Category Archives: Stan Drayton

02.04.22
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Temple Football: It just feels different

The number one takeaway from Wednesday around the world will be that Temple signed about a dozen fewer football players than anyone else in the American Athletic Conference, most of them with fewer stars than the top dozen or so signees from the other teams.

That’s important but no less important is the vibe very successful ex-Owls who have been to the Edberg Olson facility since Stan Drayton took over have experienced.

Almost to a man everyone else has said: “It just feels different.”

Different, meaning good.

Stan Drayton’s hastily put together first class might not be rated high but has a couple of starters

Personality matters and the Owls went from a dead fish personality (Rod Carey) to a dynamo (Stan Drayton).

Many of us (raising my hand here) believe both Al Golden and Fran Brown (Temple guys) would have the same dynamic personality of (Texas guy) Stan Drayton but, now, with the decision already made, I will take my dynamos wherever I can get them. More and more, Drayton is becoming a Temple guy and that’s not an easy thing to do.

Anyone who treats Paul Palmer, Dave Gerson and Nadia Harvin with this much respect is OK in my book.

If you really believe only one person can return Temple to the kind of glory it had only in 2018 and 2019, then you are a special kind of naive. It wasn’t that long ago and there’s nowhere near the work now that needs to be done that, say, Golden did in 2005.

I’ve always felt that there are dozens of guys who could perform CPR on Temple now and my fellow ex-Owls who have visited the E-O have given Drayton their stamp of approval.

Since I haven’t been in the building (but most likely will on Cherry and White Day), I have to take their word for it.

Now the bigger question becomes does signing a dozen or so supbar (compared to the rest of the league) players put Temple in a position to win immediately?

That answer appears to be no.

In the AAC, the Jimmies and Joes will always beat the X’s and O’s.

There are two starters in this class, one I can identify (running back Darvon Hubbard) and that will come out of nowhere, maybe in the linebacker group. After 1-6 and 3-9, that’s not enough but it’s a starting point.

Drayton gets major points in my mind for acknowledging the need to sign a “scholarship quarterback” sometime after spring if “no one here has demonstrated the ability to handle the job.”

My advice is meaningless but I think Drayton should not wait until spring. Incumbent Dwan Mathis hasn’t proven to be good enough and newcomer Elijah Warner probably is a year away. Mathis needs competition at least as good and probably better if the Owls want to double their 2021 win total and that should be the minimum goal. Waiting until after spring means one of those three guys will already have committed elsewhere. Temple can’t afford to gamble.

If the Owls want more adversity, they should probably settle with Mathis and Warner leading the quarterback room.

Drayton said he wants adversity but if adversity means 3-9 again, that’s probably the kind of adversity he doesn’t want nor the kind of adversity fans are expecting.

There are at least three quarterbacks right now still in the portal who are better than anyone Temple has now and Drayton should probably pull the trigger before one of them gets away. Waiting until spring is definitely not needed if Drayton has, as he noted, watched the film. Stan, please rewind to the 3d and 17 play in the Cincy game and watch was Mathis did. After seeing that, please tell me he doesn’t need competition.

No matter how different things feel now, another 3-9 would be the kind of flashback no Temple fan or coach ever wants to experience again and raise questions about the future that would counter any current optimism.

Monday: American Underdog

01.31.22
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Temple football: Dog hunting season

Hopefully, Drayton does turn out to be a home run for Temple.

That old saying a “hungry dog hunts best” certainly could apply to new head Temple football coach Stan Drayton.

The outsiders, objective people supposedly in the know about college football, rated the Temple coaching hire pretty low on the totem pole and maybe Drayton will use that disrespect and work that much harder to prove the doubters wrong.

What he needs now is players and this is the week to get them.

Heaven knows the Owls need some dogs, the fighting kind and not the laying down kind.

The national sports website Yardbarkers rated the Temple hiring 25th between Sonny Cumbie (Louisiana Tech) and Jon Sumrall (Troy).

Maybe Drayton is hungry enough to prove the doubters wrong. Or guys like Cumbie and Sumrall will prove to be hungrier.

Whatever, the way college football works these days, we could know as soon as December because the transfer portal has proven to turn some mediocre teams to winning ones in a year. For instance, Western Kentucky recruited a portal quarterback out of Houston Baptist, Bailey Zappe, and his 61 touchdown passes helped turn the Hilltoppers from 5-7 to 8-5 in a few months.

Co-DC Ola Adams teased some good news with this Sunday tweet.

Can Temple go from 3-9 to 8-5?

Probably not, but certainly a bowl is within reach in an era where there are more good players in the portal than available scholarships across the 130 FBS programs. It’s a buyer’s market, not a seller’s, and the teams that shop best off the field produce best on it. Recently, defensive back George Reid left the Owls and declared for the portal. Nice player, but there are upgrades all over the place out there and one of Drayton’s jobs is to find one for Reid, and another for record-breaking wide receiver Jadan Blue, two of the few who left.

Already, Drayton got a South Carolina cornerback to commit and a Florida linebacker visited this weekend and Kurt Warner’s son, Elijah, “fell in love with the place” (Temple) and committed. While Warner is only 5-foot-11, the more important numbers associated with him are 26 (touchdowns) and eight (interceptions). That’s a more than acceptable ratio when you consider the Owls’ starting quarterback, Dwan Mathis, had 20 touchdown passes to 11 interceptions in his last full high school year. G5 football proved much tougher as Mathis had only nine touchdown passes against six interceptions and that was nowhere near good enough for either Dwan or Temple.

In fact, only two other recent Temple recruits had more touchdown passes as a high school senior than Warner did and those were Anthony Russo (Archbishop Wood, 2015) and Adam DiMichele (Sto-Rox, 2004), both with 35 each. Even the great P.J. Walker (Elizabeth, N.J) had only 24 touchdown passes his senior year. If Warner produces at Temple like Russo, Walker and DiMichele did, I will sign for that now. It’s not the only metric but consider this: Vaughn Charlton (Avon Grove) and Chester Stewart (DeMatha) had nine and 17 touchdown passes, respectively, their senior years and they were at Temple what their record said they were in high school.

Subpar would be a kind word.

Still, it’s hard to figure that Warner, right now, is anything more than a replacement for Justin Lynch, who transferred to Northern Illinois. Maybe a couple of more years down the road he can be a starter at Temple.

One immediate starter probably will be at running back, where the Owls upgraded their room with the addition of Texas A&M portal transfer Darvon Hubbard.

Definitely fits the profile of a fighting dog, not a passive one.

The Owls need a few more who fit the description. By Wednesday, we will know how hungry Drayton turned out to be.

Friday: Reaction to Signing Season

01.28.22
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Why the old signing day is important to Temple

Temple needed to sign about 14 Darvon Hubbards for this class to make an immediate impact.

Two things you will never hear a college football coach say:

  1. “We’ve got no chance this season.”

2. “Today is signing day. We did a lousy job getting players.”

The first Wednesday in February was the “old” signing day. It’s the most important day now. It hasn’t been that important to Temple football since the 2007 season when Al Golden took great pride in the fact that one of the two major online scouting services ranked the Temple recruiting class No. 1 in the Mid-American Conference (MAC).

Many of those players had key roles for the 2009 team that played in the Eagle Bank Bowl. Arguably, they were even better in 2010 season when they went 8-4 and beat the G5’s only representative in the top six bowls, UCONN. (That Temple team didn’t go to a bowl but should have. On the day after Golden had to break the bad news to the Owls, he hightailed it out to Miami.)

Since then, Temple has not had a No. 1 recruiting class in any league it has been a participant.

Still, the Owls were able to not only win one championship (2016) but finish second in another season (2015).

Those were outliers, though, and the “inlier” of every recruiting year is that the haves will win championships and the haves will not. Since Temple beat Cincinnati in the 2018 season, the Bearcats have had No. 1-ranked recruiting classes in the AAC and Temple has been in the middle of the pack or worse.

The results?

Despite coaching schemes that were better suited to NIU personnel than Temple’s, Rod Carey was able to cobble together whatever talent Geoff Collins had in that 2019 season and win eight games. On the field, recruiting has pretty much predicted the wins and losses.

It does almost every year in every league.

This year, despite hiring a “charismatic” head coach, the Owls have failed to move up from their penultimate ranking in the league’s recruiting. To expect a recruiting class at the bottom of the league now to finish in the top of taking care of business on the field two or three years from now takes an overly active imagination.

Before the Hubbard signing, Temple’s recruiting class was ranked ahead of only Navy in the AAC. I don’t think that has moved the needle upward.

Logically, that cannot continue for Temple to expect success in the future.

Stan Drayton could prove to be a great recruiter in the future but did not deliver a great first class. Other than Kurt Warner’s son, Elijah, or a portal running back from Texas A&M, Darvon Hubbard, there isn’t a significant IMMEDIATE impact player in this group.

Still, the Hubbard transfer represents more of what Temple needs right now. Power 5 players with big upside who haven’t been able to get on the field but could help the Owls. Temple had about five running backs who were decent last year but could not outrun a single AAC secondary for a long score. That was a huge red flag. Temple needs someone who is a threat to take it to the house on every single handoff, just like Paul Palmer, Bernard Pierce and Jahad Thomas was back in their days.

Hubbard, who has a better resume than any of the holdovers, just might be and Warner, because he’s got the same bloodlines as his dad, should be an immediate upgrade over the departed Justin Lynch. Lord knows Dwan Mathis who was good in only one game–but NOT GOOD ENOUGH in the others–needs competition next season. He needs to fear that there is someone behind him good enough to replace him. Warner may or may not be that guy but there are plenty of players still left in the portal who are and Temple should be open to getting them as well.

When you lose the last six games of the season by seemingly (although not actually) 100-0 each Saturday, that dictates the talent you have in the Edberg Olson Hall meeting room needs a significant upgrade.

Have we seen it with the players this new staff has brought in?

Err, no.

When Wednesday rolls around, Drayton will say all the right things about being pleased with his first recruiting class but unless he brings in more guys like Warner and Hubbard, history will tell the story. The Owls need run-stoppers and pass rushers, particularly. They can get by with the corners, safeties, and linebackers they have right now but the defensive front seven needs to be stronger, both literally and figuratively, and that can’t be improved just in the weight room.

Temple needs to get to where it was recruiting at the top of the league it competes in and it hasn’t been there in a decade and a half. It needs 14 Hubbards at all positions, not just one at running back.

There’s a reason why Alabama or Georgia win the recruiting rankings every year and four years later one of them win the natty. Temple needs only to win the AAC recruiting rankings. It won’t this season but that better be the standard next. It has not been met this year due to the extenuating circumstance of waiting too long to fire the last guy (who should have been outta here after the USF debacle and what we wrote right after that game in this space).

Next year, Temple’s class should be at the top of the league.

The Temple administration or fans should demand no less.

Monday: Great Expectations.

01.21.22
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Johnson’s biggest project yet to come?

Plenty of room to build a 10,000-seat North end zone plus getting rid of those few houses (quite a few currently boarded up) across 10th Street would give the Owls a 25,000-seat West Grandstand.

If only a Rod Carey football game plan had as many surprises as the introductory press conference of new Temple football coach Stan Drayton, the Owls might have won enough games to keep Mr. Boring in charge today.

One surprise struck me, though.

Johnson said this in front of the assembled media when asked about his involvement in picking Drayton: “I had a chance to get to know Stan while we worked together at the University of Texas. He is an outstanding football coach and an even better person. He knows what success looks like at the highest levels of football. He also knows what it takes to be successful in this city having spent six years of his career here and learned from two of the city’s legendary football coaches.”

The only way TU can convince Norris Street neighbors to build at 15th Street is to give them all new houses overlooking the new stadium like this and that might be cost prohibitive.

No more than minutes later, Johnson said this in a smaller post-conference gathering:

“I don’t think my being at Texas was a big part of Stan being hired here. I was involved in about $675 million dollars of building projects there so I only knew him superficially.”

Hmm.

We went from “get to know” to the connection “not being a big part.”

That wasn’t key thing, though, Johnson said as far as Temple football’s future.

“I was involved in about $675 million of building projects …”

Four months ago, Temple was looking for an AD and, of the four finalists, only one was involved in any significant building projects.

The Board of Trustees hired that guy.

This is the same board of trustees that voted nearly unanimously to submit a plan to the City of Philadelphia that closed a portion of 15th Street permanently to build a $250 million football stadium and only backed off when they were confronted by a small but angry group of community residents one memorable March night a few years ago.

Presumably, they still want to build it and must feel Johnson is the point guy to get this project done like he did so many in Austin, Texas.

Now, with President Jason Wingard in place along with Johnson and Drayton, the Owls have three high-profile African-American point men to convince a mostly African-American community that this is in the best interest of both the university and the community.

To me, getting this done requires some thinking outside the box in addition to the personalities involved.

Closing 15th Street–even between Norris and Montgomery–seems to be a non-starter so the administration should be looking for another place to build.

They got the community to come on board for a $22 million athletic facility at Broad and Master a few years ago that is used 87 times a year, not the six times Temple will use a new football stadium. Since a trade building was part of that deal, knocking it down to build a football stadium there (and moving the Olympic sports to 15th and Norris) probably also is a non-starter.

How about using the Edberg-Olson facility as the new stadium?

There’s already a regulation 100-yard field there, plus enough room for a 10,000-seat North End zone and a 25,000-seat West Side. The current E-O offices can be used for a small (maybe 1,000-seat Owl Club super box plus press box) area.

The only concessions the university would need from the city is to close 10th Street from Susquehanna to Diamond and that would seem easier to do than 15th from Norris to Montgomery. Tenth Street is not as viable a thoroughfare as 15th Street is and nowhere near the number of residents would be impacted on the Edberg Olson side of the campus.

For the time it takes to build the stadium, the football team can move its practices and offices to Geasey Field. If needed, another $10 million practice facility can be constructed at 15th and Norris. (That’s where the Owl football team practiced from 1974-2004.)

That’s the kind of thinking outside the box that Johnson did at UT.

If he can pull that game plan off at UT, he should be able to do it at TU. Hell, considering his resume, that’s what they might have hired him to do.

Monday: Humility Personified

01.16.22
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The Temple coaching tie that binds

At least Texas State has a nice on-campus stadium

When things get particularly boring or depressing in the defensive coaching room at Edberg Olson Hall this fall, at least the new Temple defensive football coaching staff can talk about old war stories in San Marcos.

We’re not talking about the WW2 Italian campaign led by Fifth Army commander U.S. General Mark Clark.

We’re talking about going to war leading the football team at Texas State in San Marcos, Texas.

No less than five Temple staffers, mostly on defense, spent some time at Texas State and three of them (defensive line coach Antoine Smith. linebacker coach Chris Woods and cornerbacks coach Jules Montinar) coached for current Temple football Chief of Staff Everett Winters, the head coach there from 2016-2018.

The war there did not go as well for Winters and his troops as it did for Clark in the big one. Between 2016-18, the Bobcats finished 7-28 with a pair of 2-10 seasons.

Winters has his fingerprints all over these hires and, while he might be pleased with them, had new head coach Stan Drayton consulted NFL Hall of Famer Bill Parcells, he would have nixed those hires in the bud. Parcells was famous for this one line: “You are what your record says you are.”

Spoiler alert: It’s not good.

In the 2016 season, the Bobcats gave up 64 to Houston, 42 to Arkansas, 41 to Georgia State, 40 to Louisiana Monroe, 47 to Idaho, 50 to New Mexico State and 40 to Troy. That was the same year Temple held the then highest-scoring team in the nation, Navy, to just 10 points in winning the AAC championship.

The next year wasn’t much better: 44 to UTSA, 45 each to three teams (Monroe, Wyoming and New Mexico State) and 62 to Troy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to what is mostly the new defensive staff at Temple University.

Ugh.

New DC D.J. Eliot doesn’t get off free in this comparison. He also coached at Texas State, albeit in 2003 and 2004.

Presumably, he knows he knows the cuisine in San Marcos as well as the other guys.

If doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, these guys better remember what they did at Texas State and do the exact opposite here.

If not, somebody will be eating crow and that person could be former Texas (not state, though) Director of Football Operations Arthur Johnson, who opened the floodgates for all of these Texas guys to relocate to Philadelphia.

Friday: Building Blocks

01.14.22
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The only recruiting model Temple really needs

Temple needs it to rain players and should raid for the transfer portal this season and high school players next.

Over the next few days, the dominant topic of discussion in the Philadelphia area will be of two weather models, the GFS and the EMRF.

For those acronym-challenged people, they refer to the Global Forecast System model and the European Mid-Range Forecast.

One, the GFS, is calling for a pretty big snowstorm in the city; the other, the EMRF, is saying only a little snow changing to rain.

Snow-haters like me are rooting for the EMRF to win out in this battle of the computer projections.

In this day and age of college football recruiting, there are two models, too.

Really, that’s the Transfer Portal System (of) Recruiting to take precedence over the High School method that has lasted for a few generations.

Temple fans should root for the TPSR over the traditional HSR model in a recruiting cycle that is set to end in a couple of weeks because there is a lot of talk of “being patient” with new head coach Stan Drayton and that “four wins would be considered progress.”

That notion needs to be disabused right now. Patience, smachience.

The green area the above graphic represents the spots that Temple should target getting every significant portal player inside that geographic circle. If so, the Owls can be a winning team as early as next year.

Only a few Temple fans seem to “get it” and one of them is a friend of mine who posts under the screen name of MH55 on OwlsDaily.com. This was a particularly brilliant post that cut to the heart of the work that Drayton needs to both do and get done over the next two weeks:

MH55’s immediate expectations for Stan Drayton should be the same for every Temple fan.

I used to sit in the general proximity of MH55 on the 50-yard-line lower level. We both attended the game where Temple scored 55 points on Eastern Michigan the day after Thanksgiving. That was my first purchase of Chickie and Pete’s crab fries and, after one or two hot bites, I handed the bucket to MH55, who had acquired a taste for them. I was pretty happy not to throw them in the trash.

What we saw that day was the beginning of a pretty remarkable transformation of Temple football from a 20-game losing streak to college football respectability.

There was no transfer portal that day, so Al Golden had to build Temple football the hard way, finding under-recruited players, slowly building their bodies in the weight room, and patiently waiting to win.

There’s a quick-fix system now, the portal, and there are way too many good Power 5 players in it for the available scholarships. Once these players realize it, Temple becomes a viable option. That’s how Georgia’s 2020 starting quarterback, Dwan Mathis, ended up at Temple.

If Temple wants to win right away, and it should, it will have to hit the portal hard this year and rely on more traditional methods in subsequent years. Temple needs guys ready to play now, not guys they need to build up in the weight room and wait three years for contributions.

It could be the same story Drayton writes by signing day if he’s smart. Temple needs to bring in as many as 15 Power 5 portal transfers, good ones, who will not be satisfied with playing on a team with “just” four wins. It certainly needs more than the six Rod Carey’s staff brought in last season.

Or it could go into the portal pool the same way Carey’s failed staff did, one toe at a time. That wasn’t good enough.

Drayton’s staff needs to be immersed in it and the talent Temple puts on the field will have to be significantly better than the last group Owl fans saw. Temple needs great players now, not three years from now, and the only way to get them is through the transfer portal. As much as I want it to rain instead of snow Monday, that’s how much I want February’s signing day to rain great players at Temple. They aren’t getting immediate impact players out of any high school who hold only offers from Buffalo and FAU.

MH55 gets it. In about two or three weeks, we will find out if Drayton does, too.

Monday: The Tie That Binds

Friday: Johnson’s Next Project

01.10.22
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Now it’s more about the Jimmies and Joes

Even though Stan Drayton is the shortest guy in this photo, he stood tall for honoring Spencer Prescott’s Temple legacy last week.

Hard to believe it was more than 15 years ago, after attending a press conference that featured a Joe Klecko introduction, I dashed off a congratulatory email to a new Temple head coach.

It took only a couple of hours for Al Golden to respond.

“Thanks, Mike,” he said. “I’m going up to St. Peter’s today to recruit a guy who could be a game-changer. Wish me luck.”

One of Golden’s first recruits, the late Kee-Ayre Griffin, wasn’t a game-changer but he was a more than solid contributor to Temple’s turnaround. Griffin was holding offers from BC and Pitt, but something Golden said to him that day convinced him to attend Temple.

When I asked Al what he said a couple of weeks later at the signing day ceremony, Golden smiled and said, “that’s a professional secret” before telling me what his recruiting philosophy was. “We’ve got 46 percent of the nation’s population a five-hour drive from Temple. Not many schools can say that. We can’t get them all but we should be able to get enough really good players to turn this thing around.”

The rest was college football history.

In that first class, Golden recruited 18 team captains from either state or league championship high school teams.

The number on the helmet makes zero sense.

“They weren’t necessarily the most recruited guys in those teams,” he said, “but they were leaders of championship teams and I wanted to bring that mentality here. You bring five guys Power 5 schools want, mix in a bunch of leaders and guys you can develop and you can win.”

Drayton has put together the X’s and O’s part of the job. Now it’s time to get the Jimmies and Joes.

That’s pretty much the challenge Drayton faces now.

He’s not going to out-recruit Penn State or Maryland but, in the new AAC, he doesn’t have to. Get five guys holding P5 offers and 20 guys in the leader/development area and Temple can win that league. Really, all he has to do is out-recruit Memphis, UAB and USF and the Owls can challenge for the title every year.

Drayton might have the personality to do it.

Like Golden (and unlike Rod Carey), he’s already connected with Temple football alumni. Instead of sending a representative to former Owl coach Spencer Prescott’s funeral last week, Drayton showed up himself. Carey was pretty standoffish with Temple football alums by comparison. It was a super classy move by Drayton. Golden was also good at networking with Temple football alums, as was Matt Rhule. Golden brought back TEMPLE on the helmets, because it reminded him of the Temple TUFF teams he faced while at Penn State. Maybe Drayton will put his own imprint on the program by bringing back TEMPLE on one side of the helmet and keeping the T on the other side. Getting rid of the number (which is already on the jersey and was a Carey move) makes the most sense.

That’s cosmetic, though. The substantive change is getting back to the Temple TUFF culture re-established under Golden.

The template for Temple football success has been established. All Drayton has to do is follow it and success will follow.

Wish him luck.

Friday: Navigating the new paradigm

Monday: The Tie That Binds

01.03.22
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The AAC: Temple should be the new Cincy

In any other season, AAC commissioner Mike Aresco should be thrilled.

Before Cincinnati lost to Alabama in the National semifinals, the league was 5-0 (two wins, three forfeits) and 2-0 in actual games against the vaunted SEC.

This year was a little different, though.

Owners of two of those wins, UCF and Houston, will be gone soon but probably hang around next season. So will Cincy.

Bragging about being a Power 6 conference is probably out of the question now.

Temple should not expect to compete for the title this year, but there is no reason the Owls should not expect or demand to be on top in the new AAC that begins next year. In other words, the administration should demand no less than being the new Cincinnati. Temple beat Cincy four-straight years before losing to the Bearcats the last couple of times.

Temple, like Cincy, is located in a big city and should be vying with another large city school, Memphis, the title every year. Even USTA and UAB are ahead of the Owls right now but, with judicious use of the transfer portal, the Owls should be able to overtake those schools.

Should be and will be are two different things.

The task for new head coach Stan Drayton is to right the ship this year. If he learns anything from the failures of Rod Carey, it’s that dipping into the portal for just six players when your roster is speed, depth and strength challenged is simply not enough.

The Owls have to get a dozen potential starters out of the portal to just be competitive right away, say, 6-6, and then take the next step toward contending for the title in 2023.

The portal has mostly taketh away from Temple in the Carey years but Temple needs to do some innovative things to benefit from it.

The Owls really need to get a quarterback who can challenge Dwan Mathis for the starting role. Justin Lynch and Mario Valenti were just not good enough.

They may need to dip into the FCS ranks and nab a quarterback. Look at how Western Kentucky quarterback Bailey Zappe put his team on the map after transferring from tiny Houston Baptist. The Owls need to find another Bailey Zappe. Watching the FCS playoffs, there are plenty of quarterbacks out there even better than Mathis and the competition might be good for Dwan, too.

Other than that, getting some of the lost Temple players back would help, too. Vince Picozzi was the second-best offensive lineman on the team for two-straight eight-win seasons and would solidify the line. Cornerback Linwood Crump has always been positive about Temple in his tweets and would be welcome back.

They are the kind of leaders the rest of the team both remembers and respects and would take no BS in the locker room and accept no less than maximum effort, something we did not see in either 2020 or 2021.

Drayton can set the tone by hiring a terrific staff and a strength coach the players relate to (David Feeley is available), but he needs more Jimmy and Joes than X’s and O’s and he needs them now.

Without Houston, UCF and Cincy, there is a void at the top of the AAC.

The Owls better have a plan to fill it.

01.01.22
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Happy New Year From Temple Football Forever

May the Temple Owls figure out a way to win double-digit games in 2022

Since our picking season is over, this is what we wrote on Christmas Eve:

“Final college football picks of the year: Would love to pick Cincy getting the 13.5 against Bama but, like all G5 football fans, will watch that with a rooting interest only. Only three games jumped out to me:

EAST CAROLINA getting 3 against BC in the Military Bowl. ECU beat Temple, 45-3 and BC beat Temple, 28-3; MICHIGAN STATE laying the 2.5 against Pitt without former Temple commit Kenny Pickett (opting-out) in the Peach Bowl (hell, freaking WESTERN Michigan beat Pitt with Kenny); UTAH getting 6.5 against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Utah has been a completely different team since losing to BYU in the Holy War.

Record for the season: 28-25-1. Hopefully, we will hit the 30-win mark by the New Year.”

Final record for the season: Won on Utah covering and Michigan State laying the points and wish ECU would have had the chance to beat BC in the Military Bowl. Finished 30-25-2 (push in one game, cancellation in the other) for the season. So betting $50 on 30 wins=$1,500. Losing $55 on 25 losses=$1,375, ending with us $125 on the plus side.

12.26.21
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Drayton seems to have won half the battle

Chuck Heater was so popular with Temple players he received this post-game Gatoraid shower after leading the Owls to their first bowl win in 30 years.

There are plenty of battles ahead for a team that finished 1-6 and 3-9 in consecutive shocking seasons, but new Temple football coach Stan Drayton seems to have won half the battle in just two short weeks.

He applied the tourniquet and seems to have stopped the transfer portal bleeding. No significant players have announced they are leaving and that’s something that couldn’t be said in this same two-week period a year ago.

That’s something that cannot be minimized because former head coach Rod Carey took a figurative knife to work every day and there was more bleeding at the E-O than in the movie Psycho.

The players didn’t like him, and their dislike for him never seemed to bother Carey. In the era of the transfer portal, that kind of indifference is a death sentence.

Not surprising that you needed a bucket to clean up all of the bleeding of the players who went out the door.

The other half of the battle is assembling a good staff. Without mentioning names, there is some discussion of bringing in a guy from Kansas and Colorado who allowed more than 30 ppgs in high-profile DC jobs.

Drayton promised at his opening-day press conference to attempt to bring in staff members with ties to Temple and Philadelphia but, so far, the new DL coach has a tie to Lafayette and a recent job at Colorado State. Bringing in Chuck Heater as DC would seem to me to be a no-brainer since Heater was the new CSU guy’s boss AND was the last DC at Temple to post back-to-back shutouts (2011). Math was never my best subject, but I’ll take a guy who allowed zero points in consecutive games AT TEMPLE over one who averaged 30ppg any day of the week and Heater is available, seemed to enjoy his time at Temple (biking to practice every day from Center City) and understands Temple TUFF as well as any outsider.

Chuck Heater went over to Marshall and had success after leaving Temple

The staff evaluation will have to wait until Drayton’s full Gang of 10 on-field assistants are assembled, but the early returns in that area are not good.

Most of the staff remains to be picked so, if Drayton has as good a second half this week as the Eagles had yesterday, everybody in “Temple Philadelphia” and not “Lafayette Philadelphia” will be happy.

Drayton’s first message to the team indicated a good sense of evaluating the film and this quote was particularly telling:

“The little bit of film that I did see, I saw some quit show up,” Drayton said.  “And we talked about what greatness is.  Greatness has no quit in it at all.  And that showed up.  And that bothers me.  However, if as a football team we can face that as a reality, accept it for what it is, then I know we can move forward.”

That’s something just about every Temple fan noticed post the Memphis game and even some players alluded to it.

It appears he will be moving forward with the bulk of this year’s roster buying in and the first step toward program health is stopping that bleeding and maybe as much as half the battle. Don’t know if choosing assistants can be called the other half, but it’s at least the first quarter.

Friday: Areas of Need