Category Archives: Steve Addazio

02.02.12
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Final month boosts Owls into ‘][‘op spot

The 2012 Temple football recruiting class.

Kevin Newsome was No. 2 PSU QB in 2009.

Well, there were the 2010 baseball Giants and the 1993 Phillies and, now, you can put the 2012 Temple football Owls into that elite group.
All three teams went from worst to first in a very short time.
For the two baseball teams, we’re talking about last-place to first-place finishes in pennant races within a 365-day period.
For our beloved football Owls, we’re talking about being ranked dead last in MAC recruiting (by Scout.com) as late as November to being ranked No. 1 (by both Scout and Rivals.com).
From my money, give me Temple’s performance in football as being the most impressive.
Steve Addazio carried the baton to the finish line to grab gold like Carl Lewis in the Olympic 400-meter relay race, getting the No. 7 all-purpose running back in the nation in Jamie Gilmore and Penn State transfer Kevin Newsome (once rated the No. 10 overall recruit in the nation) in the final days.
The last Penn State quarterback who transferred to Temple, Steve Joachim, merely won the Maxwell Trophy emblematic of college football’s best player (1974). Here is a trip into the Newsome “way back” machine, if you consider Dec. of 2008 way back.

Robinson: I’ve always loved Temple.

Throw in Archbishop Wood defensive back Nate Smith, a West Virginia decommit that we talked about here on Saturday night, and the Owls moved to the top with bullet-like speed.
Now I don’t put too much emphasis on stars because they are skewed in favor of the big-conference teams but this is the most impressive fact about the current Temple Owl group:
Nineteen (yes, 19) of the 28 turned down offers (not just interest) by BCS schools to attend Temple.
That, my friends, is how you win championships and I expect this group will join the current Owls in winning multiple titles, whether it is in the MAC or the Big East or somewhere else.
This sent me scouring over the recruiting guides I got from attending Al Golden signing days and the highest number of definite BCS turn downs (not including the vague notion of interest) was Al Golden’s second recruiting class and that was a harvest of nine.
I’m not sure how Addazio was able to quantify this as “Temple’s best recruiting class ever” which he did, but Daz can certainly make a strong argument that this is better than any Golden recruiting class. Best ever might be a little strong, since Temple recruiting classes brought in by Wayne Hardin and Bruce Arians were competing against a high BCS schedule, not one weighed down by eight MAC games a season.

Still, the high school deeds of the playing coming into Temple University take a back seat to no era.
Averee Robinson was 43-0 as a state championship wrestler during his junior year but said “truth be told, I really enjoy football more” and “I’ve always loved Temple.” Do you love this kid or what? With that kind of attitude, it won’t be long before he comes out from under brother Adrian’s shadow. He’s built low to the ground (6-1, 290) but nobody has the kind of leverage he does.
Adrian’s number at Temple was 43, the same number of wins Averee had in wrestling last year and the same number of touchdowns Gilmore scored.

Herbin ran away from
the competition in N.J.

Khalif Herbin also scored 36 rushing touchdowns against outstanding competition and averaged a sick 13.1 yards a carry from the line of scrimmage, often while taking off the entire second half because his Montclair (N.J.) team was benefiting from the Mercy Rule. I know they have him listed as a slot receiver, but I’d really like to see Daz give Herbin a shot at running back. Hey, if it worked for 5-5, 150-pound Matty Brown it will work for 5-7, 170-pound Herbin.
This story calls Herbin “arguably the most electrifying player in the state” but I did not get a single argument when I asked a North Jersey colleague who would be the other part of that argument.
“Nobody,” he said. “I guess the writer just wanted to use the word arguably but, honestly, there was no close second.”
Truth be told, to borrow a phrase from Averee Robinson.

For a complete list of bios and photos click here:

01.10.12
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What can Daz do for Brown?

Bernard Pierce and Matty Brown react after Bill Bradshaw tells them about ordering gloves with the Temple T on the palm side.

Social scientists a lot smarter than I am give the three stages of grief as disbelief, disintegration and reintegration.
No doubt when you lose your favorite player from your favorite team as I did last week, there is an element of grief involved and I experienced all of those stages of grief in a relatively short time.
I’m in the reintegration stage, though, because while I grieve over Bernard Pierce’s loss, Matty Brown has always been my second-favorite player.



No truth to the rumor that this is how the team reacted
when Daz said Spencer Reid was replacing Bernard Pierce.

Bernie and The Bug are gone as a team but the bug is still here. Yet he cannot carry the running game alone, just as Bernie could not carry the running game alone.
At the end of December, head coach Steve Addazio threw out these names as possible sidekicks to Brown next year:
Jalen Fitzpatrick, Darius Johnson, Kenny Harper and Spencer Reid.
Sorry, Steve, I’m not buying it.
Fitzpatrick was a quarterback in high school and never played running back before. Johnson was an undistinguished and pedestrian running back in the Philadelphia Public League, quite possibly the worst high school football league in the state of Pennsylvania. Reid was given a scholarship as a running back despite running a painfully slow 4.6 40, making him slower than two of the Owls’ three starting linebackers last year. (Heck, I still think his dad could have afforded a full ride to Temple, saving that scholarship for, say, Ryan Brumfield.) Kenny Harper was better known as a safety in high school for Gainesville (Fla.) Buchholz and, quite frankly, did not EVEN REMOTELY show me any flashes of either Pierce or Brown on the limited number of carries he had at that position last year. I sincerely hope that when Justin Gildea moves from strong safety to free safety Harper will slide into the starting strong safety position next year. Both players could be All-MAC on defense right away.
Fitzpatrick would be perfect to slide into Joey Jones’ slot receiver spot. Deon Miller returns as one starting wide receiver and the Owls can chose from a whole lot of good options at the other WR, including playmaker Ryan Alderman.
My No. 1 solution would be for Temple to go out and find a big-time stud JUCO running back who is ready to go both on the field and in the classroom. Someone who has Bernard Pierce’s vision, speed, moves and quick burst to the outside.
Maybe that someone is Tiger Powell of Lake City, Fla.
Maybe it is someone else.
If Temple is not going to sign a big-time stud JUCO running back who is ready to go next year, there are better options available (some involve shuffling of personnel from offense to defense):

Brandon Peoples, Archbishop Wood _ It’s tough to ask an incoming freshman to make an impact right away but Brandon has the right initials. Another BP had 268 yards and three touchdowns in a 28-24 win at Navy as a true freshman, so maybe Brandon can duplicate that effort. He’s 5-foot-10, 180 pounds, though. Pierce is 6-1, 218. Peoples is not competing for the PIAA state 100-meter dash championship. At Peoples’ age, Pierce won it.

Nate Smith, like BP, has a nose for the goal line.

Nate Smith, current starting linebacker candidate _ This is my personal choice on the current team to help out Matty Brown, leaving the two current linebacker starters in place. Smith has the size (6-0, 220) of Pierce and is just a tenth of a second slower than Pierce. As a senior at Highland Park (N.J.), he was unstoppable, rushing for 2,442 yards and 32 touchdowns. That’s five more touchdowns than Bernard Pierce scored for Temple in this record-breaking year. Brother of former Philadelphia Eagle L.J. Smith so he’s got very good bloodlines.  Nate has been a lifelong Owl, going from the Highland Park Owls to the Temple Owls.

Wyatt Benson (6-0, 215), current starting fullback _ Benson, a blocker extraordinaire, could play his current position and pick up five to 10 carries a game to take some of the rushing load off Brown and quarterback Chris Coyer. He finished his prep career at Haverford School (the Inter-Ac, unlike the Public, is a GREAT high school league) with 663 rushing yards, 217 receiving yards and 18 touchdowns.

Ahkeem Smith, current starting linebacker _ Started out as a backup running back to both Pierce and Brown at Temple. As a senior at Bethlehem Liberty, was a superstar running back in a great Lehigh Valley League with 27 touchdowns and 1,837 yards in his senior year. Showed the current coaches his running ability by scoring a touchdown against Buffalo on a fake punt.

Blaze Caponegro, current starting linebacker _ The 2008 Shore Conference Player of the Year ran for 350 yards against Manasquan (yes, that was 350 yards in just one game), scoring five touchdowns. So he knows how to run the football.

12.23.11
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Addazio’s sound advice for Bernard Pierce

One last time, Derek “Bonecrusher” Dennis leads the Diamond Marching Band in bowl-championship T for Temple U. Bernard Pierce will do that after the national title game next year (hopefully).

At this time of the year around the turn of the century (last one, not this one), a young girl named Virginia wrote a letter to a newspaper editor asking if there really was a Santa Claus.
What followed was about the best response to a letter to the editor in the history.

“I’ve always been a believer if you have a chance to be a first-round pick, that’s great. But, if not, I think you come back and get your degree and enjoy your senior year and be a marquee player in the country and all the great things that go with it.”

_ Steve Addazio

Steve Addazio isn’t an editor, but he gave Bernard Pierce just as good response on whether or not he should enter the NFL draft.
The basic tenant of which was, yes, Bernard, there will be an NFL next year (and the year after that) and if you are not going to be a first-round pick THIS year, stay in school, get that degree, and possibly get guaranteed first-round money NEXT year.
I haven’t seen one first-round projection this year, but I can easily envision it after a solid senior season for Bernard.
Here are some highlights from the Addazio press conference:
“I have (sat down with Bernard) and he’s got to sit down with his family and evaluate the situation. Those are personal decisions and they’ve got to make them based off the facts.
“You put your stuff into the NFL and get feedback and let them process the information, that’s all you can do. I’ve got friends in the league and give them feedback. You give him all the information that’s factual and doesn’t have an agenda to it.

Four of the estimated 6,000 TU fans in Owlbuquerque.
Thanks, CT, for the great photo

“I’ve always been a believer if you have a chance to be a first-round pick, that’s great. But, if not, I think you come back and get your degree and enjoy your senior year and be a marquee player in the country and all the great things that go with it. I’m a guy who deals in facts. I’m not an agenda person. You want the facts, here’s the facts. If you want my opinion, then here’s my opinion. In this world we’re in today, at times, there’s a lot of different opinions that have agendas.
“All you can do is offer your help. Do I have all the answers? No. I have some experience in it. All you can do is offer your opinion.”
On whether the decision to come out should be made on whether or not he’s a first-round pick:
“Me, yeah. That’s not just me. That’s a pretty strong consensus out there. I mean, Stay in school. Get your degree. Play college football. You are supposed to be in college for four years.
“Guys came out of school early for one reason. The money got so grand in the first round … I mean, that’s why but not to just do it. The NFL is a rough business. Stay in college. Enjoy yourself as long as you can. Get your degree. It’s all about getting your degree. Get your life set. Joy is fleeting. Knowledge is everlasting. Don’t get away from those fundamentals.”
Very profound.
Not exactly as profound as “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” but certainly “Yes, Bernard, there will be an NFL next year” rings just as deeply.
Heck, I’ve always written that Bernard is a first-round draft pick. I maintained that since his freshman year but that assumption was made on the basis of a four-year career.
If he stays for his senior year, he will be one just as certainly as  there is an  NFL.
Santa Claus?
I’ll leave that question for the newspaper editors.

12.20.11
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New Mexico Bowl: The Fifth Quarter

Steve Addazio either tells very funny jokes or heard one here.



Chuck Heater seems to be enjoying his time at Temple.

Sometimes during all of this talk about recruiting rankings, coaching changes, conference shifting and declaring early, we forget one thing.
Football is a game and it is supposed to be fun.
Thank you, Temple football team, for reminding us of that most important fact on Saturday afternoon.
I have to laugh when, after a big win, some reporter asks a head coach “what’s next?” when the correct response would be, hey, how about enjoying this win a little bit first?
That’s what I took away from Saturday.
Temple’s 37-15 win over Wyoming was a tribute to the coaching staff and the players for all the hard work they put in pretty much over the last 365 days.
It was fun watching it unfurl for three hours on the field.
It was even more fun watching the fifth quarter, the celebration afterward.
Heck, the game was not in doubt so that quarter began a little early, with Rod Streater dunking head coach Steve Addazio with a gatoraid cooler filled with water.
“He’s the realist coach there is, but I had to get him, though,” Streater said.
Then came a dunking for another real good coach and overall great person, defensive coordinator Chuck Heater.


Morkeith Brown makes sure too many hands don’t spoil the pot.

 Even assistant coach Matt Rhule got a water bottle full of cold shock. It wasn’t a whole cooler, but Rhule isn’t even a whole coordinator.
Addazio turned to Rhule and laughed.
This was all while the game was going on, but had been decided.
Afterward, it was even better.
Addazio said something only he and the team could hear and they roared laughing. I will use the next two weeks to find out what that was and, if it’s clean (and I think it was), I will pass it along here.
There was 26-year-old Iraq war vet Morkeith Brown lifting the New Mexico Bowl Trophy, a Native American Clay Pot. Like the former tight end he was, the defensive end did not drop it.

Saturday’s TV ratings in Philly market
Dallas/Tampa on NFL Net – 5.5 RTG 10 Share 8pm to 11pm
Temple/Wyoming on ESPN – 3.3 RTF 8 share 2pm – 530pm.
Flyers Hockey on Sportsnet – 1.8 RTG 5 share – 1pm to 330pm

Thank God.
It would have probably had to make the five-hour flight home in pieces.
There was no more appropriate guy to hoist the bowl trophy.
Brown was a leader from the day he walked into the Edberg-Olsen Football Complex and he was a leader until the day he walked off the field at the last time.
He will be missed, but the memories he and his teammates created will remain.
What’s next is a question for another day and you can bet this staff is working on the answers right now.
I, for one, am not done basking in the glow of the fifth quarter.

12.16.11
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New Mexico Bowl: Final exam for Daz

Dave “Owlified” Gerson’s excellent senior highlight video. If there is a “techie” out there who can remix the background music of this from the classical format to D.J. Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” on a loop than get back to me. Love the Ed Benkin call of Joe Jones’ touchdown catch and don’t love the Harry Donahue call on the Kee-ayre Griffin blocked field goal “running with it is Robinson. Johnson, rather” (which is pretty much a typical Harry Donahue call).

This is going to look awfully good at the E-O.

My good friend Fizzy and I were talking about Steve Addazio’s first year as Temple’s head coach after the final game of the regular season.
“I’m going to have to give him a C,” Fiz said. “Not excellent. Not good. Satisfactory.”
Fizzy is a former Temple football great and someone who spent the rest of his life giving out grades for a living as an esteemed educator.
I thought his grade of Daz was a fair one until that point.
I gave him an incomplete because you really can’t give Steve Addazio a grade until he completes his finals.
That comes tomorrow (2 p.m., ESPN) in the New Mexico Bowl.
If Temple beats Wyoming to a pulp, 31-14, something on the order I expect it to, Addazio’s grade improves to a B+, which is very good. If it’s a 28-27 win, it drops to a B.
I could not in fairness give Addazio a B or an A on the basis of his first regular season because I thought he made some key errors in judgment that could have cost the Owls at least a couple of games:

Some that come to mind:

  • Removing Mike Gerardi with a lead in the Penn State game. I thought Gerardi was following the “plan to win” until he was removed. The plan to beat Penn State was to avoid turnovers and make plays in the play-action passing game. Gerardi even threw the ball into the ground in the first half of the Penn State game, rather than make a turnover. When Chester Stewart was ineffective, Gerardi was reinserted and I really felt that the pressure went back to Gerardi to make a play in order to keep his job. The result was that he forced the ball into tight windows and Penn State picked him off twice.
  • The failure to remove Stewart in the Toledo or Bowling Green games. Stewart was never held to the same high standard Gerardi was and he was allowed to remain in the game Toledo despite throwing two picks. Against Bowling Green, it was painfully apparent he could not move the team. As a result, two games got away from the Owls.
  • Not recognizing the talent he had in Chris Coyer. Daz said he was “thisclose” to starting Coyer against Villanova. Had he done that, it’s much more likely Temple would have gone 10-2 instead of 8-4. Heck, Villanova was the perfect game to get Coyer’s feet wet. Owls would have beaten that sorry ass team, 42-7, with Stewart (suspended for that game), Gerardi, Coyer or Clinton Granger.

Now come the finals on Saturday before an ESPN national television audience.
Daz will ace his final with a 31-14 win and earn my B plus. He can’t get an A because I really feel this is the most talented team of the last three years and Al Golden reached a minimum eight with slightly lesser talent.
If he wins this game, though, Daz will accomplish one of the big things he said he would do (see sidebar of this blog) which is to get the team in a bowl game and win it.
That’s very good in my book and something Golden never did.
Heck, even a tough marker like Fizzy might be forced to redo his grade as well.

11.14.11
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Survive and advance time for Owls

They do allow you to give the ball to the fullback and Wyatt Benson can run.

Survive and advance.
You can toss out all the scenarios you want about Temple having a chance at winning the MAC East if so-and-so beats such-and-such but, simply put, we’ve reached the “survive and advance” part of the season for Temple.
Win and live another day.

“Please tell Daz to stop using you as a fullback. Toss left, toss right.
Screen passes. Sweeps. That’s The Franchise I know.”

Photo by Ryan Porter

Lose and there will be no postseason, even though there will be another game to play.
Getting to a bowl game seems possible, even probable, for Temple should the Owls go 8-4 again.
You can forget about a bowl with a 7-5 Temple team.
Lose to Army and it’s over.
Yeah, you can say lose to Army and beat Kent and Ohio loses to Miami (and Buffalo finishes ahead of Bowling Green) and the Owls could win the MAC East.
That’s way too many variables to leave in other folks’ hands.
That’s why I’m hoping that Temple goes balls out in practice this week for Army.
Prepare for that option, which I have full confidence Chuck Heater is doing right now.

Joe Jones: Reverses, throwback passes.

Work on getting Bernard Pierce up to speed (and by speed we mean tweaking the offensive package so that he goes right and left and not up the middle).
If you want to run up the middle, hand the ball off to the fullback.
Get Chris Coyer more comfortable in his role, which means to stick the ball into Bernard Pierce’s belly and quickly pull it out and make a pass downfield to an open Temple Owl.
Work on the reverses with Joey Jones and throw in a trick play (a throwback pass from Jones to Coyer) or two (a halfback pass by Bernard Pierce). Heck, both Jones and Pierce can throw the ball (they both have a touchdown pass in their careers).
Army knows Jones can throw the ball. His touchdown pass, a nice tight spiral at Army, was Temple’s best forward pass last season.
Maybe even fullback Wyatt Benson will get the ball once or twice a game. As good a blocker as he is (and he’s a terrific one), he was a stud running back in high school at Haverford School.
Army hasn’t seen that part of his game on film yet.
When it is survive and advance, you pull out all of the stops.
Hopefully, that’s what practice will be all about this week.

11.12.11
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Teams to root for today: UB, SMU, Rutgers

Even in this age of instant communication, it’s going to be hard to find the score of the Buffalo at Eastern Michigan game.
First off, it’s never on KYW-AM (they only give top 10 scores) and it’s not on over the air TV (even pay cable) anywhere.
But it is on the internet and, for Temple fans, provides a rooting element.
All these teams would do Temple a big favor by winning:

Hooter is more endearing.

BUFFALO at Eastern Michigan (1 p.m., MAC all-access) _ If the Bulls finish ahead of Bowling Green in the standings, they provide a positive backup tie-breaker for Temple should it finish in a three-way tie with Miami and Ohio. Eastern Michigan is a three-point favorite. The game is on internet only. Buffalo’s got a chance. It beat Ohio.

She’d be perfect for me
if she was 20 years older
and I had $1 million

Navy at SMU (3:30, FSN) _ Southern Methodist football players wrote a letter to the school newspapers complaining about the lack of enthusiasm by their own fans in a win over TCU. They must be looking at the coeds and not on the field of play. Navy has to win all three of its remaining games (at SMU, at San Jose State and vs. Army) to qualify for a bowl Temple could be looking at attending (D.C., likely) and SMU is the toughest of the three. SMU is a seven-point favorite.

Cos and Hall and Oates are more famous.

RUTGERS vs. Army (3:30, Yankee Stadium, CBS College Sports) _ Same deal with Navy as Army has to win all three of its remaining games to qualify for a bowl. If Temple LOSES to Army, it still has a chance to qualify for a final bowl slot if Army loses today. Hopefully, both Rutgers and ESPECIALLY Temple beats Army. The Black Knights of the Hudson have proven to be a tough out on occasion this year, losing at Miami (Ohio) by only a touchdown and beating Northwestern, 21-14. Northwestern, you’ll recall, won AT Nebraska last week. Rutgers is an eight-point favorite.

11.12.11
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Bradley, Addazio and the MAC Roundtable


In the interview process, dynamo (left) always beats wet noodle.

One of the unexpected perks of blogging about Temple football is the people who reach out to me and try to fill in some questions that I have to help me keep the general TU football community relatively well-informed.
Some of them are well-connected people.
Around Dec. 23d, I was scratching my head when the name Steve Addazio came up as the guy who got the Temple head coaching job. All I heard for a week was Tom Bradley was the leading candidate and then with about five furlongs left, Addazio comes charging at the finish line and nips Bradley at the tape.

Graphic by Tim Riordan (not the ex-TU QB)

Or so I thought.
I, quite frankly, wasn’t excited about either one and I never even heard of Addazio.
Then I got an email from someone who was in the room when both Addazio and Bradley were interviewed.
“Mike, it wasn’t even close,” the man wrote. “Bradley came in and had the personality of a wet noodle and this guy [Addazio] was a dynamo. It was an easy choice.”
I watched the “wet noodle” Thursday in his first press conference as a head coach at Penn State and I understood just exactly how the Temple search committee felt.
All I could imagine was Lew Katz or somebody asking him what his “expectations” are for the Temple football program and Bradley saying “the expectations are the expectations” which he seemed to be saying like 100 times on Thursday.
No thanks, Tom.
Thanks for coming to Philadelphia and don’t let the door hit you in the backside on the way out.
I need more specificity than that.
I got it with Addazio and I’m pretty confident Temple made the right choice.
Since the penultimate day before Christmas, Addazio has been that dynamo.
Knowing what I know now, I’m glad to have a guy with that kind of personality leading my team. Also knowing what Bradley probably has known for 15 years, I don’t want anybody like that near my team.
This week, I’m hosting the MAC Blogger Roundtable and just like Addazio, both Tim Riordan (Buffalo) and B.J. Fischer (Bowling Green) are blogging dynamos and wasted little time in answering the questions.
Riordan is always the first across the finish line and his answers are here.
Fischer came in a couple of hours behind. One of the more interesting things in B.J.’s blog is that a Bowling Green alumn gave $10 million to athletics. I thought only Karl Smith had that kind of money to give Bowling Green.
I’ll add the rest after this paragraph when the ballots are counted:
Let’s Go Rockets

11.10.11
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Temple becomes bowl eligible

Any Eagle fan can tell you what the first words out of a famous Temple football father’s mouth will be after a win.
Andy Reid will clear his throat, cough a couple of times, and say:
“First off, any win in the National Football League is a good win.”

Deon Miller makes nice catch for touchdown.

That’s pretty much how I feel about the Mid-American Conference these days.
Any win in the MAC is a good win and Temple’s 24-21 bowl-eligible-qualifying win over gritty Miami (Ohio) was a good way to cap one of the most beautiful November days and nights, weather-wise, I can ever remember in my nearly half-century of living in Philadelphia.
The game was not as perfect, mind you, but pretty much what I expected.
Pretty much what all the Temple fans I talked to in the pre-game tailgate expected, too.
“Twelve-and-a-half points is way too high,” I said to pretty much everyone.
“Yeah,” pretty much everyone replied.
I thought the defense recaptured a little bit of the swagger it lost in the last couple of weeks (heck, it was hard to blame the defense for the Bowling Green loss) and the offense did just enough.
Game-plan wise, I would have liked to seen more first down play-action passes and not being forced into a situation where you HAVE to pass on third down all the time. I don’t think Temple mixed it up particularly well on offense. Then again, compared to last year’s offensive game plan, it was pure genius.

Dream remains alive
The ONLY scenario Temple can win the MAC East:
(Updated 11:35 a.m., 11/11/11)
Temple wins over Kent
Ohio loses to Miami (assuming it beats BGSU)
(TU, Miami and Ohio all tied
with 5-3 records but TU wins
on basis of second criteria)
Note: If Ohio loses to BGSU but not Miami, Ohio wins tie-breaker
source: MAC League Offices

There were a couple of silly penalties, one a late hit out of bounds and one an offsides, but those things can be fixed in the next week or so of practice.
I was heartened to hear that people behind me were getting text messages from folks watching at home that their enjoyment of watching the Temple game was curtailed because ESPN cut in for a Joe Paterno press conference.
Good.
There is no reason to be living within an hour’s drive of the stadium for a Temple home game and watch on TV. If my friends from Palmerton sitting behind me can get by one night of the year on four hours worth of sleep, then so can the Philadelphia couch potatoes who give Temple a bad fan reputation by staying home. I hope they missed a lot of exciting plays because I saw them all. I know Temple has a “softcore” fan base who stay at home and watch every time the Owls are on local TV (ratings indicate it), but that part of the fan base does the team and school irreparable harm by doing so. You can’t talk about being in a BCS conference and not travel to a home game.
End of rant.
From a personal standpoint, a highlight of mine was finally getting to meet my favorite player’s Mom.
I have three favorite players from the current era, Adrian Robinson, Adam DiMichele and Bernard Pierce, but Pierce is The Franchise in my mind and therefore my favorite. Heck, speaking as someone who saw Paul Palmer play every game, he’s flat-out better than Boo-Boo and that’s the highest compliment I can ever give anyone. He’s faster than Paul Palmer, has better moves and vision in the open field and can deliver more punishment to tacklers. The only facet of Paul’s game that was better was his durability.
So Pierce is my favorite Temple player and he has been since his freshman year.
Tammy is Bernard Pierce’s mom and while it was sad to see BP not playing (he should be back against Army), it was good to see the entire Pierce family just as wrapped up in the Owls as they would be if he was out there.
Hopefully, when The Franchise finally gets out there, Scot Loeffler will tweak the package for him just enough to get Pierce the ball in open space and not utilize him on “fullback-type”  draws so much. Pitchouts to the wide side of the field and screen passes ought to make Bernard Pierce lethal once again.
Still, you can’t say enough about the relief effort of tough hombre Matty Brown. If it wasn’t for Matty’s 120 yards, there would be no three-point win over a good team.
Even Andy Reid would agree.
Time’s yours.

10.31.11
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Former Pa. Gov. lobbying for TU in BE

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Ed Rendell introduces Hillary Clinton at Temple University.

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We’ll have a complete preview on the Temple vs. Ohio game tomorrow (which is really the only important thing to me right now) but I thought I’d use Monday to share some good news.
Former two-term Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell came out solidly behind Temple’s all-sports inclusion into the Big East Conference in a very big way today with an appearance on WIP Sports Radio (94.1FM and 610AM).
The Villanova Law grad also lectured his “other” alma mater on obstruction and really ripped them a new asshole, for want of a better term.
Since all of the Big East presidents are in town for the next two days, we assume this has gotten around and hopefully they will take Rendell’s advice to heart.
Place cursor over the gray area and advance it forward to the 5:25 mark.