Author Archives: Mike Gibson

10.23.21
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Dr. Wingard: It’s time to make a change

To: Dr. Jason Wingard

President, Temple University

Sullivan Hall

Broad Street and Montgomery Avenues

Philadelphia, PA 19122

Dear President Wingard,

You’ve played big-time college football.

You, more than anyone else, know a couple of simple Football 101 facts:

One, when a team refuses to pass but gouges your defense on runs, you put eight men in the box and dare them to pass.

We’re popular in Kuwait on Sunday. Views of TFF from end of the game last night until 9 a.m. this morning. Maybe some oil money is coming to buy out Rod Carey’s contract.

Two, when you get a first-and-goal early in the game on the bad guy’s 3-yard line, you put your POWER back in the game, not your scatback. Tavon Ruley would have produced a 7-0 lead. Edward Saydee is a good back but not the guy you want in there when you want to move bodies.

Three, when your highly-paid coaching staff refuses to understand those basic football concepts,, it’s time to get another highly-paid coaching staff.

That’s pretty much the story in a nutshell of Saturday night’s USF 34-14 win over our beloved Temple Owls.

You know it.

Your fans know it.

No lies detected …

Your coaching staff is clueless.

These people are from Northern Illinois. They don’t understand Temple. They hate Philadelphia. They can’t fathom Temple TUFF. They never will.

They were 1-6 last season. They will finish 3-9 this season.

It’s time for a change.

The sooner the better.

Yes, buying out the remaining three years of a coach who makes $2 million per year will cost the university major coin but put it this way.

You cannot sell this staff to the fanbase next year. Spend money, replace the guy, sell maybe 10x as many season tickets over the next 12 months.

Keep him for another year and you might not sell more than 400 season tickets in a 70,000-seat stadium for the 2022 season. This university doesn’t deserve that national embarrassment. People in Philadelphia are knowledgeable about the game. They can’t stomach three-men fronts against run-only offenses. They can’t stomach a guy who is so unpopular with his players that they routinely leave for other pastures.

Bring back Al Golden, who has proven he can win here, or give the job to a more hungry guy who is popular with the players like Gabe Infante.

You came to Temple promising bold leadership. Nothing would send a bolder leadership message to the 300,000-plus Temple alumni that you won’t accept the performance of this coaching staff.

Spend money to make money.

Fire Rod Carey no later than Monday. If you can get into the office on Sunday, that would even be better. I don’t speak for my 300,000 fellow Temple alumni nor the 40,000 current full-time students or 12,500 employees but I’m confident the great majority agree with me today.

Don’t wait until Arthur Johnson arrives in his office Nov. 1. You can fill him in on the details once he gets settled.

We cannot wait until the end of the season.

Sincerely,

Mike Gibson

Editor and Publisher

Temple Football Forever

Monday: Word of the day

Friday: UCF Preview

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.22.21
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USF: A must-win for Rod Carey

Gabe Infante is lurking in the shadows of Rod Carey in more ways than one.

In about 24 hours, we will find out how desperate Rod Carey is to cement his career legacy.

Will he go down as an interesting guy who won a couple of MAC titles and feasted on Big 10 teams enough to earn a contract at Temple or will he go down as a guy who moved on up to the East Side and never fit into the neighborhood?

By 10 p.m. Saturday, we will find out whether this prediction is real or just coachspeak from BC’s Jeff Hafley

He looks more like Tom Willis than George Jefferson to me and I’m not talking skin pigment.

If you’ve followed this space since Feb. 18, we wrote here that the Owls were more likely to finish 2-10 than 10-2 or even 6-6 because Carey and his staff did not do enough in the offseason to replenish the 15 good players who walked out the door with 15 better ones since the end of last season.

Even then, we wrote would you be satisfied with even four wins after averaging eight in the decade before COVID? Absolutely not was the resounding answer.

We thought it was time to go big or go home (Northern Illinois being home in this case) for this staff and they certainly did not go big.

Dwan Mathis had a good game against Memphis and a bad game against Cincy. He needs to run like a mad dog and keep drives alive for the Owls to beat USF.

If they don’t beat South Florida, they are on a path to go home.

South Florida is by far the worst team remaining on the schedule and, if the Owls lose, they are on an inextricable slide to a 3-9 season. It might be enough to get Carey fired, even with three years remaining on his contract.

The reason being simply this: According to OwlsDaily.com, new Temple President Dr. Jason Wingard called everyone in the athletic department (Carey included) for a group meeting and read the riot act and said the department was not meeting expectations, including the football team. The next day Wingard made a personal appearance at the football practice facility and gave the kind of pep talk to the team it had not heard since Matt Rhule.

Temple scored 45 of the last 48 points in a rout of Akron two days later.

If Temple finishes 3-9 coming off a 1-6 season, Wingard is the kind of guy who could convince the BOT to spend money to make money and eat the remaining three years of Carey’s contract and get a better CEO for the football program. In hiring new AD Arthur Johnson (the Director of FOOTBALL operations at Texas), Wingard sent a clear signal that winning in FOOTBALL is the biggest priority for Temple athletics right now.

For Carey, it better start now.

Saturday night (7 p.m., ESPN+) will simply come down to this: Can Carey be flexible enough to devise a game plan that keeps USF on its heels? Does he throw something that USF hasn’t seen on game film (i.e., a halfback pass from backup running back Trey Blair to Randle Jones for six) or a blocked punt? Go big or go home includes taking chances in the game plan as well as bringing in overwhelming numbers in the transfer portal.

Hell, no Temple fans have ever seen a blocked punt under Carey but they saw plenty under even the mediocre reign of Geoff Collins.

One thing Carey has going for him is playmakers. In guys like Jones, all-time leading receiver Jadan Blue, Dwan Mathis, Blair, Manny Walker, Keyshawn Paul, William Kwenkeu, Cameron Ruiz and M.J. Griffin, he’s got significantly more playmakers than USF does. Backup corner Ty Mason is one of only 10 Temple players in the three-century history of the sport to return an interception for six points. He’s a playmaker as well. Putting those guys in position to make plays is his job and the job of the NIU carpetbaggers. Mathis intrigued me against Memphis BUT he raised serious questions about his intestinal fortitude against Cincinnati. He did not look like a guy who wanted to win two weeks ago but maybe the fire in his belly returns against USF.

Say, for argument’s sake, it does and the Owls come out with an Akron-type win. Not only does Carey’s job become more secure, but the Owls build the kind of confidence that can set them on an impressive winning streak. No way Wingard or Johnson fire Carey then nor should they want to at that point. For the kids’ sake and for the fans’ sake, you kinda hope it happens. Long-term is a different story.

Winning on Saturday night and building the kind of team chemistry that steals a couple more later would save Carey’s job but it’s becoming an increasingly hard scenario to envision, even if you are looking into a Cherry and White crystal ball.

Picks This Week: OHIO STATE -21 at Indiana (Buckeyes want to show separation between them and Cincy if it comes down to those two teams; what better way to do it than blowing out Indy more than Cincy did); WESTERN MICHIGAN (a team that won at Pitt) -2.5 at Toledo; UMASS +35.5 at Florida State (Jacksonville State won there and UMASS is on that level); NORTH CAROLINA STATE -3 at Miami (proving for the umpteenth time that while Carey might not be the answer at Temple, Diaz certainly wasn’t either).

Latest update: Last week, lost on WMU, UMASS and NC State and won on Ohio State. The 1-3 mark ATS brings us to 18-14-1 on the seaosn 1 on the season.

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.18.21
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Difference between USF and Temple: Commitment

The proposed new stadium at USF was unveiled to the press last month .

All you have to do to figure out the difference between USF and Temple football is look at the national perception.

USF head coach Jeff Scott was hired a full year and a month AFTER Rod Carey yet Scott is listed as No. 1 on the coaches hot seat site and Carey is nowhere to be found.

The perception there, at least from those who run that site is this: Scott’s seat is warm as hell because USF won’t tolerate a poor season coming off a one-win fall and Temple will.

There’s a lot to that because it’s true.

USF has fired two coaches since Al Golden performed CPR on Temple football and Temple has fired zero coaches. Sure, one of the reasons was that it was successful enough not to need that option, but The Rod Carey Error will provide the first real test to Temple’s commitment for fielding a winning team.

If the team loses to USF, it will be magnified.

Proposed site of new USF stadium. Neighbors live across the street and to the right.

USF displayed its commitment to football last month when the President announced plans to build a new stadium on campus while Temple, having already approved the funding for its own stadium three years ago, allowed no more than 20 or so neighbors to shut down the project.

Temple appears to have thrown up its hands and given up without even trying alternative methods like moving the site from 15th Street or marketing the new stadium the ” North Philly Tribute Center” and telling the community the stadium will be for them 359 days and the university for just six. Temple already has a large area for athletics at Broad and Master and has met no community opposition there. Maybe moving that to 15th and Norris and putting a stadium closer to Center City could satisfy all involved.

South Florida, like Temple, also has on-campus neighbors who objected to getting a stadium done. USF believes the stadium is the greater good and, once built, the community will realize it as well. Unlike USF, Temple allowed a few loud voices to table the project. USF’s interim president said “we’re going to get this done.” Temple’s new president, Dr. Jason Wingard, deflected a similar question when he said the school was committed to its deal with Lincoln Financial Field.

USF plays in a pro stadium, too, but realizes even a crowd of 20 or 30K rattling around a 70K-seat stadium looks horrible. It looks closer to 10 people than 70,000 and, if the perception is your product is not successful, that’s even more important than whether it actually is. USF has come to that conclusion. At one time Temple did, too. That ship has apparently sailed.

The latest evidence of national perception came on Sunday night when the books set USF as a 3.5-point favorite. That despite the fact that USF entered its game on Saturday with only one touchdown pass on the season and Temple, coming into its game at Cincinnati, had the No. 1 pass defense in the country. (A misleading stat because Temple plays a three-man front and often drops eight into coverage, allowing opposing running games to gouge the Owls on the ground.)

What can be done to turn around that perception?

The only thing that solves anything in big-time college sports: Winning. If Temple isn’t favored to beat the only team it defeated in a one-win season last year, just when will it happen?

Not this year. At least not unless Temple rips off a winning streak starting now.

Temple has to beat USF to begin to change minds, then come back and complete the Florida sweep against UCF at Lincoln Financial Field. It should not be that hard.

The fact that few nationally believe it will happen is in and of itself a big problem for Temple.

Friday: USF Preview

10.15.21
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Coping without Temple football

More smiles on the Temple sideline than I ever want to see with the Owls down 52-3

If I had my druthers, Temple football would start the first week of September and end the first week of January with no interruptions in the first three months.

This week is one of the interruptions.

The Owls are on a bye week and, instead of watching a game I have already seen in person on TV, I go to the DVR and review some games I’ve haven’t yet checked out.

One of them was Villanova at Penn State, a somewhat respectable 38-17 loss for the Wildcats.

Carey gave up, it’s no wonder his players followed his lead.

After just finishing watching the entire three hours of that game, my anger issues kicked into play.

“How in the hell can Villanova, a team with 20 less scholarships, give Penn State a much better game than Temple gave Cincinnati?”

Villanova had to play in arguably a more hostile environment against arguably a similar team yet was not embarrassed.

Temple was last Friday night and it was on national television for all to see.

Temple was mocked nationally once again as it has been many times under Rod Carey and, if it made me mad, I’m sure I’m not the only Temple fan who felt that way.

Gabe Infante’s burner account (just kidding; I agree with this guy)

The answer was simple: Coaching and determination.

Villanova’s players actually chased down Penn State receivers and backs running through its secondary, several times catching them.

On othe other hand, Temple defenders waved half-heartedly and watched as the Bearcats went on by for long scores.

This is what happens when you have players committed to a coach (Mark Ferrante) and a prorgram and players who do not believe in a head coach (Rod Carey) and that said head coach has to hire mercenaries to replace guys who were committed to Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins.

Forget Temple fans, though.

Impartial football observers like former unbeaten Tulane quarterback Shaun King have also shaken their heads about Carey’s in-game decisions.

People are noticing. Not just Temple people but smart football people around the country. Already, Arthur Johnson is calling on big-time Temple donors and asking their opinions. I’m just a Joe Schmoe one lottery ticket away from being a big-time donor but if Mr. Johnson called me, I’d tell him the problem with Temple football is as clear as the nose on Jimmy Durante’s face and the difference between the effort of Mark Ferrante’s players versus the effort of Rod Carey’s. If you don’t notice that, you do not have two eyes.

It won’t matter unless Jason Wingard and Arthur Johnson start to notice.

This week’s picks: All undervalued favorites this week: Like Nebraska -4 at a Minnesota team that got beat by Bowling Green; also home Buffalo -8 against a truly horrific Ohio squad and Ball State -1.5 at Eastern Michigan and Fresno State -3.5 at Wyoming.

Latest update: Lost on Nebraska and Buffalo, won on Fresno State and Ball State. The 2-2 mark ATS brings us to 17-11-1 on the season.

Monday: The Difference between USF and Temple

10.10.21
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Russell Conwell’s clear-cut choice: Gabe Infante

Two-time national high school championship head coach Gabe Infante’s SJP teams practiced at 12th and Cecil B. Moore. That’s the definition of a diamond in your own backyard.

Wasn’t able to get the seance I requested with Temple University founder Russell Conwell over the weekend, so instead did the next-best thing.

Read everything he wrote.

In between those lines was the answer to the question I’ve been looking for: Who should be Temple’s next head football coach?

Conwell gave a clear and loud answer to that.

Gabe Infante.

That’s because, long before Conwell founded Temple University, he became famous for his “Acres of Diamonds” story that later became his best-selling book.

The Cliff Notes version is that the story is about an African Farmer who sold his farm to search for diamonds elsewhere when, ironically, his own farmland (which he sold to finance his search), literally contained Acres of Diamonds.

Since Temple posted consecutive 10-win seasons, and Matt Rhule left for Baylor, the Owls have traveled far outside their perimeter to search for the guy who would keep their diamond supply coming but have largely come up short.

Former Temple and current Buffalo Bills’ RB Ray Davis talks about the Rod Carey staff in this text message.

Eight blocks away was a guy mining diamonds at 17th and Thompson all along and his name was Gabe Infante.

Going 91-22 as a head coach (they need head coach experience) at St. Joseph’s Prep and winning four-straight large school Pennsylvania state football titles.

Even Gabe realized that wasn’t enough to realize his dream of becoming a college football head coach and left that comfortable job to search for his own diamonds as a Temple assistant coach. In three years at Temple, just about every player called him the best coach on the staff by far.

Rod Carey, a Midwesterner who didn’t understand Philadelphia and Temple, cut Infante loose but he landed on his feet as an assistant at Penn State and, now, assistant head coach at Duke, which is one of the best college football stories in the country this year.

Much like Rhule needed to leave Temple and gain a year of experience with the New York Giants under Tom Coughlin, Infante has left Temple with a treasure trove of knowledge and experience to build a big-time program that can only help Temple now.

It is his time and his place and, if Temple AD Arthur Johnson realizes that, Temple the University will realize its own Acres of Diamonds.

Gabe Infante is a legendary high school football coach in Philadelphia.

I have seen plenty of his games when he was head coach at the Prep and his teams never jumped offsides, never had false starts and always made dynamic plays on special teams. Their offensive line sprinted to the line of scrimmage for every play. (No lie. Check the film.) They were more well-drilled than most college and NFL teams.

At the beginning of this search, I thought it might be a cool thing for Johnson to hire former Temple head coach Geoff Collins and the neatest sound bite from the hiring press conference would be for him to say: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I reintroduce to you the only head coach in the 130-year history of Temple football to never have a losing season.”

No doubt that Collins wants to come back and there would be applause all around but Collins had his time here and left.

It is now Gabe Infante’s time.

If you could ask Russell Conwell, you would know his answer.

Friday: North Texas Preview

10.08.21
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Temple: Worst special teams in history

Whether he wants to admit it or not, Rod Carey cannot say his special teams by delegation produced better results than any of Ed Foley’s special teams at Temple.

If someone gave Rod Carey a blueprint to destroy Temple football on the day he was hired, it would be this:

“Hey, Rod. How about firing the best special teams coach in the country and giving the defense an extra coach on the field?”

“Yeah, Joe (or Fran or Pat), that sounds like a pretty good idea to me.”

Some time later, Carey had this conversation with Ed Foley:

“Sorry, Ed. Gonna have to move you upstairs. We need another defensive coach on the field.”

Ed: “Fuck that. I’m outta here.”

Carey: “See ya.”

With Dwan Mathis throwing the ball into the ground on 3d and 17, it might be time to get behind Justin Lynch. In over 40 years of watching Temple football, I’ve never seen a Temple quarterback give up like Mathis did Friday night.

Since then, Temple has has been a national embarrassment on special teams. That’s a nice way of putting it. Probably a better way would be the Owls suck royally.

That certainly wasn’t the reason for Temple’s 52-3 loss at Cincinnati on Friday night but it definitely was the reason why the Owls gave up 14 early points that they could absolutely not afford if they were to have any confidence going forward.

In a potential blowout game, you need some early confidence and Temple got none of that.

In a 61-14 opening-day loss to Rutgers, Jadan Blue routinely let the ball go over his head on the 30 and allowed it to bounce inside the 5. Blue, my favorite CURRENT Temple player, showed absolutely no interest in advancing the ball and that’s his job.

Against Cincy, he muffed a punt that led to six.

That got him pulled.

Love the guy, but it should no longer be his job.

His replacement, Amad Anderson, muffed another one a short time later than led to another Cincy six.

When you are a 29.5-point underdog, can’t make those plays.

Why doesn’t Cincy muff punts? Why didn’t Temple under Matt Rhule?

Those were not plays Ed Foley’s special teams made.

Foley’s teams routinely returned punts for touchdowns and blocked the bad guys’ kicks for touchdowns the other way.

Again, not the reason for a loss but certainly the reason that it wasn’t a 31-3 loss or even more cosmetic. Those 14 points in terms of the Owls’ confidence in winning were worth much more, say, 28 points.

Temple fans deserve to have a kind of team that locks down the “most easy” of the three phases of the game and Rod Carey in his capacity as CEO has failed to do that nor has he shown any interest in fixing it. Special teams are 1/3d of the game. Carey thinks they are 1/10th.

Hopefully, new AD Arthur Johnson was taking notes in Cincinnati on Friday night. If not, he will get an earful from Temple fans once the team plane lands in Philadelphia.

Monday: Listen and Learn

10.08.21
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TU-Cincy: Dwan’s coming out party?

Right now, it’s pretty clear what the planned ESPN TV narrative will be for tonight’s game, Temple at Cincinnati (7 p.m., main network).

If Golden shows up for the second-straight Owl upset, Arthur Johnson might give him an offer he can’t refuse to be a football consultant.

Group of Five team returns home to adoring fans ranked No. 5 in the country with a real hope of being the first team of the sub-FBS group to make the four-team playoff.

Narratives can change, though, depending upon what happens once the ball is kicked off.

For Temple, nothing would be better than the narrative to change to the play of former Elite 11 quarterback and five-star recruit Dwan Mathis.

Owl fans caught a glimpse of what Mathis can do–maybe on the regular–when he took a simple zone read for himself instead of handing to a running back and went 39 yards in a 34-31 win over Memphis. Mathis was too fast for the defensive end and juked the defensive back to pick up a big gain. Mix in 35 completions for 322 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions and the Homecoming crowd of 28,356 got a nice glimpse into the future.

Remember, he did not play at all in a 28-3 loss to Boston College and that game was 21-3 with two minutes left in the fourth quarter.

“If that’s what he looks like on an 80 percent ankle, I’d like to see what he can do on a 100 percent one,” former Georgia starting quarterback Hudson Mason said while doing the game as an ESPN analyst last week.

Hell, maybe Mathis went from 80 percent to 100 percent this week.

We will find out in a few hours.

Like Mason, Mathis is a former starting quarterback at Georgia.

Unlike Mason, Mathis has world-class speed and can turn a simple tuck-and-run into an 80-yard touchdown on any given play.

By comparison, Cincinnati faced a pair of statues in the two Notre Dame quarterbacks it pummeled a week ago. Murray State didn’t have a quarterback like Mathis nor did Indiana.

Temple does.

Doesn’t say WHEN the showers will end but let’s hope it’s by 7.

Mathis can turn around this narrative pretty fast, especially if the Owls’ experienced offensive line and staple of good-but-not-great running backs have a modicum of early success. If the Bearcats go for the running back, Mathis has shown a pretty good instinct for keeping the ball when he sees a lane.

It might not translate into an 80-yard touchdown, but if it keeps enough drives alive for the Owls to get their share of first downs, it won’t have to be. This is the kind of game that the Owls might be better off rolling the pocket and throwing to the best wide receiver tandem in the American Athletic Conference. Watching the Owls on film, Luke Fickell hasn’t seen Mathis take off that much nor throw on the run. He hasn’t seen running back and former quarterback Trey Blair throw a pass off a pitchout, either.

This would be a good time for head coach Rod Carey and offensive coordinator Mike Uremovich to rip off those pages in the playbook and tape them to Mathis’ arm.

Then the narrative changes to how good Mathis and how good Temple can be and not so much Cincy-centric. Right now, everyone is assuming Cincinnati will breeze through the remainder of its schedule and, as UCF found out at Navy last week, assuming anything is dangerous.

Instead of the assumption that Cincy runs the table, a good Temple start could have the announcers talking about Al Golden’s presence for the second-straight game (after not being at a Temple game in a decade) and what a good-luck charm he has become for the Owls. Maybe a sideline reporter pulls new Temple athletic director Arthur Johnson aside for a chat about his vision for Temple’s athletic future.

Maybe even someone brings up the fact that Temple would deliver the nation’s fourth-largest TV market for any Power 5 conference which might be interested in addition to competitive football and basketball programs.

If the Owls win, ESPN will be talking about Temple beating Cincinnati in five of the last six football meetings. Since Cincy is playing for Big 12 prestige, not the AAC’s, nothing would please most of the current members of the league than that narrative supplanting the one ESPN has planned.

Picks this week: I never bet Temple (to win or lose) but the 12.5 over/under in points scored seems way too low. Think the Owls score at least 17, maybe more, but won’t include it in my official picks.

Official picks: IOWA (-2) over visiting Penn State, MEMPHIS (+3.5) at Tulsa (Vegas overreacted to the Temple loss, think Memphis not only covers but wins this game outright), COLORADO STATE (-1.5) over visiting San Jose State and MICHIGAN STATE (-5) in a revenge spot at Rutgers. (CSU’s win over Toledo was more impressive than SJS’s loss to Western Michigan and MSU now has a big-time running back that it did not have last year.)

Latest update: Won on Iowa (23-20), lost on Memphis, won on Colorado State (32-15), won on Michigan State (31-13). For the weekend, our 3-1 record ATS brings us to 15-9-1 ATS on the season.

Tomorrow: Game Analysis

10.04.21
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After Cincy, plenty of room at the top for Temple

After Temple makes a prime time appearance on ESPN Friday night at Cincinnati, the Bearcats–a longtime staple of the Owls’ football schedule–will be gone.

Maybe forever from the Temple schedule after this year given the fact that the school wants an early departure from the American Athletic Conference.

That’s sad because Cincy was a longtime regional rival in the next state over where the Owls have had pretty good success against.

The Owls have more to thank Cincinnati for than the wins, though.

Cincinnati showed Temple University how to get to the top of the AAC: Build a state of the art on-campus stadium (Nippert Stadium is basically a new stadium on an old site) and compile four-straight top-level recruiting classes composed of players who want to experience college life in an urban environment, not in the middle of nowhere. Mix in a popular players coach who wants to stay a few years and not jump for the first P5 offer like most of his league mates, stir, and come up with a top 10 team.

In the G5, a top 10 team is reaching the pinnacle.

Philadelphia has arguably more to offer than Cincy as a city.

Temple, as a program, needs to, err, Cherry pick the other ingredients of success–getting a popular players’ coach and stringing together a few top-rated recruiting classes.

Owls on ESPN after winning the AAC title in 2016.

Can the Owls do it?

Sure.

In Al Golden and Matt Rhule, the Owls had popular players’ coaches and top recruiting classes. In a league where everyone but Navy was running an RPO, they established a unique offensive style that featured establishing the run first. Only when that happened, which was pretty much always, the Owls faked it into the belly of a big-time running back (Bernard Pierce, Jahad Thomas and Ryquell Armstead come to mind) and that mere fake led to wide open Temple receivers running through the secondary for explosive plays in the downfield passing game. Special teams were not only locked down but the Owls routinely got big punt returns on their end and blocked punts on the other end.

What happened?

Temple beat Cincinnati four-straight times and the only recent loss to the Bearcats came on a blocked extra point that was taken back for two points in 2019. Under Rod Carey, the Owls don’t lock down special teams. Hell, they often leave the keys on top of the vehicle so the carjackers don’t have to do any work. Returning a kick for touchdown? Not allowed. Blocking a punt? Out of the question. You know how to take a punt to the house? Put Trey Blair back there. He has plenty of experience doing just that in a great high school league. You know how to block a punt? Have your tallest player (Ronnie Stevenson?) with a good wingspan and vertical leap come straight up the middle and stick his paw up. When Steve Addazio needed to block a field goal at UConn, he put 6-6 wide receiver Deon Miller in the game and gave him the job. It got done. Temple won, 17-14, when Brandon McManus kicked the game-winning field goal with no time left.

“I wanted to put the ball in the middle of the field and give the best kicker in the country a chance to win it and that’s just what he did,” Daz said.

Over at Cincy, special teams are the same third of the game they were at Temple under the Golden Rhule.

Now Cincy is on top of the AAC hierarchy and a lot of things will have to go right for the 28-point underdog Owls to shock the world on Friday.

Whatever happens, Cincy has now taken over the league for however much time they have left in it. Before leaving, they have shown the Temple administration how to get back on top. It’s not rocket science and it’s doable.

Football is the front porch of a major university and Cincy has the best porch in the AAC neighborhood now.

Good blueprints make for good porches. Now that the rich folks are leaving the neighborhood, we will find out soon enough if the Owls are the neighbors who invest enough coin to move on up to the East Side.

Friday: Cincinnati Preview

10.02.21
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Temple football: Now playing with house money

Other than the one-handed ESPN Top 10 highlight reel catch by holdover Jadan Blue, almost every other big play in a 34-31 Temple football Homecoming win over visiting Memphis was made by a transfer portal guy.

Temple didn’t get a whole lot of them in the portal over the offseason but the ones it got made a difference on Saturday.

More than anything, it was a win for quality over quantity and for house money.

Georgia import D’Wan Mathis showed why he is Temple’s first quarterback “5 Star recruit” since Parade Magazine first-team All-American Kevin Harvey. He tied the record for single-game completions (John Waller against Buffalo shares it with him) with 35 and gave the crowd of 28,465 a glimpse of what an RPO quarterback could do with a tuck and run. Once Mathis ankle is 100 percent, Owl fans are going to see more of that. Let’s hope it’s sooner than later because nothing drives a defense crazier than a quarterback who can make a simple zone handoff read take it to the house on any given play.

Purdue transfer Amad Anderson sealed with the game by turning a short pass into a score.

UConn transfer Keyshawn Paul had a key fumble recovery caused by his relentless strip of the ballcarrier.

TU had 33x as many tweets as the next-best sports trend on Saturday afternoon.

Washington State transfer Will Rodgers III and Wake Forest transfer Manny Walker kept Memphis’ quarterback Sean Henigan’s head on a swivel.

Already, if you had the over in Vegas’ 2.5 over/under win total for the Owls, you’ve cashed in before the second league game and there maybe a few more wins to come because it’s really hard to figure this AAC race out below the Cincinnati level.

It’s all house money from this point out.

Memphis, which lost to Temple, knocked off a Mississippi State team three weeks ago that beat No. 15 Texas A&M Saturday.

UCF, which figured to be one of the two favorites, lost to a Navy team that lost to Marshall, 49-7.

UCF seems to be a lot more beatable today than it was Saturday.

So does nearly everybody else.

2018 Pa. broadcaster of the year Rob Vaughn was in the house

Really, with the exception of possibly Cincy, Temple can now win almost every game left on it schedule and it can lose almost every game left.

It’s simply a matter of this: Playmakers making plays. That’s how everyone has won in football since the game was invented four years after The Civil War ended.

Temple has had Blue and Jones make big-time plays for the last couple of years, but the more playmakers you have, the better the team’s bottom line.

Going into the season, it appeared the transfer portal guys were of quality but not of enough quantity to make a significant difference.

The bubble of that theory popped on Saturday thanks to the number of plays those few guys made.

The Owls have seven games left and, judging by the evidence left on the field Saturday, a lot more big-time plays to make both at home and on the road.

Cincy is next and nobody expects the Owls to win so they really have nothing to lose and can play without any pressure.

All the pressure will be on Cincy and, even though the game is on the road, house money is on Temple’s side.

Monday: A New Hierarchy

10.01.21
by

Picturing another Temple win over Memphis

Imagine for a moment if the skeptics like me and most of the college football world were wrong and the highly-paid (some say overpaid) football coaching staff at Temple was right.

Temple would beat Memphis on Saturday.

Come to a fork in the road and there is a very narrow path off to the side where we can see a Temple win.

Let’s walk down that one.

If the Owls win, Jadan Blue could be the star of this game.

It’s a narrow trail but it looks like this:

Memphis struggled to beat an Arkansas State team, 55-50. That was the same Arkansas State team that lost to Washington, 52-3. Not surprising, you say because the Huskies are a big-time Power 5 team.

Yeah, but.

That same big-time Power 5 team lost to FCS Montana, the No. 13-ranked team in that classification.

Temple has had its recruiting problems since Matt Rhule left but every Temple recruiting class in the last decade was rated significantly higher than every Montana recruiting class. Maybe the Montana coaches are better.

Duh?

Temple has a puncher’s chance in this game and, hopefully, that punch is closer to Buster Douglas in his upset of Mike Tyson than it is to Ernie Terrell against Muhammad Ali.

Temple isn’t the Temple of 2016, but Memphis is not the Memphis of two years ago. That Memphis lost only one regular-season game.

Guess to who?

Temple.

One of the reasons was that Temple had a loud, enthusiastic, crowd of over 35,000 for its win.

This Temple crowd won’t approach that due to COVID and other issues but I have no doubt that this will be the largest Temple crowd of the season, my best guess in the 28-29,000 range. They will be taking names.

Hopefully, Temple will be kicking ass.

That’s where the Temple coaching staff comes into play.

Pretty humorous reference to Temple in this at the 6:00 mark.

Somewhere along the line, maybe with snow falling outside of Carey’s office window in January, this highly-paid group sat in the coaching offices of the $17 million Edberg-Olson Complex and decided that six portal starting transfers were enough to offset the the loss of a dozen really good high-character guys who were also good football players.

The math didn’t add up to me, but I’m not making $2 million per year like Rod Carey is.

Give the guy the benefit of the doubt, which we have not done since February. (Then again, he’s done nothing to earn it.)

In my mind, both Jadan Blue and Randle Jones can be big-time playmakers and, if five-star quarterback D’Wan Mathis can get them the ball both on jet sweeps and deep, the Owls have a chance. Both are NFL players who have graciously given themselves so that their teammates can wash out the bad taste of a 1-6 record last year with a better one this season. That’s the kind of selflessness, say, a R’Mahn Davis never showed here. A good game plan is what they deserve. Trick plays (shovel passes to Tayvon Ruley and an end around pass or two) would be helpful, but we’ve never seen that under Carey. They have a unique talent in backup running back Trey Blair, who was also a damn good high school quarterback. Is there a halfback pass in the playbook for him?

Anyone?

Buehler?

On defense, Manny Walker has been a star but Will Rodgers III came in more heralded and if both make plays against the true freshman Memphis quarterback, Temple could have a defensive score in this one. Rodgers has to time to snap count better and meet at the quarterback at the same time Walker does. Maybe the ball pops loose and Amir Tyler can scoop and score it. Sean Henigan was a big-time Texas high school quarterback, but only rated as a three-star recruit. Mathis, who turned down Michigan State and Ohio State, is the only five-star quarterback in the entire AAC.

Maybe he can turn the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard into an adding machine.

Arkansas State scored 50 on this squad. Temple will have to score 38 or more and avoid the special teams’ snafus that have played it for the last three years. I’ve maintained in this space that hope doesn’t get me to a bowl and my head tells me that this group is headed for 2-10. We said it would be 2-2 after four games and we were right. My guess is Memphis wins this something like 31-20.

It would be nice to be wrong about this team for once. Saturday would be a perfect place to start.

Picks this week: Going against conventional wisdom (and the G5) in picking host Notre Dame to upset Cincinnati, 28-24. (Cincy is a two-point favorite on the road.) ND recruits at a whole different level and Cincy had a tough game against another Indiana team, The University of Indiana. The Hoosiers aren’t nearly as good as the Irish. Also liking Oregon State as a 2.5-point underdog to visiting Washington, UAB as a 1.5-point favorite vs. visiting Liberty and Western Michigan as a 3-point favorite at Buffalo.

Lock of the week: AKRON getting 9.5 over visiting Ohio. Akron isn’t good, but Ohio (without Frank Solich) is truly putrid and nowhere near worthy of being almost a double-digit favorite. Ohio lost at home to Duquesne which, not all that long ago, was a Division III program. Akron not only covers but wins outright, 31-30.

Latest update: Lost on Notre Dame, Liberty and Akron, won on Oregon State and Western Michigan. With the 2-3 weekend, 10-5-1 against the spread is updated to 12-8-1.

Record: 10-5-1 ATS

Sunday: Homecoming Analysis