Category Archives: Temple football

09.07.17
by

Throwback Thursday: Half-Full Or Half-Empty?

novaone

Temple won this before 6,734 fans at Veterans Stadium.

When the fans pour a few pre-game brewskis at the first home tailgate of the year, roughly 50 percent of them will be seeing that cup as half-full and the other group has half-empty.

That’s the short view coming after a shocking, at least to me, 49-16, loss to Notre Dame in the opener.

Ordinarily, Temple losing 49-16 to Notre Dame is not shocking but count me with the half-empty group after the opening week of the season. The logic is indisputable: Notre Dame was coming off a 4-8 season and Temple was coming off a 10-4 season. During that season, Notre Dame had lost to a Navy team that Temple clocked, 34-10. Notre Dame, last we checked, did not get a significant influx of transfers in from Alabama or Ohio State. Temple, last we checked, had plenty of guys who were significant players on their championship team returning.

Temple SHOULD have given Notre Dame a much better game. Maybe not my prediction of 17-13, but, say, 28-16. Forty-nine to 16 was unacceptable and has shaken a lot of fans’ confidence in this new coaching staff. Not the players, because guys like Ryquell Armstead and Adonis Jennings and Nick Sharga were as key to the success of last year’s Owls as any of the NFL departed stars on offense and guys like Michael Dogbe, Delvon Randall and Sean Chandler were just as important on defense as anyone not named Haason Reddick.

projectmayhem

Not impressed with Project Mayhem’s debut Saturday. Hopefully, the sequel is better.

The coaches changed, mostly, for both teams one group of coaches over-performed and the other under-performed. That’s why a number of fans see what has happened so far as alarming, appalling and shocking. Perhaps just as appalling to me was the fact that Collins, in his AAC media day interview, went down a list of defensive players and every single name (at least a half-dozen players, maybe more) were players who he said “played well” or “played at a high level.”

I immediately went to the toilet and puked. (Just kidding, but no one plays well on defense giving up 49 points. Three points, yes. Six points, yes. Forty-freaking-nine points, no.)

Hopefully, like another SEC coordinator Temple hired, Steve Addazio, Collins understands our intense hatred of Villanova and coaches accordingly on Saturday. Daz “got” the rivalry and he produced 42-7 and 41-10 wins over that team. That’s what I’m hoping for Collins to produce on Saturday for this Temple fan base so bitterly disappointed by the first week.

That’s the short view, though.

Long view, over several decades, is how far Temple football has come.

One of the greatest Temple fans, Ted DeLapp, posted this remarkable headline from the 1975 Temple-Villanova game, a 41-3 win before 6,734 fans at Veterans Stadium.

That was not a misprint.

Six-thousand, seven hundred and thirty-four. Archbishop Ryan and Father Judge drew 11,000 fans to their game that same year. North Catholic and Frankford drew roughly the same amount.

One fan commented that it “was pouring rain that day” but DeLapp looked up the NWS forecast data from that day in Philadelphia and said only 0.03 inches of rain that day fell at the airport, which is only a couple of miles from the Vet. Amazing how people’s memories fail them.

On Saturday, upwards of 32,000 (or thereabouts) will see Temple host Villanova. The Wildcats are a top 10 FCS program and the Owls, while not the Top 25 program new coach Geoff Collins claims they are in the FBS, certainly flirted with the Top 25 in the last two seasons before being stood up in the last two bowl games.

Short view, for Temple at least, glass is half-empty.

Long view, half-full, especially considering that thousands of more people are both interested and invested in Temple football than 40 or so years ago.

Saturday around 6:30 p.m. or so if what’s in that cup taste like sewer water, it’s going to be a long season. Collins gets a Mulligan on the first week, but there will be no Mulligans going forward.

Sunday: Game Analysis

09.04.17
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Adventures in woulda, coulda, shoulda land

Editor’s Note: The following is an analysis of the game from Fizzy Weinraub, a former player in the pre-coach Hardin days. In the above video, he is fighting with his fellow Owls in a game against Gettysburg (hey, you play who was on the schedule). Literally, fighting in the final frame of this film.

 

weinraub

You want swag? Fizzy oozes swag.

                   By Dave (Fizzy) Weinraub

Defensively, we were not ready for prime time.  Notre Dame pretty much did what they wanted, although they got more than a little help from their friends.  Let me back-track.

Two weeks ago at the mostly closed scrimmage we had at Franklin Field, I had a chance to spend some time with Dr. Pat Kraft, our AD.  Our conversation meandered about as I couldn’t resist the opportunity to tell some wonderful Temple football stories.  Then Pat brought up the elephants in the room whenever you play Notre Dame. They are the officials, and how they had made some tenuous calls even when the game was here in 2015.  We talked about the mystique that seemed to envelop the officials, especially in South Bend.

Don’t get me wrong.  We lost yesterday because we couldn’t stop them, along with some questionable offensive strategies, which I’ll get too shortly.  However, I saw three Notre Dame running touchdowns during which holding, shoulda, woulda, coulda been called.  In addition, there was the very questionable roughing the passer called in our red zone after we had stopped them, and last but not least, the no-call when our receiver was clearly interfered with in the end zone.  If you don’t believe me, come on over as I have it on tape.  (If you come over, bring a bottle of Jack.)

Sometimes I wonder if all the offensive coordinators in college football get together over the winter and decide which plays they’re going to run.  It’s like channel surfing and seeing the same Tom and Jerry cartoon on every channel.  

Consider this, we’re behind by one, two, and then three touchdowns and mostly running the ball on first and second down.  Yes, we were trying to establish the run and not altogether doing a bad job of it. But, you have to adapt to the situation. And if you’re using the ground game to eat the clock, then you should have stayed home.

Believe it or not, there was an outside chance of winning yesterday’s game.  Notre Dame’s pass defense is only mediocre. Watch and see how they get beat in weeks to come, and I’m sure scouts will see what I saw.  We shoulda thrown caution to the winds, opened up the offense and thrown the hell out of the ball.

One last comment.  If I’m running the ball effectively, and want to go for the home run, I’m gonna do it from play action on an obvious running down.  Why would you just drop back?    

But there’s good news.  We’ve got as much talent, or more, than anyone we’ll play for the next eleven games.  Properly orchestrated, I look forward to being in the conference championship game once more.

Tomorrow: Above The Line

Thursday: Throwback Day    

09.03.17
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Below The Line: Collins, Johnson

Here’s the good news coming out of Notre Dame’s 49-16 win over Temple on Saturday.

Geoff Collins is not going anywhere.


You can talk about SWAG all
you want and play the guitar
in practice, bring the kids
from the band and play drums
on the E-O field, but you clock
in for three hours every Saturday
and your job performance is determined
on that day only. You can talk about
how hard you work and how tough you
are and how much Mayhem you’ll bring,
but the scoreboard on Saturday
is the final arbiter.

Here’s the bad news.

Temple might not want him nor would it matter if they don’t.

Ask anyone who follows Temple football or basketball. They can get just enough scratch together to hire a coach, but they certainly do not have the money to eat these big contracts. So expect Cheesesteaks with the coach for a lot of Fridays going forward.

I did not expect Temple to win this game against Notre Dame, but I certainly expected the Owls to give a better effort, especially on defense. In my preseason prediction, I had the Owls losing this game, 17-13, not 49-16.

My reasoning was this team has a lot of good defensive linemen and an excellent secondary. I thought those were more than enough to offset a group of athletic, but inexperienced linebackers.

Here are five other things we learned:

toldyou

This Looks Like Steve Addazio 2.0 (so far)

Collins, like Daz, a coordinator from Florida, has done a lot of very Daz-like things so far and one was burning Aaron Boumerhi’s redshirt on the opening kickoff. Again, anyone following Temple football knows the Owls had a very good kicker, Brandon McManus, followed by a very bad kicker in Jim Cooper Jr. Getting another Aaron Boumerhi or Austin Jones is not a slam dunk and it would have been nice to have Boomer for the 2020 season. That is out the window. Also have to wonder on the hire of Taver Johnson as defensive coordinator. These players are too good to give up 49 points and 422 yards rushing to anyone. Johnson has never been a DC at the FBS level. Would have liked for him to have a track record somewhere else first. At least, Daz was smart enough to hire Chuck Heater and make him “head coach of the defense.”  Temple had back-to-back shutouts under Heater in 2011. It hasn’t accomplished that since. If this bleeding continues, Collins should have Heater on speed dial. If not, give up his job as coach of the fullbacks and become head coach and DC.

marchi

Marchi, Marchi, Marchi

I thought he did OK but what happened to this talk about all four quarterbacks playing? Did he do “OK enough” to not see another quarterback? No. They must not be enamored with Frankie Juice, either, to leave Logan in the game for four quarters. I think Marchi deserves the start against Villanova, but it’s the quarterback’s job to put points on the board in bunches so any series without points against that squad should mean the other guys get a chance and fast.  Anthony Russo is not a great practice quarterback, ala Vaughn Charlton, but he’s certainly a proven big-game quarterback in his high school past and he’s closer to Adam DiMichele in ability than Charlton. The other three guys are not. He deserves a chance to play in a real game if the Owls struggle to move the ball again.

Do the talking on the field

Any chance the Owls had of Notre Dame taking them lightly went out the window when two of those rookies, who shall remain nameless here, basically said the Owls were going to “kick Notre Dame’s ass.” That works only if you back it up. Collins should zip all pie holes going forward.

Temple summer practice, football,

What Could Have Been

Temple dropped two sure interceptions for touchdowns and, on the Mike Jones’ interception return, he EASILY could have scored had he waited for Sean Chandler to block the remaining fat and slow Notre Dame offensive lineman. Instead, he took a route to the sideline. All he had to do was cut it inside, where Chandler was setting up to block, and he would have had six. Also, Jacob Martin was held on one of Notre Dame’s touchdowns and the AAC refs did not catch it. Closer, but the way this defense was playing, it would have made the score window dressing. Say, 49-34, instead of 49-16.

Below The Line

You can talk about SWAG all you want and play the guitar in practice, bring the kids from the band and play drums on the E-O field, but you clock in for three hours every Saturday and your job performance is determined on that day only. You can talk about how hard you work and how tough you are and how much Mayhem you’ll bring, but the scoreboard on Saturday is the final arbiter. The offense scoring 16 points was not unexpected (we had them scoring 13 in a 17-13 loss). The defense failed to meet even minimum expectations and, for that, both Collins and Johnson fall below the line this week. Here’s the bottom line with this below the line grade. With a much worse group of players, Matt Rhule and Phil Snow went into Notre Dame and gave up just 28 points in a 2-10 year. Good coaches get the most out of their talent and Rhule and Snow did that day, but Collins and Johnson did not on this one.

Unfortunately, on this depth chart, there is no one above them. Right now, just a big blank space above a Cherry and White line.

Monday: A Former Temple Player’s Take on The Game

Tuesday: Above The Line

Thursday: Throwback Thursday

09.01.17
by

Spaghetti Midwestern

midwestern

Watching the so-called “Spaghetti plots” over the last few days that plotted the projected path of Harvey, one of them had the storm directly over Indiana by “Saturday PM.”

Temple and Notre Dame both seemingly have dodged a bullet because subsequent plots have put the remnants closer to, say, Philadelphia than South Bend.

While rain is considered the great equalizer on the football field and a nightmare for Las Vegas, if Temple would be fortunate enough to win on Saturday in a monsoon the narrative would have been it wasn’t a fair fight and the Owls won due to the elements. This is like one of those old Spaghetti Westerns, so named because they were mostly made in Italy. They all had a simple plot. Good guy versus bad guy and a lot of action with a satisfying result at the end.

spaghetti

This is how close Harvey came to helping out Geoff.

Call this a Spaghetti Midwestern, where the bad guys depend on which side of the economic tracks you are on in today’s modern day college football reality. It’s really hard to imagine that, unless you are Irish, Catholic or a Notre Dame fan for life why you would be rooting for anyone but Temple in this one.

People who follow this blog usually know in this space the day before a Temple game we talk about the matchups, how the Owls should attack and expect to be attacked.

In all honestly, we don’t know Jack this year. New quarterbacks, mostly new coaches, new coordinators for both teams. Of course, the returning head coach, Brian Kelly, presided over a 2016 team that lost to a Navy team that could not get within a sniff of Temple in the most important game of both team’s seasons. (Apologies to Navy, but winning the AAC title game is still more important than an Army game that you’ve won 10-straight times.)

This we do know: Temple has a GREAT defense and will smack you in the mouth. Whether those body blows result in a TKO or Mayhem turns into touchdowns the other way, we will find out Saturday. In this space, and at this moment, we will focus on the larger picture.

Certainly, all of the Group of Five schools will be rooting for Temple. They’ve been dealt a bad hand by the BCS Power 5 schools who have engineered a hostile takeover of college football and dictated to the NCAA what the rules are and who should be in their title game. They have made it a virtual impossibility that any G5 school ever make it into a championship.

Fortunately, the basketball side of the NCAA has avoided that doomsday fate but the P5 is certainly positioning itself for a hostile takeover of that wonderful tournament as well.

A win for Temple in this game will not cure all of those ills but would certainly be a step in the right direction. Certainly there have been other high-profile wins by G5 schools over P5 schools, with Houston beating Oklahoma last year, Memphis beating Ole Miss in 2015 and Temple beating Penn State in that same year.

None of them have moved the needle closer to fairness because those schools are still have-nots in a sport of haves. A win here would be slightly different in that the Owls would do this in the first week of a long season before a national television audience and, if they were to keep the momentum for as long as they did in 2015, they would have to be mentioned as a possible playoff team by the highly paid talking heads. One of those talking heads this year is a Temple grad, Kevin Neghandi, who will run the college football show for ESPN this fall.

That kind of platform is not available for any other G5 school and Temple will at least build the stage with a win on Saturday. It is helpful that Hurricane Harvey does not make a visit to throw a caveat into what would be such a glorious victory.

Sunday: Game Analysis

Tuesday: Above The Line

Thursday: Throwback Thursday

 

08.30.17
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When Home Is Enemy Territory

The 1966 Notre Dame vs. Michigan State game was the first “Game of the Century.”

When I was young enough to discover this thing called college football, I kept hearing about “Game of the Century” for a full week in the fall of 1966. There have been only two subsequent centuries but the hype would be similar for 20 or 30 games after that one.

In my mostly Irish Catholic Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood, the talk of the sports world that time was the game between Michigan State and Notre Dame.

diggingit

From oddshark.com, a Vegas betting site with an outstanding record for picking upsets. Do not know how Notre Dame scores the .2 tenths of a point, though.

Nobody was rooting for Michigan State.

To me, as a kid, I never understood what the big deal was. I always rooted or the local teams, the Phillies, the Eagles, the Sixers.

“Is Notre Dame local? I can’t get into it.”

Others, though, did partly because I guess they thought rooting for the Irish would get them the necessary plenary indulgences to get through the back door of Heaven.

It was about that time I started watching Temple football every Saturday night on Channel 17, the UHF station. Al Meltzer handled the play-by-play and Charlie Swift the color. I started getting into it. This was MY college football team from MY hometown.

Football played a big part of my decision on where to attend college. The fact that my favorite college football team also had a journalism school attached to it did not hurt, either.

Little did I know the team representing that school would ever play a team that was involved in the college game of the last century, but that’s where were in 2013, 2015 and a couple of afternoons from today.

The residue of that first game of the century are still around today in Philadelphia, where Notre Dame claims a much larger fan base than even Penn State and Temple.

Hard to believe Harry (Donahue), but Notre Dame has a large “subway alumni” fan base in Philadelphia. They helped fill Lincoln Financial Field in 2015 and were mostly gracious to the Temple fans around them.

templebar

No one will be rooting for Temple at The Temple Bar on Saturday in Dublin, Ireland.

When Will Fuller, a four-star wide receiver from one mile down the street from Temple (Roman Catholic High), beat a walk-on named Will Hayes for the game-winning score, a steady line of these fans shook my hand walking out the stadium and told me things like, “congratulations, your team played a great game.” For someone who probably puts too much emphasis on winning, it was only mildly consoling.

I’m like Vince Lombardi. Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.

In bars and taverns all over Philadelphia, there will green-glad Irish fans who are expecting the winning thing to happen as a normal course of events. You could probably walk out of Two Logan Square, where Temple is having its official Watch Party, and duck into every Center City bar within a four-block radius and see it packed with Golden Domers. (Heck, at The Temple Bar in Dublin, Ireland, the kickoff will be at 8:30 p.m. and no one will be rooting for Temple.)

It would be nice to crash one of those parties late in the fourth quarter on Saturday.

Temple finally shook off 74 years of frustration a couple of years ago in beating Penn State. Oddly enough, to me, the greatest satisfaction was not seeing the final seconds tick off but the entire fourth quarter watching a steady stream of glum Penn State fans exit the stadium because that game was over some time in the third quarter.

Those Penn State fans entered the stadium around 3:30 that afternoon thinking a win was in the normal course of human events. Notre Dame fans walking into taverns all over Philly on Saturday probably have adopted the same mindset. Few things would be more satisfying than to see similar assumptions disabused by the real hometown team this Saturday.

Catching those green-painted faces file out of those parties in my hometown with sullen looks would be just as satisfying. It might not be The Game of the Century, but it would be close enough.

Friday: Spaghetti Western

Sunday: Lessons Learned

 

 

08.28.17
by

Game Week: Most Exciting Season Yet

kraft

The guy who is the new head coach at Temple has this fascinating way of answering questions he does not want to answer.

Geoff Collins just shakes his head.

Up and down for yes.

Side to side for no.

Smiling all the while, but not a single word uttered.

Watching Collins do this the last three or four times sold me. Simply not because of that knee-jerk reflex, but because of a thousand other idiosyncrasies he has shown since being hired as Matt Rhule’s replacement. Answering questions is just one endearing quality. More so, to me at least,  he could cite to me chapter and verse every important play a current Temple player made on film in every game he ever played. For someone who felt that Rhule never looked at tape either of his players or opponents, that was a very good sign. If this guy pays that much attention in the film room to what his current players have done, this is likely  a guy who will study opponents’ film and attack their weaknesses. I was never sure Rhule did that, at least enough on a consistent basis for my taste. To Rhule, it was enough to focus on “the process” and “controlling what we can do.”

That’s nice, but college football is a big war game and encircling your enemy and exploiting his weaknesses is at least as big a part of it.

Collins, from what I’ve seen, seems to understand that’s a part of the process, too.

Judging from the focused practices, this is a guy who won’t stand for the Owls having 120 yards in penalties at Notre Dame, like Rhule brushed off after last year’s Penn State fiasco.


This is Pat Kraft’s “Home Run”
hire and, if that lands in the
upper deck like a Rhys Hoskins’
one, we will have a repeat
championship team
at 10th and Diamond

This guy has the “it” factor that even Al Golden and Matt Rhule did not have. This is Pat Kraft’s “Home Run” hire and, if that lands in the upper deck like a Rhys Hoskins’ one, we will have a repeat championship team at 10th and Diamond.

He’s genuine, not a bull-shitter who will tell Temple fans he wants to be here 1,000 years like the message the last guy perpetuated. He just avoids that question and that’s fine. As John Chaney once said, don’t tell me you’ll love me forever if you won’t.

This guy, Collins, has the kind of charisma those two did not with the attention to detail Golden had.

Golden was the meticulously organized guy, building a binder of how to construct a program based on his years of being an assistant at Penn State, Boston College and Virginia. Rhule observed Golden and tried to follow the same blueprint. Collins believes in those concepts, but thinks just outside the box enough to be able to implement new and improved ideas.

That’s the primary reason why I am more enthusiastic about this season than I have been for any one since the late, great Wayne Hardin was head coach.

Here’s the nut graph: This Temple team can win anything from 6-12 games and that’s why I’m fascinated more by going into this season than any other in the last decade or so. Last year was the so-called “step back” year and we debunked that theory the first week before the season because we felt the guys returning were more than capable of getting the Owls the league championship.

It turned out they were.

I’m not calling for a league championship here, or even a win over Notre Dame—I think the Owls fall just short of both goals—but don’t sell this guy Collins short.

He could very well prove me wrong and I think he might. This is one time I very much want to be wrong and one guy who is capable of debunking my theories. I will be hanging on his every word of this incredibly fascinating season.

Or every nod of the head.

Wednesday: Enemy Territory

Friday: Game Preview

 

 

 

08.25.17
by

Eye Of The Needle

needle

In Mark 11-23-27, a God-like figure who goes by the initials JC and is not John Chaney said, “it is easier for a Camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Whew.

I guess you and I dodged a bullet by not winning that $700 million lottery on Wednesday night, simply because eternity is just a bit longer than the 50-100 years we get to live on this planet and, if you had to chose one, you’d chose eternity.

What has proven to be just as difficult, though, is for a Group of Five team to enter the Kingdom of College Football Heaven. That’s how corrupt college football has become in an era where the Power 5 sets the rules and the Group of Five must follow or go home.

The bad news is that Temple is PROBABLY not going to get into Paradise this year. The good news is that it’s possible should this scenario occur:

  1. Temple beats Notre Dame
  2. Notre Dame beats everyone else
  3. Temple beats everyone else

Crazy, because crazy things rarely happen. Yeah, we know that’s pretty nigh impossible but, on the eve of a college football season, we can dream, can’t we?
Really, the MOST crazy part of this equation is if Notre Dame loses to Temple, it’s hard to see the Irish run through the rest of a schedule that includes teams like Southern Cal and Georgia. Still, after losing to Army in the opener last year, did you ever envision Temple winning the toughest G5 Conference?

I did not think so.

So say both Temple and Notre Dame run through their regular seasons unbeaten. It would be pretty impossible for even a P5-stacked selection committee to pick one-loss ND over unbeaten Temple for a slot in the Final Four given the fact that the unbeaten team won at the one-loss team.

There are not many G5 teams that have a similar pathway into the Final Four because they have not scheduled a marquee team.

If the G5 is ever going to crash this rich man’s party, then this year is the year and Temple is the G5 team and the first step is winning at Notre Dame.

Somewhere, the real Touchdown Jesus would probably look down and at least crack a smile if that happens.

We can pray Notre Dame does its part. The Owls will have to handle their part on their own accord by winning three more games than we predicted them to two days ago.

Can’t happen?

Yeah, probably, but as long as both teams are unbeaten (and both are now) we will dream our dreams and others are free to dream theirs.

Monday: Game Week (Can You Believe It?)

Tuesday: Enemy Territory

08.23.17
by

A Step Back, Albeit Tiny

EA Sports likes Notre Dame, 14-9; we’ll go with 17-13. Love the Temple fight song being played in this simulation.

Time waits for no man, even if that man is as affable and amiable as Geoff Collins, Temple’s new head coach.

While Collins might not be ready to name a starter at quarterback, a couple of outlets already named one for him.

sked

Your turn to pick the scores

EA Sports has Logan Marchi starting the Notre Dame game, while USA Today confidently predicts that Todd Centeio will be Temple’s starter.

Others closer to the program swear Frank Nutile will get the nod and this reporter hopes that all four players—all four—get a chance to show their stuff in a real game against real competition. If that never happened, Temple fans would not have gotten to see arguably the best quarterback of the last decade, Adam DiMichele, because he was a notoriously bad camp and spring ball quarterback who clicked once the lights went on during the regular season.

Well, in the spirit of time waiting for no man, at this time every year we like to look into our crystal ball and give a game-by-game breakdown and we’ve run out of patience waiting for a starter.

Last year, fans from opposing teams and members of the Fake News wrote “Temple will take a step back in 2016” from its 10-win season. Au contrare, we said, just the opposite. Last year was the step forward year, not the step back one. We predicted an 11-win season and an AAC championship. We did not get the 11-win season because the coach who claimed lifetime fidelity to Temple jumped ship and took his coaches with him, but there can be no doubt the season was a step forward with a title.

birmingham

A victory over Florida in the Birmingham Bowl would be a satisfying end to a successful season.

In all fairness, in that prediction, we wrote that “next year (2017) will be the step back year and not this one” so, while it would be tempting to predict the Owls go 15-0 and win the national title, that would be, at best, intellectually dishonest.

EA Sports got it right with its simulation of the ND game. In my mind, this was going to be a low-scoring one and EA has Notre Dame winning, 14-9. We’ll go two touchdowns and a field goal for ND and two field goals and a touchdown for Temple. ND, 17-13. What most of the nation doesn’t know, but will know soon is that this Temple defense will be better the last two. The offense will determine the season.


IF Collins loves the Temple
kids as much as he says he
does, he stays through the
Birmingham Bowl and completes
a successful season with a
27-20 win over his
former SEC team, Florida

Villanova at Temple (0-1), Sept. 9 _ If Temple only gets one touchdown in the opener, expect a new quarterback for this one. The last time the Owls hired a SEC coordinator to be head coach, he understood the importance of a beatdown of the crosstown rival and won two games, 42-7, and 41-10. While losing to ND can be considered acceptable, losing to Villanova cannot. Temple, 41-3. Temple is now 1-1.

UMass at Temple (1-1), Sept. 16 _ Too much drama in the last game between these two teams. Playing at home makes a world of difference here. Temple, 35-10.

Temple (2-1)  at USF, Sept. 21 _ Much as it pains me to say, Quintin Flowers and the Bulls have been circling this one on the calendar for a full year and they will be ready for the ambush. USF, 34-24.

Houston at Temple (2-2), Sept. 30 _ Never a big Major Applewhite fan and losing Greg Ward will adversely affect Houston more than the loss of P.J. Walker with Temple. Owls, 28-14.

Temple (3-2) at ECU, Oct. 7 _  ECU loses its best player, Zay Jones, to Buffalo of the NFL and, judging from its 37-10 loss to Temple last year, it needs more good players, not less. Temple, 27-14.

UConn at Temple (4-2), Oct. 14 _ UConn brings a new coach, Randy Edsall, and a new quarterback, David Pindell, into Philadelphia. Collins wanted Pindell, but Edsall got him.  This game will be closer than last year’s game. Temple, 21-17.

Temple (5-2) at Army, Oct. 21 _ A good sign for this one is that Collins has watched so much Temple film he can recall individual plays current Owls made from 2015 to now. At times, it seemed that Matt Rhule’s staff never opened a film projector and one of those times was in game prep for Army a year ago. If Collins watches as much film as we think he does, he will give Army a heavy dose of the running game on offense and plug the A gaps on defense with two tackles and a nose guard to bust the triple option at the point of attack. Temple, 63-23.

Navy at Temple (6-2), Nov. 3 _ The 5-2 defense that Temple employed at Army comes in handy against Navy. Temple, 31-19. (Interestingly, Phil Snow went mostly with a 5-2 in a 34-10 AAC title win over Navy with Averee Robinson and Freddy Booth-Lloyd alternating as the nose guard.)

Temple (7-2) at Cincinnati, Nov. 10 _ The Bearcats also have a new coach, but the culture of winning is not as entrenched as it is with the Owls. Temple, 30-7.

UCF at Temple (8-2), Nov. 18 _ Scott Frost has UCF improved, so this won’t be easy but Temple TUFFs it out, 21-20, on a late Austin Jones’ field goal.

Temple (9-2) at Tulsa, Nov. 25 _ With the AAC West on the line, Tulsa’s offense is just too much for Collins’ Mayhem defense. Tulsa wins the shootout and gets to play USF in the title game. Tulsa, 31-27.

IF Collins loves the Temple kids as much as he says he does, he stays through the Birmingham Bowl and completes a successful season with a 27-20 win over his former SEC team, Florida. The Owls might rather play Baylor, BC or Penn State but those opportunities will not be on the table. An SEC opponent like Florida would present an appealing story line. The Owls finish the regular season 9-3 and sneak into the final Top 25 poll, making them a real Top 25 program and not a self-proclaimed one.

For Collins, that opens up some interesting options.

His name becomes a hot one for after the 2018 season. Maybe he breaks the mold and becomes the guy who figures out that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the 10th and Diamond fence. Or maybe the maddening cycle continues and Ed Foley coaches the 2018 bowl game. If that’s the case, football bowl time at Temple unfortunately takes on the feel of Groundhog Day once again.

Friday: Eye Of The Needle

Monday: Game Week Begins (Can You Believe It?)

08.21.17
by

Vesting The Temple QB

vested.png

There’s a spot right there in the pocket to put the starter’s name.

Now we know why Geoff Collins wears that ubiquitous vest all the time.

He needs to keep something important close to it. Somewhere in one of those pockets is the name of the starting quarterback for Temple against Notre Dame on September 2. One of these days, maybe this week, Collins will pull a name out of a pocket and tell the press.

Or not.

He doesn’t have to name one until maybe an hour before kickoff, but the guess here it will be sometime before that. One thing is certain: No one will ever be comparing Collins’ vest to Al Shrier’s briefcase. The legendary Owl has never disclosed that information and maybe won’t ever.

Collins has to tell NBC-TV who his starter at quarterback will be.

Depending upon whom you talk to, the Temple head coach  is down to two quarterbacks who are “above the line.”

(That’s the new Temple football nomenclature for depth chart, since the new regime doesn’t believe in them. Above the line refers to guys who will play in the actual games.)

A few of the alumni—who had full access—say it’s Frank Nutile and Todd Centeio.

One of the reporters I respect enormously, Shawn Pastor of OwlsDaily.com, say it’s Logan Marchi and Frank Nutile. Pastor and the rest of the media had only second-half access.

The guy whose opinion counts the most, Geoff Collins, isn’t mentioning names.

Yet.

He will by the end of the week, which is one week later than the ideal time offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude set a month or so ago. At that time, Patenaude said that “you would like to name your starter two weeks before the opener” and Saturday was two weeks.

More kicking the can down the road.

This can has been kicked so far down the road on Broad Street over the last seven months that it probably has reached the Naval Yard by now.  At first, we thought we might have a starter come out of spring camp. That did not happen for a number of reasons, chief among them that no one created the necessary separation to be The Guy.

No worries.

Patenaude has always said from the jump that this was never a case of not having someone who was good enough, but having four guys who are good enough to be a championship Top 25 (at least regular season, until Temple can figure out this bowl thing) starting quarterback. Even though he’s coming to Temple seeing only Coastal Carolina quarterbacks, I tend to believe that reasoning.

Collins, for his part, pretty much said the same thing in his post-Franklin Field scrimmage talk with reporters on Saturday. He also let something slip: “We have packages ready for Toddy.” To me, that means two things. Centeio will not be redshirted and “Toddy” will be second team. You usually don’t have “packages ready” for the first-team quarterback.

Unless that means Toddy is taking a job at UPS during his redshirt season and I don’t think he will get one judging from what Collins says.

That leaves the first-team “above the line” guy and we should find that out in a week. After seven months of watching that can kicked down the road, it should be nice to pick it up and take a look inside for a change.

Or it that crunched up tin can might have been in Collins’ vest pocket all along.

Wednesday: Our Game-By-Game Analysis

Friday: The Eye of The Needle

Monday: Game Week (Can You Believe It?)

 

08.18.17
by

Perception Versus Reality

touchdown-jesus

Father forgive them, for they know not what they say.

Very few things surprise me these days, but I will have to admit I was surprised by this post that appeared on OwlsDaily.com by a Notre Dame fan who has been trolling that site all summer:

ndfan

That Notre Dame fan could not be more wrong.

“Both defensive end starters?”

Hmm.

Jacob Martin, one of the replacements, has a single digit for a reason. His teammates consider him one of the nine toughest players on the team and they have for the past two years. The other defensive end, Sharif Finch was a starter for the THREE previous years before being injured a  year ago and was the key defensive playmaker in a 2015 win over Penn State. He is also one of the nine toughest players on the team as voted by his 105 teammates.

Funny, I looked very hard for that qualifier in the Notre Dame fan’s post but could not find it.

He just assumes that because Temple lost two DE starters, it will have a dropoff in that area. Sorry to disabuse him of the notion, but it is not happening.

The same can be said for his other incorrect assumptions regarding the rest of the interior defensive line. Freddy Booth-Lloyd was not a starter at nose tackle/DT but certainly logged as much time as the starter, Averee Robinson. Michael Dogbe and Greg Webb were starters, as well as Karamo Dioubate. This line might be better than last year’s group.


In another post, the same
Notre Dame guy says,
“the more I read about
this game the more convinced
I am that it will get ugly early.”

In another post, the same Notre Dame guy says, “the more I read about this game the more convinced I am that it will get ugly early.”

There are no such assumptions from the Temple side, even though the Owls entered the last two bowl games ranked in the Top 25. The only expectation that the Owls bring  is that they will be ready for a street fight and really that’s the only way to approach this one. Respect everyone, fear no one.

What the linebackers lack in experience, they more than make up for in talent. Linebacker coach Andrew Thacker said the two units are so talented, he might run in two sets of starters. We all know the secondary is the strongpoint of the defense. Even the ND fan will admit that.

Of course, the quarterback situation is a bit of a concern but the same could be said for Notre Dame’s starter, Wimbush. Nice QB, with a high pedigree, but the Owls have a guy in Anthony Russo, who was recruited by LSU, and, if he’s beaten out, they will have more than a capable replacement for P.J. Walker.

If perception versus reality is an indicator of how things will go on 9/2/17, I like the Owls’ chances. I really like from a psychological standpoint how this game is shaping up for the Owls. There are a lot of guys who think this game will get ugly on their side and a lot of guys on our side who will be ready to go to war.

As someone whose image is plastered in one Notre Dame end zone once said, “Father Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Or, in this case, say.

Monday: The Final Scrimmage