Author Archives: Mike Gibson

04.03.20
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Missing Cherry and White today

Cherry and White Day primer

When the football season starts, and I’m inclined to think it will, taking the one step back approach to take two steps forward probably will be at least one reason for it.

Unfortunately, the step back is tomorrow when the realization hits that there will be no Cherry and White Day.

Mitigation of crowds now is just one thing that hopefully will be able to allow such gatherings in September. Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly, among others, said team activities will have to start by July 1 in order to have a season. I’m not buying it. For years, the Ivy League didn’t allow team activities until August (not even spring football) and they were able to field football teams in the fall. It might be sloppy football, but I still think there will be football. Instead of hugs and handshakes in Lot K, there might be a lot more fistbumps and that’s OK. As long as my beloved Owls are on the field, that’s the most important thing.

Temple football spring game, Cherry and White game, Temple football,

Nothing newsworthy has come out of a spring game since Jadan Blue caught three touchdown passes in 2017.

There hasn’t been a Cherry and White game for a long time, but I do miss the day itself.  Aside from the commaderie with people you’ve gotten to know for years, the surrounding festivities have been well worth the trip itself.  For one, there is no better place to be Temple gear. Much of it will remain on the shelf like the $33 “Mayhem is Coming” T-Shirt purchased before Geoff Collins’ first game.

No need to wear that now since Mayhem never came and it sure has left.

Others are keepers, though. At one of the Al Golden “games” I was able to purchase a game-worn Temple football jersey from the Big East days and another Temple sweatshirt for more than reasonable prices–even lower than the Mayhem shirt–and support the program at the same time.

Last year, at the Olympic facility, there were a number of tables set up with a lot of interesting items. The “football” itself? Err, not so interesting. I left after a punt return drill early in what would have been the “second half” when the “tacklers” waved at the ball carrier with tackling dummies. No wonder we sucked at punt returns in the fall. Still, though, it was a must-see day for festivities, if not for the football portion. I really haven’t seen a good Temple spring game since Al Golden was here and he was trying to establish a culture of toughness that would carry over to the fall.

We’ll have to wait until next year for that, though, and that’s a small price to pay if we’re going to see real games come September.

Monday: An ex-Temple player to root for

Saturday: A Look Ahead at Miami

 

04.01.20
by

Nothing foolish about this April

Devonte Watson’s unannounced arrival at the E-O is the biggest sensation of camp so far.

Normally in this space on this day in the past, we’d make up some story with enough of a kernal in truth to raise eyebrows.

Not this year.

April is here but, for the first time, it doesn’t feel like April. There will be no Cherry and White game for one difference and that’s a first in my lifetime. When I go for a jog in the park, everyone has gloves and masks. All winter long while freezing talking my daily walks on the trail, I’d yell to my bicycle friend Les “I can’t wait until April” as we both noted how freezing it was.

It’s April, but it’s not how I thought it would be.

This will be a memorable April if we get through it and hopefully we won’t see another one like it. So instead of an April Fool’s story this year, we’ll republish the one that got the most reaction in terms of page views. I still think there’s some innovation left in football and one of those things would be to find a 6-11 guy with a 41-inch vertical leap and a 97-inch wingspan, plant him behind the nose guard and have him block field goals all day.

Here is that story:

For the rest of his football coaching life, new Temple University football head coach Matt Rhule will probably do a lot of the same things old Temple coach Al Golden did.
Why not?
Look where it got both Temple and Al.

Devonte Watson’s Temple ‘][‘ gloves had to be specially
ordered and reinforced with extra padding so that he doesn’t
sustain a hand injury from blocking so many field goals.

So I was only amused and not surprised when I heard that Rhule is making folks visiting the Edberg-Olson Football Complex to sign a sheet asking “not to report anything football-related” they see at practice.
Golden used to do the same thing.

watson

“What’s he doing there, enriching uranium?” I asked when someone told me that Rhule adopted the Golden Rhule regarding secrecy.
Enriching uranium  at football facilities is not a new thing.
Enrico Fermi did the same at the University of Chicago in the early days of World War II.
Well, it turns out that Rhule is enriching uranium (in a football-science way) and the result could be of nuclear proportions in the college football world this fall.
At least in the science of sport according to a report in this morning’s Temple Times.
About 150 years ago, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell created a sensation in science with these few words:
“Watson, come here, I need you!”
Thomas Watson was his assistant and Bell had just spilled acid while inventing the phone.
The moment changed the science of communication forever.
Another Watson, this one named Devonte, may have helped change the science of football last week at Temple University’s football practice.

This morning’s Temple Times broke the news.

A freshman on a basketball scholarship, Watson showed up unannounced at Edberg-Olson Hall, the school’s football practice complex, the day after the basketball Owls were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by top-seeded Indiana.
“All I could see was this tall guy ducking under the door,” Rhule told The Times. “He shook my hand and said, ‘Coach, I’m Devonte Watson, I want to come out for the football team.’
“I mean, he’s 6-foot-11, I thought he was a basketball player and I asked him flat out: Are you on a basketball scholarship?’ He said he got permission from coach (Fran) Dunphy. So we got him in the biggest uniform we could and told him to get out there.”
First off, Rhule said, they tried him at wide receiver.
“He was OK there,” Rhule said. “You see he could catch the ball but he wasn’t comfortable running routes. He’s 6-11, got a wingspan of 97 inches, and we figured we could use him on red zone offense but then some of our other coaches had other ideas.”

“We’re all about giving youngsters college experiences they’ll never forget and Devonte won’t forget this. Look, I didn’t bring him here with the intention of blocking field goals for our football team but that’s where his road led. He obviously has a gift.”
_ Fran Dunphy

Special teams coach Allen Mogridge had the best suggestion, Rhule said.
“Allen asked Devonte what he was known for best as a high school player,” Rhule said. “Devonte said, “Blocking field goals.’
“That’s it, Allen said. Allen suggested that we put Devonte on the special teams, blocking field goals.”
For the better part of all last week, that’s what Watson did.
Block field goals.
Boy, did he ever.
When one of the Temple kickers launched a field goal attempt, the freshman with a vertical leap of 39 inches stuck his big paw out and blocked it almost every time. Kick thud, followed by block thud.
“He’s amazing,” Rhule said. “Nothing gets by him. He’s not only 6-11 but he’s got these incredible instincts to block field goals. He just stands there behind the nose guard and jumps up and the kicker has got no chance. Think about it. In basketball, all of these great athletes are driving in a full speed and he still blocks their shots. In football, all he’s got to do is stand behind the nose guard and time a kick. It’s easy by comparison.
“We tried all three of our kickers and he must have blocked 10, 11, 12 field goals in a row. He’s like Bernie Parent was with the Flyers. Nothing gets by this guy. I don’t want to jinx him, but it’s really going to be hard to kick field goals against Temple this season.”
When asked about Watson going out for the football team, Temple basketball coach Fran Dunphy told the Temple Times he gave his OK.
“We’re all about giving youngsters college experiences they’ll never forget and Devonte won’t forget this,” Dunphy said. “Look, I didn’t bring him here with the intention of blocking field goals for our football team but that’s where his road led. He obviously has a gift. All I asked Matt was not to get him hurt and Matt said he’d do his best. Matt won’t let him catch passes. He won’t allow him on the kickoff return or receiving teams. He just wants Devonte to block field goals. That’s good enough for me.”
Err, one more thing.
Happy April Fool’s Day everyone.

Other notable Temple Football Forever April 1 stories in the past: 

Big 10 Explores Idea of Adding Temple

Addazio’s First Five-Star Recruit

Prodigal Son Returns

03.30.20
by

Lack of NCAA money another blow for G5

Screenshot 2020-03-29 at 12.41.15 PM

Tough decisions for Temple in the past included dropping baseball. Who knows what the next decision for Temple will be?

As far away as five months is, you don’t have to be a Nosadramus to figure out Temple football attendance is going to be impacted somewhat from the residue of this pandemic.

People who once thought nothing of sitting in a crowded stadium will now think long and hard about making such a commitment.

footballs

Those of us who have gotten into the habit of making Saturdays a college football day probably won’t be swayed if this thing dies down as expected.

Yet the effect of the pandemic on the pocketbook is already being felt, according to a recent story on footballscoop.com.

This is from that story:

The NCAA on Thursday announced it will distribute $225 million to Division I schools in June, a figure that was unanimously approved by the board of governors.

That figure is less than half of the budgeted $600 million the organization planned to send out, had the NCAA tournament been played.

Fifty million of that $225 figure will come from reserves, and the NCAA will use its $270 million event-cancellation insurance policy to pay off a line of credit that will cover the remainder of the money paid to schools.

While Division I schools are forced to deal with massive shortfalls, they get off easy compared to lower-level schools. From the NCAA:
Division II will receive 4.37% of actual revenues, currently projected to be $13.9 million for the division, which is a $30 million decrease from last year. Division III will receive 3.18% of actual revenues, currently projected to be $10.7 million for the division, which is a $22 million decrease from last year. These amounts will be used to fund national programs.”

As the author of the story, Zach Barnett, pointed out, the Power 5 schools who have vast reserves of money will survive but Group of Five schools like Temple and especially FCS and Division II will struggle. No one knows how much Temple was getting from this fund, but let’s assume half of what Temple gets from this source dries up. That’s money Temple was expecting to come in and won’t get now.

Football seems to be safe at Temple because the university committed to a long-term deal with the Eagles for use of Lincoln Financial Field. Other sports, though, could be on the chopping block and not just at Temple, but at all G5 schools.

In a sport where the rich seem to get richer and the poor get marginalized, this unfortunately par for the course over the last decade or so.

Wednesday: An April Anthology

Friday: A Year Without Cherry and White

03.27.20
by

Comparing seasons: A soft 8-5

 

In the entire modern history of Temple football, the Owls have had eight seasons similar to the one they had in 2019.

The most similar one was the same 8-5 the Owls posted in the previous year, but the Owls also had a 9-4 season in 2011, an 8-4 season in 2010, a 9-4 season in 2009 and a 7-4 season in 1990.

The difference is a stark one.

armsteadcherry

For Temple to be really successful in 2020, Rod Carey will have to put the ball in Ray Davis’ hands as much as Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins did with Ryquell Armstead

In none of those other seasons did the Owls suffer three blowout losses like they did in 2019. To me, despite the two wins over then top 25 teams, that’s a soft 8-5.

If Pat Kraft pulled Rod Carey into his office for a year-end review like most of us people in regular jobs have, that’s the one criticism he should have of his old Indiana football buddy.

“Rod, great job beating two top 25 teams but you’ve got to cut that blowout shit out.”

Somehow, though, I think Rod-with a $10 million buyout–is on cruise control at Temple and Kraft is offering no year-end reviews.

Take what Geoff Collins did vs. Carey in comparison. In my mind, Carey still retains bragging rights against Mr. Mayhem because he beat Collins Power 5 team with Group of Five talent, 24-2. If that changes this season in Atlanta, though, that all goes out the window.

Screenshot 2020-03-26 at 11.12.30 PM

Today is our 11th anniversary on wordpress after switching from blogspot

Still, the Apples vs. Apples comparison–Temple talent under Collins vs. Temple talent under Carey–has to objectively go to Collins and that comes from a guy who was a lot tougher on Collins and his offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude than I ever was on Carey and Mike Uremovich.

Here’s why: Collins’ 8-5 season was way more competitive in the five losses than Carey’s 8-5 season was. Collins’ team led, 34-26, at halftime against a top 10 team on the road, UCF, before falling, 52-40. Carey’s team lost at home to the same talent, 63-21.

Carey also lost head-scratchers at SMU (45-21) and to a 6-6 UNC team (55-13). In both games, Temple was a 6.5-point underdog. It wasn’t just me that saw Temple as the underperforming team, it was the nation.

Our reasons have been chronicled in this space until our faces have turned Jadan Blue. Temple has been a run-first team under previous coaches and the Owls used their toughness along the offensive line and in the run game to extend opponents into the fourth quarter. Carey bringing a RPO to Temple from NIU has needlessly opened areas for the bad guys to exploit and run away from Temple. Nothing would open passing lanes for All-American potential receivers like Blue and Branden Mack than a strong running game led by Ray Davis. Nothing makes those passing windows tighter than a passive commitment to the run.

We posted these same criticisms of Matt Rhule after his first two RPO years and he was flexible enough to change his style and increase his pay from $2.4 million per year in his final contract at Temple to $4.7 at Baylor and $6.3 at Carolina.

So far, Matt hasn’t cut us a residual check and we don’t want one.

All we want is for Temple to get back to being Temple. Run first, extend the game into the fourth quarter and not be embarrassed in losses. If Carey gets a pay raise for returning the Temple brand, we will kiss his ass incessantly and thank him without expecting anyting  in return.

If he’s too stubborn to change, he will never be successful here but a lot of 6-6 seasons will keep him around for a decade or so and pay him comfortably because Temple never fires mediocre coaches. To me, that’s not good enough.

Temple should always strive for excellence and reject medicority the same way it rejected failure more than a decade ago.

Monday: Another kick in the nuts to the G5

Wednesday: An April Anthology

Friday: Is That All There is?

03.23.20
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Temple Football: Business As Usual Six Feet Apart

The world stops occasionally for most of us but not for a Division I football player.

At least not a Division I football player who expects to be successful. Guys lift and run 365 days a year and those who don’t fall behind.

We assume that’s what guys like Jadan Blue, Anthony Russo and Ray Davis are doing right now even in this national health crisis with the rest of their teammates, only this time six feet apart. I would assume this can be done at the E-O but really lifting and running can be done anywhere.

They have to because they have to assume the guys from Miami are doing the same thing and they want to avoid beginning the next season the way they ended the last one. David Feeley, the strength coach there, was the strength coach at Temple and the Owls who were around then now he’s not letting up on the guys down there. The lifting and the running and the passing drills are done at least six feet apart.

That’s what we’re hoping for right now.

So we’ll soldier on here as well and try to keep posting a couple of times a week until summer camp starts.

What we do know is this: Miami has a substantial lead in terms of preparation against Temple on top of a substantial advantage in adding talent via the portal. Miami added a quarterback (D’Eriq King) who accounted for 50 touchdowns in his last full season at Houston and a defensive end from Temple who was a first-team All-American and turned down fourth-round NFL money (or above) to essentially do his part to beat his old teammates. The school that basically stole a head coach from Temple and a strength coach from Temple now has stolen an All-American from Temple.

That’s what we’re up against.

Temple has added crumbs in comparison while getting hit hard in the subtraction department. The preparation part is this: Miami was able to complete a full week of practices before suspending things while Temple was able to get in one day.

The Owls have to do a lot to catch up to both. Hopefully they will have the time to do it. All indications are that there will be an opening day but this time the opponent won’t be anything like Bucknell.

Friday: Comparing Successful Seasons

03.20.20
by

Uncertainty is the word of the day

temple football fans,

Hopefully, someday this will be a return to normalcy

Got a call a couple of weeks ago from my new season-ticket representative.

“Mike, this is (named withheld) new season-ticket representative. How are you today? Just wanted to touch base if you want to renew your season tickets?”

“I think I’m going to hold off until after Cherry and White Day,” I said.

Then the next day came the news that there would be no Cherry and White Day on top of no March Madness on top of no opening day and that Temple football spring practice would be pushed back for two weeks.

Penn State fans and over-reaction

The opposite of social distancing

In the ensuing days after that, we’ve heard that there would be no spring practice, no spring sports and we might not see baseball until June.

Uncertainty is the word of the day and we are now faced with the real possibility that the season itself could be delayed.

The best-case scenario is that “the curve” of available treatment for the coronavirus will be flattened so that the health care system is not overwhelmed by the summer. That means increased social distancing in addition to constant washing of hands. This virus is super contagious so if you turn the light on to wash your hands, then wash your hands, then turn the light off, you can catch it with the second touch if you didn’t clean the switch surface.

Crazy.

So you’ve got to be constantly aware of your environment.

The most important thing is not sports now but getting to the other side and keeping as many of us healthy as possible. So if you can, quaranteen. If you can’t, wear gloves as much as possible and be aware of cleaning surfaces as well as hands.

That said, I can always renew the season tickets in August. The only good thing about Temple football in a 70K stadium is that practicing social distancing won’t be as hard this fall as, say, at Alabama.

Monday: Business As Usual 

 

03.16.20
by

Temple football’s moving parts

NCAA Football: Florida at Miami

Scott Patchan was available for Temple until six days ago, when he decided to join Steve Addazio and Todd Centeio at Colorado State. At least Daz seems to have mastered the portal.

While the Temple football Owls could have replaced Don Bosco (and Temple) grad Matt Hennessy and AAC Player of the Year Quincy Roche with a couple of standouts from this year’s opponents in the portal, Rod Carey has decided to move some chess pieces he already had to replace the ones he lost.

According to OwlsDaily.com, the Temple head coach has moved tackle Adam Klein to center.  That makes right tackle, a position of strength, weaker. Since Hennessy is an NFL player, that also means center is weaker.

It also doesn’t do much for your depth chart.

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Not much depth, but Owls will have the best coaching sweatshirt in the league.

Seems to me that getting Mike Maietti, another Don Bosco guy who made 33 Big 10 starters for Rutgers, would have stabilized the center position and allowed Klein to progress at right tackle, but that might be injecting too much logic into the planning.

As far as Quincy Roche’s replacement goes, Carey seems to be putting all of his eggs into the Emmanuel Walker basket. Walker played in five games for Wake Forest in a three-year career. Scott Patchan, who was still in the portal until six days ago, started 19 games for the Hurricanes and had 5.5 sacks last year. He probably would have relished the opportunity to outperform Roche in the Sept. 5 opener at Hard Rock Stadium but he, like Maietti, is water under the dam now.

Damn.

Since the Owls also lost Dana Levine and Zack Mesday, who started a lot of games, they are also thin on the other side with only Arnold Ebiteke having extensive playing time at the other end.

Presumably, that’s an area where the Owls will move some defensive players around to fill depth. Hopefully, the coaching staff knows what they are doing but, in the Owls’ Daily article, Carey said reaching into the portal is still a possibility.

Let’s hope so.

Friday: Uncertainty ahead

03.13.20
by

Coronavirus puts Temple football on hold

Cherry and White kickoff now at 10 a.m.

Assuming the world hasn’t ended in a month, by the time Cherry and White Day would have been, the entire sports world is probably still stopped.

Temple has suspended classes and probably will have none by then. One of the first indicators of its impact on the sports world came a few days ago when the Ivy League jumped the gun and canceled its basketball tournaments, even though they could have played them in empty arenas. At the time, my initial reaction that it wasn’t fair to the Penn kids who had to fight their way to get to the No. 4 spot in the playoffs only to see the rug pulled out from under them. Then that became moot yesterday for Penn because the entire NCAA Tournament has been canceled, too.

If this makes certain we are all healthier in a month its all worth it as would be the decision by Temple to suspend its events.

The calendar will say Cherry and White Day occurred in 2019 and 2021 but list an open date in 2020. One hundred years from now kids will look at a Cherry and White program and ask their grandads what happened way back in 2020 and those guys will have to explain the coronavirus.

Screenshot 2020-03-13 at 12.40.43 PM

From the Temple football alumni page, and administrator Joe Greenwood

I should know. I covered the 1984 Central and Northeast football game as a 20-something youngster and noticed the game started in 1884 but had no result in 1918. After filing the story, I went home and asked my dad at Thanksgiving Day dinner about what happened in 1918 and he said basically half the city died with a flu epidemic that year and all kinds of things were canceled. He was exaggerating, but not by much.

Maybe the powers-that-be are exaggerating now. Maybe not. We’ll leave that to the medical experts.

I know because of last year I won’t miss Cherry and White as much as I used to because it’s gotten more watered-down with each and every year.

Cherry and White Day has changed a lot since the days even of Al Golden and Matt Rhule. In those days, like the ones before it, there was an actual game being played and you could identify guys who had a chance to do something in the fall.

As recently as the 2017 “game” Jadan Blue caught three touchdown passes and had over 100 yards in receptions so those of us who were there were not surprised by his 2019 breakout season (after sitting out 2018).

Not much could be garnered from the Rod Carey approach of running a controlled practice last year, but what is important now is getting this thing back ontrack in a few weeks.

Miami has also suspended its spring practices, but they got a full week in compared to one day for Temple.

Hopefully, that’s not the difference come Sept. 5. Nor is the fact that Quincy Roche is playing for the bad guys instead of the good ones.

Monday: Surprising Newcomers

03.09.20
by

5 Goals For Spring Practice

practice

Someone in the coaching office conference room is a yellow legal pad with a list of goals for spring practice that begins tomorrow.

Right now, we don’t know what’s on it or how many bullet points need to be covered but we hope it includes this five items, in no order of importance:

Generating a Pass Rush. With Quincy Roche on one end and Gregory Rousseau at the other end, we know that Miami is going to have one of the best edge rushing games in the country. It would be nice if the Owls could counter with an impressive one of their own in the opener. Hmm. Roche and Rousseau vs. who? Right now, Nickolos Madourie and Arnold Ebiketie/Manny Walker look like the starters with not much behind them. Owls are pretty set up the middle with Dan Archibong, Kris Banks and Ifianyi Maijeh. Maybe moving Archibong to his first position at Temple, end, will help.

Temple summer practice, football,

Game planning for Miami. With that kind of opening opponent looming, it’s never to early to have a game plan for them. Better now to design quick passes ,wraparound draws, and screens to mitigate that pass rush and catch the Hurricanes flat-flooted.

Establishing the run. What worked at NIU (err, RPO) does not necessarily work at Temple. Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins recruited this team to establish the run and make big plays off play-action fakes and Rod Carey should think long and hard about developing an approach suited to the personnel already here. Ray Davis is probably the second-best running back in the league (only behind Memphis Kenneth Gainswell) and should be more featured in this offense.

Fixing special teams. Carey will tell you that the special teams were not a disaster last year, but Temple fans have eyes and they have ears. From what we saw, they were a disaster. Temple needs to improve both the return and kicking aspects of special teams, although the coverage was passable. Will Mobley is a reliable short-range kicker but do you trust him when you need a 50-yarder to win and the game is tied, 14-14? Temple had the special teams’ player of the year, Isaiah Wright, in 2018 and turned him into a fair-catch artist in 2019. That’s a head-scratcher. Temple needs to make the punt return an offensive play again.

Clock management. If the coaching staff is honest watching film from 55-13, 45-21 and 63-21 losses, they were the direct result of stopping the clock on incomplete passes, giving teams with far greater speed a lot more plays to do damage. In the past, particularly under Matt Rhule and Al Golden, the Temple offensive philosophy has been to chew up the clock with a running game and extend the game into the fourth quarter. That worked pretty well with Temple TUFF players. Clock management and an effective running game go hand in hand and the earlier this staff realizes that, the better the chances to avoid those kind of blowouts in 2020.

Friday: The Case for Cherry and White

 

03.06.20
by

Spring Depth Building

rodster

“If I could ever figure out a way to run an offense without an RPO, I think we could turn the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard into an adding machine. Establish the run, play action fakes to Ray Davis and guys would be open all over the place.”

One of the things some Temple fans did to pass the time deep into the third quarter of the bowl game when the realization that going to Annapolis was a wasted trip was to thumb through the official game souvenir program ($10).

Raising my hand here and putting all of the possible backups in bold below. The caveat here is that there are always other spring names who surprise will will not be listed.

spring

Even with the unexpected departures, the Owls are not completely screwed in the depth department.

They have their starting quarterback (Anthony Russo) back, but lost second-teamer Todd Centeio to the portal and Colorado State. Still, a number of people remarked how good Trad Beatty has looked so Centeio might not be a big loss.

On the offensive line, they have both left tackles (junior Isaac Moore and sophomore Victor Stoffel) back as well as both right guards (seniors Joe Hooper and Leon Pinto) and both right tackles (junior Adam Klein and sophomore David Nwagowugwu). The backup center (Griffin Sestili) returns as does the backup left guard junior J.D. Gomez.

That means Beatty will have to be ready and the Owls need to find a backup to Gomez and Setiili if indeed those two earn the starting jobs. Remember, Vince Picozzi–an outstanding guard who was injured in November–could return as the starting right guard or starting center, helping build depth elsewhere.

beatty

Trad Beatty (11) is one play away from being needed.

The receivers (Jadan Blue and Branden Mack) are perhaps the best ever at Temple and the depth is also outstanding (Jose Barbon and Randle Jones).

Both tight ends (David Martin-Robinson and Aaron Jarman) return.

There is a depth problem at running back as the Owls are set with starter Ray Davis but it would have been nice to pick up a portal as insurance and to take some of the load off Davis. That’s probably not happening now, so someone will have to emerge from a group that includes or is not limited to Tayvon Ruley, Kyle Dobbins and Edward Saydee.

On defense, the starters probably will be Manny walker and Nickolos Madourie (ends), and Dan Archibong and Ifeanyi Maijeh (tackles) with linebacker starters of Isaiah Graham-Mobley, William Kwenkeu and Audrey Isaacs. One of the safeties should be Cheltenham grad George Reid with the other probably being Amir Tyler. Christian Braswell, Ty Mason and Freddie Johnson return.

But depth on defense could be a problem as only Kris Banks (tackle) and Arnold Ebiketie (end) seeing significant playing time along the front wall and nobody at linebacker behind the current projected starters. Keyvone Bruton has plenty of playing time at safety and will return and also Linwood Crump Jr. returns at cornerback after an injury that kept him out of the North Carolina game.

As with most Group of Five teams, the Owls are in good shape among the first 22. Spring practice, which begins on Tuesday, will be all about building a respectable second 22.

Monday: Five Goals of Spring Practice