Category Archives: Boston College

09.18.21
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Saturday against Wagner: Enjoy the (last) win

A friend of mine for many years who pretty much knows Temple sports inside out put the Rod Carey Era (Error) in perfect perspective when I posted that the Georgia Tech fans are upset with Geoff Collins.

“He’s the Milli of college football head coaches. I fear we hired the Vanilli.”

Reading that line caused me to spit out my morning coffee and laugh out loud.

So true.

The song Milli and Vanilli got caught for being fakes on was “Blame it on the Rain.”

Our Vanilli blamed a 28-3 loss on the refs yesterday.

Really, Rod?

I could see blaming a 10-7 or maybe … maybe .. a 14-3 loss on the refs but 28-3?

We are seeing the last vestiges of a head coach in trouble.

I learned a few things I suspected but did not know for sure yesterday.

The least important one was that I could not take sunscreen into the stadium so as burned up as I was on the inside that’s how it showed on the outside.

The other three are way more important.

President Wingard, please heed these words.

One, the era of the hard-ass coach is over.

Two, the schemes on both the offensive and defensive sides are ass-backwards.

Three, when you have shitty special teams and WIN the toss, please do not … I repeat DO NOT … defer for the second half. I would rather see an onsides kick than a regular one in that situation but prefer to give my offense the ball over anything else.

That kickoff return killed any home-field advantage the Owls might have had.

When freaking UMASS gives BC a better game than Temple does, you know you have COACHING problems.

Let’s take No. 1 first. Getting to know the parents in the parking lot two years ago I got the vibe that almost every kid in the program “wanted” to transfer because they didn’t, in their words, “feel” Carey.

In other words, those kids–mostly good kids from good families–saw the direction Carey was taking the program and were not on board. The kids who could take the portal route did but those who couldn’t remained. There are a lot of good kids and good players here suffering as a result. They had been through winning programs under Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins and saw a decline under Carey. So did pretty much every Temple fan.

In order to win at Temple, you can’t be a “my-way-or-the-highway” guy. You’ve got to be a coach the players BOTH love and respect. The players loved Matt Rhule and Al Golden but more importantly respected both.

You would not see the hemorrhaging of players that we have seen under Carey with either or those two guys or a number of guys who are good players’ coaches.

You can be both–a players’ coach and a respected one.

Carey is neither.

The only reason why Temple will win 60-0 this weekend is the players. Certainly not the coaches. That’s how much better Temple’s players are than Wagner’s ones. Maybe a little more. Maybe a little less but I doubt the swing will be more than 20 points either way.

Enjoy it.

It will be the last one for a long time.

The way Temple played on Saturday, I don’t see the Owls beating either USF or Navy and those are the only two hopes for wins remaining on the schedule. Navy has a far better coaching staff and USF has Florida players. Even if the Owls win both of those games, are you satisfied with four wins?

I didn’t think so.

The next move is up to the President and the Temple Board of Trustees, if they care enough to bring us back to where we were three years ago.

If they don’t, all the work that got us to where we were in 2005 until 2019 will be for naught and throwing away that work of mostly two good coaches and men would be heartbreaking.

Monday: The Temple Curse

Friday: Wagner

09.17.21
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BC-Temple: So many story lines, so little time

Saturday’s big question will be if Kraft’s feet can actually leave the ground on a BC touchdown

If you are walking around Lot K tomorrow, like I will be, you can be excused about having the feeling of de ja vu.

Shooting the breeze with Pat Kraft about football?

Check.

Walking around the Lot and seeing the affable family and friends of Khris Banks and Isaiah Graham-Mobley?

Check.

Shaking hands before the game with Boomer (Aaron Boumerhi)?

Check.

Been there, done that.

The last time many thousands of Temple fans saw the team this was the collective look after a 55-13 loss to an ACC team. Maybe these Owls can produce a smile around 3:15 p.m. Saturday.

Except for them being the good guys, they are now the bad guys.

How did the world ever turn upside down?

Welcome to college football, 2021.

In a perfect world, the good guys would stay the good guys and the bad guys would stay the bad ones.

Whatever you feel about Kraft, the current AD at Boston College and the former one at Temple, I don’t remember a single athletic director not named Gavin White who you could walk up to and get an HONEST opinion about the game of football from.

This exchange between me and Pat in Lot K circa Geoff Collins and Dave Patenaude comes to mind:

Me: “Pat, you’re going to have to talk to Geoff about Patenaude. I have no idea what he’s doing.”

Pat: “Mike, you and me both. He’s got me scratching my head every week.”

Most athletic directors would shrug their shoulders and say that’s the head coaches bailiwick.

This guy was an honest, good, man. He still is.

For the first time in two years, this beautiful tradition returns tomorrow.

When Kraft hired Manny Diaz to replace Collins at Temple, I screamed bloody murder in this space. I wrote then that Diaz, who was the son of the ex-Mayor of Miami, would be gone as soon as Mark Richt left.

I thought it would be a year or so.

Little did I know it would be 18 days.

Kraft never held it against me. He respected my opinion.

Now seeing what Diaz has done with Miami talent, I know Temple has dodged a huge bullet.

When he hired Rod Carey, I wrote that I thought Buffalo’s Lance Leipold or Eastern Michigan’s Chris Creighton might have been a better choice but, if Rod beats Boston College on Saturday (and I pray he will), Kraft might ironically be responsible for an embarrassing BC loss. I was for Leipold and Creighton because they did more with less than Carey did but Carey beating’s BC’s butt will prove my sorry ass wrong.

And, ironically, Pat Kraft right.

Geez, I hope so.

Hope doesn’t get me the AAC title or even a bowl game so I think BC will win this one and the 16-point spread sounds about right. The last time we saw Carey coach against an ACC team turned into a 55-13 loss and a lot of Temple fans walking out of the stadium disgusted.

The caveat there is we saw some life with the Owls last week.

The Owls showed a pulse and a lot of Temple TUFF in a 45-24 win over Akron. They got a good pass rush from their Power 5 transfers and an ESPN highlight reel play from Wake Forest portal guy Manny Walker. Temple needs a big pass rush, solid run stoppage and the kind of turnover-free football from Justin Lynch they got last week. Keep D’Wan Mathis on the bench and have him regain his swag against Wagner next week. That’s my vote. Have Justin play four games and save his redshirt unless he Wally Pipps Mathis in a big win over BC.

Put it this way: Temple had five turnovers in a 61-14 Week One loss and zero turnovers in a 45-24 win a week ago.

Football ain’t rocket science. It never was. Protect the football, rush the bad guys’ quarterback, win the damn game.

Whatever happens, it will be good to see Temple fans cheering the Owls and singing “T for Temple U” after every touchdown again. Temple drew 69,176 fans for its 2015 home opener, 35,004 fans or its 2016 opener and 35,117 for its 2017 home opener. It won two of those three games and attendance for the rest of the season suffered because of its shocking home opening loss to Army in 2016 and soared after wins the other two opening games. Win this one and the fans will keep coming back.

For once, it would be nice if the good guys would show the bad guys they made the wrong choice.

Picks this week: TULANE plus 14.5 at Ole Miss (Tulane gave Oklahoma all it wanted and Okie is better than Ole Miss); WYOMING -6.5 vs. Ball State; NORTHWESTERN -2.5 at Duke; TULSA +27.5 at The Ohio State; PURDUE +7.5 at Notre Dame (Purdue is considerably better than the Toledo and FSU teams ND beat and already has a win over a decent Oregon State squad); MICHIGAN STATE +6.5 at Miami. I think Purdue not only covers but wins the game outright, something on the order of 24-21.

9/21 update: Tulane let me down, but Wyoming easily covered, Northwestern lost, Tulsa covered, Purdue lost and Michigan State not only covered but won outright. So so far for the season 7-4-1 against the spread.

9/17 Update: Last week, predicted Pitt by five (it won by 7), Purdue 51-0 (it won 49-0), NIU by 4 (it lost by seven, a push) Nebraska by four (it won by 25), App. State by 3 (it lost by two) and BYU by one (it both won and covered).

Season to date: 4-2 straight up, 4-1-1 ATS

Sunday: Game Analysis

Monday: The Temple Curse

09.13.21
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Beating BC anyway you can

It was only three years ago Temple last played Boston College.

Sometime late Saturday I received this text from a long-time Temple fan:

“Hey, did you see Boston College quarterback Phil Jurkovec went down with a wrist injury?”

Yeah, I did.

My initial reaction was that I wanted him to play so opposing fans and naysayers of Temple won’t say “yeah, but Jurkovec didn’t play” in the still unlikely event the Owls would win.

“I don’t want to win like that,” I typed back.

That was my initial reaction but after sleeping on the question I really don’t care if he plays or not.

I HOPE Temple plays to its potential, maybe gets a few breaks and pulls out the win. If one of those breaks is Jurkovec’s bum wrist, so be it. Temple will have to play with its backup QB, too, so I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for the bad guys.

That’s how sorely Temple needs some breaks especially after getting a series of bad ones the last couple of years, especially in that all-important first home game.

Plenty of other teams are getting breaks and maybe it’s about time Temple gets some.

Really, the first couple of weeks in college football has restored a lot of the faith in the game that I had lost with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

First, UC-Davis won at Tulsa.

Then, South Dakota State won at Colorado State.

Then, East Tennessee State destroyed Vanderbilt and Montana won at Washington.

And, finally, Jacksonville State took advantage of a Hail Mary and won at Florida State.

The latter three wins, where FCS teams beat high-profile Power 5 teams, were particularly encouraging. None of those teams even recruit on the level of Temple, let alone the teams they were able to beat.

https://twitter.com/TUFFRecruiting/status/1437088879199211526

If those teams can make their own breaks over teams whose recruiting rankings are significantly higher, then so can Temple. Hell, Akron was far more competitive in its games last year than UMass was and destroyed a Bowling Green team, 31-3, that UMass would have probably lost to a season ago.

A year ago, a former classmate of mine suggested it was pure folly for Temple to ever entertain the notion that it can beat Boston College because, he said, “they recruit on a whole different level than Temple.”

I pointed out to him that the Boston College team that got destroyed by Cincinnati, 37-8, in 2019 couldn’t compete with a Cincy team that barely beat Temple (15-13).

“Yeah, well that was before they had Jurkovec,” he said.

Well, I really don’t care if they have Jurkovec or not as long as the pixie dust sprinkled on Montana, SDSU, ETSU, Jacksonville State nd UC-Davis finds its way to Lincoln Financial Field. There seems to be a lot of that dust around this season for some reason and Temple could use it dropping down from a cloud in South Philly between noon-3 on Saturday.

If so, Temple wins, with or without Jurkovec.

Friday: BC Preview

06.08.20
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Pat Kraft Post-Mortem: Amiable

patkraft

Back in the day while working in the sports department of the Doylestown Intelligencer,  a column accompanied forecasting the weekend’s high school football games and an adjective attached to my name piqued my curiosity.

Lou Sessinger, then a wordsmith for the op-ed page  whose turn it was that week to write the column, turned this phrase when coming to talking about me in the piece: “the amiable Mike Gibson picks CB West to beat North Penn, CB East to beat Souderton and Quakertown to upset Upper Merion.”

Penn State v Temple

Pat Kraft (with tie) on the way down from setting the athletic director vertical leap record at Temple in a 27-10 win over Penn State.

Hmm. Not used to people writing nice things about me in print, I was fascinated by the adjective.

The only thing I knew about amiable was that it meant something good so I scrambled for my pocket Merriam-Webster dictionary.

“Friendly, sociable, and congenial.”

I thought about the word last week when Pat Kraft left Temple for Boston College. He was competent enough for most but, for me, his legacy will be how amiable he was.

Was he the best athletic director ever at Temple?

photo

From a football standpoint, and that’s what we care about here, I would think you have to rate Bill Bradshaw and Ernie Casale above him. Bradshaw hired both Al Golden and Matt Rhule (and, to be fair, Steve Addazio) and signed contracts with Power 5 schools like Penn State and Notre Dame that were beneficial to Temple. Unlike Kraft, Bradshaw eschewed a formula that included multiple FCS opponents for a more Power 5 lean.

Casale hired one of the best head coaches in the country, Wayne Hardin, to bring the Owls from essentially an FCS status to national prominence. He was such a mover and shaker that he formed what was then the East Coast Conference (which the press dubbed the ECC or Ernie Casale Conference).

Both of those guys were amiable enough but Kraft took amiability to another level. He sought out fans, gave his opinion, listened to theirs, and was friendly to everyone.

“Friendly, sociable, and congenial.”

That was Pat Kraft at Temple and I’m sure it will be Pat Kraft at Boston College.

I would talk to Pat a few times every year and would come away more impressed each time about his knowledge of football and commitment to excellence. We disagreed on the schedule, but it was a friendly disagreement.

What we did agree on was a commitment to excellence. One football Saturday morning I congratulated him on firing a men’s soccer coach who hovered for a decade around .500.

“That’s mediocre,” Pat said. “I’m never going to accept mediocrity at Temple.”

If he brings that level of acceptance to BC along with his natural amiability, that school should be in good shape.

Saturday: Some Early Stat Predictions

 

12.02.12
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The bright side: Coach Daz not leaving

Boston College AD tries to sell Daz to President
by: papreps
Boston College AD tries to sell Daz to school president.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think Daz would concoct a harebrained, one-dimensional, offensive scheme that would lead to so many three-and-outs and put Temple’s defense in an impossible position. The question then becomes, “Do you see him as a reasonable person open to change or a stubborn former offensive lineman who wants to run the ball all the time?”

EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote this story on Sunday, not believing any university was stupid enough to hire a 4-7 coach. I will leave it here as a testament to the stupidity of some college administrators. Hopefully, Bill Bradshaw is on the phone with San Jose State’s Mike MacIntyre right now. More on that to come. MacIntrye is available, loves Temple, a former Temple assistant, and probably did the best job of any head coach in FBS football last year. Good riddance, Daz.  Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.

On the way up the steps, maybe for the final time ever, from season seats that I have held for nearly 10 years at Lincoln Financial Field, someone said:
“Don’t look so down, Mike. Look at the bright side.”
He didn’t tell me what the bright side of a 4-7 season was, so I had to figure that out for myself.
I walked 22 rows up, made the left into the men’s room, washed my hands before leaving, made a left, walked down 34 steps and across Lot K to my car, all the while thinking what could possibly be the bright side to a season I thought would be no worse than 6-5.
Then it hit me just as I was about to stick the key in the door of my car (the remote doesn’t work).
This will be the first year as a Temple fan in the last five we won’t have to hear the endless speculation about an Owl coach leaving for a possible higher-paying job.
“That has to be the bright side he was talking about,” I thought.
Since that kind of off-season speculation has bugged me to no end, I guess not having to worry about that is a bright side.
I’m not so sure it’s bright at all. Let’s face it. Al Golden recruited five straight No. 1 MAC classes, as ranked by both Scout.com and Rivals.com YET, with the same inherited talent, Daz under-performed half the current MAC coaches. That leads to only two possible conclusions: Daz’s 1901 offense doesn’t fly in 2012 or both Scout.com and Rivals.com talent analysis was way off.
My eyeball and smell test leads me to think the former, not the latter.

Yes, Addazio’s name will come up in some stories by writers who like to throw names against the wall and hope it sticks. Let’s face it, though. Coach is going nowhere. Nor should he.
The latest “rumor” has him going to Boston College. I’ve addressed that in a feature film short at the top of this post. I’m not sure if I should submit the script to Hollywood as Science Fiction, Comedy or Tragic Comedy.
Steve Addazio was a good coach in 2011. I don’t think he was a good coach in 2012, largely because  my projections for 2012 were 6-6 (8-3 if everything broke right). Never in my wildest dreams did I think Daz would concoct a harebrained, one-dimensional, offensive scheme that would lead to so many three-and-outs and put Temple’s defense in an impossible position. The question then becomes, “Do you see him as a reasonable person open to change or a stubborn former offensive lineman who wants to run the ball all the time?”

The answer to that question holds the key to open the door of a possible 9-3 season next year or keep it bolted shut.

Then I got something in the email box this morning that brightened my day from loyal TFF reader Steve Sipe (due to a coding problem, you can’t read that he has the Owls beating Fordham 54-0 and Idaho 45-0 and losing to ND, 34-21). It follows:

Mike, I always love reading your blog. I tried to set up my own dedicated to the Big East and expansion. I did not realize how tough it is to develop a web site. Compliments to you on TFF. One of your articles focused those areas the Owls need to improve to be successful in 2013. I have been trained to use analysis to compare and evaluate data points to estimate future results. 
If your suggestions are followed, I believe the following results will be achieved:   

         OUT OF CONFERENCE (KNOWN)          
08/31      at Notre Dame             L      34 – 21
09/14      Fordham                       W     54 – 0
09/28       at Idaho 45 – 0
10/19       Army                             W     34 – 13
                IN CONFERENCE, IN DIVISION (KNOWN)
Boise State                    L       17 – 14

Houston                         W       34 – 17
Memphis                        W       42 – 10
San Diego State           W       21 – 17
SMU                                W       28 – 13
IN CONFERENCE (ESTIMATE)
Connecticut                    W      24 – 17
Rutgers                            L       17 -16
USF                                  W      35 – 10
I would count a 9 – 3 season and a bowl bid Phenomenal! Most of the western schools do not emphasize defense in the MWC. With varied play calling, the Owls could exploit this weakness. 
On the other side, our defense needed 2 fixes: a better pass rush, and mature secondaries knowing which man to cover. Since a lot of this work was finished by the end of the 2012 season, defense looks strong. 
Quarterback is an issue. I will try to reach out to PJ Walker and welcome him to Temple. I do not believe PJ should be out of the picture. Let Juice Grainger lead our team with PJ as his backup. Convert Neiss into a reverse back that can pass if he can not make to corner to drive downtown. With mature wide receivers, Chris could have been a success. However, losing both wide receivers and tight ends last year made Chris look weak when the Owls went from MAC to Big East. Nevertheless Chris is our 2nd best rusher. Why not give the Owls a Penn State type Zwinack running back. Chris can blow holes and hide fakes as a running back. When you are 3RD and 4, do you want Juice running a draw or handing off to Chris to trample a linebacker. The thought of Chris lowering his 240, 6’3″ body into our opponents smells like a 1ST down every time. 
Steve Sipe

I hope you are right, Steve. If so, I will hop and skip out of the stadium after the last game next year and the bright side this year will be a bright spot next one.

11.19.12
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You think you’ve got troubles?

Every time I start to feel sorry for myself that I still haven’t found a job in the newspaper business after cutbacks cost me mine and the money is about to run out (there still is a newspaper business, right?), I see something that I have to shake my head about and thank God for my blessings.
Lately, it was a story about a poor military guy who lost both legs in Afghanistan or Iraq and is keeping on keeping on.
I plan to do the same, although the next step might be as a greeter at Wal-Mart. I’ll keep my hand in writing here.
That brings me to fandom.
A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling sorry because my university, a school I said was going to shock the Big East world a couple of months ago, was getting pasted for the fourth straight time by a Big East team.
It rocked my world, but it could be worse.
I could be a Boston College fan.
I found this while searching a Boston College fan site the other day:

This from a Boston College fan lamenting a bad day in a bad season.

Montel Harris was trending on Yahoo late Saturday afternoon.
It was the second item right below General Patraeus.
That’s good news for Temple, bad news for Boston College.
While Temple is 4-6 with two more Big East wins than many of the pundits thought possible, Boston College is a two-win team looking for a new head coach.
The Eagles have a great on-campus stadium, but a terrible product and the guy who they kicked off the team is doing pretty well at Temple.
Yes, it could be worse.
In life and in fandom.

Wednesday: A tribute to the seniors

11.11.12
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Disconnect between vision and reality

Daz promises this will get fixed, but he doesn’t promise  it will get fixed by Saturday.

Bottom four teams in passing in FBS football.
Would more play-action passes on first down lift the Owls
out of that morass? Couldn’t hurt.

Watch Steve Addazio’s post-game press conferences the last four weeks and there appears to be, at least in my mind, a disconnect between vision and reality.
The reality is that Temple is a non-competitive football team right now as judged by the most objective meter: The scoreboard.
Addazio wasn’t positively giddy in the post-game, but his positive vision based on these abominably bad outcomes is kind of an odd take.
This team hasn’t been a good football team since after the UConn game and I think it’s gotten a lot worse.
So much worse that I’m very worried about it being able to beat an Army team that got blown out by Stony Brook.
That’s right. Stony Freaking Brook.
Army has gotten much better since Stony Brook, beating Boston College and blowing out a decent Air Force team.
Temple, on the other hand, looks lost out there and has nowhere near the swag it had against UConn and USF.

Temple fans have not had to endure a stretch like this since 2006.

Meanwhile, all over the country, teams with similar or worse talent than Temple are doing impressive things. Louisiana-Lafayette lost at Florida, 27-20, on a blocked punt with 36 seconds left. Ball State won at Toledo and also owns wins over Big East and Big 10 teams. Toledo beat the same Cincy team the Owls got blown out by on Saturday. Kent State beat Rutgers. Ohio beat Penn State.
If those teams can do great things, why can’t Temple even stay in a game anymore?
After four straight weeks of devastating losses, I don’t know if the Owls can get their swag back.
Young teams should be getting better, not worse, as the season rolls along but that hasn’t happened here.
I know Temple’s problems run much deeper than play-calling, but it appears to me that the Owls’ coaches have been their own worst enemies in the play-calling department. Better play-calling, at least in my view, would have put momentum-changing early points on the scoreboard Saturday and a lot of other Saturdays. That problem dwarfs any other one the Owls might have.
Here are the Owls’ first three plays against Cincy:

Run, Run, Run.
Yeah, I know it’s a broken record. It’s also a terribly unbalanced offense. No other BCS, FBS or FCS team operates an offense this way.
Even though I don’t think Chris Coyer was tackled by Munchie Legaux (he’s the Cincy backup quarterback), I’ve been writing all year until I’m blue in the face that this team is not equipped for that style of ball. I’ve been blue in the face and everywhere else for the last four weeks.

Here were my suggested first three plays against Cincy, published in a post last Monday:

TU25-Chris Coyer uses a play-action fake to Montel Harris to freeze the defense and rolls out and hits Ryan Alderman for a 6-yard gain near the sideline.
TU31-Coyer drops back to pass, then shovels it forward to Harris for an 8-yard gain.
TU39-Coyer runs right on a read option with Harris trailing. When the pitch guy goes for Harris, Coyer takes it upfield for +14, running out of bounds for ball security purposes.

First down has got to, at least SOMETIMES, be a play-action fake to Harris to freeze the defense and get a big gain in the passing game downfield. Then go back to the run. Instead,  Temple starts the game in this familiar pattern and it’s no surprise that it failed.

Here are Temple’s next three plays when it got the ball back:

Run, run, pass.
Incredible.
Talk about a buzzkill.
When you don’t throw the ball on first and second down, you get forced to throw it on third and then everybody in the stadium (and especially the defense) knows what you are going  to do. Is it any wonder Temple quarterbacks don’t get time to throw the ball?
Here were my suggested second three plays against Cincy:

TU25-Coyer drops back and hands off to Harris on the wraparound draw, good for +15
TU40-Coyer rolls out and finds Harris over the middle of the field, +10.
50-Coyer rolls out and DBs come up on run support so he floats the ball over DBs head to Fitzpatrick, who gains 20.

Run, Run, Run.Yeah, I know it’s a broken record. It’s also a terribly unbalanced offense. No other BCS, FBS or FCS team operates an offense this way

I think this package is a little more imaginative and a little harder to defend than Daz’s or Ryan Day’s (whoever was responsible). These are easy, confidence-building throws made away from a rush designed to get the QB in a rhythm.
But, as John Belushi might say, noooooooo, Temple’s got to stay in a stuck pattern of run, run, run or run, run, pass.
Geez.
Meanwhile, after the game Addazio said he’s confident this thing will turn around.
The quickest way to do that is not to appeal to the players’ pride, but to be more creative in the offensive approach.
This team can only succeed if it spreads the ball around and makes teams defend the entire field.
That disconnect between vision and reality is almost as disturbing as the blowout losses have been but not nearly as hard to take as the unbelievably ill-conceived and stubborn play-calling week after week.

08.21.12
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Newsome: ‘I’m a Temple Owl until the day I die’

“When I was at Penn State ….  I would always look at when we played Temple. They would always get close to us, and I used to see just the fight in these guys, knowing they were the underdogs, and they kept fighting with the big dogs. I thought that was very impressive, really impressive, with their fight. And that was a big deal as to why I came here.” _ Kevin Newsome

Kevin Newsome spoke to the media for the first time after practice on Tuesday and I have to say that I was very impressed. Not only did Newsome come up with the quote of the summer camp “I’m a Temple Owl until the day I die” he opened the door for the possibility of playing on defense and special teams to help the Owls. Go to the 1:50 mark on the time stamp for the exact quote.
Another great quote was this one:

“When I was at Penn State ….  I would always look at when we played Temple. They would always get close to us, and I used to see just the fight in these guys, knowing they were the underdogs, and they kept fighting with the big dogs. I thought that was very impressive, really impressive, with their fight. And that was a big deal as to why I came here.”
I always thought Newsome would make a great starting OLB or  safety for the Owls and I still think that.
Newsome was 240 pounds three months ago and has now slimmed down to 215, which would probably make him a better safety candidate than a linebacker.

Whether head coach Steve Addazio or defensive coordinator Chuck Heater think that is more important.
Everything I’ve been hearing from Addazio so far is that Newsome is in a battle with Juice Granger for the No. 2 quarterback spot. If Addazio thinks it is more important to have three athletic and solid QBs, then Newsome will remain in the QB rotation.
Newsome was Darryl Clark’s backup at Penn State for the entire 2009 season.
Whatever Daz says about this, I agree with but seeing Newsome holding the clipboard as No. 3 QB when he can be a playmaker on defense right away would be frustrating from my standpoint as a fan and maybe Kevin’s as a player.
There’s no law against Newsome playing defense for the Owls this year and moving back to the other side of the ball if needed. Brian Broomell started on defense as a true freshman at safety, then moved over to quarterback by the time he was a senior and led the nation in passing efficiency.

Temple’s Fan Fest is Wednesday
(8/22) from 5-7
at Xfinity Live (outside section).
It’s free but $15 to park due to
Phillies game that night.

I don’t think Kevin would have brought up defense or special teams if he wasn’t being considered for one or both.
We’ll find out in less than two weeks.

Tomorrow: 2011 ACC Preseason Player of Year Montel Harris