Imagine being a plumber who was an apprentice to the best in the business and the guys he worked for raved about him and said he should have his own company.

Then say someone gave him that job and then a couple of years later took his wrench, plunger, and snake away and told him to do the best job he could with his hands.

That’s kind of what Stan Drayton is facing today as head football coach at Temple.

The job he took two years ago was harder than the job Rod Carey took or the one Geoff Collins took. Neither of those guys had to face the NIL or the transfer portal on the level Drayton had to face.

In fact, the debate worth having is who had the tougher job?

Al Golden or Drayton.

A valid case can be made that Golden’s was tougher. Thanks to the eight years of Bobby Wallace, Golden took a team headed for a 20-game losing streak and a woeful APR that robbed the Owls of almost as many scholarships as the Penn State scandal hurt the Nittany Lions.

Golden kicked out all of the poor students–some of them happened to be very good players–and then slowly built a house of brick, not staw (his words).

By the time he left in 2010, the Owls had beat a Fiesta Bowl team (UConn) and Golden’s nine-game winning streak was the second-longest in Temple history (only to Wayne Hardin’s 14-game winning streak between 1974 and 1975). His appearance in the 2009 Eagle Bank Bowl was Temple’s first bowl game in 30 years.

Yet how would have Golden done had he had to battle a roster full of JUCOs and a system that allowed other teams to poach his best players?

Not well, I’d guess.

Would Muhammad Wilkerson, for example, be a first-round pick for Temple under Golden or would he have transferred to another school?

We all hope that Mo would have stayed, but that’s just wishful thinking.

While the case can be made that Golden’s job was tougher, Drayton has fewer tools in his box than Golden did 15 years ago and he’s going to have do get his hands much dirtier than Golden ever did.

Can Drayton beat a BCS bowl team and rip off a nine-game winning streak? Probably not but an AAC title still remains a realistic goal and, should he do it, probably deserves the same spot in the Temple Sports Hall of Fame that Golden occupies now.

Friday: The One Big-Time Foe the Owls turned down

Monday: Rating The Hires

A comedian in the 1970s named Rodney Dangerfield made a bundle on a routine that centered around one phrase:

“No respect, I’ll tell ya.”

Then Dangerfield launched into a litany of hilarious jokes about from the way his wife and kids treated him to the general public at large.

If Temple’s second-year head football coach Stan Drayton still had those Dangerfield 78s on a turntable, you could excuse him for playing them today.

A listing of the rankings of AAC head coaches came out the other day and Drayton placed 11th in the listing of “top head coaches” in a league that has only 14 members. Two first-year coaches were ahead of him in addition to a couple of CUSA head coaches joining the league.

Ugh.

To me, something like that is very superficial and doesn’t take into account all the variables.

I would have placed Drayton closer to sixth than 11th but I understand the process.

As Vince Lombardi once said, winning isn’t everything it is the only thing.

You could not judge rookie head coach Drayton on his first year by everything alone.

You could judge him on how he moved the ball forward.

At the end of 2021, Temple was at its own 3-yard line The Owls had a head coach with no charisma and someone no one liked. Hell, I doubt even if his wife and kids liked him. Temple got rid of that problem and told him to take our six million and sit at home for the next three years. No one in Philadelphia likes you and no one cared about you. Fast forward to hiring Drayton a couple of months later. If Temple had won six games in 2023–as we thought possible in this space a year ago–the Owls would be in enemy territory.

Not quite what we expected but better than it was.

Temple, entering this 2023 season, is about on its own 47.

It’s time to get into the red zone and put points on the board in terms of national respect.

There were Temple fans (sadly) expecting Rutgers would blow out the 2022 Owls. We never did. We thought it would be a close game and that turned out to be true.

That’s thanks to two things and both can be attributed to Drayton. One, the 3-9 under him was much more impressive than the 3-9 under the coach who shall remain nameless. Two, after that 3-9, half the team could have exited stage right and, instead, about 90 percent of the team bought into Drayton’s vision for Temple to be a champion.

The Owls have a coach the team likes and respects and a quarterback who is dynamic. They have that now. They didn’t have that two years ago. In college football, that is everything. Put that in a pot, stir, and win.

Guys who write for national college football websites can’t possibly understand that nuance.

We who follow the program do.

What’s next?

The progress last year that turned 61-14 and 45-3 results against RU and ECU into 16-14 and 49-46 must be flipped to 16-14 and 49-46 for the good guys.

I believe it will.

It is a belief based on what I saw right in front of my own eyes. The national guys who don’t give a bleep about watching anything other than the scores don’t see the same thing. Pur it this way: Temple lost to Houston 37-8 in 2021 and with the same talent led Houston 36-35 with 1:13 left in the game last year. Temple lost to RU, 61-14, , and only a pick 6 by a rookie QB separated it from a 14-9 win. Temple lost and was disinterested in a 45-3 loss at ECU in 2021 and yet, with the same talent, was a failed 3d and 1 at midfield from falling on the ball and taking a knee for a 46-42 win.

Same talent, and different coaching.

By December, we will find out if that lack of respect was warranted or if respect of nuance should have been a prerequisite for ranking AAC head coaches.

Monday: Saying Goodbye to a Legend

Atari was just launched. New York City had a blackout that lasted 25 hours. Elvis Presley died.

Before the last two Homecomings, yes it had been that long (1977) since Temple hosted a winning team on Homecoming Day.

A lot of losing foes visited Temple on Homecomings before the last couple.

Two times the visiting team was Rutgers. In 2021, it was Memphis. Last year, the Scarlet Knights came in with a 3-1 record. They didn’t finish with a winning record but they escaped Philadelphia with a 16-14 win when E.J. Warner was just getting used to the speed of college football.

Before that, the Rutgers’ team that Temple beat in 1977 was the only other winning team that came to town for Temple’s Homecoming. Temple won, 24-14, that day and RU finished its season at 8-3 with the other losses coming to 10-1 Colgate (yes, Colgate) and an 11-1 Penn State team.

There are reasons for that and the scheduling philosophy not only at Temple but at “most” schools is to schedule a so-called cupcake so that all of those alumni who only come to one football game per year could depart with a feel-good win and maybe some incentive to come back for another game or two that wasn’t Homecoming.

Temple athletic director Arthur Johnson bucked that trend last year by scheduling a Big 10 team and he is apparently bucking it now.

The reasoning seems to be that since this is Temple’s biggest home crowd of every season–there are usually roughly 10,000 or so Temple fans for that game than any other home game–is that the reward is greater than the risk.

That thinking comes into play this year as well. First-year AAC member UTSA is coming to town as one of the league favorites with one of the best quarterbacks in the country, Frank Walker.

If a big crowd helps boost the Owls to a meaningful league win, all the better.

Even though the Owls lost to Rutgers last year, Temple’s reputation on the national stage was served well by that game. The stands looked pretty full and it was apparent that the Owls had the big advantage in the number of fans and the loudness of the crowd. Rutgers’ fans admitted as much.

All that was missing was the win.

IF the Owls can pull of the upset of UTSA on Oct. 7, give a large part of the credit to Johnson.

Friday: What The Eagles Draft Taught Temple

In a perfect off-season Temple football world, Stan Drayton would have convinced Carson Steele to make the jump from Ball State to the Owls and he would have given currently unemployed defensive coordinator Chuck Heater the same job at Temple.

Off and running, at least in my opinion, toward a POSSIBLE American Athletic Conference championship on Dec. 2, 2023, at Lincoln Financial Field.

Honestly cannot have those expectations now because at least in those two areas the Owls came up short in the planning and hiring departments.

In the last six years where Heater was a sole DC, his defenses held opponents under 20 points per game. In the same six years as a sole DC, Drayton’s hire–buddy Everett Withers–allowed opposing offenses over 30 points a game.

Big difference.

Bigger difference is in the running game, though.

Instead of adding one of the 21 portal players who were 1,000-yard running backs, the Owls went for a guy from a worse team, FIU, who had half the yards of their own Edward Saydee. In case you missed it, the Owls were 131st in run-game efficiency and Saydee was their No. 1 back.

There are only 131 teams in FBS football and, after that, that’s where the FCS starts.

Not good.

Terrible, in fact.

Couldn’t be worse.

Ugh.

E.J. Wilson was that guy and I think Saydee will hold off that challenge and keep his job. Steele would have taken it.

Steele went to UCLA and another 1,000-yard back, Sean Tyler (Western Michigan), committed to Minnesota. Despite those being two P5 teams, I really that Temple could have convinced one to come East due to the fact that Drayton is a Running Game whisperer and the Owls really, really needed a stud running back. (UCLA and Minny didn’t have anywhere near the same need.)

Adding a Heater and a Steele would have gotten me pumped about an AAC title run for the Owls. Add both and I put money on it.

I’ve recalibrated my expectations just a little. It’s not championship or bust but bowl game or bust. If this team doesn’t win at least six games, I fear for the future of the sport at Temple.

I think one of the new AAC teams (UTSA or UAB) or even holdover Memphis or ECU are way more likely than the Owls to win the title this season.

Prove me wrong, Stan.

One of those “prove me wrong games” will come Oct. 7, when UTSA with quarterback Frank Walker is in Philly to play Temple and quarterback E.J. Warner in Homecoming Game guaranteed to sell over 30,000 tickets.

Win that game and the Owls might surprise everyone.

Still, the reason it’s bowl or bust is this.

One, you are coming off a 3-9 season that was twice as good as the prior 3-9 season from a competitive standpoint.

Two, you did a much better job keeping players than most of your league competitors.

Three, your schedule is the third-easiest one in all of FBS football.

All of those factors add up to at least six wins, hopefully, more.

If the Owls shock the world and host the AAC title game at the Linc, not getting that big-time running back or big-time DC would not have mattered.

Nothing would make me happier.

Or, really, any Owl fan.

Monday: How to Fix College Football

Friday: A 42-year run comes to an end