Category Archives: Bernard Pierce

02.27.13
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The best running back nobody is talking about

My favorite photo of Montel Harris as a Temple Owl, sharing a moment
of respect with Army linebacker and captain Nate Coombs after going for
351 yards and seven touchdowns in a 63-32 win.

My favorite Montel Harris moment this year had nothing to do with what he did during a game, but it had a lot to do with what he did on the field.
After the Army game, both Montel  and Army linebacker Nate Coombs shared a few words after Temple’s 63-32 win at Michie Stadium.

Draft expert Matt Waldman was talking about Harris.

After it was over, Montel and Nate shook hands, laughed and walked off the field.
That’s what sports is all about. It was a great sportsmanship moment between a future NFL player and a guy who is going to put it all on the line for our country.
We can only imagine what Nate told Montel, but we can guess it went something like this:
“Man, I tried to tackle you, but it was like tackling air out there.”
After a fairly good performance in the recent NFL combine, draft expert Matt Waldman called Montel “the best running back nobody is talking about.”

The thing the combine can’t measure is start/stop ability and Harris is the best I’ve ever seen 

I think they will be talking about him on draft day.
Last year, I predicted Bernard Pierce would go in the third round. I think Harris goes in the sixth, no lower than the seventh.

How Harris and Pierce compared at the NFL combine:
40 time
Bench Reps
Vertical Jump
Montel Harris
4.68
19 (at 225 pounds)
32.5 inches
Bernard Pierce
4.49
17 (at 225 pounds)
36.5 inches

How Harris and Pierce did in best single season:
Carries
Yards
Longest Run
Montel Harris (2009)
308
1,457
72 yards
Bernard Pierce (2011)
273
1,481
69 yards

After watching Harris last year and Pierce the three years before that, the difference is simply this:
Pierce is faster and can do more damage on the outside but Harris is much better between tackles and starting and stopping to get out of trouble.
The only reason Harris drops three or so rounds below Pierce will be his knee injury history, but his knee held up pretty well at Temple despite the workload.
To me, the combine numbers are nowhere near as important as these numbers:
Career Carries
Career Yards
Average  (2012)
Career Long
Career
TDs
Montel Harris
973
4,379
5.7
72
39
Le’Veon Bell
671
3,346
4.7
69
31
Montee Ball
924
5,140
5.1
67
77
Ray Graham
595
3,271
4.1
78
32
Gio Bernard
423
2,481
6.7
68
25
Jawan Jamison
486
1,972
4.2
64
13

To me, what you do on the field is a lot more important than what you can do at the combine and Harris’ numbers stack up very well against some of the top running backs in the group above.
Remember, Harris never fumbles while Eagles’ seventh-round pick Bryce Brown fumbled a lot. You can gain all the yards in the world and have all the speed and the vertical leap and bench press, but if the ball ends up in the hands of the other team after the play is over you are worthless.

How cool would it be for Montel Harris to introduce himself on Sunday or Monday night football by saying, “Montel Harris, Temple Football Forever”

That’s another metric that can’t be measured at a combine.

How cool would it be for Montel Harris to introduce himself on Sunday or Monday night football by saying, “Montel Harris, Temple Football Forever.”
Heck, if Mo Wilkerson or Bernard Pierce beat him to the punch, that would be cool, too.

Whatever questions that some may have had about his character were answered with a season as a solid citizen and terrific teammate at Temple.
I wish him all the best.
My guess is that Army’s Nate Coombs does, too.

01.28.13
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The Greatest Super Bowl Story Never Told

“If we win the Super Bowl, I want to see TEMPLE back on the helmets, coach.”

Jim Harbaugh’s Temple connection:
1) Applied for Temple job in 2005
2) Finished behind Paul Palmer in ’86 Heisman balloting
3) Dad’s team was awarded a forfeit over TU in same year
4) Faces Bernard Pierce on Sunday

If you pick up a newspaper this week, any paper in any town, you’ll  have to thumb through several pages of  Super Bowl coverage.
Pick a day, any day, and you’ll probably find out several times that this is the first Super Bowl ever that brothers have been opposing head coaches and they’ll probably find seven ways until Sunday to write the same story.
Yada, yada.
That’ll be the most over-told Super Bowl story of the week.
The greatest Super Bowl Story Never Told is The Temple Connection. You won’t read about that anywhere but here.
On one side, you have Jim Harbaugh, the 49ers’ coach, who once applied for the open head coaching job at Temple and called it a “great job.”
Harbaugh made to to Temple’s campus, went through an interview and was in the top three for the job that went to Al Golden, now the University of Miami head coach. (Brian White, a Syracuse assistant, was another finalist then.)
That wasn’t Jim’s only connection to Temple, though.
Harbaugh, then a Michigan quarterback, finished third in the Heisman Trophy balloting in 1986.
Ahead of him was a running back from Temple: Paul Palmer. A guy named Vinny Testaverde, also from Miami, won it.
In that same season, Harbaugh’s father, Jack, the head coach at Western Michigan, was spanked, 49-17, by Bruce Arians’ Temple team, only to be awarded a victory when Temple voluntarily forfeited the game.
So Harbaugh’s deja vu with Temple involved finishing in the top three of something 25 years apart and a guy from Miami figuring in the top three.
On the other side of this story is a Baltimore rookie running back named Bernard Pierce.
It’s no secret to any visitor of this website that Pierce was and remains my favorite Temple player of the post-Hardin/Arians’ Era.

Pierce shows future TU RB Bryant Rhule how to do it.

After writing the “Who’s Paul Palmer?” story that appeared on this website, Bernard’s mother, Tammy, sought me out in the Lincoln Financial Field concourse to thank me for all the nice words I’ve written about her son. She didn’t have to do that, but I appreciated the fact that she and Bernard noticed.
To be sure, Henry Burris was an outstanding quarterback and so was Adam DiMichele, but Pierce was the guy who brought back “winning” and Temple in the same sentence, so he edges both of those guys out. (Although DiMichele was screwed out of a winning season by some bad coaching in both the Navy and Buffalo games his senior year.)
There was a direct correlation to Pierce’s playing and the Owls winning.
When Pierce was out in the MAC East championship game with Ohio in 2009, the Owls lost, 35-17.
With Pierce playing in the first half of the Eagle Bank Bowl, the Owls had a 21-10 lead. Without him in the second half, the Owls lost, 30-21.


Since 1975, 12 Temple football players had made 19 appearances in 15 Super Bowls with 14 winning championship rings. Pierce, a third round pick of the Ravens, is just the sixth Temple player to advance to the Super Bowl during his first season. The last Temple player to get to the Super Bowl was linebacker Rian Wallace (2002–04) who won a ring with the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL.

With Pierce playing in the first half of the Penn State game (2010), the Owls had a 15-13 lead. Without him in the second half, they lost, 22-15.
Had Pierce played 60 minutes in all three games, I think the Owls would have won two and possibly taken Ohio down to the wire in the other.
Penn State might be Linebacker U, but Temple can make a strong case for being “Super Bowl U” because, since 1975, 12 Temple players have made 19 appearances in “The Big Game” and the 12 have a grand total of 14 rings. Dan Klecko, the 2002 Big East Defensive Player of the Year, has won with two teams (Patriots and Colts).
For the record, I think Temple made the right move in hiring Golden, who had East Coast recruiting connections and the kind of temperament required to right a sinking football and academic ship. Harbaugh, while a brilliant coach, probably did not have the patience to clean up the mess that Golden found left by Bobby Wallace.
Had Pierce played with Harbaugh instead of against him, who knows what would have happened?
That’s a story that will never be told but might have needed to be.

08.23.12
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Bernard Who?

Villanova (and Rutgers and South Florida, among others) have never seen anything like Montel Harris.

What can be said about Montel Harris that hasn’t already been said?
We all know the facts, that Harris was the second-leading rusher in the HISTORY of the ACC, that he was LAST YEAR’S runaway choice for Preseason Player of the Year in that same conference, that he once ran for 252 yards and five touchdowns in a 52-28 win over North Carolina State and had 22 games of over 100 yards against ACC teams such as Florida State, Virginia Tech and Miami.
Much bigger-time teams than even the ones he will be facing in the Big East.

David Wilson and Luke Kuechly were first-round NFL picks.
Danny O’Brien is the starting QB at Wisconsin. Few considered
them nearly as good as Montel Harris in the ACC media poll.

All I was interested in finding out Tuesday during a media sitdown with the new Temple running back (and quite possibly this year’s Big East Player of the Year) was finding out if Montel Harris was 100 percent because, if he is, he will make people forget Bernard Pierce.
No bigger Bernard Pierce fan than me but, as good as Pierce was (and still is), a healthy Harris is better.
There’s a lot of empirical evidence out there to suggest that. Harris had more yards in a much higher level of football playing roughly the same number of games as Pierce did.
Harris says he’s 100 percent. I believe him.
If that holds up, people might be saying Bernard Who if not by September, then certainly by October.
He says he’s fine and so does head coach Steve Addazio and the cuts he made on the field on Tuesday said so the loudest.
“I’m feeling 100 percent,” Harris said. “The knee is good. It was the left knee, but most people aren’t able to tell.”
When I first saw the many video highlights of Harris, his running style reminded me a lot of not Pierce, but Matt Brown, the other half of Temple’s 1-2 running punch. Harris is bigger and heavier. Brown might be a tad faster. Both are tough and both can make runners miss and make what Addazio calls “explosive plays” downfield. Throw in a great running quarterback like Chris Coyer and a spread offense that opens the field up and a few bulbs could break this year on the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard.
“I’m a balanced runner able to make things happen in the open field but also able to break tackles,” Harris said.
Even though Harris ran into some trouble at Boston College, I think he will be a solid citizen at Temple.
“I’m just here to say I’m here to play football and I’m a great football player and I have great character off the field,” Harris said.
Everyone at the E-O has known that for the past month or so.
In eight days, the seamless transition from BP to MH could become just an unquestioned upgrade to Temple’s fans.

05.02.12
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ACC’s 2d-leading all-time rusher coming to TU?

First, Temple recruited Montrell Dobbs as a possible long-term replacement for Bernard Pierce. Now, Montel Harris seems to be at least a POSSIBLE short-term solution, according to CBS and BC Interruption.
 Everybody knows the REAL replacement for Pierce is our very own Matty Brown, who was Temple’s No. 1 all-purpose back last season. If Harris, as rumored, comes to Temple he will be eligible to play immediately since he will likely be graduating from Boston College in a couple of weeks, the so-called Russell Wilson Rule.

Tweet by Bruce Feldman on Tuesday.

Wilson graduated from North Carolina State and was able to finish his career at Wisconsin. Dobbs is sitting out a year and is positioning himself an interesting No. 1 fight between himself, Jalen Fitzpatrick (who could be a slot receiver), Khalif Herbin (who also could play slot), Brandon Peoples and Jamie Gilmore for the top spot on the 2013 Owls. Maybe one or more of those guys could be redshirted if Harris arrives on campus.
So Temple should be able to make a smooth transition from the Brown/Pierce Era to an equally impressive stable of tailbacks.
The difference between Montel and Montrell is that Montel will be able to play right away.
IF Harris comes to Temple, somebody is giving him very good advice. If he enters the NFL supplemental draft coming off a knee injury, he has virtually no chance to make an NFL roster. If he enters the NFL draft coming off a strong senior year at Temple, he’s got a good chance to do it as a first-round draft choice.
Pierce would have had the same opportunity if he had followed Steve Addazio’s advice to remain at Temple one more season.
 IF Harris comes, and that’s still a big if as of this minute, he will come with Pierce-like credentials. In fact, Harris is the second-leading all-time rusher in the history of Boston College and that’s impressive in itself. He would have entered this season as a prohibitive favorite to break Ted Brown’s ACC career rushing record that stood since 1979. Harris came into the 2011 season as the ACC’s preseason Player of the Year, but obtained a medical redshirt after hurting his knee in the first game.

If he doesn’t come, Temple will be fine at tailback. If one of the incoming freshman don’t pan out, Jalen Fitzpatrick can be an impact player at that position, just like Brown has been. Temple has more depth at that position than in the kicking game, put it that way.
Harris was kicked off err, asked to leave, the Boston College team for unspecified reasons, but if he comes here he would do so with the blessing of two top BC assistants who are now at Temple, quarterbacks’ coach Kevin Rogers and offensive coordinator Ryan Day. Obviously, they know the kid and, if they vouch for him, Steve Addazio would likely give him another chance.

IF Harris comes to Temple, somebody is giving him very good advice. If he enters the NFL supplemental draft coming off a knee injury, he has virtually no chance to make an NFL roster. If he enters the NFL draft coming off a strong senior year at Temple, he’s got a good chance to do it as a first-round draft choice.

Matt Brown, in my mind, would share the No. 1 tailback spot in the same way he shared it with Pierce. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement for both and one that figures to be a mutually beneficial one for Temple as well.
Heck, it’s not as if a tailback has never been injured.
 Between Paul Palmer, Pierce, Brown and guys like Todd McNair and Stacey Mack (and now both Montel and Montrell as well as Peoples and Gilmore), you could make a case for Temple being Tailback U.
With a distinctive Capital T.
Interesting footnote on this story. In the Owlsports.com Cherry and White game notes, it said “Matt Brown is wearing No. 2 for the spring game. His number in the fall is yet to be determined.” I wondered out loud why they didn’t just announce he was wearing No. 2 henceforth and, err, Temple football forever.
Harris wears No. 2.
Mystery solved.
Maybe.

04.28.12
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Bernard Pierce to Ravens!

Final BE draft standings:
(2012 schools only)
Cincinnati 4
*Temple 3
UConn 1
Rutgers 1
Syracuse 1
USF 0
Pitt 0
Louisville 0
*Pierce (Ravens), Rodriguez (Bears) and Whitehead (Lions) help Owls tie single-season record for most players drafted (1987). Derek Dennis (Carolina), Pat Boyle (Lions), Morkeith Brown (Bucs), Stephen Johnson (Saints), Rod Streater (Oakland), Kevin Kroboth (Eagles), Adrian Robinson (Steelers) and Wayne Tribue (Broncos) sign FA contracts.

As far as I’m concerned, the Ravens got the steal of the draft in the third round when they selected Bernard Pierce.
Baltimore made a trade to move up seven spots to get Pierce.
Pierce was the Pennsylvania state champion in the 100-meter dash as a high school kid four years ago and he runs even faster with the football in his hands.
He’s got great vision, a sick burst to the outside, terrific moves in the open field and has the ability to punish tacklers and fall forward for an extra five yards at the end of every play. He’s a  much better receiver than people give him credit for (remember, he had Chester Stewart throwing him the ball for much of his three years at Temple). Largely because of Pierce, the Owls ran an offense that eschewed the pass for a power running game.
Ravens play Eagles in game two.
If Pierce starts, I’m not betting on the Eagles that day.

01.10.12
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What can Daz do for Brown?

Bernard Pierce and Matty Brown react after Bill Bradshaw tells them about ordering gloves with the Temple T on the palm side.

Social scientists a lot smarter than I am give the three stages of grief as disbelief, disintegration and reintegration.
No doubt when you lose your favorite player from your favorite team as I did last week, there is an element of grief involved and I experienced all of those stages of grief in a relatively short time.
I’m in the reintegration stage, though, because while I grieve over Bernard Pierce’s loss, Matty Brown has always been my second-favorite player.



No truth to the rumor that this is how the team reacted
when Daz said Spencer Reid was replacing Bernard Pierce.

Bernie and The Bug are gone as a team but the bug is still here. Yet he cannot carry the running game alone, just as Bernie could not carry the running game alone.
At the end of December, head coach Steve Addazio threw out these names as possible sidekicks to Brown next year:
Jalen Fitzpatrick, Darius Johnson, Kenny Harper and Spencer Reid.
Sorry, Steve, I’m not buying it.
Fitzpatrick was a quarterback in high school and never played running back before. Johnson was an undistinguished and pedestrian running back in the Philadelphia Public League, quite possibly the worst high school football league in the state of Pennsylvania. Reid was given a scholarship as a running back despite running a painfully slow 4.6 40, making him slower than two of the Owls’ three starting linebackers last year. (Heck, I still think his dad could have afforded a full ride to Temple, saving that scholarship for, say, Ryan Brumfield.) Kenny Harper was better known as a safety in high school for Gainesville (Fla.) Buchholz and, quite frankly, did not EVEN REMOTELY show me any flashes of either Pierce or Brown on the limited number of carries he had at that position last year. I sincerely hope that when Justin Gildea moves from strong safety to free safety Harper will slide into the starting strong safety position next year. Both players could be All-MAC on defense right away.
Fitzpatrick would be perfect to slide into Joey Jones’ slot receiver spot. Deon Miller returns as one starting wide receiver and the Owls can chose from a whole lot of good options at the other WR, including playmaker Ryan Alderman.
My No. 1 solution would be for Temple to go out and find a big-time stud JUCO running back who is ready to go both on the field and in the classroom. Someone who has Bernard Pierce’s vision, speed, moves and quick burst to the outside.
Maybe that someone is Tiger Powell of Lake City, Fla.
Maybe it is someone else.
If Temple is not going to sign a big-time stud JUCO running back who is ready to go next year, there are better options available (some involve shuffling of personnel from offense to defense):

Brandon Peoples, Archbishop Wood _ It’s tough to ask an incoming freshman to make an impact right away but Brandon has the right initials. Another BP had 268 yards and three touchdowns in a 28-24 win at Navy as a true freshman, so maybe Brandon can duplicate that effort. He’s 5-foot-10, 180 pounds, though. Pierce is 6-1, 218. Peoples is not competing for the PIAA state 100-meter dash championship. At Peoples’ age, Pierce won it.

Nate Smith, like BP, has a nose for the goal line.

Nate Smith, current starting linebacker candidate _ This is my personal choice on the current team to help out Matty Brown, leaving the two current linebacker starters in place. Smith has the size (6-0, 220) of Pierce and is just a tenth of a second slower than Pierce. As a senior at Highland Park (N.J.), he was unstoppable, rushing for 2,442 yards and 32 touchdowns. That’s five more touchdowns than Bernard Pierce scored for Temple in this record-breaking year. Brother of former Philadelphia Eagle L.J. Smith so he’s got very good bloodlines.  Nate has been a lifelong Owl, going from the Highland Park Owls to the Temple Owls.

Wyatt Benson (6-0, 215), current starting fullback _ Benson, a blocker extraordinaire, could play his current position and pick up five to 10 carries a game to take some of the rushing load off Brown and quarterback Chris Coyer. He finished his prep career at Haverford School (the Inter-Ac, unlike the Public, is a GREAT high school league) with 663 rushing yards, 217 receiving yards and 18 touchdowns.

Ahkeem Smith, current starting linebacker _ Started out as a backup running back to both Pierce and Brown at Temple. As a senior at Bethlehem Liberty, was a superstar running back in a great Lehigh Valley League with 27 touchdowns and 1,837 yards in his senior year. Showed the current coaches his running ability by scoring a touchdown against Buffalo on a fake punt.

Blaze Caponegro, current starting linebacker _ The 2008 Shore Conference Player of the Year ran for 350 yards against Manasquan (yes, that was 350 yards in just one game), scoring five touchdowns. So he knows how to run the football.

01.06.12
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BP is gone, but not forgotten

This great photo of BP’s final home game turned out to be prophetic.
Photo by Mike Edwards

Section 121, Row 22, seat 1 just got a whole lot quieter today and the season is still nine months away.
Bernard Pierce declared for the NFL draft, according to the Associated Press late Thursday night.
The noise coming from that seat for the last three years was a loud “GIVE THE BALL TO THE FRANCHISE!” and The Franchise was Bernard Pierce.
Now the franchise will have to be Matty Brown.

“We’re going to keep moving along. We’re going to have a good football team. That’s going to happen.”
_ Steve Addazio

As much as I love Matty Brown’s game, we saw all too well the limitations Brown had in the final two games of the 2010 season. With Pierce out injured and the box loaded, Brown was largely ineffective against Ohio and at Miami and the Owls lost their final two games.
Have things changed since?
We will find out soon enough.
I can’t be as enthusiastic about giving the ball to Brown 25 times a game as I was adamant about giving the ball that much to Pierce.
So while I will be cheering for Brown like mad, he’s going to have to show me he can get the short yardage consistently if the defense is crazy enough to load the box against a Chris Coyer-quarterbacked team.
Brown’s competitiveness should carry the day, but I also think Addazio’s No. 1 recruiting priority is to grab a guy with Pierce’s size, speed, vision and burst to the outside.
Good luck with that, Steve.

Why is it that Matt Barkley comes back at USC, Montee Ball comes back at Wisconsin, Landry Jones comes back at Oklahoma and Temple gets screwed by losing Bernard Pierce? Can’t the “little guy” ever catch a break?


Brown’s competitiveness should carry the running game on most days. That and the knowledge Coyer gives the Owls an added running dimension they did not have in the past five years.
“I kind of understand Matt now,” Addazio said. “He’s an emotional, competitive guy. Sometimes I put my arm around him and make sure he keeps it in perspective.
“I think he’s the best back in the conference next year.”
I’m kind of disappointed in Pierce’s decision because it is part and parcel of the “rich get richer” mentality that is prevalent in college football today.
Why is it that Matt Barkley comes back at USC, Montee Ball comes back at Wisconsin, Landry Jones comes back at Oklahoma and Temple gets screwed by losing Bernard Pierce?
Can’t the “little guy” ever catch a break?
It makes me want to scream.
All of those guys had more to lose than Bernard by coming back and they STILL made the decision to return.
Addazio made clear that he laid it on the table for Pierce, telling him to come back if he’s not a first-round draft choice and letting him know that those who advised him otherwise had agendas.
Pierce won’t be a first-round pick, but he’s not coming back.
“What I’m not going to do is try to impose my will, I’m not doing that,” Addazio said. “I’ll support his decision. Those are personal decisions. We’re going to keep moving along. We’re going to have a good football team. That’s going to happen.”
I think Addazio just might be right. Temple will have a good football team without Bernard Pierce, but my nagging thought is that it would have had a great one with him.
Win them all and it becomes a moot point, but that’s a high bar to set for a 5-foot-5, 150-pound guy.

12.29.11
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Palmer would be flattered by Pierce comic book

The front and back covers of the Paul Palmer comic book.

This may or may not be a moot point, depending upon whether or not Bernard Pierce comes back for his senior year, but it’s something I had to ask the other great Temple running back.
“Would you mind if Temple used the same comic book campaign for Bernard Pierce than it used for you?” I wrote him.
I just got the reply this morning.
“I’d be flattered,” Paul Palmer said.
Heck, I know that Bernard has a tough call in the days ahead.
Not tough for me or Steve Addazio, but for him.

Paul Palmer (middle, between Vinny Testaverde and Brian
Bosworth) at Heisman awards: “I’d be flattered” by
a Bernard Pierce comic book. Notice all three are wearing
Temple-colored ties.

It’s Addazio’s opinion _ really, the general consensus out there _ that if you are not a sure-fired, stone-cold-lock for first-round pick in the draft, then you should come back and, in his words, “enjoy your senior year and get your degree.”
That’s reasonable. If there is money now (by comparison a paltry and not guaranteed amount), it only figures to double and triple next year and then it becomes guaranteed money as a No. 1.
I think, and Addazio seems to agree, that Bernard can raise his stock one or two rounds with another solid year at Temple.
And, who knows, if everything breaks right, catapult himself into a Heisman Trophy race.
These are things that are all weighing heavily on Bernard’s mind right now, so maybe a little comic relief is in order.
As in comic book relief.
I came out in favor of this comic book as early as Bernard’s sophomore year but Temple’s promotions people went all high-tech on me with a Facebook page and a Bernard for Heisman website.
Nice, but sometimes the old ideas are the best ones.
Simply replace every Palmer image and stats with those of Pierce and you got yourself a damn good Heisman campaign for 2012 right there. The template and story board is right there. Replacing Palmer’s life story and stats with Pierce’s should be a snap.
The only missing element would be someone to draw the illustrations.
If the illustrator for that is dead, there’s a sports anchor guy in Allentown named Troy Hein who wrote a children’s book and has the best illustrator around. Hire that gal (her name is Kathryn Roman).
Heck, Temple would be stealing its own terrific idea and Palmer benefited from it to the tune of a second-place finish in the Heisman Trophy balloting of 1986. The Owls’ promotion department send 1,050 comic books to 1,050 Heisman Trophy voters. It was the best $10,000 Temple spent on anything. It came back 10,000,000-fold (that’s 10 million) in terms of viewers who saw Temple associated with good football while watching the Heisman Trophy ceremony on CBS-TV that year.
That (and a 1,866-yard season) got Palmer a seat at the table in between Miami’s Vinny Testaverde (the eventual winner) and third-place finisher Brian Bosworth of Oklahoma.
It also might have helped Palmer get drafted in the first round.
I’ve watched every game of both careers and I happen to think Bernard is the better player (sorry, Paul). I usually (though not always) side with the older guys (nobody can tell me that Mo Wilkerson was better than either Joe or Dan Klecko), so that’s saying something.
If Bernard comes back, he should get that comic book and whatever help Temple can offer him along the path to a Heisman and a first-round pick.

12.23.11
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Addazio’s sound advice for Bernard Pierce

One last time, Derek “Bonecrusher” Dennis leads the Diamond Marching Band in bowl-championship T for Temple U. Bernard Pierce will do that after the national title game next year (hopefully).

At this time of the year around the turn of the century (last one, not this one), a young girl named Virginia wrote a letter to a newspaper editor asking if there really was a Santa Claus.
What followed was about the best response to a letter to the editor in the history.

“I’ve always been a believer if you have a chance to be a first-round pick, that’s great. But, if not, I think you come back and get your degree and enjoy your senior year and be a marquee player in the country and all the great things that go with it.”

_ Steve Addazio

Steve Addazio isn’t an editor, but he gave Bernard Pierce just as good response on whether or not he should enter the NFL draft.
The basic tenant of which was, yes, Bernard, there will be an NFL next year (and the year after that) and if you are not going to be a first-round pick THIS year, stay in school, get that degree, and possibly get guaranteed first-round money NEXT year.
I haven’t seen one first-round projection this year, but I can easily envision it after a solid senior season for Bernard.
Here are some highlights from the Addazio press conference:
“I have (sat down with Bernard) and he’s got to sit down with his family and evaluate the situation. Those are personal decisions and they’ve got to make them based off the facts.
“You put your stuff into the NFL and get feedback and let them process the information, that’s all you can do. I’ve got friends in the league and give them feedback. You give him all the information that’s factual and doesn’t have an agenda to it.

Four of the estimated 6,000 TU fans in Owlbuquerque.
Thanks, CT, for the great photo

“I’ve always been a believer if you have a chance to be a first-round pick, that’s great. But, if not, I think you come back and get your degree and enjoy your senior year and be a marquee player in the country and all the great things that go with it. I’m a guy who deals in facts. I’m not an agenda person. You want the facts, here’s the facts. If you want my opinion, then here’s my opinion. In this world we’re in today, at times, there’s a lot of different opinions that have agendas.
“All you can do is offer your help. Do I have all the answers? No. I have some experience in it. All you can do is offer your opinion.”
On whether the decision to come out should be made on whether or not he’s a first-round pick:
“Me, yeah. That’s not just me. That’s a pretty strong consensus out there. I mean, Stay in school. Get your degree. Play college football. You are supposed to be in college for four years.
“Guys came out of school early for one reason. The money got so grand in the first round … I mean, that’s why but not to just do it. The NFL is a rough business. Stay in college. Enjoy yourself as long as you can. Get your degree. It’s all about getting your degree. Get your life set. Joy is fleeting. Knowledge is everlasting. Don’t get away from those fundamentals.”
Very profound.
Not exactly as profound as “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” but certainly “Yes, Bernard, there will be an NFL next year” rings just as deeply.
Heck, I’ve always written that Bernard is a first-round draft pick. I maintained that since his freshman year but that assumption was made on the basis of a four-year career.
If he stays for his senior year, he will be one just as certainly as  there is an  NFL.
Santa Claus?
I’ll leave that question for the newspaper editors.

12.16.11
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New Mexico Bowl: Final exam for Daz

Dave “Owlified” Gerson’s excellent senior highlight video. If there is a “techie” out there who can remix the background music of this from the classical format to D.J. Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” on a loop than get back to me. Love the Ed Benkin call of Joe Jones’ touchdown catch and don’t love the Harry Donahue call on the Kee-ayre Griffin blocked field goal “running with it is Robinson. Johnson, rather” (which is pretty much a typical Harry Donahue call).

This is going to look awfully good at the E-O.

My good friend Fizzy and I were talking about Steve Addazio’s first year as Temple’s head coach after the final game of the regular season.
“I’m going to have to give him a C,” Fiz said. “Not excellent. Not good. Satisfactory.”
Fizzy is a former Temple football great and someone who spent the rest of his life giving out grades for a living as an esteemed educator.
I thought his grade of Daz was a fair one until that point.
I gave him an incomplete because you really can’t give Steve Addazio a grade until he completes his finals.
That comes tomorrow (2 p.m., ESPN) in the New Mexico Bowl.
If Temple beats Wyoming to a pulp, 31-14, something on the order I expect it to, Addazio’s grade improves to a B+, which is very good. If it’s a 28-27 win, it drops to a B.
I could not in fairness give Addazio a B or an A on the basis of his first regular season because I thought he made some key errors in judgment that could have cost the Owls at least a couple of games:

Some that come to mind:

  • Removing Mike Gerardi with a lead in the Penn State game. I thought Gerardi was following the “plan to win” until he was removed. The plan to beat Penn State was to avoid turnovers and make plays in the play-action passing game. Gerardi even threw the ball into the ground in the first half of the Penn State game, rather than make a turnover. When Chester Stewart was ineffective, Gerardi was reinserted and I really felt that the pressure went back to Gerardi to make a play in order to keep his job. The result was that he forced the ball into tight windows and Penn State picked him off twice.
  • The failure to remove Stewart in the Toledo or Bowling Green games. Stewart was never held to the same high standard Gerardi was and he was allowed to remain in the game Toledo despite throwing two picks. Against Bowling Green, it was painfully apparent he could not move the team. As a result, two games got away from the Owls.
  • Not recognizing the talent he had in Chris Coyer. Daz said he was “thisclose” to starting Coyer against Villanova. Had he done that, it’s much more likely Temple would have gone 10-2 instead of 8-4. Heck, Villanova was the perfect game to get Coyer’s feet wet. Owls would have beaten that sorry ass team, 42-7, with Stewart (suspended for that game), Gerardi, Coyer or Clinton Granger.

Now come the finals on Saturday before an ESPN national television audience.
Daz will ace his final with a 31-14 win and earn my B plus. He can’t get an A because I really feel this is the most talented team of the last three years and Al Golden reached a minimum eight with slightly lesser talent.
If he wins this game, though, Daz will accomplish one of the big things he said he would do (see sidebar of this blog) which is to get the team in a bowl game and win it.
That’s very good in my book and something Golden never did.
Heck, even a tough marker like Fizzy might be forced to redo his grade as well.