter, originally from Pennsylvania, wants the Temple job because he interviewed for it in 2005 and now has sent feelers to the university that he’s interested again. I like him. I think he can do the job.
I’m not sure, though.  Again, a risk but a slight one.
So there you have it, a couple of guys I’m relatively sure can do the job and a handful of guys I think can do it.
Do you roll the dice or play it safe?
I know what I would do.

If you close your eyes, it’s easy to imagine Ann Weaver Hart having the same conversation about the same concerns with Temple offensive coordinator Matt Rhule.