Category Archives: Rod Carey

04.16.21
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We’re No. 1 (and No. 119)

Duece Mathis stares down a receiver in practice. (Photo courtesy of Zamani Feelings)

A couple of recently released numbers illustrates the current state of Temple football these days.

Temple is No. 1 both in the AAC and all of G5 football in terms of transfers out via the portal (15) and No. 119 in terms of ESPN’s 2021 Power College Football Index. The network has the Owls finishing dead last in the AAC.

If you’ve been following this space since the end of a depressing 1-6 season, you shouldn’t be surprised.

Our contention all along is that too many good players have gone out the front door and not enough have come in the back door for the Owls to realistically be favored in more than two games of the upcoming 12-game season.

Not all our friends have agreed with us.

We’re hearing a lot of “now that Rod Carey has his quarterback and can run his system” the Owls will be successful.

We shall see.

When everyone on the outside says you stink and you don’t smell it, it’s probably you, not them.

When ESPN says you are back in the dreaded Bottom 10 (there are only 127 FBS teams, so do the math) and nobody in your league lost as much talent as you did, you tend to listen.

Not since Al Golden did CPR on the Temple program did I ever think we would return to those days.

We are here.

This brings us to another number.

Eighteen.

No one in my recent memory–with the possible exception of Montel Harris in 2012–has been expected to make as much of an impact as No. 18, quarterback Duece Mathis. The difference between then and now is that some publications had Harris as the preseason No. 1 player in the ACC (not AAC) before he transferred from Boston College to Temple.

The player Temple is counting on now had more interceptions than touchdown passes in his only duty as an FBS quarterback.

“Well, he’s a big-time SEC guy and Anthony Russo was not,” the contrarions say.

Remember the last big-time Big 12 quarterback Temple brought in, Re-al Mitchell? He was supposed to give Russo a run for his money and he did not look like a starting-level AAC quarterback, let alone a replacement for a top five Temple all-timer. Just because you are the No. 2 quarterback at Iowa State one year doesn’t mean you are going to light it up at Temple the next. My initial feelings after seeing Mitchell quarterback Temple was that we were fucked (excuse the language) without Russo.

That turned out to be true, at least in 2020.

Who’s to say the No. 3 quarterback at Georgia (after things shook out) is better than the No. 2 quarterback at Iowa State?

Now maybe Mathis proves to be a lot better than Mitchell.

He better, but that’s an unfair amount of pressure to put on one young guy and involves probably unrealistic expectations and that’s why the numbers don’t look good for Temple right now.

Whatever the dwindling number of Rod Carey apologists say.

Monday: The New Guy

04.12.21
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Keeping it between the boards

Gavin Dionisio should compete for the kicking job.

As a young man, I was charged with taking a final look at the sports pages before they hit the hard-scrabble streets of Doylestown.

One guy who needed heavy editing was a NASCAR “writer” named Eddie Blain.

He always ended with a signature closing line: “Keep it between the boards.”

Except one time.

We’ll say it was a typo.

“Keep it between the broads.”

Funny line and the people in the composing room loved it, but I couldn’t let it go. I had to send another version of the story out with the correct closing line.

The keep it between the boards line referred to keeping the cars on the track and out of danger.

That story reminded me a little of the Temple kicking game last year.

It should be a little easier to keep kickoffs inbounds than it was to keep cars inside the track but each kickoff was a painful exercise in covering the eyes and listening to the play-by-play to see if it wasn’t a disaster.

The Owls had five kickoffs go out of bounds last year, two in just one game.

How does that happen?

Who allows this slop to hit the streets?

Oh.

Rod Carey.

When guys like Don Bitterlich, Nick Mike-Mayer, Brandon McManus, Austin Jones and Aaron Boumerhi were here, the Owls went four years at a time without a single kickoff going out of bonds. That’s a total of about 20 years. Even Jerry Berndt had good kickers in Cardinal Dougherty’s Bill and Bob Wright and Bobby Wallace had a solid kicker in Cap Poklemba.

Temple fans have gotten into the habit of assuming that part of the game was on auto pilot. Really, even though Will Mobley was an OK short-distance kicker, the Owls haven’t had a home run hitting kicker since Carey didn’t guarantee Boumerhi’s scholarship,, forcing him to transfer to Boston College.

They still might not, but at least they understand they have a problem and that’s a change in the right direction.

Fortunately, the Owls brought in Archbishop Ryan all-state kicker Gavin Dionisio to challenge Rory Bell for the job this year. We checked with some Ryan guys we know (it’s our other alma mater) and Dionisio did not have a single kick go out of bounds in his three years as Ryan’s main kicker. Hopefully, the competition on kickoffs makes Bell better in that area, too.

Gavin isn’t perfect–his longest field goal in high school was only 38 yards–but it’s nice to know that it should be OK to assume the kickoffs will be kept between football’s version of the boards for a change.

Friday: A Big Target

04.08.21
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Shock: Apologies to coach Rod Carey

Thanks to Zamani Feelings for this great and rare footage of Paul Palmer against Bama.

The newest headline on Youtube by some content creators is the word shock followed by the topic of choice.

Algorithms dictate that using the word shock creates an uptick in page views but, in this case, it’s appropriate because Temple head coach Rod Carey has received (I believe) a lot of fair criticism during and after a 1-6 season.

The shock is simply this: I have scheduled my apology column to coach Carey and it will appear in this space on Nov. 28, the day after the final against Navy. As I see it now, Carey will have to pull a Jesus and turn the very few impact players he has on defense (in terms of sacks, interceptions, and fumble recoveries) into Loaves and Fishes.

Don’t even get me started on special teams.

The best thing I can say about Rod Carey right now is he has a nice hoodie.

I don’t expect to have to write it, but I hope I do.

For it to appear, though, the requirements are simply this: An eight-win regular season, not even a championship or a bowl win.

Why eight?

That’s pretty much the standard we’ve been used to around here since Al Golden went 9-3 in the 2009 regular season. Since then, the Owls have had more eight-win (or more) seasons than not and that’s the standard Temple fans have both enjoyed and expected.

The shock was 1-6 precipitated in some part by a COVID outbreak, sure, but in larger part by poor preparation. In my mind, there is never an excuse to give up 31 points to a triple-option team when you have nine months to prepare for a triple-option team and especially since two prior opponents showed your defensive coaching room how to hold said team to 7 and 3 points, respectively.

To me, a win over Navy would have been the confidence-builder needed not to get to a 2-5 season but potentially a 4-3 season but we will never know that now. Early season wins are so important not just for the psyche of the team but the psyche of a fan base.

That’s water under the dam.

Damn.

Right now, a new dam is being build at Temple football spring practice and we will see if it holds water.

If it does, a 500-word apology will appear in this space on Nov. 28 and it’s something I fervently hope to write.

Shock.

Monday: Keeping it Between the Boards

04.02.21
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Fools Day Plus 1: Hope springs eternal

An example of a well-done AF joke is here about frequent poster and friend of Temple Football Forever Rob Vaughn.

At about this time every year on this site we’ve done our usual April Fool’s post.

Not this year.

Sometimes we crack ourselves up and, based on a lot of the comments attached below the past posts, some of those cracked a lot of you up.

Big 10 explores idea of adding Temple – Temple Football Forever (wordpress.com)

Addazio’s first 5-star recruit: Urban Meyer – Temple Football Forever (wordpress.com)

Robby Anderson: The Prodigal Son Returns – Temple Football Forever (wordpress.com)

Sky’s the limit for 6-11 walk-on freshman – Temple Football Forever (wordpress.com)

We’re glad it did.

Nothing funny (humorous) about the program this year but a lot of funny (odd) things about it.

Still, we have at least one “RutgersAl” on the Owlsdaily.com message board who really feels the Owls are going to win the AAC championship every year. (Rutgers Al would always go on the RU board and predict unbeaten seasons that usually ended up closer to 0-12 than 12-0.) A good 40 percent of the respondents agreed with our “Al” to some degree that the Owls do not face impeding gloom. Hope springs eternal, it would seem. To that, MH55–one of the more sane posters over there–replied with this:

“At the time of my post, 40% of those polled believe TU will be .500 or better. I have no idea how these folks think Temple has improved their roster to the tune of 5+ more wins. This team lost quite a bit of talent from its 1 win season and the depth is paper thin at many critical positions…”

Paper thin indeed.

Other than wide receiver and arguably offensive line, the 2021 Owls are paper thin at every other position group.

In a sport like football where guys go down all of the time, that is a recipe for disaster.

That begs a question.

Does the well-paid professional football staff at Temple even realize this or are they shuffling the papers knowing that their demise is inevitable?

Or are they kidding themselves?

On April’s Fools plus one, that is the funniest (odd, not humorous) joke of all.

Monday: Spring Practice Begins

03.22.21
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5 Questions and (possible) answers

Well, that was quick.

Weston Kramer, we hardly knew ye.

As soon as Kramer got to Philadelphia, he did a U-Turn. It was reminiscent of the time Matt Rhule hired Nick Rolovich to be his first offensive coordinator, only to see Rolovich accept the job one day and reconsider the next.

At least Kramer thought about it a little.

The All-MAC tackle decided on Feb. 18 to commit to Temple and then, a little over a month later, de-committed from that commitment, according to the twitter handle CFB Blitz.

Why?

Rod Carey’s got a lot of “splaining” to do.

Just another question that will remain unanswered for awhile–or at least until the Philadelphia press assembles at spring practice in April

Head coach Rod Carey has a lot of questions to answer, some that will be asked, some that might not.

We can only guess what his answers will be now so we’re projecting what Carey might say:

1), What happened with Weston Kramer?

Carey: “Philadelphia can be a huge culture shock for Midwest guys. The bus dropped Weston off at 10th and Diamond and Wes wasn’t all that comfortable with the surroundings. We told him to give it a month and that’s just what he did. He packed his bags, we shook his hand (with gloves on, off course, for COVID protocols) and gave him a bus ticket home.”

2) Do you think your special teams are a problem?

Carey: “No, I actually think we were quite good on special teams in 2020. That situation where we had an extra point blocked and returned for two against Cincy didn’t happen last year, so that’s progress. This year our goal is to clean up those darn kickoffs that keep going out of bounds and two years from now we’ll address returning some punts. We’re not going to fix special teams in one year. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

3) Why do all the coaching departures/demotions seem to guys with Temple and local connections?

Carey: “Pat (Kraft) wanted me to keep (Ed) Foley, Adam DiMichele, Fran (Brown) and Gabe (Infante), so I did that. He didn’t say that I had to keep Ed as the special teams coach, so I moved him to an off-the-field capacity and Ed balked at that. Fran and I didn’t get along. Pat isn’t here anymore and Fran (Dunphy) says he doesn’t care what I do, so I’m working on getting Gabe and Adam off the field and hiring a couple more NIU guys.”

4) What would you consider a successful 2021 season?

Carey: “Well, we won one game in 2020, so two wins would be doubling the win total but we’d like to win more than two. Let’s leave it at that.”

5) What will be your message to the fans at the August season-ticket party?

Carey: “I don’t think we’re having one, thank God. I can imagine some of them are pretty upset with me right now.”

We’ll try to match up our projections with the real answers in a couple of weeks, although I’m not hopeful more than one of them will ever be asked.

Friday: Trolling Temple

03.15.21
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Special Teams clues abound for Temple

Temple’s special teams have pretty much been a humorless joke over the last two years.

You can learn a lot from thumbing through the bios in the latest Temple Football Media Guide.

If fixing teams is a priority–and it should be–the Temple coaches should be pouring over those lists to find guys with moves and speed who can help on that squad.

Does Temple football special teams coach Brett Diersen know backup wide receiver Kadas Reams has been clocked at 4.37 in the 40-yard dash?

Does he know defensive back Trey Blair played offense at Haverford High AND scored touchdown on both kickoff and punt returns as a senior?

You would think so but the Owls were content to have as their No. 1 punt returner last year a guy named Willie Erdman or came to the table with no such speed stats or history of success in the return game even at the high school level. It would be more accurate to call Erdman a “fair catch specialist” instead of a “punt return specialist.”

And both Reams and Blair were on the team last year.

Special teams used to be elite at Temple. Love to get back to those days again.

Knowing those facts, it’s not hard to come to a couple of conclusions: 1) they didn’t know and 2) they didn’t care.

Wide receiver Branden Mack blocked a punt under Geoff Gollins but was not on the punt return (don’t know if the Owls even have a punt block) team. He is 6-6 with a wingspan of 97 inches. Mack isn’t here anymore, but the Owls do have 6-6 guys with similar wingspans. It’s just logical to put your tallest and longest guys on your kick block teams. Steve Addazio’s Owls would not have won a game at UConn had he not put 6-6 wide receiver Deon Miller on special teams, where he blocked a field goal.

Having success in the special teams is knowing the, err, special talents of your personnel and using those talents to make plays. The Owls have shown no interest in two years about making dynamic plays in the special teams area and that needs to change starting when spring practice begins in two weeks.

We can talk about Diersen and his shortcomings all we want but the ultimate responsibility for the special teams success rests with the programs’ CEO, Rod Carey. If Carey is more comfortable with personal relationships with members of his staff than he is about getting the most of the talent he has, that’s a problem.

One of many we’ve seen in the last two years.

Opening two books would help: the American Coaches Association’s Complete Guide to Special Teams and one other.

The Temple Football Media Guide.

Friday: Sports Talk and Temple Football

03.05.21
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Buyer’s market: Don’t forget the kicker

If Rod Carey didn’t know Cristian Zendejas’ name, he does now.

Especially if he reads his own twitter feed. Several fans, from Temple and elsewhere (including this one), sent Carey the above video of Zendejas, the son of former Philadelphia Eagles’ kicker Luis Zendejas.

It would take the Zendejas Story full circle as one of the great stories of Philadelphia sports folklore had Luis in the middle in the infamous Bounty Bowl between the Eagles and the Cowboys.

It’s now up to Carey to pull the trigger and offer a scholarship.

Yeah, we know kickers usually don’t get a full schollie but Carey should make an exception in this case.

Temple hasn’t had a reliable long-distance placekicker since the days of Austin Jones and Aaron Boumerhi. Guess what Temple did in those days? Win the AAC East both years and the overall AAC when Boomer stepped in to replace Jones after he was injured on a kickoff in the Memphis game.

Luis (left) and Cristian Zendejas

Was Boomer the reason Temple won the championship? You could make an argument that P.J. Walker, Nick Sharga, Jahad Thomas or Robby Anderson were more important on the point-scoring side of the ball but there’s no doubt in my mind had one of the post-Matt Rhule kickers taken over for Jones, the Owls would have not won the championship.

Boomer saved the Owls’ bacon (or whatever Owls eat).

In typical Carey fashion, though, he let Boomer go because Boomer had an injury. Boom went to BC and had a decent finish to his career.

Zendejas, who is still uncommitted as of 12:23 a.m. this morning, would give the Owls a reliable long-distance kicker and, in an era where a lot of games are decided by three or less points, he could be the difference between a winning and losing season. The fact that a guy with this kind of leg hasn’t been scooped up yet indicates he might be willing to go to the first school who shows him love. It’s also an illustration of what a buyer’s market this year’s portal is due to the extra year of eligibility given to all of the seniors in college football.

In this buyer’s market, given Temple’s needs and Zendejas’ stated wants and skills, it’s a perfect match.

Giving Cristian a scholarship would be a clear signal to Temple fans that Carey is starting to get serious about fixing Temple’s atrocious special teams. Going with the status quo is courting another year of disaster in that area.

Let’s hope his dad doesn’t hold a grudge against Philadelphia.

Monday: Fair Weather or All Weather

02.18.21
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Temple football: What could go right?

Temple went from having the most dynamic special teams in the country to terrible in Rod Carey’s two seasons

On the surface, Temple football looks like a dumpster fire right now.

The Fire Chief allowed his best firefighters to walk for other departments and the hiring process to find capable replacements is going slower than expected.

That’s the surface.

Is there anything underneath?

At least Rod Carey will have the best hoodie in the AAC

Well, put it this way. The entire Temple coaching staff was responsible for multiple championships in a FBS league and five wins–presumably with lesser talent–over Big 10 teams against only two losses.

Maybe they know something we don’t know.

For Temple to turn a 1-6 season into a 6-or-better-win season, maybe this is what they are thinking:

One, everyone remains healthy. The first units on offense and defense are fairly impressive yet there are big holes to fill on the offensive line and defensive line but normal attrition for injuries has to be factored into the equation. Look at what happened in the championship year of 2016, for example. When Austin Jones, who had kicked 17-straight successful field goals, went down, Aaron Boumerhi took over that job and did not miss a beat. Averee Robinson got injured at nose tackle and Freddy Booth-Lloyd went in and locked down the Navy fullback in a 34-10 AAC title win. Does Temple have that kind of depth? I don’t see it, but maybe they do.

Two, a renewed emphasis on the running game. With the RPO system, it seems the Owls could never get out of their own way on offense. Temple football has always been establishing the run first, then throwing off fakes to it. If by adding Iverson Clement and Ra’Von Bonner convinces them to establish the run first, then the Owls should be a much more explosive team. Put it this way: If EITHER Clement or Bonner get 1,000 yards and 20 or more touchdowns rushing, Temple wins at least six games. Does this staff have that kind of commitment to the run? Doubt it, but maybe that’s the thinking at the E-O right now.

Three, Duece Mathis in a system that he’s comfortable in, thrives. If Mathis plays like a SEC starter, and starts finding Jadan Blue and Randle Jones for explosive plays in the passing game, the Owls will be hard to stop. Anthony Russo’s best full regular season at Temple was 21 touchdown passes against just 11 interceptions. If, say, Mathis does 22 touchdowns versus 10 interceptions (in other words, just a little better than Russo), the Owls will be successful.

Four, an aggressive approach to special teams. For two years, Rod Carey has been more than content to view the fair catch as a positive special teams’ play. That’s got to end. If the Owls don’t return kicks, they should block them. It’s got to be one or the other. Giving up positive plays on one third of the team never helps but that’s not been this staff’s DNA dating back through their time at NIU.

That’s it. That’s the path to a winning season. Maybe that’s the thought process at the E-O. If it is, it would be a welcome change.

Monday: The Enemy of My Enemy

01.25.21
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TU Football: Optimism seems misplaced

A discussion involving two ex-Temple coaches

Message boards are a good place to take the temperature of a fan base.

Sorting out the Wild Wild West part of it (the insults and incivility), though, you occasionally come across a gem of a post and I found a reasonable one written by long-time Temple fan MH55 recently on OwlsDaily.com:

“Meanwhile, shouldn’t everyone by now know our blueprint ? Regionally embedded staff intimately familiar with this area. The last three hires do not fit this mold and sadly, something is drastically wrong at EO. There seems to be a complete disconnect. The transfer portal and soliciting the MAC and FCS isn’t going to get it done. Reading the optimism is annoying and irritating. There is no reason for it.

“This team will start 2021 as 14 pt dogs to Rutgers. If we played them in 2019 we would have been 3 TD favorites. That’s where we are, realistically.”

_ Temple Fan MH55

It perfectly encapsulates where I am with the program right now.

A dose of realism

A lot was done between the December signing date and now to bring in some talent to refurbish the program but, in reality, a lot more needed to be done. This team needed a SMU-like 2019 infusion of talent (15 Power 5 starters) and got less than half of that.

There are now indications that Temple is done in more ways than one.

The Owls have new a linebacker from New Jersey who committed to Temple as a walk-on because he said he talked to a member of the staff who told him “they didn’t have any more scholarships left.”

If true, that’s not good.

Just when I thought the bleeding of talent leaving the E-O stopped, another single-digit guy, cornerback Christian Braswell, left on the first day of spring classes. There may be more to come. What was hemorrhaging in the fall has become a steady drip drip and who knows when it will be over? The addition of a Georgia transfer and a couple from North Carolina and one from Purdue, among others, seems to have sparked some optimism among the fanbase but, in reality, MH55’s post provided some needed pushback. Rod Carey’s recruiting, if it is indeed over, has fallen short of the mark and will probably fall well short of the talent level of Temple’s top rivals in the AAC.

At least this year.

The answer is going back to the blueprint that got the talent here and kept it here. MH55 is not the only Temple fan to realize what that blueprint is. We’ve been writing about it in this space for over 15 years now. Get great recruiters with a knowledge of and contacts with high school coaches up and down the East Coast and great coaches using a unique system. Navy wins because the Mids run the triple option and recruit nationally. Temple won in the Golden Rhule Era because it built great defenses, special teams and shortened the game by emphasizing the run and passed off play-action.

Al Golden and Matt Rhule realized that, even if it took Rhule two years of figuring it out once he came back to Temple.

That’s the blueprint. Rhule isn’t available but Golden might be. If Golden isn’t, surely there is someone who fits the blueprint of a great recruiter of THIS AREA and someone who realizes that the way to win here has been established and is willing to bring it back. Maybe Gabe Infante, who has the added experience of being a legendary head coach. Maybe Fran Brown, who doesn’t, but there certainly are people out there ready to follow the blueprint.

Peter J. Liacouras said that universities with FBS football must invest to succeed and sometimes that investment means eating the final couple of years of a guaranteed $10 million contract.

What happened between December and now on the recruiting front represented incremental change when wholesale change was needed and the university hierarchy must get ready for what, by all indications, will be some unpleasant results by the end of the fall.

That’s if they care about the Temple University national image anymore.

Friday: A New Single-Digit Concept

Monday: The Bruce Arians Playbook

01.11.21
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Temple football: The Known and Unknown

Whatever happens in the 2021 football season, we already know something about it.

The paradigm is about to shift for Temple football and that’s out of necessity: From the Known to the Unknown.

Lancine Turay

When John Chaney was the legendary Hall of Fame coach of the basketball, he liked to talk about the known and the unknown. He tailored his game plans to the known.

They were pretty simple. On defense, he shifted his famed 2-3 matchup zone to overplay the bad guy’s best one or two players and took his chances on lesser talented players to hurt him.

On offense, I sat behind him in a game where Temple’s three best players were Rick Brunson, Eddie Jones and Aaron McKie. He called time out and yelled at the other guys on the team when they were missing shots: “From now on, I only want Brunson, Eddie and McKie to shoot the ball. Everybody else pass.”

There were a few expletives deleted from that conversation, but you get the idea.

If Chaney lost, he lost knowing that he had what for him was a good plan.

Now, by necessity, Temple head coach Rod Carey will have to develop his own plan.

Getting four-star players in from Power 5 schools might work for Temple football now but, what is known, that approach has not worked so far. In fairness, it’s never been tried at 10th and Diamond before.

The Temple football paradigm pretty much for the last decade has been to recruit as many two- and three-star players and coach them up into five stars. Haason Reddick, Tyler Matakevich, Muhammed Wilkerson and Matt Hennessey pretty much fit that profile because by the time they left, were coached up into five stars. Matakevich was the consensus national defensive player of the year in 2015 and Wilkerson and Reddick were first-round NFL picks. Hennessey was a second-rounder but you rarely find centers drafted into the first round.

North Carolina sent Temple 2 players last week.

The formula worked. Prior to the Memphis game of the 2020 season, Temple had more regular-season AAC wins than any team of the league’s championship era. After that loss, Memphis caught up to Temple (31-11).

It’s been downhill ever since.

Portal departures necessitated the paradigm shift from the known to unknown.

The marquee get of 2021 so is Florida running back transfer Iverson Clement, who was a four-star out of Rancocas Valley. They already added Illinois transfer Ra’Von Bonner at that position in December to go along with quarterback Duece Mathis. If Clement and Mathis start, it will be the first time in Temple history that the Owls will start two four-stars in the offensive backfield. It’s worth noting that it will mean something only if they play like four stars. Let’s see. Penn State quarterback transfer Kevin Newsome was the last four-star to come to Temple. He never saw the field.

The tradeoff is simply this: Temple is bringing in more four-star talent than ever before with the recent additions of two defensive linemen from North Carolina (Xach Gill, a 6-5, 290-pound tackle and Lancine Turay, who is 6-6, 280). Turay is a little more versatile since he can play inside or outside and you’ve got to like a 6-6 pass rusher with a decent vertical leap.

In my gameday program of the Dec. 27, 2019 Military Bowl, Gill was listed as senior Jason Strowbridge’s backup in the 55-13 win over Temple. He had one solo tackle to Strowbridge’s three but both underperformed the best name on that team, Storm Duck, who had five tackles, four solos and two for losses.

It appears that the Owls have at least offset the losses on the line of tackles, Khris Banks, Ifeanyi Meijeh (portal) and Dan Archibong (NFL draft) and are hoping Will Rodgers and Manny Walker emerge as effective edge rushers now that Arnold Ebiketie has transferred to Penn State.

Still, there is more work to do.

The Owls need at least one starting-level offensive lineman to replace Vince Picozzi (Colorado State) and another top linebacker to replace Isaiah Graham-Mobley (Boston College). Two of each would be nice, but let’s not get greedy here.

Or maybe do get greedy.

The good news is that there are plenty still available in the portal who, at least on paper, are just as good as those two. Since it’s a buyer’s market this year (and won’t be next), the sooner Temple adds those type of players the better, because other teams with similar needs are scouring those same lists.