Author Archives: Mike Gibson

02.26.19
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Carey Tweets Up a Storm (for him)

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Pedestrian is a pretty good word to describe Rod Carey’s approach to social media.

His twitter account usually consists of shoutouts to the other Temple athletic teams, mostly men’s basketball, and a season ticket promo.

So that’s why when the new Temple football coach came up the tweet at the top of this post it could have raised a few eyebrows and definitely both of mine. Carey isn’t as savvy as Collins was with social media, but Collins wasn’t as savvy on game day as I would have liked. To me, I can do without the social media savvy and if the tradeoff is some good old-fashioned game-day coaching.

I think it is. We will find out not in August against Bucknell (I could probably coach the Owls to a win on that day), but the early part of September.

Since Carey did not specify the reason for being so fired-up, the timeline of the tweet matches up with the Owls getting their first commitment for the 2020 recruiting class and that is Dyshier Clary, a defensive end from Woodrow Wilson High in Camden, N.J. A couple of things here. Clary is 6-3 and 210 pounds and, while the 6-3 part is good for a major college DE, the 210 part is not. He’s going to have to do a lot of filling in and weight training to get up to even what a good AAC DE usually goes but the good news is that he has a senior year to do that.

The best thing about the Carey tweet is some of the responses:

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The above was the first response to Carey, but I’m afraid they are keeping even Temple football coaches out of the loop regarding stadium news. It’s interesting that neither Carey nor Manny Diaz even mentioned the stadium in their pressers while both Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins said they had seen the stadium renderings and “would do everything they could” to make it a reality.  Since we heard nothing from those two, I’m convinced the BOT has either soured on or tabled the entire project indefinitely.

Another fan asked the question: “Is Bryce Harper moving close by?”

My hope was that the Owls dropped Bucknell in favor of an opening-week trip to Rutgers, of course helping the Bison schedule a game with UMass (which is scheduled to play at Rutgers that Friday night).

That would fire me up, but Carey has a whole other set of priorities with building a first full recruiting class so we will just have to settle for that.

For recruiting, as in tweeting, you have to walk first before you run so we can’t expect anything more than pedestrian at this point.

Thursday: New Offense?

Saturday: A Special Trip Down Memory Lane

Tuesday: Season Ticket Push

 

 

02.23.19
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Temple 2019: Upgrading The X’s and O’s

The great Bear Bryant once said: “It’s not about the X’s and O’s, it’s about the Jimmie’s and Joe’s.”

Given Byrant’s six national championships at Alabama, there is a lot of street cred behind that remark.

Still, when it comes to Temple’s football history, if you really look at it, it’s more about the X’s and O’s.

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Mark Bright, a “legacy” recruit, became the MVP of the Garden State Bowl

 

Look at the 1979 team for instance. The above video is the coaches’ game film from the 28-17 Garden State Bowl win over California. (A big thanks to Zamani Feelings for unearthing this pure gold. I once had a copy of the national broadcast of this game but lost it.) In it, you will find a lot of guys who had only one other scholarship offer or none outplaying a lot of guys who were four stars for one of the PAC-10 powers of the day.

None other than Bill Belichick has said that game film illustrated a masterful coaching job by Wayne Hardin that day. “I looked at that a lot and I lot of things didn’t make sense at first, but then rewound it and said, ‘Geez, I knew what Wayne is trying to do there and now it makes sense.’ ”

Bright

Mark Bright was the son of Jim Bright, the starting fullback of the 1950 Owls’ team.

The MVP of the game, fullback Mark Bright, had no scholarship offers out of William Tennent High school in Warminster but Hardin took a flier on him because Mark’s dad, Jim Bright (the then principal at New Hope-Solebury High), was a starting fullback for the 1950 Owls. “At Temple, we take care of our own,” Hardin said the day he signed Mark.

Hardin broke down film as well as he made it mandatory viewing for other legendary coaches and he saw something in Bright’s game that he liked. Same for starting quarterback Brian Broomell, who was recruited out of Sterling High in South Jersey as a strong safety. Broomell was good enough to crack the starting lineup as a true freshman on defense, something that never happened in those days and Hardin, needing a quarterback, converted that athleticism to the offense the next year.

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Other players on that team like linebackers Steve Conjar and Mike Curcio became the Jimmies and Joes under Hardin they probably weren’t before they got to Temple and it all added up to the best team in modern Temple history. Hopefully, with 2019 being the 40-year anniversary of that first bowl win they will be honored at halftime of a game this fall.

That’s where 2019 comes into play. There are a lot of Jimmies and Joes on the team along with the documented fact that Rod Carey is the first proven winning FBS-level head coach to come into the school since Hardin.  Geoff Collins really did not have that kind of knowledge nor did even the Sainted Matt Rhule or the devilish Steve Addazio. Carey is not Hardin, but if he’s even close it’s a significant upgrade in the X’s and O’s department.

Mix the knowledge of X’s and O’s that Carey has with the Jimmies and Joes who have been mostly the product of Matt Rhule’s hard recruiting and this could be a special season. For it to be the most special season of all, this is the minimum benchmark: 11 wins, including a bowl game, and at least a No. 17 or better ranking in both major polls.

The 1979 Temple team proved you needed both X’s and O’s and Jimmies and Joes and it should be fascinating to see if the 2019 team can use that same formula to produce similar results.

Tuesday: Tweet Storm

Thursday: Hinting at a New Offense

Saturday: Season Ticket Call

 

02.21.19
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King Solomon Solution to a King-Sized Dilemma

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Kicking the can down the road has been a hallmark of the stadium issue from a figurative standpoint for seven years. Kicking it down the road literally offers perhaps the best solution to a vexing problem.

If you haven’t heard anything on the stadium issue, there are at least a couple of reasons for it.

One, when Mitchell Morgan takes over for Patrick J. O’Connor as the Temple University Board of Trustees chairman on Aug. 1, that big folder marked “Temple Stadium” will be left on his desk along with another one “candidates to replace Dick Englert.” (Englert has held the job as President since Neil Theobald was let go three years ago.)

If there was every a can kicked down the road, it’s a stadium that was a supposed “done deal” as far back as March 2012 and talked about prior to the Liacouras Center even being built.

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Unfortunately, these guys are still around and it looks like a few Temple fans have switched to their side as former Cherry Crusader Luke Butler is listed as “Interested in going” to this event.

 

That’s a little ironic because the final piece in this puzzle could literally be kicking the can down the road.

Splitting the baby was King Solomon’s solution and the Board of Trustees needs to split this baby as painful as it may be but killing off a perfectly good and nearly brand new $22 million Olympic stadium and putting a $130 million football stadium in its place.

Kick the football stadium can down the road to Broad and Master and return the Olympic sports teams back to their original home, Geasey Field, at 15th and Norris. The neighbors who object so strongly to football lived with the Olympic sports for 50 years at Norris Street without any histrionics so it would be disingenuous to object to those sports returning now.

There are really only two solutions now and the preferable one is admitting that the first mistake was trying to build at 15th and Norris. The university did not expect the kind of opposition it got from neighbors at that location, the same neighbors who never objected to the lacrosse and field hockey teams playing there for almost a half-century prior to this latest fiasco.

The second is dropping the whole stadium issue entirely but, before that happens, all other avenues should be exhausted.

There will still be opposition to the Broad and Master site, but the fact that the university had rather large and working stadiums at that site for the last five years should mollify the opposition somewhat. There’s plenty of room for a football stadium at Broad and Master and the fact that by converting it to a football stadium m48akes it less intrusive, not more, on the community that the three sports currently there. Those fields now were used 48 days for home games in the Olympic sports, while football will only be used for six days or nights.

Plus, Morgan Hall, which is used over 300 days a year, is just next to it and the new BOT chair should know something about that high-rise. It was named after him.

Saturday: The Jimmies and the Joes

02.19.19
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First Sign of Spring: Temple QBs and WRs

 

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There are little indications that give you a hint spring is coming.

One was Groundhog Day earlier this month.

Yesterday was the full squad reporting for the Philadelphia Phillies.

A week ago it was pitchers and catchers.

Soon, March 10, we will move the clocks ahead, one day ahead of the real pitchers and catchers.

This is not official yet, but I’ve been told by reliable sources that the next day we will see the “real” pitchers and catchers–quarterbacks and wide receivers–report with the team to full practices as the Owls gear up for the spring game (April 13, which is official).

It just so happens that pitchers and catchers are probably the strength of the 2019 Owls. In starting quarterback Anthony Russo and backups Toddy Centeio and Trad Beatty, the Owls have set themselves up with pretty solid quality and depth at the most important position on the field. In fact, in my 40-plus years as a Temple fan, I can only remember three quarterbacks of this quality way back in the 1970s when Maxwell Award-winner Steve Joachim led a room that included Marty Ginestra.

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Got to be impressed with any coach who takes pen and paper in hand and sits down to write a note. Nobody does that anymore. Thanks, coach Carey.

Depth-wise, that pales in comparison, though to the catcher part of this equation as the Owls are set with wide receiver starters Sean Ryan, Branden Mack and Isaiah Wright and pushed hard by backups Jadan Blue, Randall Jones and Freddie Johnson.

That’s a lot of depth and one would hope that to strengthen the running back position, new head coach Rod Carey is open to moving a former tailback, Wright, back there to help keep the running game among the best in the league as it has been for the last five seasons.

We should find that out soon and the idea has been proposed to Carey, who like all good coaches, is open to moving players from a position of strength to shore up an area where the depth might not be as impressive.

Meanwhile, unofficially, there has been a lot of pitching and catching at the Edberg-Olson Complex both outside on the field and idea-wise in the coaching offices.

The fruits of that back-and-forth should be unveiled soon.

Thursday: A King Solomon Solution to a King-Size Dilemma

02.16.19
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Alliance: Something to Watch Between Now and Cherry and White

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Temple TUFF Evan Rodriguez is on the San Antonio Commanders

There aren’t too many dead periods in sports but, for the last few years, the time after the first week in February until real March Madness (late, not early in March) was the deadest of the dead.

It still might be sleeping but it’s not dead, thanks to the American Alliance of Football.

Between signing day on the first week in February and Cherry and White, at least from a football perspective, nothing happened.

I went into the first week of American Alliance of Football play not expecting much but pleasantly surprised by four things:

  • There are Temple guys playing in this league;
  • You can actually hit someone like the old days without drawing a flag;
  • Everybody makes pretty much an equal salary;
  • Games are pretty damn entertaining.

To the first point, the Temple guys are Leon Johnson, Adonis Jennings, and Evan Rodriguez, an offensive lineman, wide receiver and tight end, respectively.

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I could not find the rule on quarterback hits but I saw several quarterbacks being hit pretty hard without the immediate flags that are thrown in an NFL game. Tom Brady, for instance, probably wouldn’t like this league. Also, the helmet-to-helmet restrictions aren’t the same severity in this league that exists in the NFL.

The play clock is 35 seconds, five seconds shorter than the NFL one and there are no TV timeouts so the games can be completed in 2 hours and 30 minutes of real time.

Economic equality comes to pro football with all the players making the same $250,000 a year. The good part of that is it’s probably at least $200,000 more than they’d be making in the “real world.”

All the teams are in Southern markets so inclement weather (other than rain) usually isn’t a factor.

Myles Tannenbaum, the one-time owner of the USFL Philadelphia Stars, summed up the business model of that great league perfectly when he said: “If you like chocolate ice cream in the summer, you probably would like it in the winter, too.”

That league failed because a younger owner demanded it go up against the NFL, which was selling a much tastier brand of chocolate ice cream in a different season. Now, it’s the only ice cream in town.

Until my favorite kind of ice cream, Cherry and Vanilla is dished out on April 13, this will be at least an option we did not have in the past.

Tuesday: Real Pitchers and Catchers

02.14.19
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Loving The Schedule on Valentine’s Day

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Over the next few weeks, fans are going to be hearing a lot about Quadrant 1 and 2 wins.

It’s a new way for the NCAA to determine the at-large teams in the 68-team men’s basketball field and assigns weight to each win based on a formula of RPI, the strength of schedule and home or away.

Fortunately, college football fans don’t have to worry about that.

Every win is just as important as the rest and that’s why I have never understood the phrase “trap game” or “letdown.” When you play only a dozen regular-season games, there should be no trap games or letdowns. You work your tail off for 353 days and get to show the fruits of that labor on the rest of the days so every Saturday should be showtime.

Penciling in wins and losses this far away is a fun exercise fraught with dangers. In Temple football history, there have always been unexpected wins and losses and that’s every year, not just every few years. The only outlier was the 1979 season when the Owls won every game they were supposed to win and reached up and upset a team or two on the way to a 10-2 season.

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Cupid loves this Temple schedule, with the exception of the Bucknell game.

Still, the season can somewhat be broken down into quadrants. The technical meaning of a quadrant is four quarters of a circle.

In college football, that’s three games apiece.

Coming out of the first quadrant, the college football “world” probably expects Temple to come out 2-1 with wins over Bucknell and Buffalo and a loss to revenge-minded Maryland. Temple fans know better. I have to like the Owls’ chances at home in that one. Bucknell is a given and pretty much this same team (minus Rock Armstead) was able to thrash Maryland on the road last year.

So that’s a 3-0 quadrant in my mind.

The second quadrant is a little tougher with a home game against Georgia Tech, a trip to ECU, and a home game against Memphis. In my mind, any time you take Dave Patenaude off Temple you give the Owls an extra seven points. When you take him out of Temple and give him to the bad guys, that’s another seven points for the Owls. So that’s a win.

ECU will not be a 49-6 cakewalk that it was last time because Mike Houston is a far better coach than Scotty Montgomery. Memphis has had four solid recruiting years and seamless coaching so that’s a tough one, even at home. We’ll give that quadrant a 2-1, leaving the Owls at 5-1 at the midway mark.

Owls should win at SMU to kick off the third quadrant but UCF will be tough. That game looked winnable when Milton McKenzie–easily the single best player who faced Temple last season–went down with a broken leg, but UCF went out and replaced him with Brandon Wimbush. So that game suddenly becomes more problematic than it already was and, realistically, a loss. Owls bounce back at SMU. Getting a week off before traveling to USF for the next game should help so we will make that a 2-1 quadrant for a 7-2 record.

Owls finish off with home games against Tulane and UConn sandwiched around a tough trip to Cincy and 2-1 would be a decent way to finish up that quadrant for a 9-3 season.

Of course, you always hope for 12-0 and a league championship but, given these quadrants, signing for 9-3 right now would be a nice consolation prize.

Saturday: The Alliance of Football and Temple

02.12.19
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A Trade That Benefits Both Ballclubs

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Bucknell might be able to entice Nicholls State to visit its 13,100-seat Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium on 8/31

On the floor level of the Wells Fargo Center, there were smiles all around Sunday afternoon for what Sixers’ general manager Elton Brand was able to pull off.

He immediately upgraded the Sixers with a megastar like Tobias Harris and some valuable pieces that upgraded the bench. Still, like any good trade, to get something Brand had to give something and those were mostly draft picks that are going to make the Clippers a more valuable franchise down the road.

The Sixers are playing for now. The Clippers are playing for the future. It was a trade that benefited both ballclubs considering their current circumstances.

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The reaction of most Temple fans when they first saw Bucknell on the schedule

That’s why current Temple athletic director Dr. Pat Kraft should be considering a trade for the football Owls. Getting Bucknell off the schedule would benefit the Bison from decimating their current roster due to injuries and would benefit Temple by getting it a possible Power 5 win the Owls might desperately need if they were fortunate enough to win the AAC.

“We just got a better today; a lot better,” Kraft said on the day he hired Rod Carey.

This whole dilemma reminds me of a conversation I had with Bill Bradshaw when he was named athletic director. He said he looked at the schedule and when he saw that Temple had a game the next season that did not make sense, he would immediately make calls to switch with other schools. Bradshaw saw it as a challenge and the conversations with other ADs eventually led him to schedule a series with Notre Dame.

Kraft needs to be as flexible now as Bradshaw was then.

The Owls need to win now and capitalize on it. Playing Bucknell does Temple zero good. It gives the Owls an extra (seventh instead of six) home games, but have Temple fans done anything over the last 40 years or so to deserve a seventh home game? I think not. If they were filling the Linc on a regular basis, they deserve an extra home game now and then. At best, Bucknell attracts 22K fans for an August 31 date.

Here are five possible trades Kraft could make now that would benefit both ballclubs:

Friday, Aug. 30

    • UMass at Rutgers _ This would be the ideal trade. Temple would bring 20K fans to Piscataway alone and Bucknell can go play at UMass, a much more competitive game for them. Some say Rutgers would be “afraid” to play big bad Temple. I say give them a call and find out for sure.

Saturday, Aug. 31

  • Montana State at Texas Tech _ Kraft has said in the past that “it’s hard to get games against (Power 5) teams because they don’t want to play us.” Hard to believe Texas Tech would risk a loss to an FCS power like Montana State and be “afraid” to play Temple. The guarantee Tech could give Temple to visit would pay for Bucknell to travel to Montana State.
  • Nicholls at Kansas State _ Last year, Nicholls went to Kansas and beat the Jayhawks. That has got to get the attention of the Wildcats, who might be wary of the same thing happening to them. Hard to believe new KSU coach Chris Klieman who won six of the last seven FCS titles at North Dakota State would be afraid of Temple. Have Bucknell travel to Nicholls and the Owls to the fake Manhattan.
  • Portland State at Arkansas _  Razorbacks’ head coach Chad Morris is familiar with Temple having coached against the Owls as SMU’s head coach. It might be easier selling Arkansas fans on an FBS opponent rather than Portland State. The trip to the West Coast to play Portland State might be more educational for the Bucknell kids than a trip to South Philadelphia.

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    Curt Cignetti takes his JMU squad to WVA; he might be up for a swap of games with Bucknell so the Owls can return to the scene of this crime.

  • James Madison at West Virginia  _ While driving across the interstate might be a short trip for JMU fans, new James Madison football coach Curt Cignetti (a former Temple assistant) knows he has a better chance to make a first impression with a solid win over Bucknell than a road loss to Neal Brown in his first game as WVA head coach. Temple and WVA have a history that goes way back. James Madison would be a nice trip for the Bucknell kids.

These are five trades that would benefit both Temple and Bucknell and all of the above schools. Like any good trade, it involves working the phones and that’s what Dr. Pat Kraft should be doing in the next couple of months.

If it worked for Elton Brand, and the Sixers,  it can work for Pat Kraft and the football team five miles up Broad Street.

Thursday: A Closer Look at the Schedule

02.09.19
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5 Intriguing Names In The New Class

The University of Temple is cringeworthy, but KBS is already here. 

One of the reasons why you don’t see Group of Five teams having the same kind of sustained success that say, Alabama, Clemson and Georgia have, is illustrated perfectly by what happened to Temple football this year and far too many years.

Coaching change interrupts any recruiting momentum and that is felt not necessarily the next year but three or four years down the road.

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Got to love the Temple Love in this photo by the KBS family

While Temple can and probably will have a good year in 2019, the 2021 season might be the most impacted by the Owls bagging only 18 recruits. According to Scout.com, their recruiting class completed on Wednesday is ranked 102d.

That’s bad for a Sun Belt or a MAC school. It’s terrible for an AAC school.

Still, that doesn’t mean there is a lack of talent in this group. Nobody here can tell you who among this group will be a star but I’ve always been from the school of thought that the best predictor for future success is measured in past success and, based on that criterion alone, here are the five most talented guys:

Kennique Bonner Steward QB 6-3 215 Huntersville, N.C. William A. Hough _  OK, going to say it right now, this guy is going to be The Man on campus after Anthony Russo and Trad Beatty. He throws the ball on a dime and has the kind of escapability past Rod Carey quarterbacks have possessed and he has excelled on the big stage as shown by this big Hough High victory.
M.J. Griffin DB 6-1 189 Ypsilanti, Mich. Saline. _ Any time a Temple commit gets Power 5 offers, that has to open some eyes and that’s certainly the case with Griffin. Part of the reason he chose Temple was that he’s from a city and loves the city environment.

Edward Saydee ATH 5-11 189 Philadelphia, Pa. William Penn Charter _ Reminds me a little of Bernard Pierce coming out of Glen Mills and that’s high praise indeed. Has good vision once he hits the hole and appears to be the same kind of one-cut runner Pierce was. More importantly, his measurables are Pierce-like (Bernard was 6-0, 180 out of high school with a 10.8 in the 100-meters and Edward is 5-11, 189 with the same 10.8.)
Kwesi Evans WR 6-3 198 Parkville, Md. St. Frances Academy _  Nobody knows Evans better than new Temple running backs’ coach Gabe Infante. The national high school coach of the year needed an act of God (literally) to complete an unbeaten state championship season due to lightning with six minutes left in the third quarter. St. Frances was up, 13-7 when the game was called. No other high school team came within 20 points of the Philadelphia squad all year. For St. Frances, Evans caught a touchdown pass in that game.

Wisdom Quarshie DL 6-3 310 Sicklerville, N.J. St. Joseph (Hammonton) _ Because of a need for depth on the defensive line, a player like Quarshie with his size and toughness has a chance to get snaps right away.

As exciting as it will be to see the above players develop, keep an eye on a wide receiver named Joshua Youngblood at Kansas State. He was a solid Temple commit until Geoff Collins left and waivered when Manny Diaz came in and was lost completely when Carey arrived and succumbed to a late effort by Kansas State. This kid in my mind will become a big-time star but that’s life in the G5 when coaching changes happen every couple of years.

Tuesday: A Trade That Elton Brand Would Be Proud to Make

Thursday: Delving Into The Schedule

Saturday: A New Lease on Life For Some Owls

Monday (2/18): The Real Pitchers and Catchers

02.07.19
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A Different Kind of Signing Day

 

Zamani Feelings found this gem of a video and sent it to us … enjoy.. over 20 years ago.

Just like Cherry and White Day and the season ticket-holder celebration, the first Wednesday in February has been a staple of the calendar of many Temple football fans.

Not this year.

Last month, I made a call to the athletic department asking if there was any sign-up deadline for fans attending this year’s event.

“We’re not having one this year,” the friendly but somewhat sad voice on the other end said.

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I was only slightly surprised because the Owls were hosting UConn in basketball last night and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to kill two birds, basketball and football, with one stone.

While the disastrous Manny Diaz hiring was a big part of this year’s reason, February signing days at Temple could go the way of the Dodo Bird.

You saw it coming two years ago when Geoff Collins pretty much wrapped up his class by the Bad Boy Mowers’ Bowl. He held a signing day on St. Petersburg Beach and that was that. They still had a February signing day, though, mostly for the fans to catch up. No catching up needed this year because no significant news was made between the first and second signing day.

This, like the anti-climatic bowl game,  could be the new norm at Temple.

Group of Five schools now have pretty much targeted the early December date as their primary target date. The reasoning is that if you have to wait on a player until February that player is probably waiting on a Power 5 offer anyway. If a player doesn’t want to be here, he’s probably not going to be a good player here.

The Owls were able to get 18 signatures on the dotted line by December and partly because Collins was handing out scholarships like candy to role players in a week or two before he left, they are now one over the 85 scholarship limit. That’s a problem The Minister of Mayhem left for Rod Carey to deal with.

In the meantime, hardcore Temple fans have one more free day on their schedule. Maybe next year’s ceremony will be held on the beach while preparing for a more meaningful bowl game.

We can only hope.

Five Players Already Enrolled:

Kennique Bonner Steward QB 6-3 215 Huntersville, N.C. William A. Hough
Re’Mahn Davis RB 5-9 222 San Francisco, Calif. Blair Academy
M.J. Griffin DB 6-1 189 Ypsilanti, Mich. Saline
Yvandy Rigby LB 6-2 205 Egg Harbor Twp., N.J. Egg Harbor Twp./Milford
Victor Stoffel OL 6-8 282 Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm International

Not enrolled but expected by July: 

Simon Abedimungu DL 6-5 221 Rockville, Md. Richard Montgomery
Mahmud Dioubate ATH 6-2 180 Philadelphia, Pa. John Bartram
Jermaine Donaldson OL 6-4 300 Voorhees, N.J. Eastern Regional
Kwesi Evans WR 6-3 198 Parkville, Md. St. Frances Academy
Chris Fowx OL 6-6 300 Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Archbishop Stepinac
De’Von Fox WR 5-10 173 Maple Heights, Ohio Maple Heights
Thomas Joe-Kamara DB 6-0 191 Dayton, N.J. South Brunswick
Jordan Magee LB 6-3 208 Dover, Del. Dover
Wisdom Quarshie DL 6-3 310 Sicklerville, N.J. St. Joseph (Hammonton)
Edward Saydee ATH 5-11 189 Philadelphia, Pa. William Penn Charter
Jacoby Sharpe DL 6-3 240 Sugar Hill, Ga. Lanier
Nate Wyatt DB 6-1 176 Somerset, N.J. St. Joseph (Metuchen)

Saturday: Five Newbies To Watch (and one who got away)

 

02.05.19
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Dear Rod: Just My Two Cents

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Editor’s Note: Pretty much every time I felt Temple did the right thing on a coaching hire, I dashed off a note to the new coach congratulating him on the gig. That meant only Al Golden and Matt Rhule got letters. Al sent me a note telling me that he was still waiting on a player who could turn out to be the best in his first class, Kee-Ayre Griffin, and asking me to wish him luck. Matt called me and we had a very cordial and nice 35-minute conversation and he picked my brain on which Temple fans to network with and how to build support. Haven’t heard from Rod yet, but will keep his thoughts under wraps until after he’s gone when I do. If it’s after six years with four division and two league titles, it will be a successful run. We typed this on a word processor and sent it in an old-fashioned, stamped envelope. He should have received it last Thursday.

Dear Rod,

Belated congratulations for getting the Temple head coaching job from a 40-year season ticket holder and Temple alumn.
I wanted to send this right away but knew you were engrossed in hitting the ground running with recruiting and staffing obligations but I was there in the room on the day you introduced and was impressed in a way that I was not on prior coaching introductions.
I have a vested interest in you succeeding because, ever since Al Golden left, I’ve always felt that the Temple head coaching model should be hiring a successful FBS head coach and you certainly fit that description.
Golden was what Temple needed in 2005–someone who knew how to build a program from the ground up–with a binder full of ideas on how to do it.
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Once he left five years later, the program was already established and 20,000 Temple fans drove down I95 from Philadelphia to watch the Owls play UCLA in the Eagle Bank Bowl.
Since then, it’s been a succession of coordinators with eyes on a higher prize than Temple. These kids are the prize and they deserve the stability someone like you can give them and that’s the same kind of stability you gave those kids at Northern Illinois.
I have a strong feeling you will hit the ground running because this is a ready-made team with very little in the way of holes to be filled.
With the Owls seven-deep at the wide receiver position, nothing would help you hit the ground running (pun intended) than making Isaiah Wright a lead tailback.
Just my two cents. I’m sure others will offer their two cents as well. It comes with the territory, as you well know.
Again, congratulations. As underwhelmed I was the day Manny Diaz was hired, that’s how overwhelmed I was on your day.
Good luck,
Mike Gibson
Thursday: Who’s Coming and Who’s Staying?
Saturday: The Second Recruiting Day