Category Archives: AAC football

06.29.20
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Running out of time to set a date for football

Mike Aresco, AAC commissioner,

Mike Aresco seems confident the AAC will be playing football.

It looks like there are at least three possible outcomes for the resumption of college football this season:

  • One, the powers-that-be will confirm all football will start on time.
  • Two, the powers-that-be will announce a postponement, cancellation, or shortened season maybe even without fans.
  • Three, no date will be set at all and the season will resume as scheduled.

Whatever happens, it appears to be that we are running out of time to set a date but AAC commissioner Mike Aresco doesn’t seem concerned.

aresco

That’s important because, if there are going to be fans, they have to know whether to renew season tickets or not. There’s too much uncertainty out there and fragile fan bases–like most of the ones currently in the G5–are not going to make plans to renew if there is no announcement made.

That said, my money is now on No. 3.

First, Temple is already having voluntary workouts and most of the team will join for full workouts starting July 13. Second, the school already announced that it will have a combination of in-person and online classes this fall. The in-person element means that football can be played. It’s hard to justify college football if there are no students on campus.

Now onto the “powers-that-be.” In college football, that certainly is not the NCAA. Football is controlled by the Power 5 conferences who basically tell the NCAA what to do.

If the Power 5 decides to play, and all indications are that it will, the G5 will fall in line.

So while it would be nice to know a summertime date where something is written that all systems are go, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the season will happen as scheduled and without significant comment.

Right now, those “powers” are hoping that the virus doesn’t spiral out of control between now and September so making a formal announcement now probably won’t happen. Plan to attend the games, but don’t be surprised if they aren’t there.

Saturday: Is Temple really No. 6?

Monday: That’s what I’m talking about

Saturday (7/11): You can’t really go home again

06.26.20
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Tulane has the right approach

Tulane v Temple

Temple goes on the road to play Tulane, which has two road P5 games.

Even though Temple beat a very good Tulane team last year, there is no denying the Green Wave is on the rise.

This year, if there is this year, they are poised to take advantage.

Tulane’s non-conference schedule has been ranked No. 1 by college football expert Tom Fornelli in the AAC and that’s probably the model Temple should pursue in the not-too-distant future.

Cincinnati v Tulane

Consider this: Tulane returns 14 of 22 starters from a bowl team and runs a unique zone bluff option type offense that is easier to pass off than, say, Army and Navy. It’s an offense few teams run and makes Tulane a tough team to prepare for in a one-week situation. Most P5 teams go up against a read-option and facing a different style makes it a tough team to prepare against.

Temple used to be that way as the Owls ran power football with a fullback for most of the Matt Rhule and Al Golden years. Since P5 teams didn’t see that style, the Owls had a fair share of success against more talented foes.

This is my favorite Rhule quote about Temple football from a Paul Myerberg piece in USA Today:

“”HOW DO WE DIFFERENTIATE OURSELVES? HOW DO WE MAKE OURSELVES HARD TO PREPARE FOR? PUT TWO BACKS ON THE FIELD. PUT TWO TIGHT ENDS ON THE FIELD. THIS IS WHAT YOUR ROOTS ARE. THESE KIDS HAVE MADE THEMSELVES REALLY TOUGH. AND THAT’S THE ONLY WAY WE’LL EVER WIN. BY BEING A REALLY, REALLY TOUGH FOOTBALL TEAM.”” _ MATT RHULE

Now it appears Tulane has adopted its own way to make it a difficult-to-prepare-for opponent.

Tulane goes on the road against Northwestern and Mississippi State and I like that scheduling. Both are P5 teams but both are beatable and winning those games would be a boost to the entire conference and not just Tulane.

Temple plays a home game against P5 bottom-feeder Rutgers and a road game against much-improved (at least from a personnel standpoint) Miami. However, if the Owls bring that read-option style to Miami with a classic pocket passer in Anthony Russo, they are going to get hammered by outside pass rushers Quincy Roche and Gregory Rousseau, who could both go in the first round of the NFL draft. Establish an inside running game to avoid those two ends and then throwing off play-fakes would probably mitigate the rush. Does Rod Carey go outside of his comfort zone to attack the weakness of his opponent?

We didn’t see much evidence of last in his last game.

Hopefully, his next game plan is the polar opposite of that one.

Monday: Drop dead date

 

05.08.20
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Smoking Out the AAC winner: Cincy

Cincinnati v Tulane

In the run-up to the college football season, we’ve seen some hope among the generally accepted gloom and doom.

South Korea’s baseball season already has resumed with games on ESPN, albeit in empty stadiums. South Korea’s first case of the virus came on the same day as the United States’ first case.

So, yes, they are doing better than us but that doesn’t mean we won’t get to where they are. Also, New Zealand has declared it has had no new cases for the past two weeks. If college football can play its entire season in New Zealand, no problem.

That won’t happen.

The larger point is that there is hope for a college football season in the United States, even this year.

For the purposes of this post, though, we’ll assume there will be a season either this fall or next spring and it doesn’t look good from a Temple football perspective.

The Vegas Over/Under for the Owls is 5.5 wins.

be272-aac

Five. Point. Five.

I’ll take the over only when I’m sure there will be a season, but the line is telling me something.

Vegas was spooked by the Owls’ bowl result and the losing way they ended the season and is putting their money where their heads are.

So who is going to win the AAC?

Memphis won last year, but lost its head coach and that always has a negative impact on the next season.

UCF looks strong again but my money is on Cincinnati finally taking home the crown. Luke Fickell turned down the West Virginia job to remain at Cincinnati two years ago and it almost paid off but the Bearcats lost their final two league games to Memphis (regular season and championship). He turned down Michigan State in February to remain at Cincinnati.

I just wish one Temple coach would turn down one Power 5 job let alone two.

Two years ago, Cincy came to Philadelphia with 35 freshmen (including red shirts and true) on the traveling squad and those youngsters extended Temple into overtime before losing.

This year, based on coaching, experience and four-straight years of having the No. 1 recruiting class in the conference (either Scout.com or Rivals.com ratings.), the Bearcats should take home the league crown.

At least that’s my pick here on May 8. Next season should be over by May 8 and we will find out for sure by then.

We’ll go with an AAC East finish of Cincy, UCF, Temple in that order and fervently hope it’s flipped the other way.

Friday (5/15): Advantages of a shortened season

Monday (5/18): Recruiting Patterns

Friday (5/22): Suspending Campaigns

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

 

12.16.19
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Other AAC bowls lack pizzazz

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Orlando is in the middle of the landlocked side of a state surrounded by a sea and an ocean, but you could not tell it from the reaction of some of their fans.

They are in the middle of the saltiest part of the state after hearing that they get to play Marshall and Temple gets to play the more “sexy” bowl matchup. Pizzazz is defined as “an attractive combination of vitality and glamour” and, if anything lacks pizzazz,  it is the AAC bowl matchups.

Temple has an interesting matchup. The others fall short.

In fact, an argument can be made that the Owls might have won the AAC post-season if they can beat UNC because even if Memphis is getting the sexiest bowl opponent, Penn State, we all know the chances of interim G5 team head coaches are a lot slimmer than Ed Foley.

Plenty of complaints on the UCF message board that Temple is getting a P5 opponent while UCF–which both finished ahead of Temple in the AAC East and throttled the Owls on the road–gets the Rosey O’Donnell Bowl against Marshall.

To me, it’s more of a result of life in the Group of Five. If you get an NY6 game, you lose your head coach. If you don’t get an NY6 game, you either get a 6-6 P5 team or a team from a lesser conference.

Temple, the AAC turns its lonely eyes to you because I don’t see a chance of the AAC advancing its brand in many of these bowls that the conference should win:

abc

Boca Raton Bowl, Dec. 21 (3:30, ABC) _ SMU, a 10-2 team that played and beat a TCU team (that extended Baylor into overtime), gets to go on the road and play FAU in its home stadium. A Mustangs’ win hardly advances the brand of the conference and SMU, despite being unbeaten at the time, drew only 23,189 fans to a home game against Temple. One trend in SMU’s favor: It gets to play a team with an interim head coach.  Prediction: SMU, 24-17.

Gasparilla Bowl, Dec. 23  (2:30, ESPN)  _ This is the same bowl Temple beat FIU, 28-3, by in a different stadium this time. UCF should draw better at Raymond James Stadium than even the home USF team usually draws but Marshall is a blah opponent that got blown out at home by Cincinnati, 52-14. Prediction: UCF, 34-17.

usm-bowl

Cotton Bowl, Dec. 28 (noon, ESPN) _ Hate to say this because I’m an AAC guy, but I think Appalachian State deserved this bowl more than Memphis and probably would have had a much better chance to beat Penn State given the coaching circumstances. No G5 team other than App State has P5 wins like South Carolina and North Carolina. Memphis tried to avoid an Ed Foley-like fate by naming its “interim” head coach the permanent one. Memphis will come of this bowl losing to two Pennsylvania teams and beating everyone else. Prediction: Penn State, 35-14.

Liberty Bowl, Dec. 31 (3:45, ESPN) _ Probably the second-most interesting game to the Temple game as Navy should hold serve as the only ranked team in this matchup (No. 23). Kansas State is pretty good, though, and should keep this one close. Prediction: Navy, 24-20.

Birmingham Bowl, Jan. 2 (3, ESPN) _ No. 21 Cincinnati draws an ACC opponent for the second-straight year, this time in warmer weather. Boston College is an ACC opponent in name only and, despite the fact that Steve Addazio is no longer its coach, Luke Fickell gives Cincy the edge in coaching.

Armed Forces Bowl, Jan. 4 (11:30 a.m., ESPN) _ If the Tulane-Southern Mississippi matchup sounds familiar, it should. It’s a renewal of an old CUSA rivalry called the “Battle for the Bell” and the Green Wave should have enough to win this game comfortably, I’d say, around 31-21.

Wednesday: The Newest Dirty Word

 

10.05.19
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Saturday Games: How will they affect TU?

monroe

Memphis plays in this stadium today before coming to LFF next Saturday as perhaps a Top 25 team.

Maybe getting an extra few days to prepare for Memphis is a good thing, particularly with the penalties and pass protection issues still plaguing the Owls.

There is no maybe involved, though, when it comes to the Tigers, who have to travel to the University of Louisiana-Monroe today at 3:45 p.m.

Screenshot 2019-10-04 at 3.34.34 PM

Early games today

Temple coaches have the added benefit of watching the game live on TV and then breaking down game film afterward.

Memphis should be able to cover the 15-point spread easily in this one but the travel to Louisiana and back to Memphis and then a trip to Philadelphia for Temple homecoming should benefit the Owls at least a little.

Other AAC games of interest today include USF at UConn (surprised that the Bulls are only 10.5-point favorites there) and SMU giving 13.5 points at Tulsa. SMU looks like the best team in the league so far and that includes UCF and Cincy. Beating a TCU team that beat Kansas, 51-17, is pretty impressive–especially after Kansas traveled to Boston to double-up Steve Addazio’s Eagles two weeks prior. I have to root for host Navy getting 3 points against Air Force and think the Middies should be able to pull the mild upset.

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Later games today

Picks today: ARMY getting 3 against visiting Tulane. The Green Wave is pretty good this year but Army has won 15-straight home games and I think Army wins this game outright. Also like Rod Carey’s former team, Northern Illinois, covering the 4.5 against visiting Ball State, Maryland covering the 13.5 at Rutgers, Navy getting the 3 against Air Force and Western Kentucky covering the 3.5 at Old Dominion. With Cincy beating UCF last night, we are now 18-5 for the season and 14-9 against the spread.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

08.17.19
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Russo Picks Temple to Win AAC East

Screenshot 2019-07-20 at 10.43.33 AM

The biggest news coming out the last couple of days about Temple football was not on the practice field where the team is working hard for the season opener in less than two weeks but because a Russo picked Temple to win the AAC East.

And it wasn’t even Anthony Russo.

Ralph D. Russo (no relation), the Associated Press’ long-time college football beat writer, picked Temple to win the AAC East.

That’s good news.


The most long-awaited
depth chart in the history
of Temple football (there
hasn’t been one since the
2016 season finale) will
be released on Aug. 26

 

The bad news is that he also picked Memphis to win the overall title but, since we’re still five months away from that potential matchup, the Owls can have a lot to say about both getting to that game and winning it.

First things first.

Russo didn’t detail his reasoning but he probably thinks the Owls would beat Memphis (and UCF) at home, lose to Cincy on the road, but probably set themselves up for a home rematch against the revenge-minded Tigers and lose. History, though, proves that teams playing against revenge have won the title (UCF over Memphis last year, despite the Tigers losing the regular-season game, 31-30) so the Owls don’t have to follow that script.

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It won’t be long now

Meanwhile, the Owls are writing their own foreward (this one spelled with an ‘e’ in the middle) of what could be a remarkable 2019 story.

To me, all of these predictions could get blown up with a key injury here or there so the predictions are pretty much made with minimal injury impact in mind so building depth is an important ingredient and that’s just what the Owls are doing now.

The most long-awaited depth chart in the history of Temple football (there hasn’t been one since the 2016 season finale) will be released on Aug. 26, but while there is hitting at practices, there is no tackling so expect a lot of the proven tacklers last year on defense to rise to the top of the depth chart this season as well.

That means on defense expect last year’s starters at corner, Linwood Crump Jr., and Ty Mason to be trying to fight off Harrison Hand–who started four games for a Power 5 team (Baylor)–to keep their jobs.

At safety, reports from OwlsDaily.com that DaeSean Winston is lining up as starter is particularly impressive since he did not get as many reps as Benny Walls, the other safety starter. The fact that they are both holding off Penn State backup Ayron Monroe (who played in all 12 regular-season games for the Nittany Lions) probably is a good sign for the quality of the safety group.

The fact that the five current linebackers (Shaun Bradley, Chapelle Russell, Sam Franklin, William Kwenkeu and Isaiah Graham-Mobley) are the strength of the team has been pretty much common knowledge since the end of last season. Franklin’s value is that he can play any defensive position (end, LB and safety) and can be moved all over the field as needed. Owls will be hurt by graduation at that position in that only IGM is an underclassman.

Probably the two key ingredients to winning college football games are getting to the bad guys’ quarterback and keeping the bad guys off your quarterback and the Owls should have no problem doing that with a group that includes starting ends Quincy Roche and Zack Mesday and interior linemen Dan Archibong and Karamo Dioubate. Dana Levine, who started three games before getting injured, is also back at DE along with junior college transfer Nickolas Madourie–who had an eye-popping 17.5 sacks in one season as a JUCO.

This defense has the potential to shut a lot of people down and with the abandonment of Geoff Collins’ Mayhem scheme–which left gaping holes in an attempt to ramp up turnovers–should be more fundamentally sound.

Monday: Thoughts on The Offense

07.22.19
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Aresco Should Practice What He Preaches

Mike Aresco talks BYU and the Power 6

One of the dichotomies of American Athletic Conference Media Day was Mike Aresco preaching Power 6 and the football schedule of the league not practicing it.

The SEC and Big 10 commissioners have moved to eliminate scheduling FCS opponents and there is some talk now of them eliminating Group of Five opponents in the near future.

Screenshot 2019-07-21 at 3.33.57 PM

The irony of that is they don’t need to do it.

The AAC, if it is indeed going to be a Power 6 conference, does. The AAC needs to schedule Power 5 opponents and beat them if they are going to be seriously considered as a P5, even if that means giving up a home game here and there. Commissioner Mike Aresco cannot force conference athletic directors to schedule additional P5 opponents, but he can strongly suggest (and even shame them) into doing so, saying it’s for the overall good of the league.

He has not done that and it’s been showing up on the schedules, games that do nothing to advance the conference’s profile.

Here are five WTF games that jump out on the AAC non-conference schedule. We’ll skip the Wagner at UConn game for obvious reasons:

giphy

  • Bucknell at Temple–We’ve already talked about this game until we’re blue in the face but this made no sense when it was first scheduled and make less sense with each and every passing day. A better competition would have been to put Anthony Russo and Isaiah Wright as the captains of the Cherry team and Toddy Centeio and Jager Gardner as captains of the White team and have them alternate picks for a real pickup game with full contact. That’s water under the bridge now. Let’s hope Pat Kraft doesn’t make the same mistake twice.
  • Holy Cross at Navy–Unless the ghost of Gordy Lockbaum shows up, this team has no business being on the Navy schedule. Holy Cross lost a home game to Bucknell last year and was beaten, 62-14, by Boston College and lost to Harvard and Dartmouth of the Ivy League.
  • Prairie View A&M at Houston–Prairie View lost to Rice and UNLV last year in addition to Alcorn State and Jackson State. The Cougars have a long history of scheduling and beating better foes. They should have stuck to that philosophy, particularly when they showed they are the only G5 school willing to spend the big bucks to woo a successful P5 coach.
  • Florida A&M at UCF–This is precisely the kind of game that sets up UCF for some kind of legitimate criticism should it go undefeated again. The Knights are playing Stanford but essentially weakened their argument by not playing P5 foes instead of Florida A&M and Florida Atlantic.
  • Southern at Memphis--Southern, one of the best teams in the SWAC, still lost to TCU (55-7) and Louisiana Tech (54-17) last year so Memphis, trying to position itself for an NY6 bowl, still impresses no one with this possible win.
  • On the other hand, the league deserves kudos for games like Georgia Tech and Maryland at Temple, UCLA at Cincy and Cincy at Ohio State,  Tulsa at Michigan State, Ole Miss at Memphis, Wisconsin at USF, Tulane at Auburn and Washington State at Houston.

For this conference to achieve the goals its commissioner preaches, it needs to practice more of that kind of scheduling and less of the WTF games.

Saturday: Plausible Deniability

07.20.19
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AAC Media Day: Not-so-great expectations

Chris Giannini on 2019 Temple: “That is a really, really good team” .. yet he picks Owls to go 7-5

Anyone arriving at the AAC Football Media Day was greeted with one of those graphic boards usually seen at horse races listing the entrants and their odds.

This time, though, the board read the media preseason polls and the expectations for the season by a poll of so-called experts.

Screenshot 2019-07-20 at 10.33.54 AM

The expectations for Temple, the winningest team in the league in the last four regular-season years (yes, more wins than UCF, USF, Houston and Memphis from 2015-2018) were not so great. The Owls were picked fourth in the AAC East behind UCF, Cincinnati and USF.

The reasoning was simple.

Temple was losing Geoff Collins and gaining Rod Carey was usually the first thing out of their mouths. The second thing was the loss of a NFL fifth-round draft choice at running back, Ryquell Armstead, who former Houston coach Major Applewhite called “the best running back in our league.”

Sound reasoning for outsiders, not so much for insiders.

Losing Collins, long on schtick and short on substance, was the antonym of the new Temple coach, Carey, a guy long on substance and short on schtick.

 

connection

The Owls are only 20-25 handoffs from this guy to that guy away from winning an AAC title.

It’s hard from an insider’s point of view–particularly this one–to see that as anything but a net gain for both the organization and its preseason chances.

The running back conundrum is another story, though.

Carey has promised to give the ball to potentially the best running back in the league, Isaiah Wright, a lot more. If Carey has the kind of substance we think he has, he will figure out the best way to do that is making Wright the full-time replacement for Armstead because, as good as Armstead was, Wright has the kind of moves and speed that could make the rest of the league forget about Armstead. It’s a no-brainer because Temple is extraordinarily deep at wide receiver with Branden Mack, Jaden Blue, Randle Jones and Freddie Johnson, among others. Still, the last two Temple head coaches also promised to get the ball into Wright’s hands more but did not deliver on those promises.

Nothing would achieve that goal more than quarterback Anthony Russo sticking that pigskin into Wright’s belly 20-25 times a game and maybe added a few swing passes out of the backfield to give Wright the space to do his thing.

In the middle of July, that, to me, seems to be the key to the season. Ride that horse and the Owls’ odds of moving from fourth to first improve dramatically.

Monday: Practicing What You Preach

Saturday: Plausible Deniability 

Monday (7/29): Up Against The Walls

Saturday (8/3): Game Month

04.26.19
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Gauging The Competiton: UCF, USF, Cincy

surprise

Just a small portion of the 33,306 Temple fans whose chant of “DEE-fense!, DEE-fense!” was so loud the Cincy QB could not hear the snap count. Heroes, really.

Gauging is a pretty good word.

Defined as “to determine the exact dimensions, capacity, quantity, or force of; measure. to appraise, estimate, or judge” it is probably first best used after spring football practice to determine the weaknesses and strengths of Temple football opponents.

If I were writing this with cherry-colored glasses now, I would rate Temple as THE favorite.

The Owls have in my mind the best quarterback in the league in Anthony Russo and POTENTIALLY the best running back in the league in Isaiah Wright. Since we’re not sure new head coach Rod Carey will use Wright on more than a handful of plays from scrimmage, we will have to take those glasses off and put on the regular ones with brown rims and a prescription.

(If Carey made the announcement today or in the summer that he’s putting what Army coach Jeff Monken said was a “touchdown waiting to happen” permanently in the backfield, we’d change our minds.)

temple

Looking through those, I’d have to rate Cincinnati as the AAC East favorite, followed by UCF and then Temple. I cannot see USF rated ahead of Temple under any circumstances, but those are the four strongest teams in the East.

Here’s an early look:

(from USA Today)

UCF

UCF’s annual spring football game Saturday gave fans a chance to see just how close the quarterback battle is for the Knights. Head coach Josh Heupel let all four of his available quarterbacks rotate series under center.

Though they each showed flashes of brilliance, it was clear that more work needs to be done for a true starter to emerge.

“Some good and some bad,” Heupel said of his quarterbacks’ play today. “Today was not any of their best days collectively from start to finish. I thought there were some real positive things early when we were pushing the ball down the field. There were some times where we didn’t handle the tempo as well as we needed to.”

Redshirt sophomore Darriel Mack Jr. opened the game with a two-play drive that was capped off by touchdown pass to redshirt senior wide receiver Jacob Harris.

Senior Brandon Wimbush’s best came right before halftime when he led a lengthy drive that resulted in Jacob Harris catching his second touchdown pass in the corner of the end zone with 13 seconds left.

CINCINNATI

Like Carey, Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell does not believe in spring football contact:

He believes full contact special teams in spring are a throwback. Fickell remembered doing them in his days as a player at Ohio State under Jim Tressel.

“It’s not that often that you get to do it,” Fickell said. “Coach Tress used to do it. You kind of get worried. A guy can get rolled up or this, that and the other thing. But as tired as they are by the end of spring, as tired as they are after covering a couple of kicks, the contacts are nearly as high speed.

“It was a great opportunity for our returners, our kickers in those situations were they have to make some decisions.”

The Bearcats are coming off an 11-2 season with a win over Virginia Tech in the Military Bowl.  Quarterback Desmond Ritter, who blamed the Temple fan crowd noise for a key fumble in one of the two losses, looked good but he has lost his top wide receiver Kahil Lewis.

USF
The Bulls might have a new starter at quarterback in Plant City High’s Jordan McCloud, who was 17 for 25 for 228 yards and two touchdowns (and one pick) in the spring game.

The offensive line, though, which was the team’s weak point a year ago, needs “work” according to Charley Strong. It’s hard to make a living in the AAC with an offensive line in a state of flux like this one.

Sunday: Bulking Up a Position

Tuesday: The Drafted Guys

Friday: Shot Chart

Sunday: Blocked by Collins