Category Archives: Cincinnati

11.06.12
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Vote for Temple

The swing state in this election could be the 12,500 students living on campus.

After what seems like years watching commentary on this presidential campaign, my head is about to explode after hearing about how this state would break down and that state would break down.
One guy says Romney is going to win in a landslide.
I’ve heard one “comfortable” Obama win prediction.
Most guys say it’s going to be close either way.
I have no idea who is going to win.
I’ll find out around midnight, unless there’s a state out there that still uses punch cards.
Right now, I can be certain of two things.
I’m voting for Temple football on Saturday and, sadly, I don’t think there is going to be a big turnout of people voting with their feet like me.
I’m not an expert on politics, but I do consider myself an expert on Temple’s fragile fan base.
I’m often able to predict the Temple crowd, almost down to a person.
For the Homecoming Game against South Florida, I predicted 26K and Temple drew 25,896.
For the Rutgers’ game, I predicted 41K but I had to smack the upside of my head for not factoring in the “over-the-air” free TV hit of between 5-10K Temple takes. Facts show that when Temple is on live TV, it takes a huge hit somewhere in that general ballpark figure.

You can’t call yourself a BCS team and throw the ball only 10 times in a 45-17 loss. That tells your fan base either you a) gave up or b) have Stevie Wonder calling the plays

Rutgers took care of its end of the bargain, bringing at least 15K. (To be fair, RU was 6-0 and Temple 3-2.) Temple must have brought no more than 20K, meaning at least 6K fans stayed home and watched on TV.
This week, probably more unfortunately than other weeks, the game is on TV.
Students have come out in big numbers in the past. There were 12K students for the Villanova game, but that was at night when they did not have to set their alarms after a Friday of partying. When I went to Temple, I had no problem setting my alarm for noon games so I never understood that reasoning. The Temple students could be the swing part of this election, but they came up lame against Maryland and Rutgers so I don’t expect they’ll suddenly, err, wake up.
I’ve always said this:
Temple has a hardcore fan base of 15-17K who will show up no matter what.
It also has a “softcore” fan base of between 20-30K who need a reason to believe.
Thirty years of football futility lost that secondary fan base and it’s going to take more than three or four years of good football to bring it back.
Three weeks of Gosh-awful football have lost that softcore base for this season.
In a way, I can’t blame them.
You can’t call yourself a BCS team and throw the ball only 10 times in a 45-17 loss. That tells your fan base either you a) gave up or b) have Stevie Wonder calling the plays.
I expect the 17K to show up on Saturday, but no more.
It might be as low as 15K, which would put it in the same neighborhood as the Penn vs. Harvard Ivy  League football championship game being played at the same time across town.
I do know this: There are 270K Temple alumni, 130K living within an hour’s drive of Lincoln Financial Field and 39K students, 12.5K living within a 10-minute subway ride of LFF. That’s a lot of potential voters out there. I’m voting for Temple but only because I’m a Temple football junkie and I need my fix.
Someday, hopefully soon, there will be a lot more Temple people who use Saturdays in the fall to cast a vote for their school.

11.05.12
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Scripting the first 10 plays versus Cincy

These were Temple’s first five plays vs. Louisville.

My back hurts from getting patted so much after calling for the Jalen Fitzpatrick throwback pass to Chris Coyer, finally used by Temple three months into the season.
My heart aches from being non-competitive on the scoreboard for three weeks.
My head still works, though.
I called for that pass on June 4 in a post I wrote detailing what would be a dream scenario season for the Temple football Owls. That’s five months and one day ago.
In order to avoid a nightmare scenario and get the Owls jump-started on a fine end to a rocky season, I would like to RESPECTFULLY suggest the following 10 scripted plays to open up the game on Saturday:

Khalif Herbin: First of his many Owl TDs.

We’ll assume Temple wins the toss and Cincy kicks it through the end zone.
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.
CI46-Coyer hands off to Fitzpatrick coming around on reverse. Fitzpatrick feigns a throw downfield, handing it off to 4.29 sprinter Khalif Herbin coming from the other side on the double reverse. Field opens for Herbin, who scores a 46-yard touchdown.

Temple 7, Cincinnati 0

Cincinnati quarterback Munchie Legaux then drops back and surprisingly finds the middle of the Temple defense open and hits George Winn for a 75-yard touchdown. Temple makes a nice tackle on Winn in the end zone, though.

TFF’s first scripted play of the game.

Temple 7, Cincinnati 7

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.
C30-Coyer hands it off to Harris up the middle, +1.
C29-Coyer hands off to Harris, who uses a crunching block from No. 44 (Wyatt Benson) to get outside ala South Florida and scores a 29-yard touchdown.

Temple 14, Cincinnati 7

At this point, defensive coordinator Chuck Heater can be seen mouthing “bleep it” (only he didn’t say bleep) and goes to a 3-4 blitzing defensive scheme and unleashes speedy Owl linebackers Tyler Matakevitch and Nate D. Smith on pass rush responsibilities and Temple records a school-record 15 sacks. Other Owl LBs, like Blaze Caponegro and Ahkeem Smith, do a great job in run support. That allows Temple head coach Steve Addazio the comfort level to go back to his pound and ground approach and the Owls control both the clock and, with the help of Brandon McManus’ punting, the field position battle and win going away.
After the team sings “T for Temple U” public address announcer Carlos Bates says the uni will be giving out free Hawaiian Cherry and White Leis to the first 10K fans who come to the Syracuse game.

Hopefully, I won’t wake up from this dream to the last three weeks of nightmares.