Merry Christmas from Temple Football Forever and thanks for all the visits and comments over the past 360 days. We will be back with a new post tomorrow.
Category Archives: Temple football
The Clawson Cutoff
Dave Clawson was a very good hire for Wake Forest.
The very entertaining Johnny Carson Show used to have a regular feature back in the day called “Carnac the Magnificent” where it gave the answer to the question first.
On another bit, the Art Fern one, he would give directions to a fake store, he would say, “Go to the Slauson Cutoff.”
Temple’s “Slauson Cutoff” is really a Clawson Cutoff, because the one advantage Wake Forest will have over Temple (3:30, Tuesday) is the continuity of coaching and that begins and ends with Dave Clawson, the head coach of the Demon Deacons.
On paper, that is not a good matchup for the Owls.
Mike Jensen of the Philadelphia Inquirer called for the Owls to hire Clawson over Matt Rhule in 2012 and, while it looks like he was wrong, that’s only to people who think Rhule was the only person in the world who could have steered Temple football in the right direction.
A tweet from Mike Jensen four years ago.
I also think Clawson could have done the same thing and, in reality, he has done a terrific job at Wake Forest. I’m in the minority of Temple fans who think there are a handful of really great coaches out there who Temple could have hired who would have done the same thing for the school Matt Rhule did.
Maybe better. Certainly better than starting 2-10 and 6-6.
That’s OK, because we will never really know.
All we do know now is that Clawson, really, is the only thing standing between Temple and a school-record 11 wins.
Most objective college football observers know that Temple has significantly better on-field talent than Wake Forest. If you take the coaches away and have the kids play a pickup game, Temple probably wins this one something like 41-13.
Putting the coaches that we know of in there and this becomes a significantly closer game.
All we know about Foley is that he is a good guy who followed a highly successful Clawson Era by going 7-15 at Fordham as a head coach and getting fired. So far, in the lead up to this game, Foley has been saying all of the right things about being a “competitive guy” and concentrating on the game, but we cannot know for sure until the final gun sounds on Tuesday. Clawson, unlike Foley, is a proven head coach.
This is one game where we will find how much coaching impacts a college football game. The formula for a Temple win equals the better kids plus a Foley who learned something a year ago against Toledo is superior to a Clawson who has worse kids but a better head on his shoulders.
That’s the thought here and the hope.
Unfortunately, it won’t be anywhere near 41-13 but a helluva lot closer to 21-13 and that is my call for the Owls because coaching means about 20 points in a college football game. This is not baseball, where a manager only impacts about 10 of 162 games a season.
Football is the most important sport when it comes to coaching. We will find out how important, oh, about 6:30 on Tuesday.
Monday: Game Preview
Eyes On The Prizes
Right now, no coats will be needed on Tuesday.
After spending what (for me) was a small fortune on a bus trip and ticket to the AAC championship game, I settled back in my seat on Bus No. 3 with visions of watching the Owls hoist the championship trophy only to be greeted by this announcement by the bus trip moderator employed by Temple:
“Right after the game, you must leave for the buses, which will leave 30 minutes from the conclusion of the game.”
Several of us screamed out loud: “WHHAAAAAATTTTT?”
We then pointed out to her that around 30 minutes after the conclusion of the game, the team, after going over to sing the Navy alma mater (a tradition), then their own alma mater and T for Temple U will just be STARTING the AAC championship ceremony. After never seeing Temple hoist a championship trophy or the Owls even involved in a championship ceremony, we weren’t on the mood to be hearing that noise that from our seats as the bus was leaving.
“I’ll check into that,” she said.
Halfway into the trip, she made the announcement: “I checked with my boss. It looks like no ceremony. The bus will be leaving right after the game. Sorry.”
There were audible groans from the packed bus.
Temple has made plans this time for the victory ceremony
Right then, at least two of us made plans to Uber it home from Annapolis if we had to because we were not missing any alma mater, fight song or lifting trophy craziness. (We didn’t; we got right on the bus as it was pulling out, but we stayed through everything.)
I dutifully filled out my survey upon returning home and mentioned how insane that to go all the way down there and be asked to get on the bus before a once-in-a-lifetime Temple victory ceremony occurs. Fortunately, the powers-that-be have heard. If Temple wins, the busses will leave one hour after the game on Tuesday; if, Heaven forbid, Temple loses, the bus hightails it out of town 30 minutes afterward.
Fair enough.
Let’s all hope for a late departure because lost in Matt Rhule’s exit, Geoff Collins’ entrance and a team practicing without defensive coaches for a week is the fact that there is not one but three very important prizes to be had.
A winning bowl trophy would be one, a top 25 finish would be another and, above all, a legacy prize of being the winningest Temple team in history (11 wins). Who knows if Temple will ever have a chance to win 11 games again? After the Garden State Bowl, I left Giants’ Stadium assuming Temple would win double digits a few times. It did not happen until last year. While three of the four AAC teams have lost, none of them have the trifecta to gain that Temple has and the Owls need to ball out just like they did a couple of weeks ago in Annapolis. The kids deserve it and the fans deserve to see it.
This time, there won’t be just one prize by three really good parting gifts to lay eyes on before the year is over and out. Let’s hope all of us are there to see them.
Saturday: Finished Business
Monday: Game Preview
Wednesday: Game Analysis
Friday: Season Analysis
Fake News And The Coaching Search
The entire press conference, including a question and answer session.
Under the category of “Fake News” had to be all of the names floated as possible replacements for Matt Rhule over the last 10 or so days.
With few exceptions, those names almost gave me a heart attack and certainly gave me agita—not the heartburn definition, but the “more aggravation than I can stand” second definition.
Let’s count the names: K.C. Keeler, Danny Rocco, Neal Brown, Matt Canada, Tim Beck and Chris Klieman and those were just some floated by Marc Narducci of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Philly TV treasure Alex Holley is stunned that future Philly football treasure Geoff Collins does not wear socks.
With just about everyone, my initial—and only reaction—was “you’ve got to be kidding me.” Keeler was fired from Delaware and coming off a 65-7 loss to James Madison. You would be doing Sam Houston State a favor by taking that guy off its hands. Rocco was being interviewed by Delaware, which is really a step down from the same position he was already holding at Richmond. (Rocco got beat, 42-14, by Stony Brook this year.) Canada was fired at N.C. State a year ago as offensive coordinator before being rescued by his friend, Pat Narduzzi, at Pitt. Neal Brown (Troy) and Chris Klieman (North Dakota State) have zero connections to Philadelphia and no understanding of Temple. Beck is the “co-offensive coordinator” at Ohio State, so we don’t know if he was responsible for the good plays or the bad plays. Plus, you’ve got to believe Urban Meyer has the big input there.
With those backgrounds, when the news hit the radio that Geoff Collins was hired by Temple there was a huge sigh of relief. Compared to those guys, Collins sounded like the Second Coming of Vince Lombardi. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Temple intentionally floated those horrible choices to make this one look even better but that’s probably giving Temple too much credit.
The truth is no one really knew who the targeted guy was until the morning of the announcement and that is the real credit Dr. Pat Kraft deserves.
This was a guy who came out of left field and was not even in the speculation, but a guy who fit what Temple was looking for infinitely better than some of the names floated. It makes you wonder who Narducci’s “source” was because Temple did not even consider some of those names he reported as being interviewed. Temple denies being involved with the only name that made any sense that Narducci floated, Old Dominion head coach Bobby Wilder.
Maybe it’s just as well. Temple fans dodged some pretty bad ammunition before Kraft caught Collins in his netting.
“Temple hit a home run when they hired him,” no less an authority than Matt Rhule said upon hearing the news.
I believe Matt simply because from what Collins has said, he does not appear to be the kind of guy who will be stumbling to find his way as a head coach like Rhule was here the first couple of years. Rhule sacrificed immediate wins while trying to implement a system that did not fit the talents of his players. Collins, on the other hand, is a coach who said he believes in tailoring his schemes around the talents of the players he has in the program. I believe he is a guy who says what he means and means what he says.
If so, he is just the kind of guy who will hit the ground running and a baton carrier is really the only thing this program needs right now.
Tuesday: A Coach Collins Primer
Mayhem’s Already Here
Temple’s defense is No. 1 in the nation in DL havoc rate and No. 9 in overall havoc rate.
Funny how one of college football’s best nicknames can originate essentially in the basement of a Vanderbilt University grad student, but that’s what led to Temple head football coach Geoff Collins being called the “Minister of Mayhem.”
A couple of years ago, Collins was pouring over some defensive statistics that he especially liked and stumbled upon the mayhem stat, which was developed by Stephen Prather, a student going for his Master’s at Vanderbilt.
Temple is No. 3 in overall defense.
Simply put, the “Mayhem” stat counts the percentage of plays on defense that end in a sack, fumble, tackle for loss or interception and those are the kind of stats Collins gears his defensive scheme to achieve. His players then started calling him the “Minister of Mayhem” and the nickname stuck.
If Collins is the “Minister of Mayhem” then he probably already met the “Kings of Mayhem” and they are our own Temple Owls. Temple’s DL is No. 1 in the nation in “Havoc Rate” which is a team’s total tackles for loss, passes defensed, and forced fumbles.
The defensive footprint stats, which roughly parallel Prather’s and Collins’ favorite stats, already have Temple has the nation’s No. 1 disrupting defense. Since Collins will probably not be his own defensive coordinator, he probably has a guy in mind right now to implement his system.
Who that will be is only known to him, but he will probably come from a group of coaches he met along the way in stops that started at Albright, went to Georgia Tech, Alabama, Mississippi State and Florida.
Meanwhile, he should be observing and taking notes at the Military Bowl because whatever he has in mind for the Owls’ defense are things they already are doing very well.
Sunday: Dodging Bullets
Tuesday: A Coach Collins Primer
Thursday: Eyes On The Prize
Winning The Press Conference
Temple-made Morgyn Seigfried talks with Geoff Collins
So far, we can say new Temple football coach Geoff (pronounced Jeff) Collins is 1-0 after having won his opening press conference.
Certainly, it was a more impressive introduction than the last two.
Rhule also won his, but stumbled on the question of “wanting to sign a 15-year contract, if Bill would let me ” which does not look all that sincere in retrospect. Steve Addazio got a loss because just about everyone in the crowd smelled his loving “South Philly macaroni” comment as the baloney it was then and turned out to be after a two-year stay.
Why Collins won it was mostly because of the things he did not say, not the things he did say.
Collins never mentioned the macaroni or the 15-year commitment and that was just as well. Everybody in the room, or at least most, knows what the landscape of college football is these days and Temple is just a stepping stone to further greatness. Really, any Group of Five school is and some Power 5 schools are as well. Ask Vanderbilt fans if they felt like a Power 5 team when their head coach left for another Power 5 school.
That’s the world we live in, where the bigger schools who draw the biggest crowds eat their young.
If Collins is a tasty morsel in a couple of years, then he will have done his job here and Temple and its fans will be better for it. Anyone who has spent recent stops in Mississippi, Georgia and Florida probably does not plan to put down roots in Philadelphia and the room knows that and Collins did not try to toss the bull bleep at them.
Collins deftly avoided the “Elephant in the Room” which was the revolving door of head coaches at Temple. It’s best to avoid promises you cannot keep. They might have well keep a revolving door at the E-O office Collins will occupy for at least part of his five-year, $2 million-per-year deal.
It would have been nice for Collins to have said it was his goal to be the next Wayne Hardin at Temple, a guy who spent 13 mostly great years here but that was the college football of yesterday and that’s history. For another subject, at least Collins knows the geography, having worked close by in Reading.
“Me, Matt Rhule, Sean Padden at Albright College,” Collins said. “I was the defensive coordinator, Padden was the D-Line coach and Matt Rhule was the linebackers’ coach and we had a blast.”
If he keeps winning in his coming days like he did the first one, this stop along the way on the Collins Train should be another, albeit higher-paying, blast.
Friday: Mayhem’s Already Here
The Wrong 6-6 ACC Team
This is the ceremony we stayed for despite being told to leave for the bus right after the game. Me and a fellow great Temple fan made alternate plans of Ubering it home if the bus left without us.
Obviously, the people who make the matchups on NCAA basketball Selection Sunday with an eye for storylines do not work on the NCAA football bowl side.
For years, the NCAA hoops people have been accused of pairing foes based on what would make a better story over legitimate seeding bracketing.
“I absolutely think that’s the case,” Temple head basketball coach Fran Dunphy said after the Owls were slotted down a couple of notches from what they should have been (2010 season) in order to play No. 12-seeded Cornell, coached by his old assistant, Steve Donahue.
That wasn’t the only instance on the basketball side, all you have to do is look at this year when Shaka Smart’s Texas team was paired against his old team, VCU, and Sean Miller’s Arizona team was placed in the same bracket as Dayton, coached by his younger brother.
Boy, they could have used that formula on the football side this year because they got the wrong 6-6 ACC team to face Temple in the Military Bowl in Wake Forest. They swung and missed on this one.
It was a no-brainer to invite Boston College and old Temple coach Steve Addazio to the Military Bowl party. First of all, there is no love lost among the current Temple players for Addazio. Haason Reddick was not even allowed to take reps in practice under the Addazio regime. He will now be a first-round NFL draft pick or at worst a second-round selection.
The sight of that bald head on the other side of the Temple sideline probably would be enough to motivate even more Temple fans to go because there is also no love lost for a guy who was full of baloney the two years he was here. Addazio said Temple was his “dream job” and talked about how he wanted to stay in Philadelphia forever because he was an Italian guy who loved the South Philly macaroni. He never saw his third year and did the Owls a favor by leaving and taking his three-yards-and-a-cloud of dust offense with him. As soon as he got to the podium in Boston, he talked about BC being his dream job. A Delaware County Daily Times’ writer then came up with this clever line: “A football coach calling Boston College his dream job is a little like a chef calling Boston Market his dream job.”
Instead of being sent to Annapolis on Dec. 27, Boston College was banished to Detroit to face Maryland the day earlier.
That’s too bad because the more compelling storyline is with a BC-Temple game and not a Temple-Wake Forest one. The ratings would have been off the charts because two large TV markets (Philadelphia and Boston) would be involved and not just Philadelphia and the small Raleigh-Durham market. Plus, there is a history between BC and Temple that dates even before the Big East. There is no history between Wake and Temple, other than one game played in 1930 that probably no one remembers. There also is a history between Wake and former ACC partner Maryland, so that’s a trade that benefits all four ball clubs.
It’s probably too late to send Wake Forest to Detroit to face Maryland, but it is a nice thought. While we’re at it, here is another one: Football should adopt the basketball version of the “eye test” because, if that were used, Temple’s wins over Navy and USF plus the championship of the sixth-best conference would have vaulted the Owls into the Cotton Bowl over a Western Michigan team that has no such credentials.
As far as Selection Sundays go, in at least a couple of important areas, football has a lot to learn from basketball.
Thursday: Elephant Hunting
Saturday: It Could Have Been Worse
Monday: The Clawson Cutoff
There Are No Words
The morning after arguably the greatest win in Temple football history, there are no words.
Literally no words are coming out of my mouth, at least in the sense of being able to talk this morning.
The throaty and hoarse condition is more than OK because it was the result of cheering for the Owls at beautiful Navy-Marine Corps Stadium as they captured what really is their first-ever major football championship. The 1967 MAC title was admirable, but that was a day when the school played to a level of football that was beneath their status even then as one of America’s great public universities.
So this was it.
Walking out of the stadium and into the concourse, I let out a very loud primal: “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT!!”
Fortunately, I got a few high fives and smiles from my fellow Temple fans and not fitted for a straightjacket. It also put the voice out for 24 hours, maybe more.
When it comes to Temple football today at least, you cannot think in terms of a national championship—the deck is stacked against G5 teams in an unfair system—so what happened yesterday was the pinnacle of Temple football success. Thousands of Temple fans, easily in excess of 10,000 Temple fans, made Navy’s 15-game home winning streak a moot point by turning that stadium into a Temple home field advantage and to get to that mountaintop and look down from it is incredibly satisfying.
Hey, it’s a pretty spectacular pinnacle. The only thing that would have made it better was a G5 slot in a New Year’s Six bowl against Penn State, but that’s not happening for a number of reasons that are not important today. (Objectively, would you take a team for the Cotton Bowl that has won seven straight against this schedule and beat a Navy team, 34-10, over a Western Michigan team that struggled to beat a four-loss Ohio team? I would but I don’t expect the bowl committee to be that objective. I can also grudingly see the WMU argument.)
What is important is that the Owls have gone from being a perennial Bottom 10 team and laughed at nationally to being ranked in the Top 25 for two straight years and going to a title game one year and winning it the next. When you think of the success P.J. Walker and Jahad Thomas have had here, there is a Twilight Zone quality to the parallel between this success and their success at Elizabeth (N.J.). In their freshman year at Elizabeth, they won one game; in their freshman year at Temple they won two games. In their sophomore year at both schools, they won six games. In their junior year at both schools, they reached the title game and lost and, in their senior year at both schools, they lifted the ultimate hardware together.
Truly amazing and I will miss both of those guys.
Back on Cherry and White Day, I wrote that this team will be better than last year’s team while people on other websites—notably, Rutgers and Penn State fan boards—insisted that Temple would take a step back. I was consistent in my belief that this was the STEP FORWARD year, not the step back one, and that belief was rooted in knowledge that both the defense and offense were significantly upgraded despite graduation losses. Only a Temple fan who follows the team closely would know that, not the know-it-alls who make assumptions on subjects they have no idea what they are talking about.
Today at noon, the Owls will know where they will go for a bowl game. They can finish the season in the top 25 and set the record for most wins in Temple football history.
It won’t be the cake because we saw that yesterday, but it will be the Cherry on top of that white cake and it will be delicious even going down past what promises to be a future sore throat.
Tuesday: The Bowl Game
Game Day: Thanksgiving Plus 10
A lot of you experienced your Thanksgiving Day nine days ago.
Mine is today.
When you live long enough to see your brother, then father, then mother, pass on all in a period of four years and realize that there is no place to go on Thanksgiving anymore, the feeling of loneliness can be overwhelming on that day.
That’s why I am thankful for my Temple football family and today’s championship game, no matter what the result, will be the best Thanksgiving Day ever.
I’ve always been at least a small part of the Temple football family and decided to step up to the plate a little over 10 years ago and give it a voice on the internet when the program was threatened by a short-sighted President. Over those years, it was a dirt poor family, then worked its way up to the middle class and now is on the verge of riches—all because of good, old-fashioned American hard work and upward mobility.
If the Owls win today (noon, ABC), they will have done it by beating a worthy foe and the trophy will be well-earned.
Temple would not have it any other way.
The Temple football story is a great story because the Owls have been pushing that rock uphill in a BCS environment that is set up to reward the rich P5 schools and keep the G5 schools in “their place.” That’s why you see the same schools in the Top 25 just about every year.
If the Owls win today, they will finish the regular season in the Top 25 and might or might not be headed to the Cotton Bowl. Either way, a win will almost assuredly put them in a sweet bowl and assure another wonderful Thanksgiving with this beautiful family of friends, fans, players and coaches. Hoisting that trophy will be something no other Temple team can boast about.
There are a couple of things pointing to this victory. The Owls were just as impressive against SMU and East Carolina as Navy was and Tulane and UConn, while very competitive with Navy, were outclassed by Temple. The Memphis result was at Memphis, while Navy had Memphis in Annapolis. The distractions about possibly losing their head coach, which existed in the week before last year’s game, do not exist this year.
Most of the tea leaves are coming up Temple. That could all change in the first quarter, though, if the Owls line up in a 4-3 defense, but learning from mistakes should be part of any process.
It all comes down to whether the Owls can handle the road environment and, from what I hear, this will be as much of a home game from a crowd standpoint for Temple as it will be for Navy.
It should be a great trip for Owl fans and, if they bring the noise, a better ride home for a family that deserves a feast.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Tomorrow: Game Analysis
Playing Possum?
Temple TV maps out road to the championship.
A possum plays dead when it wants to defend itself from predators and, in at least a couple of respects, the lead up to the AAC championship football game could be a case of the Temple football brain trust playing possum.
By extension, it also means to lay low to surprise the bad guys.
At least you’ve got to hope so.
Divulging an injury to P.J. Walker—err, walking around on a boot all week—could be a way of the Owls sending a signal to the Navy that their star quarterback will not play. I am not buying it. Walker will play and he will play at a high level. You heard it here first. I don’t think Ken Niumatalolo is preparing to play against Logan Marchi.
49 in Philly, but 54 in Annapolis. C’mon down and join us in the warmer weather.
The more concerning case of “possum playing” are the comments coming about defending Navy’s triple option. They indicate that the Owls have not learned anything, or at least much, from their season-opening experience against Army.
“It’s not the offense, it’s the players,” Temple head coach Matt Rhule said in the Daily News today.
Err, Matt, it’s not the offense or even the players as much as it is the defense. Air Force proved that by taking care of the A gaps and putting a nose guard over the center. If Temple lines up in the same 4-3 it lined up on Opening Night, it will get carved up like a turkey. Navy had the same players against Air Force it will have against Temple and it scored 14 points on Air Force. Temple has better athletes on defense than Air Force. It better not score more than, say, 24 against Temple.
SMU tried to play a 4-3 against Navy and allowed 75 points. Of course, SMU’s players on defense are nowhere near as good as Temple’s or Air Force’s.
It will not matter if Temple attempts to defend the triple option the same way it did on Opening Night.
Hopefully, Rhule is playing possum here or Temple is in trouble. If so, I can understand where he is coming from. Even if Temple tries to put eight in the box, you do not expect Matt to say: “We screwed up in the opener. We’re going to put eight in the box and dare them to pass and disrupt their ass and hit their quarterback in the backfield.” All Matt has to do is look at this Temple vs. Navy film from 2009, where the Owls tightened the A gaps and stopped a 10-win Navy team numerous times on third-and-short and fourth-and-short in a 27-24 win in Annapolis. That Temple team, and this year’s Air Force team, provided a blueprint for the Owls to win. Matt still has Al Golden’s phone number. I wonder if he has Mark D’Onofrio’s? The Navy team Temple beat that day was good enough to beat No. 21 Notre Dame (23-21) and lose to No. 6 Ohio State, 31-27.
Defensive coordinator Phil Snow also said something equally as concerning in the same article: “Any time you run the quarterback, you outnumber the defense in the running game.” No, Phil, you don’t. All 11 defenders are allowed to tackle. Not all 11 offensive players are allowed to run the ball. Send more than they can block and you can disrupt the running game at the point of attack. Sit back in a 4-3 and you are asking for the offense to dictate the tone and tempo of the game.
Praise Martin-Oguike joined in the possum playing (hopefully) with this comment: “When we played Army, we missed a lot of assignments.” Praise, you didn’t have the right assignments. Clogging up the middle against the fullback and stringing the option sideline to sideline can be done a lot better than in a 5-2 or “44 stack” than it can in the Owls’ base 4-3. Hopefully, the Owls put this in against Navy this week in practice.
Playing possum or history repeating itself?
I sure hope it’s the former.
Actually, praying.
Saturday: Thanksgiving +10
Sunday: Championship Game Analysis
