Author Archives: Mike Gibson

01.24.20
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The Dotted Line=No Stadium (Yet)

Urinals

This could be your urinal at Franklin Field next year if Temple does not reach an agreement with the Eagles.

One of the topics often talked about among Temple fans in the parking lot last year was the stadium issue.

Make no mistake, a major college football team without a stadium is an issue in the nation’s fourth-largest market.

Then it was 12 months, then 11, then 10 and then nine until Temple needed a place to play and did not have one, at least officially.

We’re about at the eighth-month mark and there is still no signature on the dotted line.

Soon enough, we will be at one. You’ve got to think this is a pretty big story on the Philadelphia sports scene but you are much more likely to read speculative pieces in the offseason on who the Eagles’ right backup guard will be then how the negotiations with Temple and Jeffrey Lurie are going.

Screenshot 2020-01-23 at 9.42.25 AM

Hat tip to one of the greatest cornerbacks in Temple history, Joe Greenwood, for this graphic.

That’s where the Temple News comes into play. Somebody in the media now cares about an issue a lot of us care about and The Temple News, not the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News or Philadelphia Magazine, finally wrote something about it.

Basically, the bottom line is nothing has been done about a contract and there is no signature ceremony planned and we are running out of time. Urinals at Franklin Field could be the least of the Owls’ problems. The AAC might be forced to keep Temple off the home TV schedule due to Penn having control of Saturdays and that could affect Temple’s road game exposure as well.

Is this a concern?

It should be because the requests for season tickets have gone out and I’m not 100 percent sure I will be sitting in my comfortable Section 121 end-of-the-row seat or on a wooden bench getting splinters and ducking the pigeons at Franklin Field. Ninety percent, but not 100 percent.

tailgating

Since the last time Temple played a home game at Franklin Field, Penn has moved the tailgating area from the Palestra parking lot to Shoemaker Green here.

I guess Temple and the Eagles will work out a deal because really there is no other option. The university completely botched the stadium. To me, it was a no-brainer to build where the library is now, knocking down Maxi’s, the Conwell Inn and that entire Liacouras Walk and putting the Library in that big empty spot at 15th and Norris. That way, no neighbors to deal with unless the protest is against a library. That would not go over well even in neighbor-friendly Philadelphia City Council. This is what happens when you hire people from Indiana to run a Philadelphia university. The damage has already been done.

That’s a Humpty Dumpty that cannot be put together again. (Of course, there is a fix but it will be a costly one: Knock down the trade union building and put it at 15th and Norris and squeeze the Olympic sports there and put the football stadium at Broad and Master. That’s probably never going to happen.)

The irony of all this is that the entire impetus for the on-campus stadium was that the Eagles were holding Temple hostage and the university wanted to get a cost-effective way to spend their stadium money. The boomerang effect of the mishandling of the on-campus stadium issue is that they gave the Eagles even more leverage.

So whatever advantage Temple might have had bringing this whole thing up turns out to be the Owls shooting themselves in the foot. The fact that they are waiting to pull the trigger won’t make the pain go away.

Monday: A Plea to Coach Carey

 

01.20.20
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Red Flags and Temple football

 

Red flags and green flags for the Owls

This is the only red flag Temple fans should care about.

Anyone who even casually follows auto racing, and I emphasize the casual part in my case, knows what a red flag means in that sport.

It means “conditions are too dangerous to continue” and that “cars are advised to proceed to the pit.”

Hmm.

A month ago, I would have said the 2020 season was definitely a green flag. Outside the linebackers, who were very good, just about everybody who made a difference was going to be back in the fold.

Since then, the best center in the country (Matt Hennessy) decided on the NFL draft, where he will probably be a 1-3 round NFL pick. The best defensive player in the AAC, Quincy Roche, decided another school would increase his chances of being picked in the NFL draft in 2021. The tight end decided first on Baylor and then on Ole Miss. The backup quarterback, who was a nice insurance policy if Anthony Russo went down, skipped town.

When will the bleeding of talent ever stop?

Even if it has, my expectations for the 2020 season have been knocked down a peg. If the 2018 and 2019 Owls could win eight games, I thought for sure the 2020 Owls would have a really good chance at double digits and an AAC title.

Now?

Screenshot 2019-11-28 at 9.55.07 PM

This was it for the losses a month or so ago. It’s gotten much worse since.

Unless head coach Rod Carey pulls a couple of rabbits out of the hat by February signing day, I’d have to find my Cherry and White-colored glasses to think that 2020 will be anything more than a 6-6 season. Honestly, do you see Carey as that kind of magician? Good game day coach, for sure, but there seems to be some evolving evidence that he doesn’t have the same connection with the kids that coaches like Al Golden and Matt Rhule had. He’s got the X’s and O’s part down pat, not so much the Jimmy’s and Joe’s. Really, what can Carey do at this point to excite the fan base? Maybe sign the 1,000-yard running back in the portal from NIU or a Power 5 defensive end. That’s about it.

I can’t say for sure that Carey has lost the locker room but it would be hard for me to believe that if, say, Al Golden was here the connection between players and the coaching staff would have been enough for a lot of the kids who left to stay. Hennessy, to me, was a goner but losing Kenny Yeboah and Quincy Roche really hurt. There is absolutely nothing any objective observer can say to convince me that they would have been better off elsewhere than Temple.

For some reason, they believe otherwise.

Power 5 programs who lose talent can survive because those programs routinely recruit four- and five-star talent. A program like Temple cannot, especially when I don’t notice a similar exodus from UCF, Cincinnati and Memphis. Just look at the Miami opener, for instance. When the Owls beat Georgia Tech, 24-2, and Miami lost to Georgia Tech, 28-21, a couple of weeks later, winning in Miami next year seemed not only possible but probable.

Since then, though, the Owls lost a lot and Miami gained a lot, including Houston quarterback superstar D’Eriq King.

Cars might not be advised to return to the pit in 2020 but if fans remain in the parking lot and do not go into the stadium it’s because these red flags are directing them there. Not me, because even in 1-11 seasons and 20-game losing streaks, the game was always the thing. But the Temple fan base, on the whole, is more softcore than hardcore and deciding to make game day more about the day than the game will be a product of success or failure.

Since fans can’t go in the portal, their only option is to declare for Lot K on game day. It’s up to Carey to give them a reason to believe now and he’s running out of time.

Friday: The Dotted Line

01.17.20
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2020: A hard year to be a college football fan

centeio

Barbara Walters used to say: “This is 2020.”

The signature line to the ABC news show could be used halfway through the new decade today with one caveat: “This is 2020. The end of college football as we know it.”

The second sentence is important today specifically to Temple football fans because of the happenings of the last month or so and how it impacts the year ahead. Not only did Temple football fans get kicked in the stomach by a 55-13 loss to North Carolina (a game that they were only a 6-point underdog), they then got punched in the head a few days later when AAC Defensive Player of the Year Quincy Roche announced he was leaving not for the NFL but for another school. Hard to believe Harry (Donahue) that Roche figured he’d have a better chance to be drafted higher if he went to another school after Temple had two recent defensive linemen (Mo Wilkerson and Haason Reddick) drafted in the first round.

Then, just a few days ago, capable backup quarterback Toddy “Touchdown” Centeio also announced that he was also going to another school. First-string quarterback Anthony Russo has referred to Centeio as his “broski” but maybe Centeio’s departure will force head coach Rod Carey to abandon this ill-fitting read-option offense for one more suited to Russo’s talents. I doubt it. Losing Centeio was not a plus.

Kicked in the stomach, punched in the face and then kneed to the groin is pretty much how it feels.

The worst was Roche, a Temple alumnus. Can’t imagine him showing up at the tailgates in a few years here. Maybe he will show up at those of the next team. It’s kind of a wash considering I thought he’d go to the NFL, but this is a worst-case scenario I could not even imagine on the day when the Owls played UNC.

narducci

This is pretty much how college football has changed in the last decade. Before 2010, a Temple fan could pretty much pick their favorite players (actually mine were all 85 guys suiting up on game days) and follow them through four years at Temple. Senior Day was always a sad occasion but it was offset by the fact that a new group was coming in every year.

Now we’re not even sure of a decent Senior Day anymore. Roche never had his year, nor did center Matt Hennessy. Centeio invested so much in the program he deserved one as well. A lot of it is understandable. Many of these kids had to go through three coaching staffs and their thought process has to be if it is a business for the coaches, it can be a business for the players.

Still, as fans, it’s really not fair and that doesn’t apply to just Temple. Almost all of the other “Group of Five” schools are adversely affected by the transfer portal and it doesn’t figure to get any better any time soon. Group of Five schools that recruited and developed players now face the prospect of developing them for Power Five schools. If Quincy Roche and Todd Centeio can leave Temple for other schools, will, say, Kenny Gainwell leave Memphis for LSU or some similar school?

Doesn’t seem to be fair to the fans, who either can’t or have no desire to cheer for anyone else. It would be a good story for 20/20.

Or 60 Minutes.

Monday: Red Flags

01.13.20
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Tougher loss than any game: Kevin Grady

 

Screenshot 2020-01-11 at 9.29.11 PMThere have been plenty of tough losses over even an otherwise good period for Temple football.

The last two bowl games come to mind as does the most recent debacle at Cincinnati.

You can get over those kinds of losses. What has been tougher and tougher to deal with are the more permanent ones.

Kevin Grady was the latest of our tailgaters to pass away last week and, in that one package, there was not a more gentle soul or fierce football player than the running back for Temple from 1973-75. I started watching Temple football around that time and became a big fan of Grady, who could interchangeably play both halfback and fullback.

I didn’t know Kevin then, but in more recent years he showed up Saturdays at the Steve Conjar tailgates–and it was more often than not– I got a chance to talk to him and each time it was a pleasure. This year, I hadn’t seen much of him and was wondering why.

Screenshot 2020-01-11 at 9.17.49 PM

The numbers only told part of the Kevin Grady story

Screenshot 2020-01-12 at 11.40.43 AM

Brian Slade’s numbers, although that TE designation is 1983 is misleading

Evidently, he had some health problems that prevented him from attending. Then, last week, I heard he was gone. Temple tailgaters went through a similar loss a few years ago when former kicker Wes Sornisky died in a fire in Delaware at 64 years of age. Unfortunately, these occurrences are going to happen at a more rapid pace than we would like in the next few years. Bruce Arians’ players lost a similarly tough runner in Brian Slade in 2015 and, even before that, even Al Golden’s guys weren’t immune when both Kee-Ayre Griffin and Anthony Ferla passed away far too soon.

Grady is just the latest and deserves to be remembered for both his on- and off-field character.

Until Jager Gardner’s 94-yard touchdown run from scrimmage, Grady had the longest run from scrimmage in the history of Temple football. He was also part of the most successful two-year run in Temple history–his team went 9-1 one year and 8-2 the next–and over those two years, Temple had the longest winning streak in major college football (14).

That’s right. Temple. Among those wins was West Virginia and Boston College when both programs were very good.

Who knows if Temple will ever have a 14-game winning streak again? The way college football has evolved (devolved, in my mind), the chips are stacked so much against G5 teams like Temple that it is extremely doubtful.

Kevin Grady had an even more impressive streak of his own–65 years as an incredibly good person–and someone who made a positive impression on everyone he met. That’s a streak that probably won’t be duplicated any time soon, either.

Friday: Fandom in 2020

01.10.20
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Other side of the portal: FCS

Screenshot 2020-01-09 at 4.45.17 PM

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

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Nobody is calling Temple football a female goose, but it’s hard to interpret Quincy Roche’s leaving the program as anything other than him screwing his teammates and alma mater.

There has been a lot of talk lately that the Owls should follow the SMU model of poaching disgruntled Power 5 players who have been second-teamers at that level and advancement blocked by more talented players. Quarterback Shane Buechele, like Anthony Russo a former Elite 11 quarterback, immediately comes to mind.

That’s just one way and, sure, the Owls should pursue players in that part of the portal who represent upgrades and fill areas of need. (We’re thinking mostly of center and defensive ends in that second group.)

There is a problem with FBS portal players. If they are not good enough to start with Power 5 teams, how is Temple supposed to beat these Power 5 teams in bowl games with substandard talent?

The remedy could rest with FCS players and other outstanding players who compete in lesser-profile FBS leagues. Last year, 19 players were drafted out of FCS schools by the NFL and those types are the players Temple should be targeting.

Look at last year’s drafted NFL players out of the FCS. One of them was Nasir Adderley, the grandson of former Northeast High great Herb (a former Temple football radio analyst).

Screenshot 2020-01-09 at 4.26.58 PM

Last year’s early-round NFL draft choices out of the FCS

Temple was lucky when it got Rock Ya-Sin to come for his final season after Presybertian went from a scholarship FCS school (like Villanova) to a non-scholarship one, like Georgetown.

Temple was instrumental in raising Ya-Sin’s stock from a UFA to a second-round pick. The Owls probably should go after those types over disgruntled FBS players because the Owls can show them what they did for Ya-Sin and these are players not only good enough to get on the field but good enough to help beat Power 5 programs, which should always be the Temple goal beyond winning the AAC title.

If the Owls are still looking for an upgrade over Kenny Yeboah (19 catches, 248 yards, 5 touchdowns in 2019), they should look at Louisiana-Monroe’s Josh Pederson (43 catches, 467 yards, 9 touchdowns), who happens to be in the portal and also happens to be Doug Pederson’s son. Doug could attend all of his son’s games easily if Rod Carey and staff are able to recruit Josh. The appeal of playing in his dad’s team’s stadium could be too good to pass up.

There’s another side of the portal and Temple should use every advantage it has. Grabbing “gruntled” FCS players should be easier than luring disgruntled FBS ones.

Monday: Tough Loss

01.06.20
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Turning it Around: Reseeding AAC bowls

Mike Aresco, AAC commissioner,

Mike Aresco, AAC commissioner, probably is going to seed the bowls differently next year.

Somewhere in the Rhode Island office of the league this morning after a long vacation,  AAC commissioner Mike Aresco is kicking himself.

The AAC started out 1-3 in the bowls but finished 4-3. That’s better than two Power 5 conferences but could have been even more impressive. UCF fans were salty that Temple and not it was playing a Power 5 team in a bowl game and, in retrospect, it looked like those fans were right. The thought process probably was then that Temple would draw better to the Military, but the thought process was skewed because, to this league, prestige means more than money at this point.

If Aresco had to reseed the bowls, we’re going to guess he might have gone with these matchups instead:

Military Bowl _ UCF vs. North Carolina. The speed of the Knights would have been a much better matchup against the Tar Heels than Temple would have been. While UNC put up 55 on the Owls, UCF put up 62 and, if it traveled pretty well to Philadelphia (it did), it would have done the same to Annapolis. UCF, 39-35.

Gasparilla Bowl _ Temple vs. Marshall. Cincinnati went to Marshall and beat the Thundering Herd, 45-13. Temple traveled to Cincy and would lose a 15-13 game it would have won if it had an even marginally passable special teams. Temple, 35-14.

Birmingham Bowl _ SMU vs. Boston College. SMU finished 10-2 in the regular season and was “awarded” with that trip with a game against FAU in the Boca Raton Bowl. That game was played on FAU’s home field and an unmotivated SMU team lost big-time. Had SMU played a BC team that Cincy beat, 38-6, got to think that the result would have been similar. SMU, 28-7.

Aresco could have done nothing about the Cotton Bowl because Memphis earned its spot and Navy’s beating of Kansas State in the Liberty Bowl was definitely a feather in the league’s cap.

Also, the Armed Forces Bowl that saw Tulane beat former rival Southern Mississippi was a good matchup. That said, the best the AAC could have done was gone 6-1 and we’ve got to think that’s probably why Aresco is kicking himself now because, with a little better forethought, that’s exactly what would have happened.

Thanks to a 55-13 loss, Temple will probably be sent to bowl hell next year if the Owls even make a bowl and it will be a well-earned sentence.

Friday: The Other Side of The Portal

 

01.03.20
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Portal: Someone’s Getting Bad Advice

About the time Russell Conwell founded Temple University, he was the best-known lecturer in the United States, playing to sellout crowds who wanted to hear his story of the man who traveled the world in search of riches only to find “Acres of Diamonds” in his own backyard.

russell

The formula in the last decade has worked particularly well for Temple football, as the Owls have mined their own backyard and found a few diamonds that helped elevate their program to a national profile.

No one knows if Russell’s theory works in the opposite direction, but there appears to be a “Conwell Curse” on the few players who have left these acres searching for not diamonds but gold. Once you’ve solved the Conwell puzzle and found your diamonds right in your backyard, it’s bad Karma to stray.

 

There is not much data to work with on what happened to players who left Temple for so-called greener pastures but there is enough evidence to suggest it won’t necessarily end well for the two most recent departures.

Consider this: Temple had two linemen drafted in the NFL first-round in the last decade: One was Mo Wilkerson and the other was Haason Reddick. Staying at Temple did not hurt those last two so Quincy Roche leaving for ostensibly a high-end Power 5 school is a real head-scratcher.

Maybe he will be drafted in the first round next year, maybe not, but in our preview of the North Carolina game we wrote that “Quincy Roche and company getting to Sam Howell early and often is the only way that Temple has a chance to win this game.” Quincy did not get to Howell early and often. He didn’t get to him at all. Not only that, his key offside on a blocked field goal for a touchdown cost the Owls a possible 17-14 deficit at halftime instead of a 17-6 one.  If the way a 6-6 Power 5 team blocked him was any indication of how 9-3, 10-2, 11-1 or even 12-0 Power 5 teams will block him, he will not be a No. 1 NFL draft pick. That’s not sour grapes. That’s a simple fact.

If, on the other hand, Roche followed up his AAC Defensive Player of the Year with another great year at Temple, he would have had the same chance Wilkerson and Reddick had to be drafted No. 1 by an NFL team. Also, Roche had a breakout year not under Geoff Collins but under the tutelage of line coach Walter Stewart. Had he stayed for another year under Stewart, there is no reason to believe that he wouldn’t have continued along the same trend line.

reddick

Somehow, I don’t think Roche reasoned the above logic into his transfer decision or somebody is giving him very bad advice.

The same goes for tight end Kenny Yeboah. At Temple in 2019, Yeboah–a Parkland High graduate whose family made the easy trip down to see him play every home game–caught 19 passes for 248 yards and five touchdowns.

The total number of passes caught by tight ends at Baylor in 2019: Five. That’s right. Five passes caught by all of the tight ends in the Baylor program. Does anyone really believe that Matt Rhule, if he even remains at Baylor, is going to drastically change a system that worked for him in Waco to accommodate the needs and wants of a transfer from Temple? I don’t. My money is on Yeboah catching fewer than 19 passes, getting fewer than 248 yards and five touchdowns at Baylor next season. For his sake, I hope they change the offense but Rhule would kick himself if he changed something that gave him an 11-2 regular season for any level of uncertainty.  What happens is Rhule leaves for the NFL? That leaves Yeboah a thousand miles away from home without the support system of coaches and teammates who know and love him, not to mention family and friends who won’t be able to travel to his home games.

When it comes to leaving Temple, look at kicker Austin Jones. Before Jones was cheap-shotted on a kickoff at Memphis, he made 17-straight field goals at Temple over a two-year period that began in 2015 when he was 44 for 45 in extra points and 23 for 28 in field goals. Before the cheap shot that robbed him of finishing a championship season, Jones was 10 for 12 in field goals (he missed two in the Memphis game after getting 17 straight). Then he grad transferred to Alabama, where he really only saw the field as a cheerleader on the sideline. His stats at Bama: 1 for 2 in field goals and 1-3 in extra points. The two missed extra points soured Nick Saban on Jones and he was relegated to the bench for the rest of the season.

Another tight end, Kip Patton, downgraded from Temple to Tennessee Tech and got in trouble with the law. At Temple, the only trouble Patton caused was to opponents and his best season was in 2015, catching 12 passes for 168 yards. If he had stayed at Temple, things might have turned out differently.

Marshall Ellick, a wide receiver, transferred from Temple to Stony Brook for the 2018 season. At Temple, he caught 22 passes for 234 yards. At Stony Brook, he caught 22 passes for 311 yards. Hardly worth packing the stuff and moving to New York.

Maybe things will turn out great for Yeboah and Roche, two men who found their Acres of Diamonds right here and got greedy for more. Maybe they should have asked Jones, Patton, and Ellick first. Better yet, maybe they should have read the founder’s book.

Conwell is probably looking down and saying I told you so.

Monday: Turning It Around

 

01.01.20
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2020: New Year, New Solutions

rodster

“Hey, just got off the phone with Matt Rhule and he came up with a pretty good idea: what do you think of me going to a play-action passing game instead of the read-option in 2020?”

The night before every senior day, I look down the list of guys leaving and think “wow, we’re losing this guy and that guy. … how are we going to survive next season?”

This year was different.


You don’t see Bill Belichick
asking Tom Brady to run a read
option and that’s part of the
reason why he’s the greatest coach
in our lifetime and other coaches
are 0-7 in bowl games

I was struck with how few impact players Temple was losing. Sure, there were the linebackers–Shaun Bradley, Chapelle Russell and Sam Franklin–but William Kwenkeu (the defensive MVP of the 2017 Gasparilla Bowl) took a redshirt and Isaiah Graham-Mobley–the best linebacker on the team when he went down for the season–should be fully recovered from his injury. That mitigates the losses at the linebacker position.

Matt Hennessy, the best center in the country, was a redshirt junior as was one of the best pass-rushers in the country, Quincy Roche. The Owls had a pretty good tight end returning on that day in Kenny Yeboah.

The problem with Senior Days in the changing world of college football is that you can’t judge what you are losing and what you are gaining on those days alone. Hennessy and Yeboah won’t be back and neither will Roche, who decided his chances to be drafted would be higher with a Power 5 team than his Temple brothers and entered the portal. Harrison Hand also left early for the NFL draft.

A Power 5 program that recruits four- and five-star players can survive that kind of bleeding of the talent base. Temple cannot.

Two steps forward one Senior Day, three steps back after the season is over. A pretty good argument can be made that the Owls lost more this season with their junior class than their senior one, given the replacements they have at linebacker.

The year 2020 is here but, with the New Year come new challenges. For the Temple staff, it’s replacing the seniors who invariably leave and the surprising number of juniors who leave or left.

Screenshot 2019-12-04 at 10.26.18 PM

Will we ever see this stat again under this staff? Got to hope so, but it doesn’t look good at this point.

With the New Year, whether the Owls can surpass what has been an eight-win season will be determined by how they address special teams, and the quarterback and center positions.

Temple built its reputation in the past on special teams. This year, the Owls did not block kicks nor did they return them. Is the philosophy to do nothing? If so, that needs to be changed from the top down.

At quarterback, the dilemma is simply this. They have one quarterback who can’t run and one quarterback who can’t pass yet they are asking the passer to run and the runner to pass. (Todd Centeio’s miss of a wide-open Branden Mack for an easy touchdown against UNC wasn’t his first of the season.)

Making Vince Picozzi the starting center fixes one spot.

At quarterback, the simple fix is this: Don’t ask the passer to run. Scrap the read option, go with a lot of H-back/tight end blocking motion and design an offense around the passer. Consider using Tayvon Ruley as a blocking fullback who gets an occasional carry. Establish the run first behind Ray Davis, then have explosive downfield plays in the passing game off play-action. Once the run is established, a deft fake to Davis will freeze the linebackers and safeties Temple receivers would be running so free Anthony Russo wouldn’t know which one to pick out. That would make Russo a much more effective quarterback. Bring Centeio in to run the Wildcat and as the short snapper to throw fakes off punts. (Remember when Temple used to fake punts for touchdowns?)

You don’t see Bill Belichick asking Tom Brady to run a read option and that’s part of the reason why he’s the greatest coach in our lifetime and other coaches are 0-7 in bowl games.

Saturday: Four Portals

12.30.19
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2019: Not All 8-5 Seasons Created Equal

Screenshot 2019-12-29 at 8.23.19 PM

Shot of a fairly crowded Temple (Cherry and White-clad fans) side minutes before kickoff (photo contributed by UNC fan Steve Laskowski)

It usually takes a lot for me to get up out of my seat and leave a Temple football game.

On Friday, it took something as little as a water bottle fight.

Oh, the score (41-13) at the time was bad enough, but watching two Temple players laughing and having a water bottle fight was worse. Just as I was shaking my head, two more Temple players were laughing and posing for cameras.

Down 41-13.

Screenshot 2019-12-29 at 8.31.35 PM

The face of this fan on the Temple side pretty much reflected what all who took the time and effort to make the trip felt.

Shaking my head. SMH as they say on the internet.

I got up and left, thinking this was the end of the Temple brand. Was Temple ever down 41-13 during the decade-long run revival of Temple TUFF? Yep. But not with this nonchalant attitude on display for all to see.  To be sure, Temple TUFF existed during the Wayne Hardin and Bruce Arians Eras but the brand was revived by Al Golden and pretty much embraced by Steve Addazio, Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins.

I guess Temple was down at least once 41-13 during each of the Golden, Rhule, Daz, and Collins eras but back then the mood on the sideline reflected the numbers on the scoreboard.

Sure, but I never remember laughing and posing and water bottle fights. I remember a lot of yelling and thrown helmets during those few occasions.

Golden, Daz, Rhule, and Collins pretty much had that stuff locked down. If what happened on the sidelines happened during, say, Rhule’s tenure, he would have turned around and gone ballistic. I knew it. You knew it. Everyone knew it. Basically, that’s why it did not happen.

At the time, Rod Carey was busy folding his arms and looking up at the sky. Maybe he was looking for another flyover of jets.

Golden made sure all the players, subs and starters, were literally locked into what was happening on the field by having them interlock their arms, swaying back and forth and cheering for the team while the other Owls were on the field. It was part of the brand.

One last look at Temple TUFF before it goes away forever.

Friday’s incident–forever known in my mind as the water bottle fiasco–was the best illustration of a lack of discipline but it wasn’t the only one. You can’t have one guy called for two offsides and another guy getting an offside on a possible score that would have cut the halftime lead to possibly 17-14.

You can’t be on the short end of scores like 63-21, 45-21 and 55-13 without some level of quitting involved. You can’t quit and then spend the second half laughing on the sidelines.

“They were really hot on the Temple fan facebook page,” one of the members messaged me. “Only people who are not upset are the Temple players.”

“That’s a big part of the problem,” I messaged back.

Not everyone. There are plenty of guys who care but half of them don’t seem to show it and the coaches don’t seem to notice.

The record books will say this was an 8-5 season but was this an 8-5 season equal to last year’s 8-5 season? I think not. Temple TUFF does not lose 63-21 or 55-13.

Screenshot 2019-12-29 at 8.49.07 PM

Not a single regular-season loss in last year’s schedule was by more than a dozen points. There were two this year by a combined 66 points.

Last year, that  63-21 loss to UCF at home was a 52-40 loss to a better UCF team on the road a game that was in doubt pretty much until the end. After starting this season 5-1, this team finished 3-4.  Last year’s team finished 5-2. You should get better, not worse, as the season progresses. There was no SMU game last year but the UNC equivalent (Duke) involved a staff whose minds were elsewhere.

So, too, apparently are the minds of this staff. The problem is their bodies are still here. They are going to have to revive a brand that we thought was revived. From the looks of the sideline six rows up Friday, it’s going to be a harder job than I thought.

Wednesday: New Year, New Problems

Saturday: Resumption of Twice a Week Posting Schedule

12.28.19
by

Temple Football: Stuck in Neutral

A season that began with the good guys winning 56-12 ended with the bad guys winning 55-13.

Temple made Bucknell look like, well, Bucknell way back in late August and, in late December, North Carolina made Temple look like, well, Bucknell.

It did not have to be this way.


How about fitting an offense
around the skill sets of guys
who were recruited to run another
type of offense? That novel concept
doesn’t seem to have ever occurred
to these guys and that’s one of the
many things that was sad about this
season. If you are a professional
coach, you adjust your schemes to
fit the talents of your players,
not trying to force your players
to fit your schemes

Every single North Carolina game was a lot closer than yesterday, with the exception of Mercer (56-7). Even the thumping of North Carolina State (41-10) that made the Tar Heels bowl eligible was closer.

Where does that leave Temple?

Stuck in neutral and probably not moving forward any time in the foreseeable future. Sure, the Owls should enter next season as one of the AAC favorites but with their top players declaring early every year (Matt Hennessy was the latest and soon will be followed by Quincy Roche), the Owls really cannot move forward to the point where they can beat one of these mediocre Power 5 teams in a bowl. With Hennessy and Roche back, the Owls go in as a prohibitive AAC East favorite next season. That’s not happening.

NC-Temple-Getty

Now they are just another contender and will be lucky to repeat the two 8-5 seasons they just consecutively finished.

The goal any program should be to improve and the Owls just have not shown one iota of improvement in the last couple of years. Eight and five and eight and five speaks for itself. At least with Golden you saw 1-11, 5-7, 9-4 and 8-4 seasons. Rhule had 2-10, 6-6, 10-4 and 10-3. That’s an improvement. You could see it coming with Al Golden and Matt Rhule but, really, can you see it coming under this staff?

I don’t.

The only thing we saw coming was a loss. This is what we wrote in this space way back on Dec. 13:

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The reason is simple. Temple had 63-21 and 45-21 black marks on its resume and UNC had no such black marks.

UNC runs a system that fits its players. Temple does not.

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Temple had a “Temple TUFF” brand of football that set it apart from other teams in the “Golden Rhule” Era. Golden believed in great defense, special teams and shortening the game by a running game that opened up the passing game.

That set Temple apart stylistically from every other team in two leagues and made the Owls just as tough to prepare for as, say, Navy is to everybody else.

Now, under the current NIU staff, the Owls run the same style of spread and read/option offense everybody else in college football runs. Incomplete passes stop the clock and, with each stoppage of clock, the bad guys get a lot more possessions with the ball than they would have under Golden or Rhule. Special teams are not even an afterthought; they are a nightmare. Rhule and Golden made certain that the special teams got the head coach the offense and defense did in coordinators and did not treat it as a group effort.

No one here is calling for Rod Carey to be fired–Temple never does that nor does it have the money to–but a little flexibility next year in the organizational structure would be nice. Hiring a proven successful special teams coordinator would be even nicer. A renewed emphasis on a power running game to set up the passing game–and not vice-versa–might be nicest.

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A lot of disappointed Temple fans in these $80 seats. (The upper deck was packed as well.)

The style of offense Temple runs does nothing to help its defense and the Owls, frankly, do not have the personnel to run such an offense. Offensive coordinator Mike Uremovich said something telling when he talked about signing a new quarterback, saying that this quarterback’s skill set is more suited to the type of offense they run.

How about fitting an offense around the skill sets of guys who were recruited to run another type of offense? That novel concept doesn’t seem to have ever occurred to these guys and that’s one of the many things that was sad about this season. If you are a professional coach, you adjust your schemes to fit the talents of your players, not trying to force your players to fit your schemes.

Even sadder is a team like Eastern Michigan–with 1/10th the fanbase, talent and facilities of Temple–was a much more competitive team in a bowl game against a better AAC team (Pitt) than UNC was.

Eastern Michigan has an offense and defense suited to its personnel, not one where a new coach forces his own schemes onto players ill-suited to run them.

In other words, it has a clue. Not so sure we can say the same thing about Temple anymore.

Monday: Season Review