Category Archives: Anthony Robey

11.27.12
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Temple football: The road to Super Phenomenal

One last Temple look at Matt Brown. Something tells me we will see him again playing on a different day of the week.

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Right about now, Temple head football coach Steve Addazio is setting the GPS for the road to Super Phenomenal.
If the Owls get there, it will depend a lot on Daz inputing the right coordinates.
At the very least, you’ve got to figure that Temple is going to be a better football team this year than next.
The Owls played as many as 16 freshmen starters at times this year and a couple of solid teams leave the schedule in Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

Addazio says the team is moving in a “super phenomenal direction” and you’ve got to hope that Daz’s definition of “super phenomenal” is not just five wins next year.
What is my definition of “‘super phenomenal” .. hmm, AT LEAST flipping the 4-7 into 7-5 next year. I’ve never seen a “regular” phenomenal 6-6 team. If “super phenomenal” is, say, 9-3 or better in a couple of years, you’ve got to at least go 7-5 along the way.
Still, though, there are some serious concerns to be addressed before the Owls chose the road that leads them to Super Phenomenal.
Since you’ve got to go with the current roster personnel, I would tweak things just a big to improve the 2013 Owls. I don’t think anybody currently playing in high school is going to make the Owls super phenomenal next year.
My easy fixes:

Looks like the Army Billy Goat followed the Owls from
West Point in this great image captured by Frank Stephens.
The shadow behind John Christopher was not photo shopped.

DEFENSIVE SECONARDY _ Can this be fixed in one year? I don’t know but I would give a serious look to former Rutgers’ recruit Abdul Smith as a cornerback. Unlike the current starter, who was recruited by FCS Hofstra (now without a program), Smith brings solid BCS recruit potential in there and I thought he played very well in his most extended duty, the UConn game. With lock-down cornerback Anthony Robey on the other end, that’s an upgrade. I would give Kevin Newsome the entire spring to become the star playmaking free safety I think he can be and he was proven to be in high school. If the first two QBs get injured, Newsome’s 2012 of being third-team quarterback won’t be wasted and he could fill in as emergency QB. He’s too good an athlete to keep off the field, though.
DEFENSIVE LINE _ Since the Owls appear to be thin there and have plenty of talented linebackers, why not go 3-4 instead of 4-3. With a 3-4 you need to have a good nose guard and I think both Levi Brown and Hershey Walton fit that bill. I would recruit a big, mean, pass-rushing JUCO DE or at least two. Playng a 3-4 allows you to blitz a couple of  speedy linebackers on passing downs, while leaving two back to cover a screen or draw.
OFFENSIVE SCHEME _ I would ditch this run-first approach and rehire Scot Loeffler as offensive coordinator. The Owls’ offense was much more smooth under Loeffler and he was even able to make Chester Stewart effective in the Maryland game by a lot of short rollout passes to the tight end and running backs on first down. That made Bernard Pierce a much more effective back. Daz needs more than a yes man as OC and Loeffler would fit that bill nicely. Without Matt Brown and Montel Harriss, the Owls can’t be one-dimensional. I think Jamie Gilmore and Montrell Dobbs would thrive under a more balanced approach and the Owls have to show future quarterback recruits they are more than ready and willing to throw the football.
That’s how my GPS tells me to get to Super Phenomenal. I hope Daz has the same GPS system.

10.31.12
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Hawaii pulls out of talks with Temple

If the Owls get to six wins, they would likely be slotted into a sweet bowl.
Hawaii could not resolve a myriad of issues.

The road ahead just got a lot bumpier for Temple’s football team on becoming eligible for a bowl for the fourth-straight season.
Hawaii pulled out of talks to give Temple a 12th game today because it could not resolve ticket issues.
It would have been tough enough to get to a bowl game with Hawaii on the schedule and now it appears to be near impossible.
Now the Owls will have to get to a bowl the old-fashioned way: By earning it.
Four games left, two against teams that have been in the top 20 most of the season, one against a Syracuse team with a premier quarterback, Ryan Nassib, and another against an Army team that beat Boston College.
 Not easy. The Owls will have to hold serve against Army, pull a mild upset against Syracuse and an even more shocking one against either Louisville or Cincinnati.
 The road ahead:

Anthony Robey: Lock-down corner

LOUISVILLE _ The game will be played at 11 a.m. Louisville time (12 in Philadelphia) and is the only home game not a sellout the rest of the way. Louisville has a tendency to play “up” or “down” to the level of competition. It was not able to blow out a horrid Southern Mississippi team in the rain (21-17) and it barely got by a bad Florida International team (28-21). Louisville and Temple both struggled to beat South Florida (Cards by 27-25, Owls by 37-28), but Cards handled a Pitt team (45-35) that handled the Owls. If the Temple secondary doesn’t start knocking balls down (and maybe even intercepting one or two passes), it won’t matter against a quarterback like Teddy Bridgewater. Except for lock-down sophomore corner Anthony Robey, a 4.39-40 speedster, the Owls look lost on the back line of their defense.
ARMY _ Hopefully, Matty Brown will be 100 percent for this game at West Point because he has been Army’s worst nightmare the past three years. Two years ago, in a 42-35 win, Brown singlehandedly led the Owls back from a 28-7 deficit with 226 rushing yards and four touchdowns. Also in that game, the Owls did something they have not done the Steve Addazio Era: Score on a trick play, a 48-yard pass off a double-reverse thrown by Joey Jones, by far the best pass thrown by a Temple player in 2010. Last year, Brown had 159 yards rushing against Army in a 42-14 win prompting the Army fan sitting next to me to ask, “Doesn’t he graduate this year?” No, I told him it was Bernard Pierce who probably is leaving. “I wish it was Brown instead,” the man replied.

Chris Coyer: More effective throwing on 1st down than 3d.

CINCINNATI _ The Bearcats have shown some chinks in their armor but mostly have been outstanding. They were able to beat Delaware State, 23-7, a week after Delaware beat Delaware State, 48-14. They also allowed Fordham to stick around for most of the first half. On the other hand, they beat Pitt, 34-10, and Virginia Tech, 27-24. They also have a sophisticated passing attack, something the  Owls might have if they let Chris Coyer throw on first down instead of third down all the time. The pathway to winning is to ratchet up the passing game and head away from pound and ground. The Owls should follow the blueprint they had against USF: 16 for 20 in the passing game and, not coincidentally, 37 points. The plan to win should be 37-28, not 17-14. Planning to win 17-14 is a good way to lose, 47-17.
SYRACUSE _ If the Owls go into this game with only four wins, a crowd of about 11,000 should be rattling around Lincoln Financial Field putting a sad punctuation mark on the dreariness of the season. If, on the other hand, they go into the game with five wins and a chance to reach a bowl game with six, there should be a big crowd cheering them on and a win will depend on whether the Owls’ new 3-4 defensive alignment with an abundance of athletic linebackers will be able to put enough blitzing pressure on Nassib to rattle him into a loss. (That new alignment might be wishful thinking on my part but when you can’t cover anybody on the back line and you have six linebackers who can run a 4.6 40, that’s the way to go IMHO.)
That’s the road ahead. It won’t be easy to navigate, but earning greatness or even a BCS bowl never is.

Tomorrow: Throwback Thursday