Author Archives: Mike Gibson

03.02.20
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Flip side: Why 2020 Could Be a Step Forward

The Rutgers Al of Miami, coach Coop, is still not completely sold on Manny.

From the moment the season ended, it’s been nothing but bad news for the Temple football program.

Other than the expected losses, players with returning eligibility left for the NFL (2) and other FBS teams (2).

Pessissmism, not optimism, have understandably reigned.

Still, all is not lost. There are several reasons for optimism left in no particular order and we’ll go with just five names:

disclosure

Manny Diaz. Despite having three top 10 national recruiting classes in the last six years, Diaz took that talent and lost six games, including crosstown rival FIU (which had six classes rated lower than Temple prior to last season). If Diaz “coaches” Miami (with D’Eriq King at quarterback and Quincy Roche at DE) to a loss against visiting Temple, the season momentum could be off and running for the Owls.

Anthony Russo. Even in an ill-suited offense (for him), Russo improved from 14 touchdowns and 14 interceptions to 21 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. If he makes even the same kind of improvement this season, that will be 28 touchdowns and eight interceptions. No Temple quarterback has ever had that kind of season, even in a 10-2 season (Brian Broomell), a 10-3 season (P.J. Walker) and a 9-1 season (Steve Joachim). Gotta think that 28 touchdowns and eight interceptions get the Owls at least 10 wins.

russo

Ray Davis. Maybe 900-plus yards from a true freshman running back will convince this coaching staff to put more emphasis on the running game, even with an RPO approach. If it does, that sets up success in the passing game.

Jadan Blue. Three years ago, Blue had over 100 yards and three touchdown receptions in what might have been the last “true” Cherry and White game of the century. People who saw that performance knew we had something then. His record-breaking season in 2019 cemented that perception. If Blue even has a “slightly” better season in 2020, he could be a first-team All-American. His style of play reminds me a lot of Gerard “Sweet Feet” Lucear, a former great Owl wide receiver from Georgia. With him as the “speed” receiver and Branden Mack as the “possession” receiver (with a whole lot of speed), Temple’s passing game could be lethal.

Nikolos Madourie. Who? At Temple these days, you’ve got to check the official roster daily to see if the guy’s still here. (Madourie still is.) He could be the impact pass rusher Roche was. For comparison’s sake (recognizing the levels of play are different, though), Roche was named AAC Defensive Player of the Year with 13.5 sacks. Madourie, a 6-6, 240-pound player from Sunrise, Fla,., had 15.5 sacks his last year of JUCO ball. If he gets, say, 13.5 this year, he will be more than an acceptable replacement for Roche especially since guys like Dan Archibong, Ifeanyi Maijeh and Kris Banks are going to provide a good push up the middle.

You want optimism? That’s the best we can do now, a week before the start of spring practice.

Otherwise, we live in Philadelphia but our mindset is in the Show Me state of Missouri.

Friday: A Look at Depth

 

02.28.20
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Why 2020 Could Be a Step Back

 

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In our last post, we’ve noted that ESPN college football analytics guy Bill Connelly is likely to stick a 6-6 prediction on the 2020 Temple football Owls.

After consecutive eight-win seasons piggybacked on top of consecutive double-digit-win seasons, that’s just another step back after a pretty good run.

From the perspective of this fan, it’s hard to argue with Connelly.

A lot of things happened since the end of the year, including four pretty valuable players with Temple eligibility left giving up that eligibility for, in no particular order, the NFL, the first Temple opponent on next season’s schedule, and Ole Miss.

It’s hard enough for a team to overcome expected losses (senior leadership) when you pile on top of that the four best juniors on the team.

When there are only 129 FBS teams and ESPN predicts you to be the 72d-best one, you don’t have to be Andrew Yang to know that you are closer to the bottom than the top. That’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow after 36 wins in the past four seasons so, yes, that’s a huge step back after steps forward.

On top of that, the head coach, Rod Carey, in a recent interview said nothing would fundamentally change in the offensive and defensive philosophy of the team. When asked in that same interview if he was concerned about the number of talented players jumping ship, he brushed it off by saying: “We want people who want to be here.”

Extrapolate that logic just a little bit by imagining this: If your entire first team left for “greener” pastures and the scout team wanted to stay, are you really better off?

Err, no.

For 2020 expectations to rise, the talent pool has to get better and the Owls went from an Olympic-sized one to a kiddy pool. An awful lot of good coaching will be needed to overcome those losses.

Monday: Possible Reasons for Optimism

02.24.20
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TU Football: How Others See Us

 

Screenshot 2020-02-23 at 11.54.08 AM

Bill Connelly not only nailed this prediction in 2018, he got the exact regular-season record right (8-4) and predicted the Owls would finish second to UCF

There are certain truisms when it comes to Temple football.

Rutgers fans will always see their program as better than us, despite evidence to the contrary. You even had one RU fan on their website deny after losing to Maryland, 48-7, (and Temple beating the Terps, 20-17, three weeks prior) that RU was still better than Temple.

I know.

Shaking my head.

Screenshot 2020-02-23 at 11.52.47 AM

Connelly’s conference breakdown. The single digits rates his conference rankings for 2020; the second single-digit number represents his final rankings for 2019.

On the other hand, UConn fans went through the entire pyramid of stages of grief, from saying that they were a much better candidate for the P5 than Temple seven years ago, to (mostly) posts now there on their website: “Why can’t we be like Temple?”

Different strokes for different folks.

Then there’s Bill Connelly.

I always try to give credit where it’s due and this guy is uncanny.

The former Sports Nation writer now working for ESPN of all of the outsiders has one of the best handles on Temple football prognostication out there of all the outsiders. In 2018, he predicted in August that the Owls would finish the regular season 8-4 and they did just that. In 2019, he predicted the Owls would finish 7-5 and they did just one game better.

Pretty good for a guy who doesn’t follow the team like we do.

Connelly can best be described as an analytics guy and has numbers for offensive and defensive efficiency and even throws in some special teams numbers.

Connelly has not come up with a record prediction for the Owls but currently ranks the Owls as No. 72 nationally. Only 80 teams make bowl games so, while Connelly has yet to set a record, it’s pretty clear that he will have the 2020 Owls as 6-6 come August.

That might make the players, fans and coaches of this team mad, but it’s hard to argue with his past record and it’s up to them to prove him wrong.

Friday: Why 2020 Could Be a Step Back

Monday (3/2): Why 2020 Could Be a Step Forward

02.17.20
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TU Recruiting: The Ones Who Got Away

eo2

You could muster a lot more optimism around here if Ricky Slade, Scott Patchan and Michael Maietti were joining the family for spring practice in a few weeks.


Temple doesn’t need wide receivers
or quarterbacks or defensive backs,
but it certainly needs centers, tight ends,
defensive ends, and running backs.
The fact that this coaching staff
addressed non-issues and ignored
real issues should be setting off
all kinds of alarms

Assuming Rod Carey is done recruiting, at least three players–perhaps more–who could tangibly help Temple football have gone elsewhere or will go elsewhere.

Michael Maietti, a center from Don Bosco who started 33 games in the Big 10 and was good enough on an awful Rutgers’ team to be named to the Rimington Watch list (best center in the country), signed with Long Island University.
 
Long Island University. I’m only aware they have a football team because they played Villanova last season.

Now the Owls will probably have to move guard Vince Picozzi to a position where he never played before coming off a surgery that will force him to miss the entire spring. Maybe Leon Pinto or Wisdom Quarshie. Nice players, but do they have the credentials and the experience of a Maietti?

Err, no.

You can want to be here all you want but it’s the coaching staff’s job to upgrade the talent that is here.

Maietti was so excited about a rare (only) RU touchdown against Maryland, he inadvertently punched his quarterback in the face last season. Maybe Carey didn’t want to sign him because he was Maietti would knock out Anthony Russo.

Screenshot 2020-01-09 at 4.45.17 PM

Josh Pederson would have represented a huge upgrade at TE from Kenny Yeboah and add a large family to the Temple fan base

The thought here is that with the uncertainty at the center position facing Temple this season, Maietti would have been a better replacement than anyone on the current roster, but that’s on Carey.

So, too, are the failures to address depth at the running back position. As of this writing, Ricky Slade–formerly the No. 1 running back recruit prospect in the nation–is still stuck in the portal after telling Penn State coaches he was entering it in late January.

Scott Patchan, a defensive end from Miami with multiple starts in the ACC and would have filled an area of need for Temple, is still in limbo. Do you think this guy would be motivated to outperform Quincy Roche at Hard Rock Stadium on Sept 5?

Josh Pederson, a tight end from Louisiana Monroe, entered the transfer portal and would have been a nice replacement for Kenny Yeboah in that he had more catches, more yards and more touchdowns than Yeboah last year but, after getting no interest, decided to remain at ULM. Do you think he would have liked to play a year in his dad’s stadium in front of family and friends?

A quick check of their twitter feeds late Sunday afternoon indicates that both Patchan and Slade still haven’t signed elsewhere.

Who knows if Carey even reached out to these guys, but he would have been derelict in his duty if he did not. Nobody can really believe a Big 10 player would have signed at LIU if Temple was an option, especially considering that Big 10 player saw what Temple did for former Don Bosco teammate Matt Hennessy, who will be entering the NFL draft.

If Carey did not reach out to Maietti and will can now assume he did not, he probably didn’t reach out to Slade or Patchan. Manny Emmanuel, a DE who did sign with Temple, was much less productive at Wake Forest than Patchan was at The U.

Would Al Golden, a Penn State grad and former Miami head coach who probably knows of Slade and Patchan and who can walk into Don Bosco and everyone knows who he is, have done his homework on these guys? Probably.

Would a Midwestern-based staff without those kinds of New Jersey and Pennsylvania recruiting connections be so inclined? Probably not.

Temple doesn’t need wide receivers or quarterbacks or defensive backs, but it certainly needs centers, tight ends, defensive ends, and running backs. The fact that this coaching staff addressed non-issues and ignored real issues should be setting off all kinds of alarms.

Friday: Spring Practice

Monday (2/24): How Others View Temple

 

02.14.20
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LFF Deal kills the on-campus buzz

Screenshot 2020-02-13 at 2.41.44 PM

If Temple built the stadium here (enough room if the Maxi’s row and Sullivan Hall behind it were knocked down), the entire stadium would have been inside Temple’s footprint and the neighbors would not have been affected.

Whenever a deal is signed, it’s always advisable to look at the fine print.

To me, what to look for in the most recent Lincoln Financial Field extension Temple signed this week was that option.

A five-year deal with no option probably meant that Temple University was close to putting up a stadium of its own. A five-year deal with a five-year option probably meant not close.

The fine print suggests not close.

In Marc Narducci’s Philly.com article–that somewhat surprisingly made the front page of the Inquirer’s sports section–the key words to me were this: “the deal includes a five-year option for the Owls beyond the first five seasons.”

The architect for the earlier project, Moody Nolan, says it should take no more than three years from the time the first shovel is put into the ground to opening day and noted that the typical stadium construction is usually no more than 12-18 months.

So do the math.

If Temple’s administration thought they needed an additional five years on top of the five years they got, it means they are not even close to a shovel-in-the-ground date. If they were close enough to announce a date in, say, the next couple of years, they would have probably shunned the option.

What’s it all mean?

Screenshot 2020-02-13 at 2.48.15 PM

A future stadium that looks like this with the fans right on top of the field would be more of a home-field advantage than the original concept of Moody Nolan.

The good news is that the ugly Moody Nolan concept is probably a thing of the past and that a new stadium in another place on campus gives Temple a chance to go over some more attractive stadium concepts than the glorified high school stadium look Nolan presented.

The bad news probably means there won’t be a stadium on the campus for another decade if that. Temple is no longer in a hurry to get this done.

That’s bad news for those of us who want to live long enough to see a real home-field advantage for Temple. You know, the kind where the opposing quarterback looks over to the sideline and tells his coach “I can’t hear.” I remember that as a young kid at Temple Stadium only on a couple of occasions–the 39-36 win over West Virginia and the 34-7 win over Boston College in the 1970s.

Other than that, Temple’s really never had that kind of home-field advantage and that’s kind of sad.

At the Vet and the Linc, while it could get loud, it wasn’t the same as what the Owls experienced on the road in places like Cincinnati last year and ECU when the Pirates first came into the AAC.

Maybe someday, but a decade is a long time for a lot of us.

Screenshot 2020-02-13 at 2.53.18 PM

The original glorified high school stadium design

As Martin Luther King once said, “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.”

Temple might or might not get to the promised land, but the talk of this stadium that began well over a decade ago will continue to be talk for another decade and there are a whole lot of us who might never get to that promised land. It’s a shame because if the stadium had been built where the library is now and the library put at 15th and Norris, the neighbors who have held up this project for so long would have had no say.

That’s what you get when you hire two guys from Bloomington to run a Philadelphia university as CEO and CFO. Hopefully, the university has learned something from that mistake.

Monday: The Ones That Got Away

 

02.10.20
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Russo could finish near top of all-time stat line

Despite an inordinate amount of what probably is underserved bashing on social media, the 2020 season could provide a clearer picture of Anthony Russo’s legacy as a Temple University quarterback.

People lie, but numbers don’t.

rhulerusso

I’ve got to think Anthony Russo would have thrived more under Matt Rhule’s pro-set offense than under Carey’s RPO-based one. Maybe in Carolina in a couple of years.

Because P.J. (I still call him P.J. because I think it rolls off the tongue better than Phillip) Walker had four years to what will be three years as a starter for Russo, some of these career records he set here will never be broken:

  • Most passing yards=10,669
  • Most touchdowns=74

Walker had a terrific debut for Houston in the XFL with four touchdown passes against only one interception there but the crazy thought here is that Russo will be a better pro passer than Walker simply because his game is built for the NFL style (pocket passing, not RPOs). Sure, places like Buffalo and Baltimore run a lot of RPOs but the NFL is still a pocket passing league and that’s the kind of game where Russo can excel. I love P.J. and he can also make all of the throws, but his downfall in the NFL was that he was four inches shorter than Russo and could not see over 6-foot-5 defensive linemen with 41-inch vertical leaps. That metric changes in the XFL.

All of the other Temple University passing records, the apples to apples ones, will probably be picked off by Anthony Russo if he’s only able to duplicate his single-season of 2019 (21 touchdown passes, 11 interceptions, 2,861 yards) this season. You’ve got to think he will do better than that with Jadan Blue and Branden Mack as his two leading receivers. I think he will. I’m putting him down right now, if he’s injury-free, for 25 touchdowns, 3,000 yards, and 10 interceptions. (Feel free to snipe at me in December of this year if these predictions are wrong, but I think it will be pretty close to right.)

Those numbers would easily put him as the second-best, statistically, quarterback of all-time at Temple.

russopj

Anthony Russo congratulating P.J. Walker after throwing winning TD pass at UCF

What would Russo have to do to be No. 1? Just for fun, Anthony would have to throw 40 touchdown passes with 5,246 yards to be number one in all statistical categories. That would be close to a Joe Burrow-type improvement at LSU. In 2018, Burrow had 16 touchdown passes and five interceptions and 2,894 yards. In 2019: 5,671 yards, 60 touchdowns, 8 interceptions. Not happening for Anthony, but a fun scenario to think about in a Matt Rhule-like pro-set offense. RPO? No chance.

So, Rod Carey, please think about a more sensible offense for this talent in 2020. There’s got to be a sensible offensive guy in that coaching room who can tailor an offense around the present QB and not a long-term future one.

Still, though, the 25-3,000-10 season we described would put him in second place in all the major Temple statistical categories. He would break the single-season touchdown record shared by Brian Broomell and P.J. Walker (22 apiece) and top Walker’s 2015 season for yardage (2,972).

You might have a different opinion of Russo but, to me, numbers don’t lie and they will be telling the more complete story than any eye test done by the amateurs soon enough.

Friday: What the New Stadium Deal Means

02.07.20
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Signing Day II: Epic Fail

From the day the regular season ended, the expectations from this Temple football fan for next season was a minimum double-digit in wins and an AAC championship. There were that many impact players returning.

Then the dominoes fell.


There are moving parts here,
though, in that next year’s
team will be primarily recruited
by Geoff Collins and Matt Rhule,
so there is some hope but these
coaches also were primarily
responsible for coaching that
talent down to 55-13, 42-21 and
62-21 losses that should have
never happened. In the above video,
Temple head coach Rod Carey talks
about the “culture here” but that
culture hasn’t included three such
losses in a single season in almost
a decade so you’ve got to wonder
about the culture

The Owls, a touchdown underdog to a 6-6 UNC team, were blown out, 55-13. Then they lost one of the top three centers in the country, Matt Hennessy, and the best defensive player in the AAC, Quincy Roche, and a real good defensive back in Harrison Hand. I hoped all three would be back. None will. That, combined with losing three great linebackers as a part of the normal attrition in college football, lowered the bar a little.

I recalibrated those expectations from 10 to six wins based on that alone.

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of good players on this team–from quarterback Anthony Russo (who has a chance to put up the best career stats of any Temple signal caller next year) to wide receivers Jadan Blue and Branden Mack, running back Ray Davis, seasoned offensive linemen (Vince Picozzi, Isaac Moore, Joe Hooper and Adam Klein), defensive players Isaiah Graham-Mobley, William Kwenkeu, Audley Isaacs, Ifeanyi Maijeh, Dan Archibong, Kris Banks, Arnold Ebiketie, George Reid, Amir Tyler, DaeSean Winston, and cornerbacks Christian Braswell, Ty Mason and Freddie Johnson. Geez, BUT those guys needed Hennessy, Hand and Roche to go to war with them to go from good to great.

Maybe, though, the second signing period would produce acceptable replacements for the guys who I thought would be back.

Like if the Owls could do a couple of things–like getting portal help from Miami defensive end Scott Patchan and Rutgers center Michael Maetti–move that bar back up to eight. What happens if Ray Davis goes down? Do we have an elite level college football tailback to replace him? No.

Instead, as a result of Signing Day II, where the Owls got only two players who couldn’t play at a high level at Wake Forest and West Virginia and an offensive line transfer from Dayton, Michael Niese, the needle was moved back to six. The need for a great running back to replace Jager Gardner wasn’t even addressed. Both Scout.com and Rivals.com had this class rated in the middle of the AAC pack. The West Virginia transfer, Kwantel Raines, a 6-3, 205-pound freshman safety, played in six games and had nine tackles.

I hope I’m wrong but if the Owls recruit in the middle of the AAC pack, that’s exactly where they should expect to be.

rhulerusso

I don’t think the phrase RPO ever came up when Matt Rhule closed this deal.

There are moving parts here, though, in that next year’s team will be primarily recruited by Geoff Collins and Matt Rhule, so there is some hope but these coaches also were primarily responsible for coaching that talent down to 55-13, 42-21 and 62-21 losses that should have never happened. In the above video, Temple head coach Rod Carey talks about the “culture here” but that culture hasn’t included three such losses in a single season in almost a decade so you’ve got to wonder about the culture. The “Temple football culture” has never been run-pass option. It’s always been smashmouth downhill running and explosiveness in the passing game off play-action fakes. I don’t think Matt Rhule ever recruited Anthony Russo by selling an Elite 11 Level pocket passer on an RPO.

Recalibrating expectations lower might be OK if you are a head coach who makes $2 million per and has a $10 million buyout, but as a Temple fan, I got used to being in two straight title games and two-straight 10-win seasons and that’s the level where this coaching staff should aspire to be.

Now we’re coming off two-straight eight-win seasons and looking under every rock, I don’t see seven wins next season let alone eight and not filling the holes that needed to be filled in this crucial second signing period is not a good sign.

Carey said he wants people who “want to be here” but if the AAC player of the year doesn’t want to be here (and we fans want him here) and is replaced by a guy who couldn’t get on the field for Wake Forest, the only way that can be interpreted is that a great talent doesn’t want to be here and lesser talent does.

Usually, the team with the better talent wins. Unless that formula changes unexpectedly, we’re pretty much bleeped next year.

We should find by Miami if it will be an enjoyable year or not (hint: no more 55-13 losses are acceptable) but the indications are not good. Right now, whatever Vegas sets as the win total, I would advise my betting friends to take the under. (I don’t bet Temple football so it’s moot to me.) Signing Day II was the last day to convince me otherwise and, in my mind, it was an Epic Fail.

Give me more than eight wins and I will repost this in a year and apologize. It’s hard for me to imagine that scenario now.

Monday: The records are this close

02.03.20
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Spring Practice Question: Are the Owls better?

Screenshot 2020-02-02 at 1.26.50 PM

Punxsutawney Phil woke up yesterday and did not see his shadow and that means an early spring football practice at Temple.

Or something like that.

In actuality, we knew spring practice would be earlier than usual a couple of weeks ago when it was announced that the Cherry and White game will be on April 4th instead of the usual third Saturday of that month.

While the practice schedule hasn’t been released yet, you’ve got to believe that the first full one will not be too much after March 1. Since February is a short month anyway, that’s right around the corner.

So the big question becomes: Is Temple better this spring than last spring?

Two months ago, we would have said unequivocally yes. A month ago? No.

Wednesday, after a late signing day that demands a center and a defensive end (and maybe a running back who can step in for Ray Davis if he goes down), the answer will probably be the same.

As of the writing of this post, former Miami defensive end Scott Patchan is still in the portal as is the best center in the portal, Michael Maietti, formerly of Rutgers. Patchan was the starter until NFL prospect Gregory Rousseau took his job and left when Quincy Roche arrived on campus.

So far, though, the Owls have decided to go in a different direction, picking up Emmanuel Walker, a DE from Wake Forest, and an offensive lineman from FCS, Michael Niese from Dayton. Nice pickups, but neither have the street cred or production level of Patchan or Maietti. Patchan was a starter at Miami; Walker never started at Wake. The other guy is making a jump from FCS to FBS and does not have the 33 Big 10 starts that Maietti has. Starting in the Big 10 is one thing. Starting in the Big 10 for Rutgers and still making the Rimington Watch List as the best center in the country is quite another. Temple would seem to have an in for Maietti since Don Bosco is not all that far away and the Owls did so much for another Don Bosco grad, Matt Hennessy.

From a pure production standpoint, even though both Walker and Patchan are grad seniors, Patchan has better numbers: 24 starts, 63 tackles, 3.5 sacks and 8.5 tackles for a loss. Walker, on the other hand, has played in 11 games with 19 tackles (five for losses) and two sacks. It’s an apples to apples comparison, too, as both have competed in the ACC over the same amount of years.

As of the publication of this post–a little after midnight on Feb. 3–both Patchan and Maietti are still available in the portal according to their respective twitter feeds. That could change later today or tomorrow, but most certainly by Wednesday.

Maybe the Owls never went after both. Maybe they did and were spurned but if, in the end, they come up with less of a portal haul than they could have, the team as a whole that got a lot worse losing Hennessy and Roche in early January didn’t do enough to replace them by February. If, however, adding Pachan and Maietti to a haul that includes Niese and Walker, that’s different.

That would mean an early spring practice will be a lot sunnier and warmer than we originally thought.

Friday: Post-signing Day Review

 

 

01.31.20
by

Signing Day: Short shopping list

NCAA Football: Florida at Miami

Scott Pachan could fill an area of need for Temple

Don’t go shopping at Target with Temple head coach Rod Carey.

If you both need batteries and milk, he might skip those sections and head right for the toys.

At least that’s how it looks headed toward this second signing day next Wednesday. Temple football doesn’t have a whole lot to spend in terms of scholarship currency but does have a couple of specific needs this cycle.

Screenshot 2020-01-31 at 2.13.56 PM

Michael Maietti

Defensive end, because the guy they believed in enough to recruit out of Randallstown, Md., and developed into an NFL talent, Quincy Roche, decided to leave for the same bad guys who the Owls will face in the opener (Miami). Center because Matt Hennessy left for the NFL despite some pro scouts advising him to stay another year at Temple.

Those are the breaks. Tough ones, sure, but needs that could be ameliorated by grabbing a couple of talented guys in the portal. Temple needs a ready-made center and a ready-made defensive end and, ironically, Miami has a defensive end they could use still in the portal named Scott Patchan. He entered the portal when Roche arrived in Coral Gables.

In another ironic twist, there is a center in the portal named Michael Maietti who, like Hennessy, is a Don Bosco (N.J.) prep product. Maietti, like Hennessy, was on the Rimington watch list as the best center in the country. I’ve got to believe Carey’s staff is aware of these guys and they deserve to be pursued hard. Maietti might have seen what Temple did for Hennessy and think he could benefit as well. Just a wild thought. Pachan might be a motivated guy come opening day.

Chances are neither players are as good as the ones they will replace but the same chances exist they are better than the current options. Is there a chance Temple gets them? Who knows? Is Temple even trying? Show these guys some love.

Those are the main needs Temple has this recruiting cycle. What have we seen so far? Carey adding a quarterback (he already recruited one in December) to a deep quarterback room that includes Anthony Russo, Trad Beatty, and Kennique Bonner-Steward.

It’s never good when you head to the store with a couple of items in mind and, when you come back home, you realize you’ve neglected to get both.

Let’s hope Carey is on the case.

Monday: Spring Practice Not All That Far Away

01.27.20
by

Dear Rod: Flexibility Wouldn’t Hurt

armsteadcherry

Editor’s Note: As we approach signing day, time to wrap up a couple of concerns in an open letter to the coach.

Dear Rod,

Congratulations on a nice first season, but it could have been a lot better had just a few things been cleaned up.

Eight wins were just about what many expected–I predicted nine–but not in my wildest dreams did I believe these players would have been beaten 42-21, 63-21 and 55-13 by anyone.

There should be a plan to fix that.

Will the real Bernard Pierce please stand up?

We were warned by the Northern Illinois fans that, while you were a good coach, you were a little bit stubborn and I think a lot of that was revealed in the blowouts. Most of these guys were recruited for a power running game, not a read-option spread, and I was wrong to assume that you would have adjusted to your talent and not made your talent adjust to the coaches.

To me, good coaches don’t try to force-feed their system onto a group better suited for another system and you might want to consider that approach next season. Anthony Russo is a much better passer when the running game is established first without being burdened by deciding to run or pass. Plenty of ways to fix that. Insert a fullback (Tavon Ruley?) and put the tight ends in motion and bring more blockers to the point of attack that there are defenders. That would help spring Ray Davis for some big early runs.

Temple’s had great running backs in the past like Bernard Pierce, Jahad Thomas, and Ryquell Armstead because it established the run with a culture of toughness on the offensive line and often the use of a fullback to help run interference for that talent.

Ray Davis can be every bit as good as those guys but he needs help.

Once the run is established, the linebackers and the safeties inch closer to the line of scrimmage and play-action–not read option–is the way to defeat that kind of defense. A deft fake by Russo to Davis means that both Jadan Blue and Brandon Mack will be running so free through the secondary that Russo won’t know which one to pick out.

thomaspsu

Not much can be accomplished by asking Russo to run a read option. I know that’s the system you were familiar with at NIU with Jordan Lynch but Russo is a lot closer to Tom Brady in skill set than he is to Lynch and you don’t see Bill Belichick asking Brady to run the read-option. Great coaches find a scheme that fits their talent at hand, not the talent they want.

Running the ball shortens the game, chews up the clock and helps keep the defense off the field and you’ll find that being on the short end of scores like 62-21, 42-21 and 55-13 don’t happen nearly as much with that approach.

All of these concepts can be implemented by the spring as well as putting someone in charge of special teams and deciding whether you want to block kicks or return them or do both. Doing nothing on special teams, which was Temple in 2019, should no longer be an option.

Temple football is a great running game, special teams, and defense but it all starts with a great running game. It’ll be four more years of recruiting before you can get the players who can run your stuff.

Meanwhile, I think most Temple fans would like to see a little more flexibility in the thinking in the coaches’ room in 2020 than we saw last fall.

That might be as important as anything that happens on the practice field before the ball is kicked off in Miami.

Friday: Signing Day