Category Archives: Eagles

06.10.13
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Temple Stadium upgrades

A very minor adjustment adds just 2,000 or so seats to Temple Stadium.

The big news this week for Temple football was that Temple Stadium was getting an upgrade.
OK, technically they call it Lincoln Financial Field but, if I had an extra $200 million or so laying around, instead of investing it in an on-campus stadium, I’d purchase the naming rights from the Lincoln Financial Group (they only paid $139.6 million for it for 20 years) and rename the place Temple Stadium.

If, by some miracle, Temple could attract just 1/3d
of its 130K living alumni and on-campus students to
home football games,
the AAC might put the Temple ‘][‘ in its logo.
Photo by John Van Wert

Not Temple Football Forever Stadium, not the Owls Nest, not even The Apollo of Temple, just Temple Stadium.
Could you imagine Brent Musburger or Al Michaels doing a Monday Night Football game there with this opening:
“YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE AT TEMPLE STADIUM, WHERE THE PHILADELPHIA EAGLES ARE HOSTING THE NEW YORK GIANTS.”
The school could spend $100 million in advertising and not get quite the bang for the buck as a few of those openings would deliver.
I’ve soured on the idea of an on-campus stadium after attending the Temple basketball game against UNC Charlotte.
I turned to three friends from my high school days and asked: “Where is everybody? This place is empty.”
The university has a nationally known basketball program but not a nationally known following.
Those who demand an on-campus stadium say that attendance would go up if the uni built one, say, at 15th and Norris between 16th on the West and Montgomery Avenue on the South.
I did not get that feeling in a half-empty state-of-art Liacouras Center back in February nor do I feel the fans who attended the home games against Canisius, St. Bonaventure or Duquesne got that feeling as well.
To me, the best upgrade for “Temple Stadium” would be fans putting down their remotes and getting off their couches and going to home games. TV ratings for Temple home games in the nation’s fourth-largest market are off the charts high, so you know there are enough Temple fans interested in watching. The challenge is getting them into cars and onto the subway.
It’s not like the place is in the middle of nowhere, ala UConn.
It’s a 10-minute subway ride for 12,500 students living on campus and a one-hour ride for 130,000 living alumni.
Winning will bring the fans, for sure.
Got to hope that winning, combined with an exciting brand of football the Owls will be playing for the next few years, will bring enough “Temple people” so that the nation is impressed.
The fans will get a chance to vote with their two feet.
THEN maybe we can talk about an on-campus stadium.
Not before.

Create your own Animation

01.05.13
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Eagles search for a coach should end now

Bruce Arians would be a great choice in three important areas.

The only known photo of
Bruce Arians as Temple
coach on the internet.

Driving around Philadelphia every day, I have my radio presets on a few select stations.
Two are the all-sports talk stations in Philly, but I invariably land on WFAN in New York for the best sports talk.
Mostly, I end up on 100.3 or 105.3, music stations. Big fan of Patti Jackson, Lady B and Michael Baisden.
Still, in between commercials, it’s amusing to stop on the Philly sports talk stations for awhile to hear them talk about potential replacements for Andy Reid.
I have to shake my head, though. All of these guys are garbage compared to my choice.
There’s really only one potential replacement and he should be hired no later than Monday. (If the Colts lose to Bernard Pierce and the Ravens, which I suspect will happen on Sunday.)
His name is Bruce Arians, the former Temple University head coach.
OK, I will admit that I’m biased but some other national guys like ESPN’s Dan Graziano (see above) who are starting to come around to my way of thinking.
I don’t think his age, 60, should have anything to do with it. Sixty is the new 40 anyway. Tom Coughlin won two Super Bowls after 60. Period, end of discussion.

On the Daz front, we’re at Dream Job No. 6.

Put aside the Temple connection for a moment and look at it logically.

Culture Change

Bruce Arians took a 2-14 team in Indianapolis and totally changed the culture from losing to winning. He was 9-3 in the 12 games he was head coach, including a win over the Green Bay Packers. That performance has made him the leading candidate for NFL Coach of the Year.
Think there’s a pro team in Philadelphia that needs a culture change?
Check.

Developing young quarterbacks?

Admittedly, he did it this year with a good rookie quarterback in Andrew Luck but I think, say, Syracuse’s Ryan Nassib has a similar skill set to Luck’s and he could do the same with another rookie in Philadelphia.
Also, Arians developed both Peyton Manning at Indy and Big Ben with the Steelers as quarterbacks and, if you don’t draft Nassib, he could at least work his magic with Nick Foles.
Check.

Public Relations

This is an important hire for Eagles’ owner Jeff Lurie. Does he go the totally unknown route and hire a coordinator like Mike McCoy or hire a two-time Super Bowl winning coordinator AND a guy who is coming off a NFL Coach of the Year Award. When was the last time an NFL team hired an NFL COY from another team? This could be a first and an incredibly easy sell to an otherwise skeptical fan base.
Check.
It’s about a big a no-brainer as there is. We shall soon find out if Lurie has at least half a one.

10.16.12
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Got a winner in town

Philadelphia fans have got a winner in town and it isn’t the Eagles.

‘God, you’ve got to love the grit, I don’t care who you are, you’ve got to love the grit of Philadelphia and the grit in this team. It’s just about a damn gritty team that wants to compete and that isn’t intimated. I wouldn’t trade that team for any other.’
_ Steve Addazio

My guess is if you can use one word to describe Philadelphia Eagles’ fans right now it’s exasperation.
I know.
I’m one of them.
After watching Michael Vick commit two of his 13 turnovers for the season in a 26-23  loss to Detroit on Sunday, I’m done with any emotional investment in that team. Vick keeps turning it over and seemingly without repercussions.
Fortunately, I have another team to root for who practices four miles north of Lincoln Financial Field and plays in the same stadium.
The Temple Owls.
Unlike the Eagles, the Owls have a winning record (3-2) so, to borrow a quote from former Eagles’ coach Buddy Ryan, you’ve now got a winner in town.

Like the Eagles and Michael Vick, the Owls also have a left-handed quarterback (Chris Coyer).
Unlike Vick, Coyer rarely turns the ball over and is tough as the team that plays around him.
Coyer, the New Mexico Bowl MVP, hit a game-tying pass to Jalen Fitzpatrick with 16 seconds left in regulation that was a thing of beauty at UConn last week. Without a doubt, it was the most clutch throw I’ve ever seen a Temple quarterback make and I’ve seen 30 years of clutch throws as a season ticket-holder. With a big-time rush coming at him, Coyer made a throw completely across the field and into Fitzpatrick’s breadbasket.

You can get Sixers tickets for 9 cents and TU-Pitt tickets
for $9 but RU-TU seats are a hot item at $40 apiece.

Temple won it in overtime, 17-14, when Brandon McManus, who head coach Steve Addazio calls “the best kicker in the country” nailed a 29-yard field goal straight down the middle.
While the Eagles’ defense showed an alarming lack of toughness by allowing a 10-point lead with five minutes left to vanish on Sunday, the Temple defense on Saturday showed a Navy Seal-like toughness in overtime, forcing UConn to a three-point attempt that missed.
The Eagles had to fire their defensive coordinator, Juan Castillo, today and borrowed some Temple TUFF in his replacement, former Owl Todd Bowles.
Temple TUFF, with the spelling of “tough” changed to suit the school’s first two initials.
While Andy Reid’s post-game press conferences are full of “we’ve got to do a better job” for about the umpteenth time, Temple head coach Steve Addazio has adopted the Philly mindset and wears his heart on his sleeve just like Philly fans do.

Todd Bowles representing TU.

“God, you’ve got to love the grit, I don’t care who you are, you’ve got to love the grit of Philadelphia and the grit in this team,” Addazio said. “It’s just about a damn gritty team that wants to compete and that isn’t intimated. I wouldn’t trade that team for any other.”
I wish I could say the same thing about the Philadelphia Eagles. I can’t.
There’s a winner in town and it isn’t the Eagles. Hopefully, soon the rest of Philly will support it like they do the exasperating other tenants of the stadium.

Tomorrow: TU-RU by the numbers 
Thursday: Throwback Thursday with TU/RU theme

09.24.12
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Eagles and Owls: Birds of a different feather

“Let’s face it, you want to run the ball all the time and I want to pass it all the time.”

Watching Andy Reid and Steve Addazio the last two days, it suddenly occurred to me that this is a tale of two coaches, same city, two different philosophies.
Reid wants to throw the ball all the time.
Addazio wants to run it all the time.
Well, not all, but you get what I mean.

Have to give it up to Nate Bauer of BWI for this correct prediction.

If you could put Steve Addazio’s head in Andy Reid’s body and Reid’s head in Addazio’s body, probably both teams would be better off.
For purposes of argument, the words never and all mean most.
Reid has a guy, Shady McCoy (almost went to Temple, by the way, but that’s a story for another day), who ran for 1,300 yards and 20 touchdowns last year and he never gives the ball to him.
Instead, he leaves his fate in the hands of a turnover-prone quarterback.
Addazio has an offensive line incapable of opening up holes up the middle, but he forces that square peg into the round hole with a stubborn trait of relying on runs up the middle.
Yet Addazio has a quarterback who never turns it over and throws nice balls, most of which are dropped.

Roll Coyer out to the left with the option of passing or throwing. If the pass is there, take it. If the run is there, take it. The fear of what Coyer can do with his feet will open up things for the Temple offense

Chris Coyer is not perfect, but he’s missed only two vital throws in this season in my mind and both were in the Penn State game. Even those might have been timing patterns that were the fault of the receivers.
He’s a kid you can win with if you put the offense in his hands.
Roll Coyer out to the left with the option of passing or throwing. If the pass is there, take it. If the run is there, take it. The fear of what Coyer can do with his feet will open up things for the Temple offense. Have Matt Brown and Montel Harris in space as dump-off options. Put Ryan Alderman near the first-down sticks as a target. Have 4.3 sprinters Jalen Fitzpatrick, Romond Deloatch and Khalif Herbin go deep.  Coyer in the straight dropback should only be a change of pace for Temple. The guys who have been dropping passes for Temple should sit on the bench.
Temple’s spread passing attack should open up lanes for the running game, not the only way around.
Just as importantly, moving those sticks will give the beleaguered defense a needed rest.
Same with Shady McCoy of the Eagles.
Establishing his running should keep the pass rush off Michael Vick and mitigate that team’s recurrent turnover problems.
Andy Reid and Steve Addazio. Both guys are pretty stubborn and I guess that’s one of the reasons why they got to where they are.
Something tells me, though, the first guy who recognizes the need for change will be the most successful this season.
I’m hoping it is both.
I’m praying it’s Addazio.

01.03.12
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Eagles can only hope to be Temple TUFF

Steve Spagnuolo would be a Chuck Heater-type hiring for the Eagles and that’s a  good thing.

On Sundays, I hang up my Temple garb, don the Eagles gear and head out to a local establishment to watch my second-favorite football team play.
I’m always promoting the Owls by word-of-mouth, though.
I never cease to be amazed by the outdated perceptions many Eagles’ fans have of Temple football.
Watching the Eagles hammer the Jets, 45-19, an old guy sitting at the bar slid down his NFL title game ticket, circa 1960.
I mentioned how stupid it was for Andy Reid to hire Juan Castillo, a lifetime offensive line coach, as defensive coordinator.
“It’s pretty bad,” I said out loud, “when the Temple defensive coordinator is so much better than the Eagles’ defensive coordinator, it’s not even funny.”
Most of the bar seemed to know who Chuck Heater was and the kind of job he was doing at Temple and nodded in agreement.
Not all, but most.

Occasionally, he will throw in a “Temple TUFF, baby” at his press conferences. That’s as exciting as a Reid press conference gets to me, but I appreciate it.


Certainly not the old guy.
“Temple?” he said. “Do they still draw 3,000 for their games?”
I had to bite my tongue to be nice to this guy.
“I guess you don’t read the newspapers anymore,” I said. “Try 30,000. They almost averaged 30,000 this year. You can look it up. You should go. Their games are a lot more exciting than the Eagles’ games.”
“I didn’t know that,” the man said, apologetically.
Perceptions are pretty hard to break down, but I’m doing it one person at a time.
That’s why I took Jeffrey Lurie’s press conference today as a good sign.
Andy Reid will be back. He can break down outdated perceptions of Temple football a lot faster than I can because he has a much larger platform.
Reid is a good head coach who is a friend of Temple football.
I think he made a mistake in hiring his buddy, Castillo, but Reid is a pretty loyal guy.
That’s a good sign for Temple as well.
Occasionally, he will throw in a “Temple TUFF, baby” at his press conferences.
That’s as exciting as a Reid press conference gets to me, but I appreciate it.
I hope Reid follows up by hiring a good defensive coordinator who will make the Eagles Temple TUFF on defense once again.
Steve Spagnuolo, who was just fired in St. Louis, would be a good fit for the Birds.
If Spagnuolo can do the same type of job as Heater, both teams should have double-digit wins next season and I’ll be able once again to wear the green as proudly as I always do the Cherry and White.

08.12.11
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Jarrett’s pick for the Eagles and more on Owls

Jarrett with the big pick last night ….and as an Owl (below)

I know a lot of Temple fans who hate the Eagles.
I’m not one of them.
I look forward to every Eagles’ game since they don’t conflict with those of my favorite football team, the Temple Owls. Plus, I’ve been running the too often concurrent sentence of being a fan of both all of my life.

I must admit, though, I looked at last night’s Eagles’ game a little different than most.
I was looking for No. 26, Jaiquawn Jarrett.
When the ball went up in the air in the first quarter and landed in his hands, I couldn’t be more happier.
It was one step closer to legitimizing Temple football and some ill-informed comments about it.

Jim Gardner, the Action News’ anchor, tweeted on the night of the draft: “The Eagles might have made a reach in the second round by picking the Temple guy” I tweeted him back: “No reach. Mel Kiper and others thought he was the best SS in the draft.”
I hope Gardner knows that SS stands for strong safety, but I doubt it.
With each interception, JJ quiets that kind of ignorance so I was happy for him, Temple, the Eagles and the city.
As far as the Owls go, a couple of developments in practice have me intrigued.

  • The loss of kickoff returner extraordinare James Nixon. I don’t know why he and the program departed ways and, quite frankly at this point, I don’t care. All I know is that it is a huge loss because you can’t teach 4.3 speed or the vision and moves he had on the field to go with it. He was a threat to take it the house on every kickoff. I don’t see Matty Brown, Joey Jones or anybody else being the same kind of threat. Vaughn Carraway, yes. Carraway was one of the greatest punt returners I’ve ever seen in high school and I’ve covered high school sports for 30 years. Like Nixon, he’s has the “it” factor for returning kicks. I hope Daz gives him a shot.
  • Daz seems to be moving from the feeling that “it’s just asking him to kick” to he needs to find someone to relieve the punting duties from NFL kicker Brandon McManus (yes, he’s an NFL kicker getting a four-year education). If he sends McManus out there to punt and he breaks his leg on a roughing-the-punter penalty, I will scream bloody murder. If he’s going to break his leg, I’d rather it be AFTER the 54-yard, game-winning, field goal against Penn State.
  • The movement of running back Ahkeem Smith to linebacker. Temple has a returning starter, Stephen Johnson, back there but Smith brings a significant skill set to the backup position. I hope he does well there.
  • Carraway. Defensive coordinator Chuck Heater said he had a “terrible spring” at safety and “even he would admit it.”  Then he added, “he’s doing much better now. That’s all I can say.” Hmm. Doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement to me. How about trading Carraway back to the offense for Smith, then, putting the former four-star WR recruit back into the mix there and as an explosive replacement for the dynamic Nixon?
Even though Chester Stewart currently is running with the first team, head coach Steve Addazio still calls that position a work in progress and I hope he gives all four quarterbacks an equal shot in the next two weeks.
No need to name a starter now.
04.30.11
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(Fellow) Eagles’ fans are in for a treat

Jarrett’s hit at 0:23 of this video is the greatest I’ve ever seen, high school, college or pro.

My weekends are pretty much set around a Temple game in person on Saturday and an Eagles’ game by the TV on Sunday.
Those two days seem to go by in like five minutes.
That’s why I could not be happier for my main man Jaiquawn Jarrett today after the Eagles selected him in the second round.
Or myself.
As a Temple fan, I am going to miss him leaving the family.
As an Eagles’ fan, I’m going to adopt him as my favorite player.
The Eagles have missed that hard-hitting safety since Brian Dawkins left. They haven’t had anybody who could bring the wood since.

I really believe UConn lost its will to win after that hit. The Huskies did not want to get hit from that spot in the game forward.


Jarrett, to me, is a younger, faster, version of Brian Dawkins.

I said that all season. It wasn’t surprising that Andy Reid said that at the press conference. Reid said a lot of other nice things about Temple, calling the school “an educational Mecca” and saying “that program is really rolling now.”
I think the way it will eventually shake down is that Nate Allen will be a starting free safety (he’s more of a floater-type cover guy anyway) and Jarrett will be moved to strong safety, where his primary cover responsibility will be tight ends.
He will do more than fine there.

“Temple is an educational Mecca”
_Andy Reid


His hit of Jordan Todman, a great back from UConn, in the above video is the single greatest hit I’ve ever seen. You get a flavor for it from the video, but you really had to be there to hear and see it in person and experience the crowd’s awe-struck reaction afterward.
I really believe UConn lost its will to win after that hit. The Huskies did not want to get hit from that spot in the game forward.
That’s what Jarrett brings to the game.
It is somewhat consoling to know that I will still see it on my weekends, albeit the second half this year.

09.04.08
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Having a cow over Hurricane Hanna


Photo by Hippoears
I’m having a cow about this Hurricane Hanna.
I just looked at the latest projected path of the Hurricane and it places the strength of the thing right over Lincoln Financial Field, right at the noon kickoff for Saturday’s much-ballyhooed game against visiting UConn.
That stinks.
It really does.
The Eagles, who don’t deserve a crowd, will get 70,000 the next day under sunny weather and 86 degree temperatures.
Temple, which needed everything to go right to get a crowd of 30K, won’t get half of that because of a Monsoon with a capital M and winds projected to be 20-30 mph.
That’s a shame and a crime.
And it’s sad.
It feeds into the stereotype of “nobody goes, nobody cares” which may have been true under the last coaching regime, but does not apply now.
Unless there’s a Hurricane.
The talk on WIP won’t be of a great college football atmosphere or a great college football game, but of how Temple and UConn ruined the Eagles’ precious field.
That’s beyond sad.
Sure, the diehards like myself will be there, wearing a Temple game jersey over a parka if necessary but the casual fan, what Thomas Paine once called “summer patriots and sunshine soldiers” won’t.
No amount of my pleading to get them there will matter.

    So the checklist before going out the door on Saturday:

  • Parka
  • Tickets
  • Beer
  • Roster
  • Radio
  • Binoculars
  • Goulashes
  • Rubbers
  • Umbrella (for the tailgate)
  • Let’s Go Temple sign (in cellophane)

Let’s just get a win.

07.22.08
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No reason Owls can’t win seven or eight

By Mike Gibson
I have to laugh when I hear mostly sports talk radio types go down a potential football schedule and say, “Well, that’s a win.” Then, “Well, that’s a loss.”
The incredibly boring Glen Macnow, who is as uninteresting as both Mike and the Mad Dog (WFAN, New York) are entertaining, loves this style of sports talkdom.
It’s almost always an exercise in futility.
Take the Eagles’ schedule of two years ago.
The Birds had an incredibly tough stretch run of three division games on the road at the end of the season.
“They better get to to 10 before then,” Macnow said. “They ain’t winning any of those.”
Well, they got a hot quarterback, a guy named Jeff Garcia, and won all three.
Garcia isn’t an Adam DiMichele clone (it’s more the other way around) but Adam DiMichele’s game reminds me so much of Jeff Garcia’s it isn’t funny.
Good arm, but better heart, determination and moxie.
The town of Philadelphia fell in love with Jeff Garcia.
By December, it will fall in love with Adam DiMichele.

None of those four
are unbeatable
and a heavily-pro Temple
crowd in the opener could turn
the UConn game into a rout.

With DiMichele, there is no reason the Owls can’t win seven or eight of these games.
NO reason at all.
I won’t go down the following list and say well this is a win and that’s a loss because I believe to get to eight some “wins” will be “losses” and some losses will be wins.
Let me say this right now: There is not one (1) game on the schedule the Owls can’t win and there is not one (1) game on the schedule the Owls can’t lose.
Yes, that includes Penn State.
It’s almost never the eight you or I think it is but here, on July 22, are the “qualified” wins:
Army, Navy, Buffalo, Western Michigan, Kent State, Eastern Michigan, Ohio, Akron.
The “qualified” losses are:
UConn, Penn State, Central Michigan and Miami.
None of those four are unbeatable and a heavily-pro Temple crowd in the opener could turn the UConn game into a rout. Based on the Navy opener of last year, where the Middies brought a disappointing 2,000 fans while the rest of the stadium (28,000 fans) were wearing Cherry and White, I fully expect a pro-Temple crowd. If the crowd is 32K, my guess is UConn will bring up to 12,000 fans. Temple will bring at least 20,000. If it’s 30K, UConn will bring 10K and Temple 20K.
It’s going to be a one-sided Temple crowd in any event, especially given the revenge motive.
But there’s no reason, right now, you can’t get eight wins out of this schedule.
My eight might not be your eight but, in any case, eight would be great and nine would be just fine if you add UConn into this volatile and always dangerous speculative mix.

2008 TEMPLE OWLS FOOTBALL SCHEDULE

Day Date Opponent Time TV
Fri. Aug. 29 at Army 7:00 p.m. (ESPN Classic)
Sat. Sept. 6 Connecticut Noon (ESPNU)
Sat. Sept. 13 at Buffalo Noon (ESPN Regional)
Sat. Sept. 20 at Penn State Noon (Big Ten Network)
Sat. Sept. 27 Western Michigan 2:00 p.m. Homecoming
Sat. Oct. 4 at Miami-Ohio 3:30 p.m. (ONN)
Sat. Oct. 11 at Central Michigan 4:00 p.m.
Tue. Oct. 21 Ohio 8:00 p.m. (ESPN2)
Sat. Nov. 1 at Navy 3:30 p.m. (CSTV)
Wed. Nov. 12 at Kent State 8:00 p.m. (ESPN2 or ESPN360)
Sat. Nov. 22 Eastern Michigan 1:00 p.m.
Fri. Nov. 28 Akron 1:00 p.m.
Sat. Dec. 5 MAC Championship Game 8:00 p.m. ESPN2