Category Archives: Steve Addazio

06.23.11
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Their perception versus our reality


Steve Addazio talks Temple football on ESPN Wednesday.

Perception versus reality.
You hear the concept all the time.
I like to read what other people think about Temple football, both the experts in the field and those with lesser knowledge in the stands.
If one theme has carried the day for the past six months or so, it’s this:
“Temple has lost Al Golden. The Owls will take a step back.”
That’s THEIR perception and the perception of most of the country.
Whoa, Nellie, as that great college football philosopher Keith Jackson used to say.
OUR reality, at least those enough close to the program with knowledge to comment is this:
“Temple has 19 starters back from teams that went 9-3 and 8-4. The Owls have potential legendary caliber coordinators in Chuck Heater and Scot Loeffler. They have a motivator in CEO Steve Addazio who would put even Al Golden’s considerable ability in that area to shame. The Owls are not taking a step back.”
I’m a lot more comfortable in the second statement than the first.
Father forgive that first group because they do not know of what they speak.
They will find out soon enough.
Addazio went on ESPN today and tried to break down the perception and I think he did a pretty good job of that.

“We really feel that Temple can be the Boise of the East…”
_Steve Addazio

People will believe what they want to believe but facts are facts.
The Temple media guide will list 13 returning starters but when you break down the game sheet, ESPN got it right. Nineteen (that’s right, 19) guys who started at least six games return.


Going to http://www.owlstix.com/ is the only
way to guarantee seats for the PSU game.


Add in the fact that guys like Bernard Pierce will play more (please, God) then they did last year and this is a formidable group that Addazio and a battle-tested SEC and national championship staff go to war with on Sept. 1.
As one father of an offensive lineman told me on Cherry and White Day:
“Mike, these guys are from the SEC. My kid told me, ‘Dad, these guys really know what they are doing.’ When these MAC coaches try to go up against them, their heads will be spinning. They won’t be able to deal with it.”
I have a lot of respect for Villanova coach Andy Talley, but I feel sorry for him (just him, not Villanova) on Sept. 1.
It should be fun to watch beginning in just 72 nights. Hopefully, that night will be the beginning of a dozen dates that change the perception of Temple football everywhere.

06.08.11
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TU recruiting: Nothing to get excited about (yet)

Ben Onett’s recruiting video is impressive.

I usually don’t write about Temple football recruiting for a couple of reasons:
1) The NCAA rules involved in what is considered a college “booster” or “supporter” are pretty vague and it’s just good judgment for me not to be involved in the process.
2) The NCAA rules about “verbals” and “soft verbals” are screwed up. Al Golden had a great idea about an “early signing period” meaning that the kids who commit within a certain time frame (say, the ones who already committed) cannot be contacted by other schools without a major penalty involved. That would reward hard-working staffs, like Golden’s and presumably Addazio’s, for making solid early calls and protect them against a BCS team swooping in and taking their recruits.
So I wait until the signatures are signed on the dotted line to talk about the kids.
Generally speaking, I think Temple University (or really any other) football recruiting is really nothing to get excited about until the first Wednesday of every February.
It’s good to see that new head coach Steve Addazio is targeting what he feels is a quarterback with the “it” factor in Benjamin Onett of St. John’s (D.C). He recently added a couple of defensive backs, Archbishop Wood running back Brandon Peoples, a punter and a backup placekicker.
All good, solid kids.
I’m playing the waiting game with Addazio, though, because, quite frankly, I was underwhelmed with his first class. Compared to the hastily recruited first class of Bruce Arians (Heisman Trophy runner up Paul Palmer, NFL pro bowler Tre Johnson, among others) it falls even short for a guy who had a month to put together a group.
I’ll give Steve the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t think we’ll get a Heisman Trophy runner up or an NFL pro bowler from this past February’s group. Just a hunch.
We had a three-time first-time all-state running back (Owen J. Roberts’ Ryan Brumfield) who WANTED to come to Temple passed over and a RB schollie given to a guy who is about the same size and a full tenth of a second slower in the 40 (Spencer Reid) who was an unimpressive honorable mention third-team All Central League player.
That was a WTF moment for me.
Everything I’ve heard, though, is that this guy is a great recruiter.
I hope the best is yet to come and, on signing day, we’re talking about a guy who is down to Alabama or Temple. Or Penn State or Temple.
Then he pulls out the Penn State hat, replaces it with a TU hat and says: “I’ve decided to take my talents to Temple University.”
I fully expect given everything I’ve heard, such a moment will happen soon with Steve Addazio.
At least that’s a fervent hope.
Congrats to all of the kids who have so far had the wisdom to pick the Owls, but I’m not excited about TU recruiting.
Yet.

05.31.11
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Happy Birthday, Steve Addazio

Upgrades at DC with Chuck Heater and OC with Scot Loeffler
mean Addazio could be in a better position to succeed than AG was.

Tomorrow is Steve Addazio’s 52d birthday.
June 1, 1959 was the day he came into this world.

You might think the first gift he received was last week’s commitment of promising Washington, D.C. quarterback Benjamin Onett.
I don’t think so.
To me, the gift came a few days earlier and was this terrific statistical analysis of Al Golden’s work at Temple.

Make no mistake, Golden set the bar high for Addazio.
To me, with this kind of talent Golden has left here, Addazio will have to go at least 10-2.
That would represent both an improvement of each of the last two seasons and a MAC championship.
But it would not mean wins over Penn State and Maryland (although those would be nice). He can do it by running the MAC table.
The statistical analysis seems to indicate that the bar is not all that high for Addazio, although the Owls can’t afford to stub their toe like they did in losses at the end of the season to Ohio and Miami.
What it doesn’t address is the lack of imagination in Golden’s offensive schemes and his failure to stop the read option of Frank Solich’s Ohio teams in each of the last two seasons.
Does Scot Loeffler inject that imagination in the offense?
Does Chuck Heater, who comes with a far more impressive resume as a DC than Mark D’Onofrio ever had, have a handle on the read option?
Is Addazio a better overall motivator and CEO than Golden was?

We’ll have a good idea about five minutes after the Villanova game.
If it is a gut-wrencher, like the last two were, it’s going to be a long season.
My money is on the Owls to cover that night and a short and brilliant season to follow.
Happy birthday, Steve.

05.18.11
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Temple football has a horse in the Preakness


Congie DeVito video tribute.
You hear it all the time when someone is claiming to be neutral while making a point:
“I don’t have a dog in this fight” or “I don’t have a horse in this race.”
Well, the Preakness is Saturday and I have a horse in this race.
So do you.
His name is King Congie.
Mike Jensen wrote a terrific story on this subject earlier this week in The Philadelphia Inquirer and it is linked in the paragraph below.
Congie DeVito was just a nameless poster on Owlscoop.com who I got to meet at a couple of tailgates over the years. He passed away, like many Temple fans seem to do (Dan Glammer, Steve Bumm and Shane Artim come to mind but the list is too long to mention here), at way too young ages.
He, like I, shared a common love: Temple football. We both liked Bruce Arians and thought he got a raw deal at Temple.



King Congie: Temple football’s horse

 His extended to Temple basketball.
I like Temple basketball. I love Temple football.
(In fact, I think he was a Temple basketball fan first.)
I’m scheduled to get a haircut on Saturday in Center City.
I usually don’t bet on horseracing because I know nothing about it but, on this day, I will make an exception.
Afterward, I will walk to the OTB near City Hall on the way to work and place a couple of sheckles on King Congie, a 30 to 1 shot.
If King Congie wins, we all do.

04.01.11
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Addazio’s first 5-star recruit: Urban Meyer

Steve Addazio and Urban Meyer: Reunited and it feels so good.

When Steve Addazio got the head coaching job at Temple, I was one of the first to post my reservations. I wanted someone who had been a head coach somewhere else before Temple, not someone who had to learn on the job.

The next day I got an email from a search committee member who shall remain nameless.

“Mike, this guy is a dynamo, you are going to love him,” the person wrote. “After he spoke, we all were sitting there in the room with our mouths wide open. Mark my words. As surely as he sold us, he’s going to sell 5-star recruits into coming to Temple.”

Well, signing day came and went and there were no 5-stars in sight.

Yesterday, though, that all changed when Addazio announced former Florida head coach Urban Meyer was going to join Temple’s staff in an as yet-to-be-determined capacity. He’s Addazio’s first five-star recruit.

“Urban and I are best friends,” Addazio said. “I kid him. He kids me. After I hired Chuck (Heater, defensive coordinator) and Scot Loeffler (offensive coordinator), I said, ‘Let’s make this an all-Gator staff. Why don’t you join me?’

“He just laughed. A couple of weeks ago he asked how he could help. He’ll be living in New York in the fall but ESPN needs him only on Friday and Saturday. He said he’d be free to help us at least three days a week.

“I’d be nuts not to take him up on it, so he’s going to come down to Philly and work with us three days a week.”

“He’ll be living in New York in the fall but ESPN needs him only on Friday and Saturday. He said he’d be free to help us at least three days a week.”

Someone asked Addazio what Meyer’s title could be.

“I don’t want to call him an assistant coach,” Addazio said. “That wouldn’t seem quite right.

“We thought about a title like ‘Quality Control Specialist’ and that sounds like he’s working for General Electric. We’re a football team, not a company, so I rejected that. Then someone mentioned ‘Czar of Football Operations’ and I thought that sounded old world and I rejected that.

“Maybe we should open up a title contest for the fans. We’ll figure it out. When I mentioned the idea of a contest to Scott (Walcoff) in promotions, he said sure. He also asked what I thought of changing the name of Oscar Meyer Dollar Dog Day to Urban Meyer Weiner Day. I said I’d have to think about that one.”

Already, Addazio knows how a typical Urban Meyer Day at Temple will go.

“He’s going to get off the train at 10th and Diamond and two Temple police officers are going to greet him there and walk him down the steps to the complex.

“He’s going to stop at (secretary) Nadia Harvin’s desk and she’s going to give him a pen and a yellow legal pad and Urban is going to have the run of the place, making notes and suggestions. At the end of the day, he’s going to leave the yellow pad on my desk and I’m going to follow through.”

Addazio broke out into a broad smile.

“I had to run this idea past (athletic director) Bill (Bradshaw) and he just loved it,” Addazio said. “Bill said something really profound. He said that every time Meyer said something on ESPN on Saturdays, it would say Temple such-and-such coach Urban Meyer right there on the screen.

“He said you can’t buy that kind of publicity, that it opens the door for Temple to every five-star recruit in the country.”

Just then I woke up and realized everything Steve Addazio just said was in a dream.

Happy April Fool’s Day everybody.

Also worth reading:
Big 10 shows renewed interest in Temple

03.28.11
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NFL lockout would not be a bad thing for "Philadelphia State"

Do you see any families in this photo? I didn’t think so.

There’s not a lot of empirical evidence out there to suggest that a prolonged NFL lockout would help Temple football.
Logically, though, it could not hurt.
First of all, Temple football would be the only game in town and that’s a “good thing, not a bad thing” to use an offhand reference by Bill Parcells.
The NFL had strikes in 1982 and 1987 and, while attendance seemed to increase at Temple home games in both those years, it was 3-4 thousand per home game, not a noticeable 10-15.
I thought about this NFL labor dispute while watching the Owls’ hoop team play San Diego State recently.
Why San Diego State?
Because I thought one of the main reasons why Temple football never captured the imagination of the “Joe Philadelphia” fan was the name Temple.
Let’s face it. Temple has been trying for years to court “families” as part of the fan base.
They haven’t responded. Temple needs to get Temple people to the games and that’s students and mostly adult male alumni. It would also help to convince Eagles’ fans to start liking the other birds in town.
We don’t need no stinkin’ families (I’m not referring to the families of Temple football players who, of course, are the greatest).
In my 30 years of following Temple football, I observed no more than five families who had no connection to players attending a game. Yet Temple promotions spends more damn money going after that group than all the other groups put together.

“While we have all come to love the name Temple,
the name Philadelphia University
would be a truer reflection of 
the school.” _ Dr. Peter J. Liacouras

So, as Celo Green says, forget them.
Temple needs to get the “hard-core” beer-drinking, “700-level” fan, the Joe Philadelphia Guy. That’s a base that has yet to be, err, tapped. That’s a rowdy base, but think of the home field advantage the Owls could have.
Even though Temple is every bit Philadelphia’s school as Pitt is Pittsburgh’s school, I thought Pitt always had inroads to a blue-collar fan base in Pittsburgh that identified with the town. Pitt has plenty more “Joe Pittsburghs” in the stands rooting for the university than Philly has “Joe Philadelphians.”
It has a lot to do with the name.
Temple president Dr. Peter J. Liacouras alluded to such in the 1980s when he suggested the school should “consider” changing its name to Philadelphia University.
“While we all have come to love the name Temple, the name Philadelphia University would be a truer reflection of the school,” Liacouras told the Rotary Club one day at the Union League.
I was there as a guest of a Rotarian and heard the speech. I walked up to Pete and told him it was a great idea.
It was never realized because a school named The Philadelphia  College of Textiles and Science adopted the name a decade later.
Damn.

Liacouras was the one guy who could have pushed through a name change and he never followed up on his own terrific idea.
A lost opportunity.
Maybe not.
“San Diego State?” I said out loud while watching the Owls play. “San Diego isn’t a state.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the guy next to me said. “San Diego University was taken. They took the next name available.”
Philadelphia State University.
I like it.
Even though you might not now, you would get used to it, too, and it couldn’t hurt attendance.
They could even keep the nickname of Owls.
Changing the name of this blog to “Philadelphia State University Football Forever” might take some getting used to, though.

02.22.11
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Daz: ‘Scot will call the plays’

The Heisman “campaign” may be low-key this year, but nonetheless Scot Loeffler would be one wise Owl if he fueled the Owls’ offense with BP oil.

Google “Steve Addazio” on the internet and what you are likely to find is a litany of ramblings from Florida fans, justified or not, complaining about how Steve Addazio “called the plays” for the 2010 Gators.
Steve Addazio has become a synonym of offensive incompentence in their eyes.
I think it’s a pretty unfair characterization given that the buck always stopped with Saint Urban Meyer.
So Florida fans are going to love this latest pronoucement from Addazio’s lips:
“Scot will call the plays,” Daz said on Meet and Greet Day last week.



 Scot (one T) is new offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler, a quarterback genius who developed Tom Brady and Chad Henne at Michigan and Tim Tebow at Florida.
Loeffler is a big-time offensive mind who knows how to move the football, probably through osmosis, by now.

“Dude, my boy from Temple Football Forever told
coach Daz to give the ball to No. 30. That seals i t.
I’m putting you down for 20 TDs and 2,011 yards in 2011.”
Addazio, on the other hand, is a life-long offensive line coach who appears to be more at home in the trenches. If he’s comfortable with making Scot Loeffler the offensive head coach and Chuck Heater the defensive head coach, that makes me comfortable, too.
After meeting Daz for the first time last week, I must admit I was, err, Dazzled.
My sense is that he’s probably more suited to being a CEO/Motivator than someone who wants to be micromanaging each individual facet of his organization.
That’s got to be good for Temple because being a big-time football head coach is too large a job if you can’t hire people you can trust. See Andy Reid and his less-than-stellar NFL draft day record as a case in point.
If all Addazio does is leave the offense up to Loeffler and the defense up to Chuck Heater and take care of the CEO duties and motivates the hell out of the Owls, this  should be the best season yet.
The same guy Florida fans hated so much could be the very one Owl fans come to love.
With the exception of a failure to recruit a high-profile tailback to spell Bernard Pierce, he’s pushed all the right buttons so far.
There’s only one more button to be pushed.
The last thing I told him was to give the ball to No. 30.
He laughed out loud, that hearty belly laugh that I never heard from Al Golden.
Like any good CEO, I hope he processed the tip and passed it along to Scot.
02.10.11
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Loeffler completes Owligator coaching Trinity

Loeffler completes the Owligator Holy Trinity

If Groundhog Day was last Wednesday, you can call this Wednesday Owligator Day.
As good as last Wednesday was recruiting for the Owls, Owligator Day beats Groundhog Day by a good bit.
That’s because Temple signed Scot Loeffler as offensive coordinator on Wednesday, completing the “Holy Trinity” of Gator coaches who will be roaming the sidelines at Temple.
Steve Addazio, head coach.
Chuck Heater, defensive coordinator.
Scot Loeffler, offensive coordinator/quarterbacks’ coach.
Think about it.
Temple’s head coach is a guy who was HEAD coach (yes, head coach) at Florida to be its head coach. (I know it’s a technicality but Addazio was head coach for three months while Urban Meyer was on sick leave.) I really think Daz’s personality is more suited to being a head coach than an offensive coordinator in terms of being a CEO-type and a motivator. We won’t know for sure until he beats up Villanova like Muhammad Ali beat up Chuck Wepner, but Temple is getting a guy who could be a gem as a head coach.
Temple is also getting a guy who was co-defensive coordinator at Florida to be its defensive coordinator. (“Head coach of the defense,” Addazio said.)
Now Temple is also getting a guy who was at least partly responsible for the development of Tom Brady, Chad Henne and Brian Griese as Michigan quarterbacks because he there when all three were at Michigan.
Oh yeah.
 He was Tim Tebow’s quarterback’s coach, too.
Temple is sending a message to the rest of the college football world that its football program is in capable hands by completing this Holy Trinity of Owligators.

The Loeffler File:
• Led a Florida quarterback unit that led the nation in pass efficiency (167.3) in 2009. They passed for 3,305 yards for 28 touchdowns with just five interceptions. Florida ranked second in the SEC in passing offense with an average of 236.1 yards per game.

• Guided Tim Tebow in his final season at Florida, during which he passed for 2,895 yards and 21 touchdowns, finishing his senior year with a passing efficiency of 164.17. The quarterback left Florida with five NCAA, 14 SEC and 28 UF records
• Led the Michigan quarterbacks for six seasons, guiding second-round draft pick Chad Henne. Under the tutelage of Loeffler, Henne became the first true freshman QB to lead his team to a Big Ten title and start in a BCS bowl game. Henne set school marks in career passing yards (9,715), touchdowns (87), completions (828) and attempts (1,387).
• Helped develop John Navarre into the team’s first All-Big Ten first-team quarterback since 1997.
• Helped guide two NFL quarterbacks in Tom Brady and Brian Griese as a graduate and student assistant at Michigan and was a part of the Wolverine staff during the 1997 undefeated season and National Championship title.

With these three hirings, it becomes abundantly clear that Temple is serious about big-time football because these are big-time guys.
Why am I so excited about this?
First off, addition by subtraction.
I’ve been hearing rumors for the better part of a month now that Addazio might have been planning to keep Matt Rhule as offensive coordinator.
Been there, done that.
Rhule had a lot of beautiful square parts he tried to plug into round holes last year.
He had a Heisman Trophy back (at least, talent-wise if not durability-wise) in Bernard Pierce, great wide receivers in Rod Streater, Michael Campbell, Joey Jones, an all-MAC first-team tight end in Evan Rodriguez and a capable backup in Alex Jackson … and … AND …a New Jersey high school first-team all-state quarterback in Mike Gerardi … and … AND … an offensive line that averaged 318 yards across the front.
Yet he (or head coach Al Golden) doesn’t play the all-state QB until the middle of the season, yet he (or Golden)  alternates the Heisman Trophy guy with a 5-5, 150-pound back and doesn’t even attempt to do what worked so well in 2009. That is, establish the run behind a great back and throw off play-action. If they had done that, MAC secondaries would have bitten hard enough on the ball fake that Owl receivers would have been so wide open the toughest decision would have been which one to pick out.
With Brown out there, except for the UConn game and the first half of the Penn State game, Pierce was never allowed to establish a rhythm.
As a result, save for those rare exceptions, Temple’s offense was a clusterbleep from the opening play of the Villanova game until the final play of the Miami game.
You score three points against The Fake Miami with that talent?
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Loeffler was on campus doing some quality control analysis on Monday and Tuesday.
On Wednesday, he accepted the job.
Evidently, he saw he had a lot of good moving parts to work with. Maybe he made the assessment, like I have, that a big-time backup needs to be developed with Pierce-like size and speed. Maybe Myron Myles is that guy. Maybe Nate Smith is that guy. But we need to find that guy badly.
By Villanova, with a pair of fresh and capable eyes he should be able to find the square holes for those square pegs.
Owligators.
I like the sound of that nickname for our all-star coaching staff.

02.02.11
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Groundhog Day for The Gator, The Hooter and The Heater

The Gator, the Hooter and the Heater will all be at SAC Room 200 today.

… Temple commits: QB: Jalen Fitzpatrick, Clinton Granger; OL: Eric Lofton, Jake Quinn; ATH: Daquan Cooper; WR: Malcolm Eugene, Robbie Anderson, Antonio Belt, Tyron Harris, Chris Hutton; RB: Spencer Reid; LB: Praise Martin-Oquike, Raysean Richardson, Nate Smith; DB: Kenny Harper; DE: Brandon Chudnoff, Kadeem Wilson, Cory Johnson; DT: Hershey Walton. …

Fittingly for Temple at least Signing Day is today, falling on Groundhog Day for the first time in five years.
They say if the Groundhog wakes up this morning and sees his shadow, it’s going to be six more weeks of winter.
If not, it’s going to be an early spring.
So it goes with Temple football today.
For the most part, after going through five Temple coaches and nearly 30 years of signing days I’ve devised this foolproof system for telling if today will be a good day.
If you follow the steps of this system and don’t see what you’d like, it will be five more cold and icy years like the Bobby Wallace ones. If you go through the progressions and come  up with positives, it will be five more years of Al Golden.
Or better.

The first part of my “process” is forgetting about the film session after the cocktails because every one of those guys will look like five-star recruits once they get the projectors rolling. It’s either the editing or the cocktails.


As Al was found of saying so many times, it’s all part of the process.
The first part of my “process” is forgetting about the film session after the cocktails because every one of those guys will look like five-star recruits once they get the projectors rolling. It’s either the editing or the cocktails.
Or both.
Go to the Howard Gittis Room (200) at the Student Center today (4 p.m.) and grab one of those bio books of the new recruits.
Thumb to what other schools were recruiting our new players.
If the kid’s top choice other than Temple was Delaware or North Texas State, most likely things are not going to work out for him here.
If the kid picked Temple over BC (Kee-Ayre Griffin) or Pitt (Adrian Robinson) or Penn State (later, with Adam DiMichele), the kid is most likely to be an impact player here.
Or at least a solid contributor.
If you see enough of those level kids, it’s a good class.
I’d advise going to the Student Center today just to meet new head coach Steve Addazio, The Hooter, and Chuck Heater.

One scholarship offer gives me agita but I won’t get into it because he comes from a good and, from what I can see, very well-fed, family


The Gator with (The Hooter and) The Heater, if you will.
I think I’m more pumped about Chuck Heater being here than Addazio or even any of the recruits not named Nate Smith.
Nate Smith, a linebacker and running back from New Jersey, was the best recruit in last year’s class and I’m pretty sure he will be the best recruit in this one. He had to go to Fork Union for a year and that’s all good because it will mean that he’s ready now.
Heater is also the best 57-year-old recruit we’ve ever nabbed. I thought Mark D’Onofrio was a good defensive coordinator, but this guy has credentials that Mark might never get.
No less an authority than Urban Myer called Heater a “Mother Teresa” as in miracle worker and he was that guiding the Utah defense through an unbeaten season and the Colorado defense through an 11-1 season and the Florida defense through two national championships. Everywhere he’s gone, this guy has the magic touch.
If could have gone anywhere, but he chose Temple.
Back to  the scholarships.
One scholarship offer gives me agita but I won’t get into it because he comes from a good and, from what I can see, very well-fed, family. Once he puts on that Owl uniform nobody will root for him harder than me.
We really needed a running back with big-time ability in this class as an insurance policy for a Bernard Pierce injury and unless Bradenton Southeast’s Jared Williams faxes in his LOI in the next few hours, I don’t see one in this class.
Smith might be if they give him a shot to carry the ball, but that’s a coaching staff decision. We seem to have plenty of solid linebackers already on the roster, but no Bernard Pierce-like backup on the other side of the ball.
Maybe The Hooter can whisper that idea into Addazio’s left ear and Heater’s right ear at the same time.
After all, he looks a little like a Groundhog.

Thursday: A look at the bios of the kids who’ve signed on the dotted line.

02.01.11
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Signing Day: One of the best in sports

WR Malcolm Eugene (8) is signed and enrolled at Temple now.

Phil Knight, the Nike CEO, will tell you National Football Signing Day (that’s tomorrow) is his favorite sports day of the year.
He’s a big Oregon football fan.
Knight will be glued to his television tomorrow for all-day coverage on ESPNU (9 a.m.-7 p.m) of signing day.
I’ll probably pass on the coverage (unless it’s on in my gym), but it’s one of my favorite sports days, too, right there with opening day of baseball and the first Owl kickoff of the year and, yes, the first Thursday of the NCAA basketball tournament.
(I hear that’s Rick Neuheisel’s favorite day.)
Signing Day means more to me than Super Bowl Sunday because I have no rooting interest in either team on that day, but signing day I have rooting interest in just one team.
Temple.
Signing Day gets me pretty pumped up because I get to see a good portion of the football talent coming to Temple for the first time.

ESPNU’s coverage of signing day starts at 9 a.m.

I’ll be the first to tell you I’m not a recruiting expert.
Having covered high school football for 35 years (since I was a 17-year-old kid who found out I couldn’t play as well as I wanted to), I know one thing for sure.
I know the kind of player I like.
I like a kid who overachieves. (Give me a 6-1, 200-pound Dick Beck at center, who became captain of a 7-4 Temple team and pancaked everyone in sight over a 6-3, 240-pound guy who only plays when he feels like it.)
I like a kid who is tough.
I like a kid who makes plays. (I’m thinking Adam DiMichele with 38 seconds left in the Buffalo game, who scrambled and bought just enough time to hit Bruce Francis for what should have been the game-winning score.)
I like a kid who is a leader. (I’m thinking center Donny Klein in the 2002 Rutgers game who threw his helmet down and dropped 47 f-bombs in a halftime speech when down, 17-3, saying, “I never f-ing lost to f-ing Rutgers in my f-ing life and I’m not about to start f-ing now …” All Klein did was clear the way for Tanardo Sharps to gain 215 yards on 43 carries in the mud in a 20-17 win.)
I like a kid who is a gamer.
I’m a hard marker.
There are very few Temple players who have all of those qualities.
In short, I like a kid like Henry Hynoski from the 70s, Dick Beck, Matty Baker and Tim Riordan from (mostly) the 80s, Tanardo Sharps, Donny Klein, Alex Derenthal, Adrian Robinson, and Adam DiMichele from the 00s.
There are more, certainly, that fit the mold and some of them will be joining the Temple Football Family today and tomorrow.
If you get enough of those kids, you can win.
Indications are that Steve Addazio grabbed a few of those kids with this class. This won’t be the class we judge Addazio on because in college football today you need more than a month to get organized. There are a couple of names of kids who haven’t yet committed, but whose names I’d really like to see on the dotted line tomorrow: Desmond Blue (a safety) and Jared Williams (a running back), both from Florida. Both would fill immediate needs at Temple. The other high school guys might be candidates for redshirts.
What he needs to find, right now, is some gamers and some overachievers because the one thing about this class is that there aren’t a whole lot of five-star recruits knocking down Temple’s door.
What we don’t know, right now, is if he’s got enough of those kids.
I like what I see in the film on a lot of these kids, especially quarterbacks Clinton Grainger and Jalen Fitzpatrick, but film can be deceiving.
What is it my friend, Sal, said a couple of years ago at one of Al Golden’s signing parties?
“On signing day film, they all look like they should have gone to USC,” Sal said.
He’s right.
It’s a day to get pumped up, but we will have to wait some time down the road to see if they are the kind of players you and I like.