Category Archives: Steve Addazio

10.26.11
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MAC Blogger Roundtable: Week 9

Graphic by Bull Run’s Tim Riordan

If you were wondering why my post “Shallow Hal” remained up on the screen for a few days, it’s because I’m just coming out of a 72-hour Chester Stewart-induced stupor.
On Saturday night, I just sat at the computer staring at the screen for 27 minutes (yeah, I checked the computer clock) after Temple’s 13-10 loss to Bowling Green.

This was me after watching Chester  Stewart
take a sack on the game’s final play Saturday.

I felt like the late Jack Buck.
I kept repeating to myself …. I … can’t … believe … what … I … just … saw.
The perfect metaphor for the day was Stewart taking a sack on the game’s final play. I went back and watched that play three times. It was obvious that he knew the guy was coming at him. He had only one choice: Throw the ball downfield and hope Rod Streater comes down with a miracle catch. Taking a sack wasn’t an option.
Instead, he took a sack and the clock ran out.
Why did he take a sack?
Just another chapter in a book on situational unawareness that Chester could write about his four years at Temple.
I’ve been jarred back into reality by this week’s deadline: MAC Blogger Roundtable, Week 9.
This week, it’s our good internet friend (as opposed to real friend), Tim Riordan of the great Buffalo blog: Bull Run. You should take a look at his site. It’s a beautiful thing. If I had only one-tenth of the html skills as Tim and my real friend, Dave Gerson, I’d be a happy man.
This week’s questions:

1) Parity, a good thing or a bad thing. Outside of Toledo at the top and Akron, Kent, Miami, and Buffalo at the bottom every team has looked about equal. Is this a good thing for the conference or would it be better to have just four very prominent teams.
TFF: I’m a big fan of the NFL, so I love parity. Heck, I loved it when the Giants beat the unbeaten Patriots. That said, I’d love to see Temple go unbeaten just once before I pass on to the great unknown. I think it’s a good thing for the conference, but a bad thing for my imaginary wallet (I don’t have money to bet) since I’ve been taking a beating predicting MAC games.
2) Coaches Hot Seat. The Following MAC coaches are showing up on the ever popular coaches hot seat list. Pick one and tell us why is it or is not fair to have them there (disclaimer Clawson is on the list but I can’t imagine why so I am leaving him off)

(12) Rob Ianello, Akron
(13) Jeff Quinn, Buffalo
(15) Dan Enos, Central Michigan

TFF: Enos doesn’t deserve to be there. Central Michigan has done some good things.

3) Best new hire. Of the four(?) new coaches in the conference who, at this point, seems to be the best hire.

TFF: Steve Addazio. I love the guy. I love the way he competes. I love the staff he’s put together. I love what he’s done despite the fact that Golden’s Achilles Heel was his inability to recruit a quarterback. I will go from loving him to liking him if he loses to Ohio. If he loses to Ohio and Miami, I will go from liking him to tolerating him. If he loses to Ohio, Miami and Army, I will go from tolerating him to loathing him.

4) Ron English is flying high and the EMU *EAGLES* might be going to their first Bowl if they take care of Business. Surely their Coach is going to start getting some looks from other programs (if you can win at EMU right!). Is Turner Gill’s experience in Kansas a cautionary tale to schools who look for that one new up and coming coach? How many years of winning should a mid-major coach put forth before a big time program drops millions on them.
TFF: I would think a three-year sample is better than a one-year wonder. I think that’s the way most BCS programs will approach it going forward. The fact that Ron English recruited Ryan Brumfield shows me he has a keen eye for talent.
5) We all know the MAC does not necessarily award Bowls to the best teams. In MAC contracted bowls the bowl committees, not the conferee, get to pick their representative. Assume the MAC is going to get four Bowls but there are five bowl eligible teams. Make a case for your team, or a team you think is likely to be that 5th wheel.
TFF: I think Temple’s case was solidified by a 38-7 win at Maryland that could have EASILY been 45-0. Addazio took three knees on the Maryland 1 to end the game after putting his third-team defense in on the prior series, allowing Maryland to score. Addazio has been Mr. Nice Guy, maybe to his detriment. He’s had three backup quarterbacks play in shutout wins without any of them throwing the ball. One of those guys is going to have to throw the ball soon.
6) It’s looking more and more like either (a) Temple won’t be going to the Big East or (b) there won’t be a big east football space to even invite Temple. Is the MAC, even with UMass and Temple, a stable football conference for the next year or two?
TFF: I think the MAC is stable, with or without Temple or UMass. I don’t think UMass is going anywhere.
7) Rank’em
Toledo
Temple
Western Michigan
Ohio
Northern Illinois
Eastern Michigan
Bowling Green
Central Michigan
Miami
Ball State
Buffalo
Kent State
Akron

10.19.11
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What should Temple do?

You’ve heard the phrase by now so many times that you might recognize it by its four-letter abbreviation:
WWJD?
What Would Jesus Do?
It’s a reminder of a moral imperative on how to do the right thing.

“What would I do, Fr. Peter?
 State your  case, but  I certainly would not run down Temple
University. As Donovan McNabb said to T.O,
 keep their name out of your mouth.
I say welcome TU in with open arms.
That’s what I would do.”

Nobody at Villanova consulted that checklist before trying to run down Temple University for the last week on a Big East conference call. At the time, according to reports in the New York Post and the Boston Globe, Temple appeared to be a shoe-in for all-sports membership. Three days later, Temple was an afterthought. It was not hard to see why. Rather than promote its own name, Villanova _ according to well-placed sources _ spent the better part of three days on the conference call running down Temple.
It lined up opposition for Temple for all sports membership, mostly from its fellow WWJD schools, like Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall and St. John’s.  The WWJD schools said, basically: “Well, you are against them joining in all sports. We’re against them joining in basketball. Why don’t we just conspire to keep them out altogether.”
Villanova: “Err, yeah, OK.”
So Villanova destroyed about a 100-year relationship with a fellow city institution to keep its tenuous spot in a tenuous conference.
(There’s no maybes there. Villanova declared War on Temple with this Pearl Harbor sneak attack and Temple, in its righteous might, will gain the inevitable triumph so help it God. Apologies to FDR.)
Speaking of God, can you imagine Jesus getting on the phone and saying, “Don’t let those chumps associate with us.”
No, he’d welcome them with open arms.
The more important question now is: What Should Temple Do?
Or WSTD?
I listened to a lot of possibilities in that area both pre- and post-game on Saturday, ranging from holding a press conference lambasting them to canceling this year’s basketball game and next year’s football game to suing Villanova and the Big East.
All interesting suggestions from good, well-meaning, people.
It’s a tough call either way, but I say Temple is doing the right thing by staying quiet and working behind the scenes, which I’ve been assured that it is.
Put it this way.
The chances of Temple football finishing the regular season 10-2 currently is a better than 50/50 shot.
If that happens, Temple becomes a national story.
There’s no conference in the country that would not want a 10-2 team coming off consecutive 9-3 and 8-4 seasons.
There’s no conference in the country that would not want the fourth-largest TV market in the country that offers a team with demonstrated and documented TV ratings success over a three-year period.
WWJD?
Villanova failed that test over the last seven days and I don’t think even confession absolves them of that sin.
WSTD?
Temple is passing it right now.

10.15.11
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The defense never rests


Steve Addazio talks about the great Homecoming crowd and the continued support of the students, which I thought was both classy and appropriate.

Steve Addazio came up big
 on game day once again.

Someone said something very profound in Lot K after today’s 34-0 win over Buffalo and it had nothing to do with Villanova, The Big East or exit fees.
“We should have five shutouts,” the man said.
I’ll call him Edgar, because that’s his name.
Think about it for a second or two and you’ll come to agree.
Villanova scored a bogus touchdown only because the officials kept flags in their pockets after an obvious intentional grounding.
Maryland scored a late meaningless touchdown against Temple’s third-string defense.
If that’s not enough evidence supporting my claim that Chuck Heater is far and away the best defensive coordinator in the country, I don’t know what is.
Two things stood out for me today.
One, after Bernard Pierce had a touchdown called back on a totally made up block in the back call, Steve Addazio called a timeout just to berate the two officials and tell them just why the block was legal.
I liked that.
I liked that a lot.
Two, Addazio had the gonads to call the short snap call on fourth-and-two that resulted in Ahkeem Smith’s touchdown run.
Great call, great execution.
I wondered if Al Golden would have done either thing.
I don’t think he ever did.
Off to an alumni function and more tomorrow.

10.10.11
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The Final Word on Ball State: OUTFREAKINGSTANDING!

OK, out-freaking-standing is a hyphenated word but that was my one-word reaction watching Temple dismantle Ball State, 42-0, while sitting in a Panera Bread in Montgomeryville and getting free wireless internet.
Outfreakingstanding was not my reaction to the broken feed from the MAC corporate offices.
I missed the first two touchdowns completely while looking at a black screen that said something like “feed broken.”
Yeah, I knew that.
I also missed a nice pass to Rod Streater that set up one touchdown.
I felt bad for the kid with the hot brunette and the “Wild Cherry” T-Shirt looking over my shoulder at the black screen. Then I realized he had a hot brunette and I didn’t feel so bad for him. I told him the score was 14-0 Temple.

Steve Addazio: Pissed-off Owls

“Aww right,” he said.
They left shortly after that.
(Panera Bread is a great date place.)
Back to the game.
All week long, Temple coach Steve Addazio said that he would make things hard on the Owls because he wanted “one pissed-off team” to be playing on Saturday in Muncie.
If so, I want Addazio to do the same thing this week, the same thing next and the same thing the rest of the season.
The Owls played pissed off against Maryland and full of themselves against Toledo and it is obvious that they play a lot better pissed off.
So Daz, you have my permission (and probably those of my fellow Owl fans) to do whatever is necessary to keep pissing them off.
Some other observations:

Great job, Chester Stewart

QUARTERBACKING _ Great job by Chester Stewart. All Chester has to do is complete some downfield passes, hand the ball off to the running backs and protect the football for the Owls to run the table. Chester’s most impressive job was ball security. With this defense and this running game, ball security is vital. No interceptions. No fumbles. This game also represents the first time since I’ve been covering Temple football (30-plus years) that four (4) quarterbacks saw time. It looks like now second-teamer Chris Coyer is averaging 72 yards per carry, probably the highest ypc in all of NCAA football. Two carries and two LONG touchdowns. Nice.

The Franchise showed BSU what PSU already knows.

RUSHING GAME _ Bernard Pierce scored three touchdowns, ran 30 times for 121 yards and broke Paul Palmer’s career touchdown record (39) with his 39th, 40th and 41st career touchdowns. The stat of note now is that when Pierce carries the ball 25 times or more Temple is 15-0. Plus, Matty Brown added 114 yards including the highlight reel run of the season so far.
DEFENSE _ After giving up 36 points (mostly not their fault), people got on me about not giving the defense grief. I wrote that much of the defense’s problems last week stemmed from the two fumbles and the two interceptions and the multiple three-and-outs. I ended my summation with the phrase “in Heater I trust” and Chuck Heater and his fire-eaters came through once again. Too many of those guys played well to mention two or three. They are a group of gang-tacklers and that’s what I love second most about them. First most? Putting the quarterback on his ass, which I’ve said for years is the best pass defense ever designed by man.

Morry Mannies

BROADCAST _  Morry Mannies, the  Ball State play-by-play guy, must be old. He first called Mike Gerardi “Mark Carchitti” and then called him “Mike Carchardi.” Ugh. He also mis-pronounced many other Owl names. His sidekick said his record broadcasting Homecoming Games was “40-17.” That’s right. Forty and 17, a number that was repeated three times. Forty and 17 is 57. If this guy started out at 21, he’s at least 78. And I thought Harry Donahue was old. So if this guy is over 80, I’ve got to cut him some slack. He also said he sat through a 66-0 loss to St. Joseph’s. I assume that’s St. Joseph’s of Indiana. I’ll have to tell him someday that I sat through a 76-0 loss to Pitt once.

10.08.11
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Addazio goes for the Golden Hat Trick

Al Golden took his 0-14 record in the MAC south of the (Mason-Dixon) border.

With the Phillies finally done and the Eagles at 1-3 and no NBA and NHL not meaning squat until April, Temple football finally forges its way front and center into the consciousness of Philadelphia sports fans

The Golden Sombrero is a term loosely credited to ESPN announcer Chris Berman for describing a guy who goes 0 for 4 in baseball with four strikeouts.
It was a supposed to be a takeoff on the term “hat trick” when someone scores three goals in a game but does something ignominious instead.
So when The Golden Sombrero fits, wear it.
Today, first-year Temple coach Steve Addazio doesn’t go for the Golden Sombrero but the Golden Hat Trick.
Or, more precisely, The Al Golden Hat Trick.
Golden was not able to blow out Villanova.
Addazio was.
Check.
Golden was not able to beat an ACC team.
Addazio was.
Check.
If Addazio beats 3-2 Ball State today (2 p.m.. in Muncie, Ind.), Addazio will stop an ignominious Golden run of 0-14 against winning MAC teams. If Addazio (and Temple, of course) beats Ball State today, he will be 1-0 against winning MAC teams vs. Golden’s 0-14. That’s if Ball State finishes with a winning record, of course. (Before you get on me about Toledo, the Rockets were 1-3 coming into the Temple game.)
Can’t put the check mark next to that one yet, because it hasn’t happened for Addazio yet but that’s a mark that will haunt Golden the rest of his life.
Think about it.

Watch the Temple-Ball State game live here on your computer

Golden recruited four straight No. 1-ranked recruiting classes in the MAC with one No. 2 and could never beat a winning MAC team.
I’ve got to make only one conclusion from that: Poor game day coaching.
So good game day coaching is the way to end that streak.
That means hand the ball off to The Franchise (Bernard Pierce) and not strictly off-tackle like Addazio did last week. Get the ball in space to a great football player who messed around one spring with track and became a world-class sprinter in his spare time. It also means finding someone who can take advantage of the pressure Pierce puts on defenses by being able to complete a simple forward pass 20 yards or more  downfield.
Do that and keep the defense off the field. Keep the defense off the field and it will produce the times it is needed on the field.
This could be the start of a good Temple football run.
With the Phillies finally done and the Eagles at 1-3 and no NBA and NHL not meaning squat until April, Temple football finally forges its way front and center into the consciousness of Philadelphia sports fans.
Hey, I can dream, can’t I?
I was doing a lot of dreaming until seven days ago when Toledo’s football team woke me rather rudely from a dopamine-induced slumber.
All week after the 38-7 win over Maryland, I was kicking myself.
“Geez, we’re going to go 11-1 now and not being able to stop Penn State on a fourth-and-one is going to cost us a shot at the national championship. Could you imagine Temple winning the national championship? Temple? How great would that be?”
If allowed myself that thought one time last week, it must have been 100 times I repeated it in my head.
I thought Penn State was far and away the best team on the schedule and Maryland was a close second.
Logically, Temple could have run the table.
Logic and sports don’t always mix, though.
Ask the Phillies who, on Sept. 10, had a 94-48 record, the same day the Cardinals had a 78-67 record.
Or ask Al Golden about all those No. 1 recruiting classes adding up to an 0-14 record.
That did not compute, either.

10.02.11
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Addazio needs to find a can opener


In this video, SA goes into a lengthy explanation of why one QB was taken out with a lead against Penn State, yet another was allowed to remain in to throw fuel on Toledo’s fire …. NOT!!! Just a few lobbed softball questions.

Bill Parcells said a lot of things best, but this is one of his gems:
“If you are going cook the dinner, they better let you buy the groceries.”
Al Golden was fond of another saying:
“I’m going to build a house of brick, not straw.”
Much to Golden’s credit, he not only built that house with a fine kitchen but  he also stocked it with some pretty nice groceries for the next cook, Steve Addazio.
What Golden forgot to do was get a can opener. He recruited a lot of terrific players, but he swung and missed at the most important position on the field.
There are a lot of nice moving parts on this Temple football team, but one of them is not a quarterback.
At least not yet.
I thought about that a lot while watching Chester Stewart go 9 for 9 in a 38-7 win over Maryland a week ago.
While the euphoria of beating an ACC team was nice, I noted to a friend on the bus home that Chester did not throw a ball farther than nine yards. All nine completions finished with longer than five-yard gains, but not a single throw covered more than nine yards. All were RACs (runs after catches).
“That’s somewhat disconcerting,” I said. “Other coaches are going to be watching that film and game planning to get him to throw deep. The film don’t lie.”
Watching Chester Stewart play for four years, it has become painfully obvious to me that he can throw the ball deep but rarely come close to hitting anybody. He’s got a gun for an arm, but no scope.

I hated it when Penn State and Maryland fans did not give credit to Temple so I’m going to give a whole lot of credit to Toledo


The play chart told the story of Temple’s 36-13 loss to Toledo on Saturday.
With Temple facing a third-and-goal at the Toledo 9, the Owls elected to go with a swing pass that looked like a glorified lateral. That’s a telling call by a pretty good offensive coordinator named Scot Loeffler.
Obviously, either Loeffler or head coach Steve Addazio does not have confidence in his quarterback to throw the ball into the end zone on a third-and-goal.

I found it rather curious that one QB gets taken out while LEADING Penn State, yet another QB gets left in there to throw fuel on the fire of a Toledo conflagration


If they don’t, then maybe they should have tried another quarterback.
Or maybe they don’t have confidence in any quarterback Golden put on his shelf.
On another play in the first half, Rod Streater made a terrific double-move to get 10 yards behind his defender and Stewart either did not see him or was so locked into the middle of the field that he threw an interception. Chester seems to play with blinders on way too many times and that’s not good for a quarterback who should be able to see the entire field in a split second.

I haven’t felt good about a TU QB
since this guy was under center.
I hope I feel as good about the next one.

Also, the Owls have gotten away from tossing the ball on pitchouts to Bernard Pierce, where he can use his world-class speed to beat defenders to the outside. Twenty-two of Pierce’s 24 carries were between the tackles on Saturday. I would think about getting Pierce into open space, rather than run him up the gut but maybe I’m crazy.
Addazio says in the above video that he “liked the way (Stewart) competed.”
It’s one thing to compete.
It’s another thing to make plays.
I found it rather curious that one QB gets taken out while LEADING Penn State, yet another QB gets left in there to throw fuel on the fire of a Toledo conflagration.
Temple needs a quarterback who can make plays and see wide-open receivers farther than five yards downfield.
The film don’t lie. Toledo coach Tim Beckman saw the same thing I did.
Give credit to Toledo. There were two teams on that field Saturday. The way to beat a “Temple TUFF” team is through a lot of “trickeration” and I thought the Rockets did that extremely well, taking advantage of Temple’s defensive pursuit with misdirection. I hated it when Penn State and Maryland fans did not give credit to Temple so I’m going to give a whole lot of credit to Toledo.
So did Addazio.
Still, quarterback is the most important position on the field.
Right now, until Addazio can recruit one of those fancy spread offense can openers, Temple needs a guy who is good at play-action faking and throws a nice deep ball. He needs someone who will take care of the ball, two interceptions vs. Penn State notwithstanding.
That guy did not start on Saturday.
Hopefully, Addazio will check out the film a little more closely this week and make the same change Golden was forced to make in the first quarter of the Bowling Green game last year.
Otherwise, this dinner party that started out so well is going to cause some unexpected indigestion.

09.25.11
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We’ve come a long way, baby

Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw hugs Steve Addazio for doing something Al Golden could not do: Beat Maryland.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. _ A very wise person once said that for a good perspective, just open your eyes and take a look at what is happening around you.

All TU fans are
going in Heaven
right now
A few years ago, I wrote this story that appeared in The Philadelphia Daily News about all Temple football fans going to Heaven. Heck, I don’t know what Heaven is like but if it’s anything like Byrd Stadium was today, it must be a pretty good place.

I thought a lot about that today while watching my friend, Matt Cohen, take a shot of the scoreboard in the closing seconds of Temple’s 38-7 win at Maryland’s beautiful Byrd Stadium.
I remember when Matt, his brother, I and a handful of other Temple die-hards sat in Veterans Stadium and then Lincoln Financial Field watching some God-awful Temple teams, including Bobby Wallace squads of 0-11 and 1-11.
I remember many of those same faces tailgating in the rain before the final game of that 0-11 season, a 41-14 loss to the Fake Miami (that’s Ohio).
“You watch,” I told the handful of people left in the empty parking lot. “One day there will be a guy who leads us out of this mess.”
I saw many of those same faces in Section B at Byrd Stadium today.
They believed.

Statement by Steve Addazio:
“What you’re asking me is where is our football team at? I’ll tell you where we’re at right now. I’m really proud of this right now. I’m proud of the city we play in. We play in one of the greatest sports cities there is in America. We play in one of the best venues in the Linc in the country. We play a non-conference schedule – Maryland, Penn State, Notre Dame coming to town. We do that right now.

“We had 57,000 fans for our game against Penn State, over 40,000 Temple fans, last week and 12,000 Temple students. Two weeks before, against a I-AA opponent Villanova, we had over 30,000 fans to their 2,000 – 8,500 Temple students – and the atmosphere at Lincoln Financial was electric.

“Temple, now, guys and gals, has got 12,000 students going to 15,000. Everybody talks about back days, I don’t know why. Back days it was a commuter school. We have a $10 million football facility going on at our place and we’re a proud academic institution, one of the higher ranked ones in the country. If you’re asking me where’s our program, we’re doing it right now. We have attendance. Our TV numbers were higher than they were in Big Ten.

“I’m not a guy that’s much for B.S. I’m a guy based on facts and what is. What is is we’re a hard-playing team, we took a BCS win today. We went nose-to-nose with a BCS team last week. We have a great home-field crowd right now and Philadelphia has passion for college football like it never has before and we’re in the fourth-largest media market in the country, so what that means is not my concern.”

It was not a baseless belief.
“It happened before,” I said back then, telling them there was once a savior named Wayne Hardin. “It can happen again.”
That new savior was Al Golden.
His good looks, dogged personality and impeccable organizational skills led Temple out of these hedgerows. He was able to charm moms into sending their talented sons to play at Temple.
Now Steve Addazio and his SEC staff is leading a General Patton-like charge to bigger and better things.

 Golden wasn’t perfect.
He was a micromanger who did not trust his coordinators to formulate a winning game plan because his coordinators were, quite frankly, buddies from his college days.
Addazio hired two of the best coordinators out there, Chuck Heater for the defense and Scot Loeffler for the offense, and is letting those guys do their job.
That’s the way a good CEO runs any organization. Hire the best possible people for upper-level management positions and let them do their jobs.


Chuck Heater was defensive coordinator at 12-0 Utah. His work as defensive coordinator at Florida was so impressive that, last year, no less an authority than Urban Meyer said: “I call Chuck Heater Mother Theresa because he’s worked wonders with our defense.”

Scot Loeffler was quarterback coach at Michigan when Tom Brady was there and quarterback coach of Tim Tebow at Florida.
Both those guys know their stuff.
It has shown so far.


Photo by Matt Cohen



Heater plays an attacking-style defense, believing, as I always have, the best pass defense is putting a quarterback on his backside. Maryland’s talented quarterback, Danny O’Brien, did not have room to breathe, let alone look for receivers.

Loeffler establishes the run behind one of the great running backs in college football and plays off his skills by keeping the defense honest with play-action waggle passes to an All-MAC first-team tight end and an occasional shot down the field, again off play-action.
This is a team that will not be outcoached.
The results, then, should not be surprising.
 

Temple is two minutes away from being 4-0 with wins over an upper-tier Big 10 team and a solid ACC team. If you don’t think Maryland is solid, the Terrapins beat The Real Miami, 32-24. The Real Miami beat Ohio State, 24-6.
That’s solid.
So is Temple.
The Owls have what I believe is the best running back in the United States in Bernard Pierce. All Bernard did was carry the ball 32 times for 149 yards and a school-record five touchdowns. Bernard leads the nation in touchdowns.
I wrote before the season that 20 touchdowns and 2,000 yards are attainable goals for BP and he has made me look good so far.
Temple did something today it never has before: Both beat Maryland and beat an ACC team.
From the perspective of looking at this team and their fans, it’s just a starting point.
09.23.11
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Steve Addazio vs. Al Golden

Al Golden’s first Miami press conference lasted 49 minutes, during which he never uttered the word “Temple” once.

TU Fact 1:
Temple has seven wins
over schools currently
in the ACC; none while
they were in the ACC

If you make the trip with me to Maryland tomorrow, you will notice the game program says: Temple vs. Maryland.
Very true.
The subtitle, though, should say Steve Addazio vs. Al Golden.
We really don’t know if Steve Addazio is a better coach than Al Golden right now.

TU fact No. 2
Temple is 15-0
with Bernard Pierce
getting 16 carries
or more

However, we could all get a much better handle on that come 4 p.m. tomorrow afternoon.
Bum Phillips, the colorful former coach of the then Houston Oilers, once said:
“The sign of a great coach is that he can take your ‘ums and beat his ‘ums and he can beat his ‘ums with your ‘ums.”
Steve Addazio has a chance to prove that against Maryland.
If Al Golden, with arguably better talent than Temple, can’t beat Maryland with his Miami group and Steve Addazio CAN beat Maryland with, err, lesser talent that could go a long way toward proving once and for all that Steve Addazio is the better game coach than Al Golden.
If not prove conclusively, than it would be a pretty good Exhibit A in any case to be made for Daz vs. Golden.
Many of the Daz fans, me included, were duly impressed with Addazio doing to Villanova what Golden was not able to do _ blow them out. Yet that body of work can be argued to be inconclusive since Villanova was in a rebuilding year.
Add a win over Maryland with a blowout of Villanova and you can make an argument that this is an open-and-shut case.
It might even cause one set of eyebrows at The U to be raised.

09.17.11
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Owls get to the top of Mt. Nittany … and slip

PHILADELPHIA _ The Temple football team climbed to the top of the Mountain, peaked over the top to see The Promised Land for a second and slipped back down with two minutes left on Saturday.
For all but the final two minutes of the game, Temple, without much help from its offense, led Penn State.
Then Penn State scored a 14-10 win.
To me, that lack of offensive help is the most disappointing thing.
A team that has Bernard Pierce, Mike Gerardi, Joey Jones, Evan Rodriguez, Rod Streater, Matty Brown, Alex Jackson and Deon Miller should not be struggling to put points on the board, no matter who the opponent.
A team that has a 6-5, 320-pound offensive line, should be able to get a push from time to time and protect the quarterback with regularity, no matter who the opponent.

A team that has Bernard Pierce, Mike Gerardi, Joey Jones, Evan Rodriguez, Rod Streater, Matty Brown, Alex Jackson and Deon Miller should not be struggling to put points on the board, no matter who the opponent


Head coach Steve Addazio is not clairvoyant, but when asked before the game what was the key, he said: “We can’t turn the ball over and we have to get the game into the fourth quarter.”

“Temple didn’t play Temple football today. We got beat in the end and put the ball on the ground.”
_ Steve Addazio


A simple request and the Owls got the game into the fourth quarter, but they did what Daz said they could not afford to do _ turn the ball over.
I thought the Owls got away from establishing Bernard Pierce, who had only four carries in the second half. I don’t care if they were stacking the box, you’ve got to feed him the rock and hope he busts through the line just once. My guess is that the PIAA state 100-meter dash champion might not have been caught.
When you have an NFL running back, like Pierce, you’ve got to feed him the rock and get him into a rhythm.
I’ve always said Pierce was a “rhythm” back, meaning he’d go with carries of 1, 1, 2, 3, 2 an then break a 68-yarder. That’s how he got 179 yards and three touchdowns in the 30-16 win over Fiesta Bowl-bound UConn.
Temple got away from Pierce too soon, but that’s my humble opinion. I’ve watched the kid for three years now and I know how he can best be effective.
Whatever, it was a heartbreaking day.
I had hoped to live to see the day when Temple beat Penn State.
I thought today was going to be that day.
It will happen, though.
As a great man once said, “I might not get to the Mountaintop with you but we will get to the Promised Land.”
Hopefully, I will get there with you.
Notes: Aside to KYW radio’s Tom Maloney: When the station sends you to cover the game, don’t tell me what I already know. I was stuck in traffic for three hours and all you told me was Temple scored on the first drive and Penn State scored in the final minute to win. Err, I knew that. Get off your fat, lazy, ass and go into the interview room and me some sound from Steve Addazio and Joe Paterno. Just a thought. Three hours in traffic and listening to the same AP story was getting a little old. … I thought the crowd was 50/50 but the noise was 80/20, Temple. … Great job by the defense, especially Kee-Ayre Griffin and Adrian Robinson and the interior front wall of Levi Brown and Kadeem Custis. I have a feeling this group is going to pitch a few shutouts in the MAC. … A team with two quarterbacks really has none. I hope Daz looks at what happened in the first three games and not on the practice field and settles on one guy.

09.15.11
by

PSU: Temple’s biggest game ever

The field is ready and the nation will be watching the Owls on Saturday.

Let’s face it.
No matter what happens this year, Penn State is probably going to go to some nice, warm-weather, bowl game.

“We had over 30,000 some Temple fans for our game against Villanova, including 10,000 students. I don’t know how many Temple fans we will have Saturday, but it certainly won’t be any less than that.’
_ Steve Addazio

The best Temple can hope for, even if it jumps over the two or three teams ranked ahead of it (Toledo, Northern Illinois and maybe Ohio) and wins the MAC is Detroit.
Or Boise.
Or, in the best-case scenario, Mobile, Ala.
That’s life in the MAC these days.
On Saturday, Temple plays Penn State in the national (not regional) game on ESPN.
The Owls will be playing in their own hometown in front of roughly a split crowd (which is an improvement on all other Penn State games of my lifetime, with the exception of the 1975 game at Franklin Field).
“We had over 30-thousand some Temple fans for our game against Villanova, including 10,000 students,” Temple head coach Steve Addazio said. “I don’t know how many Temple fans we will have Saturday, but it certainly won’t be any less than that.”
Temple won’t be in a better bowl game this season unless it beats Penn State, Maryland and Toledo in a row and then finishes the season by running the table.
The bowl game in Washington D.C. in a half-empty and freezing RFK was nice, but it is not this.
A win over a 6-5 Cal team in the Garden State Bowl was nice, but it was not this.
Seventy-thousand people and a national TV audience is a chance for this program to make its mark nationally.
Maybe its only chance.
This time, a win is well within the realm of reality.
Temple beat UConn by two touchdowns last year and UConn found itself in the Fiesta Bowl.
Two years ago, without a quarterback, Temple handed a 10-2 Navy team a 28-24 loss on the road. That Navy team beat Missouri, 35-14, in its bowl game.
So it’s not as if this program hasn’t done some impressive things in the last two years.
Temple won eight games last year and nine games the year before and just about every Temple fan will tell you that this team is better than those two teams.
This is a chance for the Owls to show it on the biggest stage and in front of the most people who will ever watch them play.
A lot of kids play football their whole lives and never get a chance like this. These Owls are only a few hours away from getting their shot.