Category Archives: Hawaii

12.31.15
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Owls’ New Year’s Resolution: Find a Game for Stony Brook

hawaii

Hmm. … a home game against Stony Brook or an away game at Hawaii?

fioravanti

TU’s last trip to Hawaii.

On the day before New Year’s Eve, athletic directors all over the country are probably taking out the yellow legal pad and making some resolutions. One has to stick out like a sore thumb for Temple University athletic director Pat Kraft and that has to be getting Stony Brook off the 2016 football schedule.

There is no reason Temple should be playing Stony Brook in football, now or ever. It doesn’t make sense from a number of standpoints for the Owls and the first is that the American Athletic Conference, of which Temple is a member, strongly discourages its institutions from scheduling FCS teams. Stony Brook is not only a FCS team, but a bottom-feeding member of the Colonial Athletic Conference. Playing Stony Brook, almost a certain win for the Owls, brings down the entire league.  It has nothing to do with the Owls being “too good” or “looking down their noses” at the Seawolves or “dishonoring commitments” as it does with common sense. Delaware State didn’t expect it was going to get beat, 59-0, by a 6-6 Temple team, but that’s exactly what happened before about 60,000 empty seats. That’s exactly the TV look the conference will get for a Temple-SB game and it’s not a good look. Hula girls, a trip to Hawaii, maybe late night TV for the conference, that’s a better look.

The second reason is that Temple has seven home games and that’s one more than almost all of its fellow AAC teams.  Temple needs to trade that seventh home game for a sixth road game against a FBS school and, if Kraft has any skills as an AD, he will be able to devise a workable solution by helping Stony Brook find another opponent for Sept. 10.

martin

Tennessee-Martin’s mascot.

One solution would be to get on the phone with Hawaii, which hosts Tennessee-Martin on the same date. If Kraft can convince the Rainbow Warriors to back out of their deal with that school, he can arrange a Stony Brook at Tennessee-Martin game. Kraft then calls back Hawaii and volunteers the Owls to fill the open Sept. 10 date. Tennessee-Martin has as much business playing Hawaii as Temple does Stony Brook, which is no business. Bringing Hooter out there would be a treat for the Hawaii kids, certainly more than bringing out Martin’s creepy-looking alien mascot.

There are plenty of reasons this makes sense and a lot of Temple-Hawaii connections. The new head football coach at Hawaii, Nick Rolovich, is a good friend of current Temple head coach Matt Rhule. Rolovich was offered and accepted the first Temple OC job under Rhule, only to back out of it a few days later to remain as Nevada’s OC. Herman Frazier, a former assistant AD at Temple, was the former AD at Hawaii. Keith Kirkwood, a Temple wide receiver coming off a redshirt year, was a former  starting wide receiver at Hawaii. Dr. Linc Gotshalk, who many consider Temple’s greatest strength coach ever (for Bruce Arians),  went to Hawaii where he now is on the faculty at the University of Hawaii (Hilo). It is also the site of Temple kicker Ron Fioravanti‘s greatest athletic achievement, a field goal to win at Hawaii in 1979, 34-31. Fioravanti is now a sheriff in New Castle, Del.

linc

It doesn’t have to be Hawaii, but it should not be Stony Brook. For example, Rutgers is playing Howard that day and Duke has an open date. There are 125 other FBS teams. With a little creative thinking, something should be worked out.

That’s why athletic directors get paid the big money, to fix problems such as these, and that is the one task Kraft should put at the top of his New Year’s resolutions.

11.13.12
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In this case, Aloha means goodbye

This time, the goodbye is for good.

Aloha is one of those words that could mean either hello or goobye.
For the better part of the last month, it meant both for Temple University’s football team.
First, it meant hello.
Then it mean goodbye.
Then it meant hello again.
Now it means goodbye again.
This time, the parting seems to be final.
This was the release Temple University handed out today:

Hmm.
As late as Saturday, people “in the know” were optimistic a deal would be announced on Monday.
When Monday came and went, I had my doubts.
The “unforseen circumstances” had everything to do with the Benjamins. Unlike the Temple deal with the Eagles, $15 million for the 15-year contract, Hawaii has to pay Aloha Stadium $100K for every time the stadium opens up. Still, there is plenty of talk about Temple being able to make a bowl game as a 5-7 team due to the very real possibility there won’t be enough 6-6 teams to fill the number of available bowl slots but I don’t think that’s even worth discussing at this point.
Unforseen circumstances on the Hawaii end seemed to be ironed out when the Warriors got permission from the NCAA to play the game on Dec. 7 in order to avoid a Dec. 8 conflict with Aloha Stadium but they spent the better part of two weeks crunching numbers that did not add up.
Speaking of numbers, I think it is a net minus for Temple football.
I would have liked to seen the Owls go out to Hawaii with a 5-6 record, finish at 6-6 for the regular season and a chance for a fourth-straight winning season.
That’s not happening this year.
I would have also liked to have seen Temple with the extra few weeks of practice so that a “young team” can develop.
Really, the only positive that can come of this is that this gives three-time “National Recruiter of the Year” Steve Addazio a chance to work his magic in the two months between Nov. 23 and Feb. 4, national signing day.
That was one of the big reasons the university made a significant financial commitment to Daz along with a $10 million addition to an already relatively new $7 million facility.
If the Owls are able to beat out a lot of Kent States and UMass for their recruits, it won’t mean much. If, on the other hand, the Owls are able to get guys with offers from Penn State, Michigan State and those type schools, it could be the significant talent injection this program needs.
Right now, though, the most important thing is to beat Army and, considering the results on the field over the last four weeks, that’s far from a given.
To do that, the Owls need to say Aloha to the 75.9 percent run-on-first-down approach and Aloha to a few well-timed play-action passes on those same early downs.
No need for the definition of  those two Alohas now.

11.02.12
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Fast Forward Friday: Agreement in principle

Owls can go high end and have this view from Trump International …

According to Hawaii’s athletic administration, the school and Temple have reached an “agreement in principle” to play a football game on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012.
Whether it will be a day that lives in infamy or regular fame will be determined by whether or not the Owls are able to squeeze two wins out of their next four games.

... or slum it and have this view from the Maile Sky Court.

Heck, I hope the Owls now win all five but that will require a return to the offensive form they showed against USF and the defensive form they showed against UConn.
We can only hope.
Hawaii sports columnist Dave Reardon, who has a sweet job in a sweet town, noted that because the Owls will be playing the same weekend of the Honolulu Marathon, they might have trouble reserving hotel rooms.
Thanks to the magic of the internet, I found that should not be a problem.
I wanted to enter 50 rooms for three nights arriving Thursday, Dec. 6 and leaving Sunday, Dec. 9, but they only go up to 10 rooms. (This also  works for getting in Dec. 5 and leaving Dec. 8.)
At least 82 hotels had 10 rooms available as of this morning.
If the Owls chose to go first class, 10 people for 10 rooms at The Trump International will run them $12,270.
If they go low end, the Maile Sky Court will set the same amount of people back $4,270.
In between, they could go Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach ($6,470), Modern Honolulu ($10,170), Aqua Waikiki Wave ($10K even), Waikiki Marriott ($8,070) and Hilton Hawaii Village ($6,660).
That’s not even counting the airfare.
Where are the Owls getting this money from?
Pure speculation here but the Big East may be hyperventaling from the prospect of having six DIRECT bowl tie-ins and only three current teams qualified to fill them.
Syracuse and Temple could make four and five.
Plus, if Temple makes a bowl it will be a much bigger payout than the money the Owls made at the Eagle Bank Bowl, the Garden State Bowl and the New Mexico Bowl.
Combined.
So a trip to Honolulu to set up that kind of payday would be chump change in comparison. (Or Trump change, if the Owls go first-class.)
Problematic that any of the other BE teams have a chance.
First, though, the Owls will have to show signs that they can come out of a six-quarter on-field funk.
They will have that chance starting tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Louisville Game Day Preview

10.31.12
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Hawaii pulls out of talks with Temple

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

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

Anthony Robey: Lock-down corner

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

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

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

Tomorrow: Throwback Thursday