Author Archives: Mike Gibson

02.02.19
by

Three Identical Strangers: TU, NIU, Miami

wamo

Hopefully, Rod Carey keeps the Cherry helmets this fall

Nothing I see on TV usually blows my mind.

Like everything, there are always exceptions to the rule and the recent CNN documentary “Three Identical Strangers” falls into that category. Without getting deep into it, it was about three young men separated at birth on July 12, 1961, intentionally by an adoption agency as a case study for the effects of nurturing versus naturing.

The college football version of that show is far less intense and intrusive but the study elements are close this fall. The case studies will be separated not by 100 miles or less but by about 500 miles West and 1,000 miles south of Philadelphia.

Proven coaching or talent. Young, unproven coaching or talent.

The question in the fall of 2019 will be: Given the somewhat equal talent in three separate settings does a proven head coach produce a more desirable result (winning) than a hot assistant?

My theory is that Temple football dodged two big bullets over the last decade, separated by one letter.

Daz and Diaz.

Had Steve Addazio stayed at Temple, the Owls probably would have tapped out at the seven-win mark, a number that has concerned the powers-that-be at Boston College so much that they worked in an eight-win minimum into his contract extension this season.

Manny Diaz would have been a college football version of one-and-done but never got to that point. Temple did not need to hire another head coach for one year only to see him leave because, at some point, the instability has to take a toll on recruiting.

“You don’t want to go there,” the bad guys will begin to tell recruits, “they change coaches every year.”

That begs the question: Why can’t Temple have both excellence and stability?

Rod Carey, who by any account, gave Northern Illinois that for the last six years, shows a lot of signs of being the real deal. If the Owls dodged a bullet with Daz and Diaz, they may have the benefit of getting a lot of ammunition from Carey for their weapons.

The lab experiment for this theory will take place in three places: Philadelphia, DeKalb, and Miami.

Only one of the schools hired a proven winner as a head coach. The others took a flyer on unproven assistants as Baltimore Ravens’ running back coach Thomas Hammock was hired by NIU and Diaz went back to Miami.

Interestingly enough, all three schools return 14 starters from the 2018 squads. If the Owls are able to record the most wins of the three schools, the data won’t be complete on this experiment but will certainly point to a brighter future in Philadelphia than those other towns.

From a talent standpoint versus their respective leagues, there is not much to chose from the three experimental samples.

By December, someone should be able to write a pretty good case study.

Tuesday: Dear Rod Letter

Thursday: Who’s Coming and Going?

Saturday: Signing Day No. 2

Tuesday (2/12): Plugging Holes

 

01.31.19
by

Carey Only Needs Cliff Notes

skyview

After the spring game is a perfect time for Carey to network with Temple fans

Al Golden came with his binder.

Rod Carey needs only Cliff Notes to prep for his first year as Temple’s head football coach.


Not since Bernard Pierce
left a year early has a
Temple coaching staff had
such a pressing need at
tailback. They need to find
an elite talent who scares
defenses and, in Wright,
they have that

Back in the day before Google,  Cliff Notes was a small reference guide you used to use only as a last resort when you forgot to read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace between junior and senior years of high school.  (We’re speaking hypothetically here if Mr. Lefty Ervin, my World Cultures teacher, is reading this.)

Golden had to build a program from the ground up and was well-positioned to do it.

There was one chapter in that binder Golden could not possibly write until maybe now and that was learning to be a head coach on the fly.

Carey has that part down.  He’s not as likely to make first-time mistakes as Golden, Steve Addazio, Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins were and did, costing the Owls some crucial wins. Golden had a lot of good stuff in that large black binder, including a full list of extensive East Coast High school recruiting contacts and a sound philosophy of targeting high school captains on successful teams. It worked to stock Temple with three No. 1 MAC recruiting classes that were the basis for consecutive nine and eight-win seasons.

Carey doesn’t have to do any of that heavy book lifting, just pick up a Cliff Notes.

cliff

All he needs to do now is get to know Temple, its fans and, most importantly, its players. The essence of great coaching is to put the talent you have and not the talent you want to best use.

To me, that’s the beauty of keeping holdovers like Ed Foley and Adam DiMichele. They, probably more than anyone else, should be able to advise Carey that the Owls are seven-deep at the wide receiver position and can afford to move Isaiah Wright to the tailback spot that Ryquell Armstead filled so well over the last three years. Not since Bernard Pierce left a year early has a Temple coaching staff had such a pressing need at tailback. They need to find an elite talent who scares defenses and, in Wright, they have that. Addazio replaced Pierce with, ironically enough, Boston College transfer Montel Harris. Carey has an Acre of Diamond in his own backyard in Wright.

screenshot 2019-01-30 at 9.16.42 am

Other than that, Carey needs to use the time after the Cherry and White game to press the flesh in the Temple Towers lot and get out and meet the long-time fans and ex-players who form the core of the Temple fan base. He’s got to make the rounds after the football part is over and introduce himself to the Bruce Arians’ players’ group, led by Sheldon Morris and Joe Greenwood, then make a stop and talk to the Wayne Hardin group, led by Steve Conjar. In between, he’s got to show the younger fans, the Owlbulance group, that he welcomes them as well.

screenshot 2019-01-30 at 10.55.47 pm

Collins was an engaging enough guy but thought Temple football began and ended with Al Golden and that was a major flaw. Rhule and Golden understood there was a rich and successful Temple football history long before 2005 and tapped into that for the benefit of the program.

Somehow, if Collins had come with a manual on Temple like Golden did with his binder, he would have been more successful and connected better with the Temple family. Carey has that chance and doesn’t even have to read War and Peace to be fully briefed.

Saturday: This Year’s Lab Experiment

01.29.19
by

Great And Minimal Expectations

In college football, every year is a new year and the expectations are adjusted based on a number of variables.

The math can be somewhat complicated but it always includes a variable of this formula=returning talent + coaching – minus competition.

To me, considering all of the above variables, the minimum expectation would be for Temple to have the same eight regular-season wins next year as it did this year.

Maybe more.

Anything more than eight would be great.

Minimal is eight.

Figure it this way:

The talent level is at least as good as it was a season ago. Anthony Russo might be Temple’s first drafted quarterback since Steve Joachim was a sixth-round choice in 1975.  He has an NFL skill set and only needs to reduce the interceptions and add to the touchdowns to draw interest.

The challenge would be replacing Rock Armstead as the tailback. I was always a Jager Gardner fan but, to me, if you haven’t shown you can do it by your senior year, it’s time to look in a new direction. Gardner hasn’t shown enough.

There is no doubt in my mind that Isaiah Wright can do the job on the same or higher level than Rock did and that’s where the coaching comes into play.

The Owls spent the past two seasons misusing a lot of their talent. They had two great fullbacks, Nick Sharga and Rob Ritrovato, who the last coaching staff refused to use and they had a great defensive end, Karamo Dioubate, that they insisted on using inside. Dioubate, when he was recruited, was ranked by one scouting service as the No. 5 high school DE in the nation. When was the last time Temple recruited a position player ranked that high? Maybe Paulsboro quarterback Kevin Harvey, but that was it. Dioubate deserves a chance to be unleashed on the quarterback from his more comfortable position.

So maybe a full FBS staff–like the one Rod Carey already has in the fold–is able to come to these conclusions quicker than the heavy FCS staff Geoff Collins had.

We shall see.

Competition?

There’s no doubt in my mind that Cincinnati–which brought 35 true and redshirt freshmen with them on the travel squad to Philly–will be favored this year and UCF should not miss a beat with Brandon Wimbush at quarterback.

That leaves Temple No. 3 in the East and that’s a fair minimum goal for the Owls to achieve.

That would be the first indication that Carey is a solid choice.

If they can somehow win the league title, Carey will be a better choice than even I thought he was and I thought he was the better of the two coaching choices Pat Kraft made in December.

Thursday: Carey’s Cliff Notes

01.25.19
by

Russo’s First Full Season: Pretty Darn Good

russo

When you think of great Temple quarterbacks in the era of FBS football, the names of Steve Joachim, Henry Burris, P.J. Walker, and Brian Broomell come to mind.

All had decent first years as a Temple quarterback.

Few of them had better first seasons than the current Temple quarterback, Anthony Russo.

A lot of them had the advantage of getting their feet wet for a few plays in a year or two before their first one.

noticemeister

Russo and P.J. Walker were the only ones whose heads were plunged into the water for the full baptism and both came out of it pretty well.

To me, the most important statistic that a quarterback can have is wins, followed by touchdowns vs. interceptions and passing rating in that order. Russo had seven wins (would have been eight had he not been forced to sit out of the UConn game with a hand injury) and his 14 touchdowns and 14 interceptions ratio would have been boosted by anything from five to six touchdown passes against that porous Huskie secondary. Certainly, Anthony wasn’t perfect but his first season ranks with the best in Temple history.

I thought about that a lot over the last few days because one of the few harsh critics of Anthony’s play is a former Temple quarterback who doesn’t belong with the famous. Infamous, maybe. Certainly not famous so he shall remain nameless. This quarterback’s first full season at Temple: Three touchdown passes, nine interceptions.

‘Nuff said.

I told him that, if I was him, Russo would be the last guy I’d be criticizing and left it at that.

Some interesting tidbits here are that Joachim played in 11 games with Penn State in the 1971 season, completing 16 of 41 passes for seven touchdowns and only three interceptions before transferring to Temple. Broomell was the Owls’ starting strong safety on defense as a true freshman in the 1976 season only to be eased into a backup quarterback role in 1977 before being named the true starter in 1978. He led the 1979 team to a 10-2 overall record and a final No. 17 ranking in both major polls. Broomell led the nation in passing efficiency that year.

Here are some of, in my mind, the first full years of the very best of the best Temple quarterbacks:

fullsters

Tomorrow: Great and Minimal Expectations

Thursday: Cliff Notes For Carey

01.23.19
by

5 Things We Won’t Miss About Mr. Mayhem

maymeister

The promised Mayhem really never arrived in the form of a national top-ranked defense.

Sometimes you have to look back to look forward.

Today is one of those times.

Geoff Collins is now Georgia Tech’s problem.

In my mind, at least, he earned no higher than a “C” grade in his two years at Temple. The Mayhem promised really never materialized and his defensive reputation never transferred with him to Temple, where the Owls were torched for 52, 45 and 49 points in three important games, only one of which was a win. He had 10-win talent in his first season and won seven and probably an even better team in his second and won eight. A good grade (B) would have resulted in more wins than that. A great grade would have been beating the teams he should have beaten and won a game or two against teams he  was not favored to beat.

To me, the essential questions after the Collins’ departure is, “Do you believe Collins was JUST a good coach for Temple and do you believe there are better coaches than Collins for Temple?”

The answer to both questions is yes and I believe Rod Carey is part of an unidentified number of available head coaches who would be BETTER for Temple than Collins was. (I also believe guys like Chris Creighton and Lance Leipold would have been better, but we will never know.) What we do know is that a staff at James Madison University, led by current ECU head coach Mike Houston, was able to beat Villanova with JMU talent 37-0 only a couple of weeks after Collins’ staff lost to the same team, 19-17, with Temple talent.

Whether Carey is better will be determined in December, not before. These are five things that we will not miss about Collins:

above

Above The Line

For a number of great reasons, the tradition of the Temple depth chart will return and not something vague as the “above the line” concept of Collins. I have not talked to a single ex-Temple player who ever thought getting rid of a depth chart was a good idea. Mike Curcio, a great Temple linebacker who later played with the Philadelphia Eagles, told me nothing motivated him to become a starter than seeing his name as No. 3 on the TU linebacker depth chart. Above the line served no useful purpose. Now the players know where they stand and what they have to do to move up the depth chart and that’s a good thing.

moneydowns

Money Downs

Nothing made more a mockery of the money down thing than for Temple to be rated No. 129 in third-down conversions halfway through the season than to see “money down” signs on third down. While the Owls improved after that, they were in debt most of the season.

An Offensive Abomination

Nick Sharga’s lead blocking as a fullback for tailbacks Jahad Thomas and Ryquell Armstead was as big a reason as any for the 2016 Owls winning the AAC title. The two combined for nearly 2,000 yards of rushing and Armstead scored 14 touchdowns, 13 of them behind devastating Sharga blocks. Before the 2017 season, Collins promised that “we are going to use (Sharga) even more than they did last year” and that “I’m his fullback coach; he’s the best fullback in the country.” Yet Collins stood idly by and did nothing as his OC, Dave Patenaude, eliminated the fullback position at Temple. Patenaude was probably the most ill-suited coach for Temple, head or assistant, since Jerry Berndt. His passing on first-and-goal after Isaiah Wright was tripped up at the 1 cost the Owls a win at Army in 2017. His passing on first-and-goal at the Navy 7 with 1:28 left and the Middies with no timeouts left resulted in an interception and a near-loss. His game-calling against Villanova directly resulted in one loss and nearly another. Only 45 offensive touchdowns on a 2018 team that included Anthony Russo, Ventell Byrant, Armstead, Wright, Branden Mack and Rob Ritrovato was malfeasance of the highest order. Atlanta is going to love this guy.

WWE Superstars at Practice

Collins had WWE Super Star Titus O’Neil visit practice in the week before the 2017 Villanova game. I can’t imagine how that helped the Owls avoid three-straight offsides penalties that the defense incurred in that game.

Less Talk, More Action

At Rod Carey’s first press conference, he said that good football teams don’t talk about being tough they just are. Collins talked a lot about juice. The hope here is that the juice will be seen and not heard.

Friday: Comparing First Seasons

 

01.21.19
by

Red Flags and The Carey Hiring

This is the only (somewhat) Red Flag I care about.

It would not be a Temple coaching search, post-Al Golden at least, to find a red flag or two on the field.

We found several in the short-lived hiring of Manny Diaz that had to do with him never being a head coach before, lack of knowledge and recruiting ties in the Northeast, never having coached north of Jacksonville and having a father who was Mayor of Miami. All those flags pointed in the direction of a U-Turn back South, although we thought it might be a year, not 17 days.


Rod Carey isn’t perfect,
nor without red flags,
but he has won before
in a difficult league
and his green flags
seem to outnumber
his red ones

Steve Addazio, the Florida assistant, was perhaps the most-hated man in Gainesville when he took the Temple job.

Matt Rhule was a guy who the players lobbied for twice before he was awarded the Temple job.  Dick Vermeil said about fans lobbying for the backup quarterback when Ron Jaworski was struggling: “If you listen to the fans, soon you’ll be sitting next to them.”  That pretty much applies to athletic directors listening to players.

Geoff Collins’ Mayhem defense was torched against Tennessee, Alabama and Florida State in the weeks before he was hired at Temple.

The reality is that Hardin was as close to perfection as you can get and any Temple fans who remember him have been spoiled. Golden had a pass in that he was given an impossible job–end a 20-game losing streak and rid the program of malcontents, all while bringing up the APR.

Now Rod Carey comes aboard and his only red flag was that a significant portion of the Northern Illinois’ fanbase was happy to see him go.  I haven’t been able to find a single columnist or beat writer who covered NIU criticize him, but a lot of fans did not hold him in high esteem.

this

nation

Interesting that the middle fan could not spell DeKalb

The Temple Red Flag File

JERRY BERNDT _ For some reason, Temple President Peter J. Liacouras was enamored with Berndt, who never had a real record as a winning head coach before. RED FLAG: He was 0-11 with the Owls (Rice Owls) the year before he was hired by the Temple Owls. He also got to go 1-10 with the Temple Owls, making him the only head coach in history to go a combined 1-21 for two teams named the Owls. Berndt could not recruit his way out of a paper bag.

RON DICKERSON _ Joe Paterno, no big lover of Temple football (thank God in retrospect), urged Dickerson not to take the Temple job. When Dickerson was adamant about taking it, Joe supported Dickerson, saying that “Ron is the best defensive coordinator in the country.” RED FLAG: The “best defensive coordinator in the country” allowed 55 points in his last regular-season game, after moving from Penn State to Clemson. Dickerson was in over his head as a CEO. He could recruit, but he couldn’t coach his way out of the same paper bag Berndt recruited from.

BOBBY WALLACE _ The man won three Division II titles, but those were Division II titles, taking the scraps of players not wanted by the big Southern schools like Auburn and Alabama. Because he was hooked into the Southern recruiting system, he found some good players for that level. Those kind of players would never work for Temple and Wallace found out that the hard way. RED FLAG: He didn’t have the level of drive or commitment needed to succeed at football’s highest level, no desire to live in the Northeast and Temple wasted eight years of their fans’ lives as a result.

With Carey, the red flag (note singular) does not seem to be as egregious as the ones with the above coaches and it seems to be something at least he has owned.

His first words upon hearing Pat Kraft’s glowing introduction:

“That was more nice things said about me than I’ve heard in the last six years,” Carey said.

Maybe those NIU fans were spoiled. Maybe Carey has learned from any perceived flaws.

It’s hard to imagine a Temple fanbase happy to see a coach leave who has won four division and two league titles in six years. Rod Carey isn’t perfect, nor without red flags, but he has won before in a difficult league and his green flags seem to outnumber his red ones.

Wednesday: 5 Things We Won’t Miss About Mr. Mayhem

Friday: Comparing First Years

Monday: Minimal Expectations

Wednesday: This Year’s Lab Experiment

Friday: A Primer

01.18.19
by

New Staff: Substance Over Flash

 

knowles

From left, Knowles, Rice and Stewart sound like a law firm who are ready to defend the Owls on that side of the field this fall.

The pieces to the puzzle that is Rod Carey’s new staff are mostly there, it’s just a matter of fitting them together.

What we do know is this:

There will be a decidedly FBS flavor for the one taking over compared to the mostly FCS one that left the Edberg Olson Complex for Atlanta over a month ago.

That’s a departure from the previous University of Florida coordinator who took over and represents a trend in a more positive direction for the program as a whole.

When Steve Addazio came from Florida to take over Temple prior to the 2011 season, he brought with him a national champion defensive coordinator (Chuck Heater) and a national champion quarterback coach (Scot Loeffler). When Geoff Collins came from the same school, he bought the Gators’ equipment guy and coordinators from Kennesaw State and Coastal Carolina.

rushmore

Pat Kraft promised the players he wanted stability and both he and Rod Carey delivered it with this “Mount Rushmore” of Temple stability, Fran, ADM, Foles and Gabe. This speaks volumes about both Carey and Kraft.

Big difference and it showed in games the Owls had no business of being close in (the first Villanova game) or losing (UConn and Army, 2017) and Villanova and Buffalo (2018). Two years in a row, Collins’ FCS coaches were badly outcoached by Villanova’s FCS coaches.

While you could argue with the results on the field, the equipment was top-notch.

Rod Carey’s additions from Northern Illinois have much more solid football credentials. Mix in the Temple holdovers, including former Baylor assistant head coach Fran Brown, and this has the making of one of the best Temple staffs in a long time.

We don’t know who the offensive coordinator will be, but hopefully it will be a guy who helps the Owls get back to the Temple TUFF style of offensive football that was run under both Al Golden and Matt Rhule, more of a running game mixed in with a play-action passing one.

The addition of Jeff Knowles as defensive coordinator is probably the best get by Carey so far. Knowles had the NIU defense in the top 35 in the country last year and coached three years at North Carolina State. In his first season as defensive coordinator this past fall, the Huskies were second in the FBS in sacks with 50, trailing only national champion Clemson. The Huskies were ranked 11th in the nation in rushing yards allowed per game (109.2), 10th in team tackles for loss per game (7.9) NIU had six all-Mid-American Conference selections on its defense

Melvin Rice, the DB coach, coached last year at NIU and four years at Minnesota and DL coach Walter Stewart played at Cincinnati (so he’s very familiar with Temple) and had one of the best pass-rushing units in the country at NIU last year. Joe Tripodi, who holds a masters from the Harvard of the Big 10 (Northwestern), is the new OL coach. Craig Harmon, who was the QB coach at NIU, also comes over as Carey’s staff meshes with the Temple holdovers.

While Manny Diaz’s poaching of Temple strength coach David Feeley–who he never met before arriving on Temple’s campus one month ago yesterday–was particularly troubling, the Owls get the NIU strength coach Brad Ohrt, who played on the Appalachian State team that beat Michigan and has been with the Miami Dolphins and USC, among other squads. For all that Feeley did with Temple, the Owls were still pushed around in the Buffalo and Nova games and Ohrt did not allow that to happen to NIU against Buffalo.

The Owls should be strong next year.

In more ways than one.

Monday: Red Flag On The Field

 

 

01.16.19
by

Getting The Old Gang Back Together

niu

Now that the official Temple coaching directory lists as many as four holdovers added to the new Rod Carey staff, we can assume that they all either have sat down to debrief Carey or will do so soon.

It’s now official that Gabe Infante, Adam DiMichele, Ed Foley and Fran Brown are on the staff with their titles to be sorted out in less than two weeks.

Who knows what has been said?

 

It could have went or will go down something like this:

Carey: I’d like to welcome you guys. Pat (Kraft) said a lot of great things about you all. Just wanted to get a feel of where the program is at and how you would like to improve it.

Foley: I’ll take that question first. We got killed in the bowl game because we had a 27-14 lead and were not able to close it out with some effective running behind a good offensive line. That was our MO the entire season.

edfoley

Ed Foley has consistently had the Temple special teams near the top of the NCAA stats over the last decade and is expected to continue in that role.

Carey: Missouri?

Foley: No, modus operandi. That’s a particular way of doing things. We had Rock Armstead do that for us and he was injured before the game. I think he tripped over the Elvis status on the way out of the bus. Whatever, we didn’t have that feature back and we want to find one.

Brown: I’m on it. I’m looking at a kid in Florida and another in Jersey who can step right in and maybe take over.

Carey: What are our options from the roster?

DiMichele: We’ve got two, maybe three, NFL potential receivers in Isaiah Wright, Branden Mack and Sean Ryan plus a couple of promising guys behind them in Randle Jones and Freddie Johnson. Only one of those guys, Wright, has played tailback before. He had seven carries in a game there in Matt’s last year. He’s a first-team All-American kickoff and punt returner and, for his entire career here, both Matt and Geoff have talked about getting him the ball more and I can’t think of a better way to get him the ball 20 times a game than putting him behind the quarterback.

infante

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

Carey: I like the idea. Offensively, you guys know the roster. What would you run with this personnel grouping?

Foley: Don’t ask me. I’m 0-2 in bowl games.

Carey: I’ve got you beat there. I’m 0-6.

Infante: I’ll chime in here. Being from the Philadelphia Catholic League, I had the pleasure of watching Anthony Russo …

Carey: Who?

Infante: Our starting quarterback, Anthony Russo.

Carey: Yeah, I saw him on TV. He’s pretty good.

Infante: Yes, but the Georgia Tech cabal had him running a pass-run option. With all due respect, that’s crazy. He’s no more of a RPO guy than Tom Brady is with the Patriots and you didn’t see Bill Belichick running that against the Chargers yesterday. Go with the pro set, put a fullback in front of Wright to clear the way, mix in a lot of play-action fakes to the running backs and Anthony will have Mack and Ryan and tight end Kenny Yeboah running so free he won’t know which one to pick out.

Carey: Cabal. That’s a good word. Did you go to the Prep or just coach there?

Infante: The kids were the ones using the fancy words, so a few rubbed off on me.

Carey: Back to the point: Running the ball with a great tailback following a blocking fullback and then hitting explosive downfield plays in the play-action passing game is just good midwestern-style football, Gabe. What position did Manny Diaz have you coaching?

Infante: Linebackers.

Carey: Forget that, I’m moving you to the offensive side of the ball.

Infante: Thanks, Rod.

Carey: That settles it. We’re running a pro set and putting Wright at tailback and Fran, go find me the Rock Armstead of the future to back him up. Anything else? Meeting adjourned. I’ve got to go to Pat Kraft’s office and see what I can do to get Bucknell off the schedule and get us another Power 5 game instead. We’re going to need another P5 win if we’re going to get into the four-team playoff.

days

The official Temple coaching directory as of 1-15-19

Friday: Why This Staff is Already Better Than the One at GT

Monday: Mr. Mayhem is Gone But Not Forgotten

 

01.14.19
by

Temple’s Rod Carey Has Good Company

 

Since the presser started 14 minutes late, advance timestamp to 14:01

The two best coaches I’ve ever known are both gone now but had very similar personalities and approaches to the game of football.

One, Wayne Hardin, was the best college coach I ever knew and the other, Mike Pettine, Sr., was the best high school one. I feel blessed to have known both so well.

Neither was loved by his players during those playing years. Those coaches were more fathers than brothers, who basically said “if you live in my house, you live by my rules.”

Both maintained the only fun in football is winning.

All the players loved, even worshipped,  both years later. The kids then, now adults, realized they were playing for a tough taskmaster whose only goal was to get the most out of their talent and that’s the best love of all.

conjar

Legendary TU linebacker Steve Conjar (left) feared being called into Wayne Hardin’s office as a player, but loved him like a son years later.

I thought about that because a lot of what I heard at the podium in person from Rod Carey on his first day as head coach of Temple University was what I heard from Hardin while covering the Owls for The Temple News and what I heard from Pettine from covering perennial state champion Central Bucks West in the late 1970s through the 1980s.

Both coaches were respected by their players but there was a dash of healthy fear there, too.

Pettine got the most out of 5-10, 170-pound players than any coach I ever saw and coached a school that had no more than 1,000 boys to a 324-26-2 overall record.

Hardin also did the impossible, taking both Navy and Temple high up the national rankings. No coach has had Navy or Temple ranked as high since Hardin and for some pretty good reasons.

petmeister

CB West never jumped offsides or had false starts because Mike Pettine made sure they ran the drill until they got it right.

Hardin and Pettine set the boundaries between player and coach by laying down the law.

Carey did the same on Friday afternoon, repeating, “Do you hear me?” twice and getting a “yes, sir” from the players in the back of the room. I haven’t heard Temple players say yes sir to a coach in a long time.

That was a “wow” moment because it reminded me so much of Hardin and Pettine.

Carey said he would not talk about being tough because tough teams don’t need to talk about it, that they just are tough.

Carey talked about building trust over time because he knew it would be disingenuous to do otherwise.

More than anything, though, is that he promised to be real and that the players would eventually come to appreciate that.

funpart

If this scene is replicated in December at Lincoln Financial Field, all of the hard work in practice will be rewarded. Suggestion to Carey: Make Isaiah Wright the starting tailback and it will be.

For me, at least, the last two Temple coaches attempted to be “buddies” or “friends” of the players a bit too much. Under the last regime, there was too much talk about swag and money downs and too little action and too many times you wondered if they ever even practiced. Two seasons ago, for instance, in a 16-13 win over Villanova, the defensive line was baited into three-straight offsides’ penalties. That simply does not happen if business is taken care in practice during the week. In the prior regime, Temple was called for 148 yards in penalties in a 34-27 loss at Penn State, robbing the Owls of a chance for consecutive victories over that program and similarly robbing a G5 league champion a win over a P5 league champion. Get even under that low bar of 100 yards of penalties and the Owls win that game. Practice is the time to get things cleaned up.

You can be a good coach as a brother figure.

Only father figures make great head coaches.

Carey is showing clear signs as being among the latter group, just like Pettine and Hardin were and, to me, that’s the best compliment a head coach can get. It’s going to be hard for Carey to be as smart as those two guys were because they were true geniuses, but at least the emphasis getting down to work is there.

The hard part will be spring and summer practice. The fun part will winning on Saturdays and that’s the way it should be.

Wednesday: Foley and Brown Debrief Carey

01.11.19
by

Rod Carey Hire: More Steak Than Sizzle

niu

Rod Carey celebrates the 2018 MAC title win over Buffalo one month ago.

One of my tailgate friends, a former Temple lineman named Ray “Big Cat” Haynes, had this selfie reaction shaking his head after watching his beloved Owls lose to Villanova a few months ago:

“What did I just see?”

Followed quickly by another selfie with this remark:

“I’ve seen the sizzle. I want the steak.”

done

Sizzle was all the accompanying window dressing Haynes saw during the game–like Money Down signs–steak was a win over a crosstown foe Temple needed so desperately to have that afternoon. The Owls were embarrassingly outcoached by Villanova and not a single Temple fan was happy that night.

With Temple hiring Rod Carey, the Owls get steak after a couple years of sizzle. He wasn’t my first choice (Chris Creighton of Eastern Michigan) or my second (Lance Leipold of Buffalo) but he definitely is a less-risky pick than any Power 5 coordinator out there. Even the guy who might have finished second, former Maryland head coach Matt Canada, got killed by Geoff Collins and Temple and that would have been a harder sell than Leipold, who actually did beat Collins and Temple.

happily

There were a lot of balls in the air that made this a difficult hire for Dr. Pat Kraft, the Temple AD. The disastrous hire of Manny Diaz left Kraft with three contracts to honor, then interim head coach Ed Foley, current interim HC Fran Brown and one of LB coach Gabe Infante. It might have been he could only get his fellow Indiana alumnus, Carey, to bail him out and agree to take those three onto the staff. We may never know but we do know those spots are guaranteed.

niuchamp

Hmm. Carey does something the great Geoff Collins was unable to, beat Buffalo

What we do know is the Owls are getting a ready-made FBS winning head coach for the first time since hiring Wayne Hardin in 1970 and that worked out pretty well (80-50-2). We also know that Temple is now Indiana East with 2000 grad Kraft and HC Carey (Class of 2003). Temple Chief Financial Officer Kevin Clark also served at Indiana in the same office of former Temple President Neal Theobald, who was CFO in Bloomington before taking the job as President of Temple University.

Carey is the most successful, in terms of winning percentage, head coach to be hired by Temple since the legendary Pop Warner in 1933. Temple followed the same formula by hiring Wayne Hardin in 1970 but abandoned it until now.

pophead

Temple’s best two football eras came by hiring guys who were successful head coaches at other big-time programs, as witnessed by the BOT’s putting their money where their mouths were here to hire Pop Warner.

College football is a little different now than it was then, and Hardin’s Navy record (38-22-2) was more impressive than Rod Carey’s 52-30 mark because it came against a higher level of competition. Hardin won a major bowl game and had Navy ranked as high as No. 2 once. That’s like present-day Temple hiring a current Power 5 coach who had his team ranked No. 2. Even though the Owls got a $6.5 million buyout windfall recently, the landscape of college football is not going to allow for a school like Temple to hire a Nick Saban or a Dabo Sweeney.

Temple now has the money to do what Power 5 schools almost exclusively do, though, hire successful FBS head coaches.

It says a lot about how far the Owls have come in that they are able to get an accomplished head coach rather than roll the dice on another unproven assistant. Mostly, they’ve been lucky enough to keep their heads above water since following the Al Golden model in 2005.

redacted

Golden did a superb job reviving the patient with CPR and left after nine- and eight-win seasons. The university then handed over the reins to Florida OC Steve Addazio, who used the Golden talent to go 9-4 with a bowl win. Temple dodged a bullet, though, when Boston College took Daz off Temple’s hands after a 4-7 season.

Then came Matt Rhule and a two-win learning curve season (with arguably six-win talent) and sizzle-more-than-steak Geoff Collins (15-10 a lot of learning curve losses and a subpar mostly FCS-level staff).

Now comes the steak of Carey and a more FBS-level staff. Only time will tell if it’s well-done but at least the chef has cooked something that tasted pretty good before.

Monday: The Presser

Wednesday: What Foley and Brown Should Be Telling Carey

Friday:  Coordinators and First-Year Losses

Monday (1/21): 5 Things We Won’t Miss About Mayhem

Wednesday (1/23): The No. 1 Recruiting Priority