Category Archives: Temple football

03.28.18
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Succession Plan: Never Too Early

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FIU was one of many stops for the Minister of Mayhem

There has been a lot of talk on social media, if not the real one, about this supposed succession plan Temple has with basketball coach Fran Dunphy.

It comes down to these choices:

One, Dunphy returns to complete the remaining three years on his contract;

Two, Dunphy is told he has one more year and Aaron McKie will be named coach in waiting;

Three, Dunphy is told he has one more year to get to the NCAAs or he’s out.

Following Temple athletics as closely as I have for the last 40 years, I’ll opt for No. 1 and bet a good $20 on that happening. Temple has the same kind of aversion to eating contracts as Jon Stewart has to eating at Arby’s.

What does this have to do with football?

The Owls, at least in football, have to have a succession plan for reasons probably not to their liking. This may not be the topic to talk about during spring practice, but this is the kind of thing Dr. Pat Kraft should be at least thinking about and it’s never too early.

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My five-point criteria is specific: 1) Proven winner; 2) Proven ability to win as a FBS head coach; 3) ability to recruit; 4) ability to CEO and hire a solid staff; 5) ability to win at Temple

 

Since Al Golden left in at the end of the 2010 season, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule have left and, the way I read Geoff Collins, he would probably be gone after eight or nine wins this year. It has nothing to do with Collins himself, just that it’s a nomadic profession that lends to stops at places like Albright, Western Carolina, Georgia Tech, UCF, Mississippi State, FIU,  Florida and Temple. He’s probably used to moving and not adverse to it. Think about it: Is something so special about 10th and Diamond that would make Collins want to plant roots in the concrete and build something here like Joe Paterno did at Penn State?

I didn’t think so.

Kraft, who probably isn’t going anywhere, has to have a few names on the piece of paper in his pocket should he get that 3 a.m. call from Collins in December.

If he does, it probably means the Owls have done something special, like win another AAC championship and that would probably be an acceptable trade-off.

To me, the next head coach at Temple is a no-brainer. My five-point criteria is specific: 1) Proven winner; 2) ability to win as a FBS head coach; 3) ability to recruit; 4) ability to CEO and hire a solid staff; 5) ability to win at Temple.

Since someone is out there who has proven all of those qualities (Al Golden) and is probably not going to get a better offer than head coach at Temple over the next couple of years, it would be wise for Kraft to keep that name and phone number on a scrap of paper in his pocket.

Otherwise, work on a guy who has at least four of those qualities.

Churning the coordinator pile is like walking through a mine field. If you get through three or four mines, there is always that fifth one up ahead. That’s the one that could blow up this program.

With a $17 million practice facility and a (possible, not probable), $130 million stadium to gamble, you do not want to roll the dice on another unproven coordinator.

Friday: Spring Practice Position Flexibility

Sunday: Done Deal II

03.26.18
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Blessed Are The Meek

foleymeek

They say politics and sports do not mix but, maybe in one small way, politics helped Temple football on the evening of St. Patrick’s Day.

Joe Tacopina, a postgrad kicker from Cheshire Academy in Connecticut, committed to Temple that night. Tacopina is a preferred walk-on but so was Aaron Boumerhi and indications are he has the same kind of leg that Boomer has and might be able to do the same thing: Earn a scholarship.

If not, though, he will not be hurting for lunch money as his dad is Meek Mill’s attorney and that’s where the mixing of politics and sports comes into play.

Tacopina’s future coach–either head or special teams–is a big fan of his dad’s client and, in recruiting, every little advantage helps. Hell, Foley is about the same age as Tacopina’s dad, also named Joe.

Funny, I don’t picture the 50-year-old Foley for having Mill on his playlist. When Foley was 17, the top songs on the top 40 chart were Footloose by Kenny Loggins and Jump by Van Halen.  Somehow that evolved into “So Fly” or “Funk or Die” and “I’ve Got The Juice.” (Although that last track should be played when Frank Nutile throws a touchdown pass.)

When Foley is not rocking the Temple gear, he rocks the free Meek Mill wear.

Tacopina chose Temple over a similar offer from Scott Frost’s Nebraska program. Surely, Tacopina would probably be on national TV more with the Huskers, but there are other advantages of a four-year career in Philadelphia. Temple has a great law school should son chose to follow in dad’s footsteps and there are plenty of internship opportunities that exist here that do not exist the cornfields of the Midwest.

Temple will need a kicker after Boomer’s gone and apparently this young man has a chance to be just as good as Boomer. For Temple fans, that’s the kind of insurance policy they have been looking for and now have.

If it mixing sports and politics helped, the end result is all that matters.

Wednesday: Succession Plan

Sunday: Done Deal Part II

 

 

03.23.18
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Patenaude: Watch What He Does, Not Says

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Spring practice is fully underway and Dave Patenaude handled the first questions thrown his way like Freddy Galvis used to handle hard hit balls to his right.

Flawlessly.

Galvis isn’t around town anymore, but Patenaude is and he said all of the right things about the quarterback position in a recent Temple News story—that Frank Nutile, despite being a bowl-winning quarterback, has to win his job and that Anthony Russo and Todd Centeio are both significantly better than they were at this time last year.

To get a better perspective, though, of what was said this year by the Temple football offensive coordinator, it helps to dig deep to find out what he said a year ago at this time. Patenaude was enthralled with the running ability of Logan Marchi—a player he tried to recruit for Coastal Carolina—and seemingly gave Marchi the benefit of the doubt despite a subpar performance in the Cherry and White game. To the fans watching under umbrellas on that rainy day, Marchi was easily the fourth-best quarterback behind, in no particular order, Nutile, Russo and Centeio.

russo

 

Will Russo get the chance that Nutile did a year ago in a “real” game—not a practice—and prove to be even a juicier upgrade?

 

That benefit turned out to be a detriment for the Owls as Marchi went way too deep into the season, starting seven games, and the Owls almost did not recover.

Pardon me if I don’t trust Patenaude as far as I can throw him. I’m from Missouri this year. He’s going to have to show me he’s playing no favorites and gives everyone a chance to move the team in a game. I didn’t see that last year until the eighth game.

When Nutile finally got his chance in a real game—not a practice, but a game, as Allen Iverson would say—fans saw the kind of difference they saw on Cherry and White Day.

It was obvious to anyone who watched the Army game last year that Nutile was the far better leader and winner than Marchi ever was.

That was probably just as obvious to Marchi, too, who saw the handwriting on the wall and got out of here.

Will Nutile be last year’s Nutile or this year’s Marchi? Certainly, Nutile deserves first dibs on defending his job. He does not deserve to play seven unimpressive games before another guy gets a shot.

Will Russo get the chance that Nutile did a year ago in a “real” game—not a practice—and prove to be even a juicier upgrade? Will Centeio’s “packages” result in real gains in terms of yardage or will they be blown up by defenses like they were last year? Will Trad Beatty get the benefit of a redshirt year that Nutile, Russo and Centeio enjoyed? They all benefited from the extra year of film study and in the weight room and if Beatty is headed to the pros, he deserves the same advantage, too.

Those are the questions that can only answered by deeds, not words but trusting what everyone sees in the upcoming  Cherry and White game might be a good place to start.

 

03.21.18
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The Bullhorn Lady and Rittenhouse Square

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The NAACP wants Temple to put a stadium here, in half the space they already own on campus

Imagine, for instance, if you wanted to build a deck on your property and several of your neighbors came over and said:  “We don’t think that’s a good idea and we’re going to the City Council to fight it.”

The deck is on your property, not theirs, yet they succeed at getting the city to deny you the opportunity to improve your property.

That’s the level of ridiculousness we’ve reached with Temple University attempting to build a stadium on its own property.

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“IF TEMPLE UNIVERSITY CAN COME UP WITH THE MONEY TO BUILD A STADIUM, THEY CAN INSTEAD GIVE IT TO THE COMMUNITY OR INVEST IT IN RAISES FOR TEACHERS.”

 

The sad thing is that the neighbors do not realize how ridiculous they look or sound and probably never will.

I got a taste of this walking into Mitten Hall for the March 6 “community Town Hall” that was drowned out by protesters 13 minutes into the festivities.

On the way in, I was greeted by this sound by a woman with a bullhorn shouting from the seat of a small red car:

“IF TEMPLE UNIVERSITY CAN COME UP WITH THE MONEY TO BUILD A STADIUM, THEY CAN INSTEAD GIVE IT TO THE COMMUNITY OR INVEST IT IN RAISES FOR TEACHERS.”

Huh?

I wanted to saunter over there and disabuse the nice lady of this ill-conceived notion but for my own personal safety let it go. I’ll just explain how “Temple came up with the money”  here.

The stadium will cost at least $130 million and the university is well on its way to reaching its goal of $100 million in private contributions and expects to surpass that by groundbreaking. The rest of the money will be transferring funds already earmarked for Lincoln Financial Field to play in the new stadium.

If the stadium isn’t built, the money goes right back to the donors. It does not go to “the community” nor will it be used for “raising teacher salaries.” The money is for a stadium, or there is no money at all. That’s how that works. Hypothetically, when the university fund-raisers call you on the phone and ask for a stadium donation, they don’t say: “Hey, Sparky, just a heads up. If we run into problems building the stadium, can we get your OK to divert your million bucks to the community or pay raises for teachers?”

Err, no.

Just when you think the level of ridiculousness could not get any more bizarre, the NAACP said Temple University should consider building its stadium in Rittenhouse Square. Three problems with that: One, Temple does not own Rittenhouse Square; two, it’s not a large enough area to build a 35,000-seat stadium on (Geasey Field alone is larger than Rittenhouse Square) and, three, Temple would have to move its campus to Rittenhouse Square for it to be cost effective and Temple simply is not going to do that. Rittenhouse Square is a total of seven acres. Just the “Geasey Field” part of the proposed on-campus stadium site is eight acres, half of what the university has allocated for the entire project.

That would be like your neighbors coming over to you and telling you no deck on your property, but they would support you if you wanted to build your deck five miles down the road in the dog park.

Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Very few things in Provincial “Not In My Backyard” Philadelphia ever do.

 

03.16.18
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Stadium: Rock and Hard Place

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Abstract cell art from our tailgate bud Darin Bartholomew

Depending upon who is consulted, there are two schools of thought regarding this too-long and drawn-out process called building a new football stadium:

  1. Relax. Everything has been taken care of behind the scenes. Everything you see now is for show.
  2. City Council will see a whole lot of protesters in its chambers come crunch time and vote against closing 15th Street, effectively killing the project.

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived inside the city limits all of my life and am all-too-familiar with the way this City Government works, and people in school of thought one live in far-flung places like Long Island and Virginia, but Temple is officially between a rock and a hard place if it does not get permission to close 15th Street.

Guess what?

It’s not coming.

rockhard

In my mind, just enough space to build if you move the Amos Rec across the street but the Star Complex replaced most of the track and football field here.

Darrell Clarke is dead set against it and the “community” seems dead set against it.

Temple could have built on that site if the Star Complex wasn’t built because it would not require the permanent closing—actually rerouting—of 15th Street. You could probably relocate Amos Recreation Center across 15th to the old student Pavilion and squeeze a 35K stadium into the spot occupied by both Geasey and Star.

Now, with Star built, that limits Temple’s options to this:

Extend the Linc Deal

This will require holding the nose, taking the medicine and swallowing because the “lease” is one of the reasons why the university wanted to build a stadium in the first place.

Go to Franklin Field

Not an option because the AAC requires member schools to have stadium control at least on Saturdays. AAC tolerates the Linc because it gives Temple that control. It will not tolerate Penn having control over AAC TV schedule.

Knock Down The Temple Sports Complex

Move the soccer, field hockey and lax teams back to Geasey and knock down a facility Temple just spent $22 million to build and replace it with a football stadium. If you really want to build a stadium on campus, that’s Temple’s only option. It would not require closing any street and because the “community” did not oppose building the stadiums already on that location, they would not have much of an argument against building a football stadium there.

Monday: Our New Scheduling Buddies

03.14.18
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Best Cherry and White Day Ever?

proof

Proof that a stadium or two can be built at TU without community opposition

Back in the day, they built a $22 million on-campus stadium right in the heart of Temple University’s footprint with nary a peep of protest from the surrounding community or student “Stadium Stompers.”

That day was two years ago and it is now the permanent home of Temple soccer, field hockey and lacrosse.

It will also be the temporary home of the Temple football Owls for what could be the best Cherry and White Day ever. The game will be moved to the soccer home of the Owls a few blocks south of 10th and Diamond this year, better know as the “Temple Sports Complex” or, more specifically, Howarth Field.

logical

We called for this a year ago and the university listened

We’ve called for the Temple spring football game to be moved here last year (see inset to the right) and finally the university listened. Meanwhile, we had a lot of the status quo apologists on social media pooh-pooh the idea saying “you can’t do it because of recruits” and “you can’t do it because of logistics.”

Well, Temple is doing what the naysayers said cannot be done and the powers-that-be (Pat Kraft and company) need to be applauded for that, moving the football game from an overly cramped facility to a more roomy location with plenty of seating.

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The discussion last year centered on just why the university was intent on squeezing 5,000 pounds of fans into a 100-pound bag when a 2,000-pound bag became available.  Bringing portable seats for 500 people when, on a nice day, you can get 5,000 people into a little over 100-yard square area made sense when you had no place else to go.

Now they do and I hope this is the temporary spot for the game going forward, at least until a larger stadium can be built. The soccer facility opened in the fall of 2016 and the place has 2,000 permanent seats and they can still move those portable E-O seats to that location.

South Florida, which also plays in a NFL stadium, moved its spring game from its football complex to its soccer complex in 2016 and it was an unqualified success. All the Bulls had to do was line the soccer field with football yard lines, put a couple of goal posts in and away then went.

April 14th’s Cherry and White game figures to be the best ever for a couple of reasons, a celebration of the school’s third bowl win and Paul Palmer being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Bruce Arians can’t come this year due to a prior commitment, but has promised to catch a Cherry and White game in the future.

The people have been the ones who have made Cherry and White great in the past. Now that they get to enjoy it in a place slightly larger than a phone booth, the location just adds to the usual great time.

Friday: Rock and Hard Place

Monday: Scheduling Buddies

Wednesday: The Bullhorn Lady

03.12.18
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Spring (Practice) Is In the Air

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This is what will be on the ground for the first day of spring practice

Like last year’s Temple football team for instance, the last month of weather has been a tease. Those back-to-back 77-degree days of late February have been replaced by some brutal cold since. Since last year ended OK (not great), we’ll say by Cherry and White Day it will be nice and warm.

We think.

The calendar says the Owls start spring practice tomorrow, but it won’t look that way. Spring practice is in the air. Spring, on the other hand, seems a long way away.

aramark

At least the new indoor facility is the equal to anything a P5 team has.

Either way, the Temple Owls’ football team will have to deal with the 1-3 inches on the ground or move the first practices of the “spring” a couple of blocks away to the spectacular new $50 million Aramark Star Facility at 15th and Montgomery.

That’s a call for head coach Geoff Collins to make, though.

Bruce Arians used to come to Geasey Field on spring practice days—there was no indoor facility back then—and open with “get your work done” in that Southern accent he developed while a player at Virginia Tech, even though he was from York, Pa.

Either in rain, sleet or snow, the Owls have a lot of work to do to address these questions (in no particular order):

What will Trad Beatty’s role be?

The super quarterback recruit from South Carolina obviously is a Dave Patenaude favorite but, in the entire history of Group of Five football, no true freshman starter has led his team to a G5 league championship. That factor has to be weighed in the development of Beatty and the goal of the Owls to win the 2018 AAC title, just like they did the 2016 one. In Frank Nutile, they have a bowl-winning quarterback and a guy who has the best passing stats in the nation against a rush. Juice will be awfully tough to beat out.

Who are the defensive backfield replacements?

The Owls lose three of their four starters at the key positions of cornerback and safety. The only returner is first-team AAC safety Delvon Randall. They will have to plug around the edges. The speedy Linwood Crump Jr. has the inside track on the left corner spot, while the right corner spot will probably be occupied by Rock Ya-Sin, a first-team All Big South performer who had more interceptions against Wake Forest (one) in 2016 than the whole Temple AAC championship team did.

Other than Ya-Sin, who starts immediately?

My money is on Nickolas Madourie, an incoming junior college transfer from Dakota College at Bottineau in North Dakota. Shortly after former Central Florida coach Scott Frost took the same position at the University of Nebraska earlier this month, Madourie rescinded his verbal commitment from the Knights. Madourie had 45 tackles during his recently completed sophomore season, including 17.5 sacks. If the Owls go three wides on offense, look for true freshman Sean Ryan from NYC to join Isaiah Wright and Ventell Bryant. Me, I hope they scrap the three wides, use a tight end (Kenny Yeboah) and a fullback (Rob “Nitro” Ritrovato).

We should find out the answers to those questions by April 14.

Hopefully, by then, spring will have already arrived.

Wednesday: The Greatest Cherry and White Ever

03.07.18
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Eye on Atlanta: Root for Georgia Tech

urban

Hopefully, Temple’s stadium will be closer to this than the crude drawing released recently

Hard to believe, Harry (Donahue), that one of the websites that list such things has placed Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson on the hot seat.

A few years ago, Johnson was one of the hottest coaches in the country at The Naval Academy, now he’s sitting on a hot seat. That’s life in the Power 5.

If you are a Temple football fan, you’ve got to root for him and his Georgia Tech team this season because when Owls’ head coach Geoff Collins called Temple “a developmental program” a month ago tomorrow, he probably meant it with his coaching staff, too. Three of four of Collins recent hires are from the state of Georgia and his current defensive coordinator, Andrew Thacker, was a position coach at Kennesaw State (also known as the Owls). Kennesaw is in Cobb County, which is in the Greater Atlanta metropolitan area.

Collins himself as a history at Georgia Tech, being the recruiting coordinator there for the Yellowjackets. If you don’t think this staff is being developed for a place like Georgia Tech, you probably don’t believe that General Billy Sherman burned the town to the ground 168 or so years ago. If Collins does well here this fall, he certainly would move to the top of the Georgia Tech wish list.

So that’s probably what Collins means by a developmental program. Ask him if he considers Georgia Tech a developmental program.

Still, rooting for a solid year from our friend Paul Johnson is almost as good as rooting for the Owls themselves.

That’s the lay of the land, though, in the “developmental” AAC.

In January, Navy head football coach Ken Niumatalolo interviewed for the Arizona opening. While he  decided to remain in Annapolis, had he left the Midshipmen it would have left Tulsa’s Philip Montgomery as the longest-tenured head coach in the American Athletic Conference, after only three seasons with the Golden Hurricane.

Coaching turnover has become a fact of life in the American with six head coaches leaving the AAC for jobs at “power five” schools. Next year, Memphis’ Mike Norvell and USF’s Charlie Strong are sure to attract suitors.

A good year for Paul Johnson probably won’t mean Collins will be here for life, but it would certainly close at least one very attractive door and limit the damage to Temple’s program for at least another year.

How’s that Georgia Tech fight song go again?

Friday: Thoughts on The Mitten Hall Fiasco

Monday: Spring (Practice) is in the Air

Wednesday: Our New Scheduling Buddies

 

03.05.18
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Three Facts and Five Questions

No matter what you call it, the “Town Hall” being held tomorrow night (6:30) at Mitten Hall has all the potential to be either a public relations disaster or a bonanza  for Temple University.

I’m not betting on Hos Cartwright here, though.

Television cameras from all four local stations will be there with the express purpose of finding some sound and fury that would make for good fodder for the 11 p.m. newscast.

If Temple fans who want the stadium show up and dominate the session with applause and support for the ideas presented, that segment would probably find a way to the cutting room floor. If, say, for every 10 people who attend, one voice is against it and nine are for it, the narrative will be “there were some opposed and some in favor” and they will find one voice in favor and one opposed, even if there are more fans for it than against. That’s the way the drive-by media works these days. If no fans show up and only “community” members expressing opposition are there, it will be the top news story of the night.

I think we are going to be somewhere in between those two extremes, though.

mitten

It was pretty ingenious for the university to set this town hall up at a time when the students are gone. Most of the “Stadium Stompers” among the students are from relatively far-flung places like Allentown, Lancaster and Scranton and their activism on the topic probably only extends to the time they have to be in North Philly. It’s hard to imagine them giving up a spring break visit to Florida or time home with their Penn State friends for idealism. At least when idealism is not convenient.

President Dick Englert did not even address the stadium when he talked at the recruiting “celebration” on Feb. 7 so to me, the forum presents an opportunity to answer some hard questions that were not even broached then. Here are five of them:

yulman

Yulman: Rejected by ESPN

How did the stadium shrink?

Two months ago, when the plans were officially released, the minimum seating was going to be 35,000. Now, we’re hearing “between 30-35 thousand (see above video).” Not good. Why is this important? Because 30,000 will make the stadium look like Tulane’s Yulman Stadium and, by most accounts, that stadium was obsolete the day it opened. All of the Temple fans who I talked to and have been there hated it.  It’s nothing more than a glorified high school stadium and the league told Tulane the TV sightlines and lighting almost made it impossible for ESPN to schedule a night game there. Temple should go bigger (at least 35K) or go home, making the stadium look more like successful ventures like Houston, Cincinnati and Florida Atlantic. Moody Nolan needs to come clean. Will this look more like Tulane or more like FAU?

What, exactly, will go into the retail outlet?

What kind of retail will be considered or will the university build five empty franchises and hope that the market dictates the tenant? Some kind of smaller version of Xfinity Live would work, maybe a WAWA. I wouldn’t put another student bookstore or pizza shop in there, though. When I lived in Doylestown, we desperately needed a grocery store in the center of town. Instead, we got five coffee shops that mostly went out of business because wives of the rich guys who lived there always had the fantasy of opening coffee shops. Build what the students and community will need and support.

smuboulevard

Where will the traditional tailgating be held?

We all know that the university is planning to put the thousands of students who now take up a large portion of Lot K into Polett and Liacouras Walks and that’s a terrific idea. SMU has shown how successful that concept can be. Still, how many of the university’s 11 outside parking lots be set aside for more traditional tailgating on Saturdays or are the days of the traditional smaller tailgates over?

What is the timeline?

The university should set a timeline that it expects to meet. City Council approvals by this summer, next summer or the summer after or somewhere in between? At what point does this project cross the Rubicon of no return and what are the options other than Franklin Field if it is abandoned? Temple cannot allow the endless speculation on this to continue and must set some realistic parameters for getting this done.

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Does the University Have the Stomach to Play Hardball?

We’re not talking about restoring the baseball program here, although you could probably configure the stadium for those purposes if needed. If the City of Philadelphia does not give the necessary permissions, can the architects reconfigure a stadium that would not require 15th Street to be shut down? That’s what is going to have to happen for the uni to pursue legal action to get this done. An argument can be made that if places like Maryland, Rutgers and Georgia Tech have the legal right to build whatever it wants on property owned by them so, too, should Temple.  Hardball–threatening to move the uni out of Philadelphia–is what ultimately got the LC built and the uni might have to play some sort of hardball to get this done as well. Pete Liacouras had that stomach. Does the current BOT?

Wednesday: Eye on Atlanta

Friday: Reflections From Mitten Hall

03.02.18
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What a Revolting Development ….

revolting

With only a few seconds in an eminently winnable game NBA at Miami, something stood out like a 6-foot-11 sore thumb.

The Philadelphia 76ers were winning and this decade’s version of “Hack-A-Shack” was in the game. Of course, instead of two 90 percent free throw shooters Mario Bellinelli and J.J. Redick being in there to catch the ball and get fouled and win the game, Ben Simmons was spotted and fouled immediately and the Sixers lost at the buzzer mostly because he missed two free throws.

What does this have to do with Temple football?

ceremony

Because after the game, Sixers head coach Brett Brown said it was “more important for Simmons’ development” to be in there than it was to win the game.

The word “development” caught my ear because I heard, by my count, Temple football head coach Geoff Collins a derivative of it not one, not two but four times at the recent recruiting celebration. Collins said “we’re a developmental program”  while reviewing some recruiting film and saying a lot of these players are in the developmental stage and are coming here to be developed. It wasn’t the first time he used it. This is what he said in an interview on SI.com last May:  “I think this place is a developmental program, so I take pride in that.”

I guess Florida wasn’t a developmental program.

Hmmm. I’m sure Collins means well, but I don’t like the term.

Developmental program is a term I’ve never associated with Temple football before Collins came to town. AAC championship program, yes. Top 25 program, yes. Developmental program, no. While players certainly have been developed and nurtured (the most recent example is Haason Reddick), the primary purpose of Temple football has been to win as many games as possible. If someone got developed along the way, fine, but development was always secondary to playing in championship games.

To me, like the Sixers’ game above, winning is not the most important thing, it’s the only thing. I could not give a rat’s ass about Simmons being in there to learn a lesson, nor could I give a similar derriere for Logan Marchi’s “development” as a quarterback meant keeping him in there for seven games, looking awful against a bad Villanova team and stinking up Lincoln Financial Field in winnable games against Houston and UConn. A seven-game career as a starter was way too long for Marchi, who failed an eye test two games into his starting career and should have earned a permanent spot on the bench.

Big-time college football is a business and, in business, it’s either up or out. Marchi wasn’t treading upward after a brutal Game Two performance against Villanova and should have been out.

One of William Bendix’s catch phrases in the old TV show “Life of Riley” was “What a Revolting Development” and that applies to the word “developmental” and Temple football. A year ago, Collins was touting Temple as a “Top 25 program” and now it’s “developmental program.”

I prefer Top 25, thank you.

Let’s hope Temple never becomes the Sixers and sacrifices a precious game for the development of any single player. The football Owls don’t get to play 82 games a year. They can’t afford to trade wins for development.

Monday: 5 Questions for The Stadium Meeting

Wednesday: Eye On Atlanta

Friday: Reflections on The Town Meeting

3/12: Spring Practice Begins