In that rather large binder Al Golden took to the interview with former Temple University athletic director Bill Bradshaw was a chapter entitled the “46 Percent Theory.”

Golden had taken an interest in the Temple program from the time he was a tight end at Penn State and an assistant there, at Boston College and at Virginia. All the while the Golden Goal was to take over a program of his own and Temple had been on his mind because, he said, it was squarely in the middle of 46 percent of the nation’s population. Draw a 500-mile circle, put Philadelphia in the middle, and there’s just left than half the population.

Al Golden, who is interviewing in the NFL, should be back in college soon.

Golden’s theory was that since Temple was in the middle of 46 percent of the population, its unique geographical position could be a recruiting advantage over most other schools.  Parents could be sold on sending their kids to Temple because it is a short drive from anywhere on the East Coast and inexpensive to get to the games. It is also in the middle of transportation hubs like airlines, trains and buses. In that circle are big cities like Philadelphia, New York, Washington, Boston, Baltimore, Richmond and Charlotte. Heck, even Buffalo, Cleveland and Cincinnati are less than 500 miles away from 10th and Diamond.

That theory helped turn the Owls from laughing stock to respectability and, maybe someday, the Owls will be getting Tyliek Raynors and Anthony Russos at every position. Maybe that’s the eventual goal, but being in the middle of so many people gives Temple an advantage most other AAC schools just to not have. Golden, who was 35 when he took the Temple job, got the recruiting end as soon as his feet hit the ground.

Matt Rhule is getting there because, in the current crop of commitments, the Owls have dominated the circle. Of the 23 commits so far, only three have come from outside the circle and two are from Florida. One, Montel Aaron, is from California.

The Owls don’t have catchy phrases like Rutgers (“fence the garden”) or Penn State (“dominate the state”) but, if they do well enough within the circle Golden outlined, it’s a better system than any slogans.

There are two more scholarships left, and here’s hoping the Owls pull in a couple of big catches to close things out.

Related:

We’re No. 2

5 Questions That Should Be Answered

When it comes to Temple recruiting, I’m from Missouri.

Show me.

Trust the film is one way to put it, but  numbers and rave reviews in the newspapers is verification.

We’ll always have Montel Aaron, the Player of the Year in the Sacramento area.

Aaron, a known quantity, figures to be the jewel of the 2016 class.

The others, we’re going to have to trust the film because there is not a whole lot in terms of the written word to go on but the key question is whether Houston seems to have out-recruited the Owls.

Unless you are Stevie Wonder, the answer has to be yes.

Here’s the deal with Temple recruiting: In all of those years where Temple was No. 1 in the MAC under Al Golden, the theme on recruiting night was that Temple was No. 1 in the MAC. When Temple is not No. 1 in the AAC on the first Wednesday night in February, the theme will be “trust the film.”

You can book it, but it seems to me that you can’t sell it both ways.

John Chaney would say always go  by the known. It was a good philosophy about both  basketball and football recruiting. Coach always knew when he had Rick Brunson, Eddie Jones and Aaron McKie to allow one of those three guys to shoot the ball. If anyone else shot it, he’d call time out and ream out the guy.

Here’s what we do know: Houston, a team that Temple should be on par with, is out-recruiting Temple by a large margin.  Temple had 100 big-time recruits in for the Notre Dame game and failed to land a single one after that night was over.

Not good. That was the night to make hay while the ABC-TV lights shone.

Maybe if Will Hayes had knocked down that pass, we would be talking about adding a dozen big-time recruits that night. Now we’re talking about zero.

To me, this was an important class not for next year but for two years down the road. Temple could (should) win as many as 11 games next year, but will slip below six in two years if this is not a dynamite class. I’m not seeing the TNT in this class.

One month until signing day and Temple has 17 recruits signed and the best is a quarterback from California. At least we have him.  Maybe Rhule and the staff will shock us all in the final eight, get Anthony Russo to de-commit and add seven more four-stars who everyone sees the film and trusts it. That’s what I’m hoping for, but not holding my breath about.

The final eight will tell the tale. There is a lot of work to do in the next 30 days.

Fortunately, Missouri won’t be clogging up the phone lines.

Tomorrow: Why Philadelphia Should Love Matt Rhule

Saturday: A Functional Temple Stadium

Click here to get into the Temple Spin Zone. It is a lot like the old Twilight Zone, with a little less reality. Not surprisingly, the show opens with Sean Padden’s microphone turned off. If you can lip read, it’s a great show.

Fox News has its Bill O’Reilly No-Spin Zone and Temple football will have its spin zone on Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. on National Signing Day.

It is considered a major no-no in the journalism business to call a subject you regularly cover by his first name. Par for the course for the MRAs at Owlscoop.com, though.

No one can say how the Owls’ coaching staff will spin it, but pretty much everyone agrees that there will be a spin involved. There can be no other conclusion based on the way the Owls handled their other recruiting classes. The theme of past signing days I attended was Al Golden saying we were No. 1 in the MAC by all objective analysis and Temple’s goal is to be No. 1 in everything, recruiting, workouts, gameday, etc. Instead, this will be one of the lowest-ranked recruiting classes in recent years, with Temple ranked No. 102 in the country by one of the two major recruiting websites. Sixth in the AAC by one, eighth–behind Mensa-level Navy–by another.

It came down to the wire.

I do not know how to spin that, but I guess that Temple will bring up all of the examples of two-star guys who came to 10^th and Diamond and made it to the NFL. For every one of those guys, though, Al Golden was able to get a guy heavily recruited by a BCS team like Boston College (Kee-Ayre Griffin) or Pitt (Adrian Robinson) who really made a contribution at Temple.

Bernard Pierce, who I called “The Franchise” for his three years here, was a two-star who Golden was able to stash away at a reform school (Glen Mills). This is the way you build winning teams: Get five guys who the big boys want, stash a couple of guys away, and then do a tremendous job watching the film.

That’s what Golden did.

The spin tomorrow will probably be “we watched the film, trust us.”  That’s OK, too, if Temple is able to land T.J. Simmons of Lakeland (Fla.) and Adrienne Talan, a linebacker who is between Nebraska and Temple. I would love to get the Canadian defensive end, Mathieu Betts, who is between Temple and Purdue. If Rhule is able to pull off those three, the spin becomes easier to swallow. Love the legacy recruit, Kareem Ali. Jr., and the kid he was able to bring with him, Greg Webb. I believe both of those guys could earn starting jobs next season. That would upgrade the talent level of a team which already returns 20 starters and set the minimum bar for Rhule wins at eight. A healthy Simmons following a fullback, say Rob Dvoracek, could do some serious damage against Penn State. Simmons following last year’s offensive line without a lead blocker like Dvoracek would not nearly be as effective. Remember, Pierce, Matty Brown and Montel Harris followed great  blocking fullbacks  through the hole and enabled Temple to set up an effective passing  game.  Don’t try to tell that to Rhule, though, who thinks his “process”  of no running game, no pass protection and no wide receiver separation can prevail against any opponent. There’s a lot of spin in that gameday coaching process, too.

This is not a Golden class, though. At best, it is a Silver one, maybe a Bronze. I’d rather have the top-rated class the AAC, like Golden had in the MAC for three-straight years. If Simmons is 100 percent—and that’s a big if—he could be better than Bernard Pierce. Having his announcement rescheduled for 7 a.m. is a big positive for Temple, which does not currently have a franchise running back on the roster.

Keep your fingers crossed and set the alarm for 6:55.