Category Archives: Temple football

02.29.16
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The Case for Jahad Thomas in Slot

 

Nobody outworks the Owls, so the 3-4 finish could have been a ND hangover.

One of the puzzling lessons of the Notre Dame game was that the Irish seemed to suck all of the Temple TUFF mojo out of the team for the remaining seven games of the season. The Owls finished 3-4 after starting 7-0, and there had to be a reason and the Notre Dame game was the easy scapegoat.

At first, it didn’t make sense.

Going down the rosters of the two teams, it could not have been the size factor as both lines were relatively the same height and weight.

fitzy

If Jahad does what another No. 5, Jalen Fitzpatrick (above), did for the Owls’ receiving game, the offense will be that much more explosive in 2016.

Knowing how hard the Owls practice (see above video), it could not be because Notre Dame outworked the Owls. Got to figure the Owls get out there in the snow even more than Notre Dame—which has a bigger indoor practice facility—so it had to be something.

It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure  out the difference was the running game and the size of the running backs, as Temple’s running game seemed to be worn down after ND, but ND did not suffer the same lack of production after TU.

The size was a factor there.

The Notre Dame running backs, C.J. Prosise (appropriately enough, pronounced PRO SIZE) and Josh Adams, were 6-1, 220 and 6-2, 210, respectively. The primary Temple back, Jahad Thomas, was 5-10, 180 (and the 180 might be generous).

There is no tougher kid on the Temple team than Thomas, but it was apparent he was so dinged up that his production dropped off dramatically in the final seven games.

The solution is simple: Temple needs a tough, reliable, slot receiver who is capable of making defenses pay with runs after catches and that receiver should be Jahad Thomas.

Temple needs a Prosise (or PRO SIZE) running back who can take the pounding for 14 games, not seven, and hand nicks out and not be nicked up and that guy could very well be Jager Gardner (6-2, 205) or Ryquell Armstead (5-10, 205). David Hood (5-10, 185) could be the occasional change-of-pace guy. Have those two battle it out in spring practice which begins in a couple of weeks and, if one emerges, make that guy the No. 1 back. If it’s too close to call, alternate series or quarters until one does.

Plus, it will be doing Thomas a favor because his position at the next level is slot receiver, not featured back. If Thomas lines up in the slot and does the same thing another No. 5, Jalen Fitzpatrick, did for Temple, the Owls will have something special again.

It’s the best of both worlds for Temple because, although departing slot receiver John Christopher was as tough as they come and had great hands, he did not get the yards after catch Thomas will. Plus, he and P.J. Walker have a symmetry that goes back to high school and, with Robby Anderson gone, Walker will need to establish the same kind of relationship with a receiver again.

Good teams learn lessons from losses and that’s probably the best takeaway from the Notre Dame one.

Wednesday: The New Run Game Coordinator

02.27.16
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There’s No Doubting Thomas

falcons

Glenn Thomas has been a positive influence on P.J. Walker.

When the Temple offensive coordinator position opened up, we put together a wish list of five potential candidates for the job, listed the pros and cons, but came to the conclusion that Matt Rhule will hire “the least sexy” person for the job, Glenn Thomas.

Now, sexy in football and sexy in real life are two different things. To me, Mike Locksley would have been football sexy because he would have locked up the recruiting in DMV (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) and had Power 5 OC experience.

pjwalker

The goal should be getting P.J.’s QB rating over 150.8.

Sometimes, though, least sexy is good when you want to get things done. (I learned that watching Sheena Parveen doing the Tornado Watch last week when I listened to the entire forecast but realized afterward that I didn’t really hear anything because I was so distracted.)  Things were not perfect–down 11 in the fourth quarter there has to be an alternative to wasting 20 seconds looking to the sideline for a play–but there was an undeniable upward trend in 2015.

sharknado

The forecast for the TU offense is bright and sunny.

Thomas has the potential of getting things done, especially with the arrival of recruit Anthony Russo. Thomas was Matty Ryan’s quarterback coach with the Atlanta Falcons and Russo’s game is so much reminiscent of Ryan’s that guru Trent Dilfer ended up calling Russo “Ryan Russo” for a day at his Elite 11 camp.

First things first, though, and that is the continued progress in P.J. Walker’s game. For Walker not to be known as a guy who peaked as a freshman, he must slightly improve his numbers in his final year of 2016. Thomas, at least, has him pointed in the right direction. As a freshman, Walker had 20 touchdown throws against only eight interceptions. In Marcus Satterfield’s ill-advised spread formation in 2014 (when Walker got zero protection in the pocket), Walker fell to 13 touchdowns vs. 15 interceptions.  A new scheme that featured a fullback and two tight ends—ostensibly  two additional blockers for Walker—enabled P.J. to see the field better last year and go 19-8.

Ideally, against this schedule, you’d like those numbers to be around 25 and eight (or less) for 2016. If that happens, another double-digit winning season is in sight and that’s about as sexy as things get for Temple football fans.

Unless, of course, Sheena Parveen comes on the Jumbotron instead of Hurricane Schwartz.

Monday: The Case For An Exciting Name As New Slot Receiver

02.25.16
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The Case for A 5-2 Defense At Temple

charter

A possible two-deep using a 5-2 alignment

Some people wonder what football coaches do at this time of year, the few days after signing day and the few days before spring camp begins.

While the players do some conditioning drills outside and some weightlifting inside, the really good staffs are inside trying to figure out how to best utilize the talent that is available on the team. That was shown a year ago when Temple head coach Matt Rhule was reviewing film of a loss at Houston, saw his former offensive coordinator line up with five wides on a first and goal at the 1 and said he got physically ill watching that alignment. After a visit to the porcelain throne, Rhule scraped the Satterfield offense and went with his own.



“Give me a great
wrestler as a nose
guard and I will
show you a guy
who is going to
blow up the center
every time”
_ Vince Hoch
former TU DC

The result was a new offensive philosophy built around the talent at hand, a mix that (largely) saw two tight ends, a fullback and a heavy dose of play-action in the passing game. The result was a tie for the most points ever scored by a Temple offense and a 30 percent improvement in third-down efficiency.

That’s using your head for more than a hat rack.

Conversely, with the collection of depth and new high-end talent coming in, a strong case can be made for a 5-2 defense. With the number of quality linemen the Owls have on that side of the ball, they can cause havoc in opposing backfields by blowing up the point of attack with five guys across the front, instead of four. Imagine speedy defensive ends like Sharif Finch and Haason Reddick containing mobile quarterbacks when interior linemen like Karamo Dioubate and Greg Webb are on each side of nose guard Averee Robinson, a two-time Pennsylvania State Class AAAA (large school) heavyweight wrestling champion at Susquehanna Township. Former Temple defensive coordinator Vince Hoch was fond of saying “give me a great wrestler as a nose guard and I will show you a guy who is going to blow up the center every time.” Robinson has that kind of gap leverage potential as a nose guard. Like his brother, Adrian, he is playing out of position at Temple. Adrian was a natural OLB, his future position in the NFL, who was forced into DE duty as an Owl. Averee’s future is as a nose guard at the next level, whether it is the NFL or Canada.

I like the two linebackers for a couple of reasons. In Avery Williams (2) and Stephaun Marshall (6), you have two proven single-digit tough guys to carry the linebacker load. If I’m only going to use two LBs, I’m comforted by the fact that they are among the nine toughest guys on the team already. Then I can still use another proven tough guy, Nick Sharga (4), in the same role he had last year (roughly 10-15 plays on offense and 10-15 plays on defense as a backup LB).

There is experience all over the place with this defense, and a couple of big-time playmakers coming in to flank Robinson in Greg Webb and Karamo Dioubate. With Robinson blowing up the center, and Dioubate and Webb during their thing, these mobile quarterbacks are hit as soon as (or right after) they get the snap and do not get a chance to turn a corner or build up a head of steam.

Robinson and Freddy Booth-Lloyd playing nose guard could just be the disruption along the DL the Owls need to stop those mobile quarterbacks. The experiment is worth a try in spring practice.

 

02.19.16
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An Early Selection Wednesday For Temple

crowd

Temple’s crowd Wednesday was its biggest football recruiting tool.

Selection Sunday is 3 ½ weeks away, but the first Selection Wednesday in a long time for Temple football was just concluded and, by all optics, the 20 or so recruits had to be impressed by what they saw.

If any of those recruits were going to make their decision to attend Temple based on the Owls beating the No. 1 team in the country, then Matt Rhule is out of luck. Fortunately, these kids are smart enough to realize that Matt does not control what happens on the basketball court.

amy

Brandon McManus gets some TU love.

The recruits included, but were not limited to, guys like Donald Glenn, Tayon Fleet-Davis, Kenny Pickett, Tommy DeVito, Devin Miller, Mike Tverdov and Brandon Outlaw. DeVito and Outlaw are interesting names. DeVito is the quarterback at Don Bosco Prep, the same place where current backup Frank Nutile went to school. (The Owls also had a quarterback named Mac DeVito in the Pre-Al Golden Era, but we have not been able to establish a relationship between the two. Logically, there might be because Mac DeVito was, like Golden, from nearby Colts Neck, N.J.)  Outlaw is one of the fastest high school sprinters on the East Coast (100- and 200-meters, who plays football in Moorestown, N.J. He has played both running back and wide receiver.He has good bloodlines, as his father, Bufus “Bucky” Outlaw, was a great running back for Southern (better known as South Philly) High in 1977 . Bucky, a Howard University grad, is now a Center City CEO. Fleet-Davis, besides having the greatest last name for any running back in history, is from the same town as former Temple running back Sheldon Morris (Oxon Hill, Md.) and went to the rival high school as THE greatest running back in Temple history, Paul Palmer. Fleet-Davis attends Potomac High, while Palmer went to Winston Churchill High, also in Potomac.

All of these guys saw the campus, if not the basketball team, at its best on Wednesday night.

My guess is the total university experience is much more important for Temple football recruits and, on all of those accounts, the Owls came out on top. The place was packed, the students were vibrant, the place was electric. A Temple football player who won a Super Bowl earlier this month, Brandon McManus, got a prolonged standing ovation from a packed house. The recruits got a taste of the same type of love that could be coming their way in five years.

Everything electric about this game was there and, from one important standpoint, it was a better night for the Owls than Notre Dame in football because the fans were all Temple. The only things bad about ND was the loss and the that the Owls had 100 recruits there that night and no commitments the next day. Maybe had they won, they would have had a handful but we will never know.

Had the Owls capped the night off with a win and, say, closed down Broad Street, the recruits could have gotten even more fresh made juice from the experience. Hopefully, the taste of concentrated juice they had was sweet enough.

02.17.16
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Experience Best Teacher

coaches

When you follow Temple football as much as I do, you inevitably interact with Temple football coaches on rare occasions.

Every signing day during Al Golden’s tenure, he was always gracious enough to take the time to talk to me about a question or two I might have had or share to me his general philosophy about the program.

I liked Al very much, but that did not stop me from criticizing some of his gameday coaching.

When I ran into Steve Addazio at a New York City alumni meeting (I was in NYC that day to audition for the Who Wants to  Be a Millionaire Show), he went into a long story about why he was about to kick Matty Brown off the team because “I’ve had about enough of his shit.” The former Temple players who were standing and talking to Daz with me, Russ and Tom, then explained to Daz that I was the “Temple Football Forever” guy and then Daz begged me to keep that story quiet.

I did, because it was off the record.

promotions

TU promotions: Interesting there is an assistant and an associate HC.

Matty never did get kicked off the team, had a great senior season, and I had another great Temple football coaching story that could be told beyond the statue of limitations.

When another Matt, Rhule, got the Temple head coaching job, I dashed off an email that day wishing him luck. Much to my surprise, he then called me and we had a wonderful 35-minute discussion about everything from future assistants to helmets. I liked Matt Rhule just as much as Al Golden, but that like did not stop me from criticizing some of his gameday coaching. (If  he coached as brilliantly as Wayne Hardin did during a 13-year career, he would have been above criticism but he  did not and was not.) At the time, I casually mentioned to Matt that I had Bruce Arians‘ cell phone number, Matt asked me for it, I gave it to him, and it gives me great satisfaction that those two Temple coaches keep in touch from time to time. At the UConn post-game in 2012, I found myself standing next to another great guy and great Temple coach,  Chuck Heater, by the team bus. “You are a genius, Chuck,” I told him for shutting out the Huskies in the second half. “It’s the boys, Mike,” Chuck said.

Yeah, the boys and the best kicker in the country, Brandon McManus.

That brings us to today’s coaching promotions and I feel this is a very good day for Matt Rhule and Temple football because George DeLeone got a position of importance (OL coach, run game coordinator).

I’ve always felt the more grizzled guys a young coach has, the better the staff. Phil Snow has proved that on the defensive end and I think George will be the same kind of guy on the offensive end.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a George story to tell. At the UConn game in 2012, the UConn team was leaving a pre-game meeting at the UConn hotel (where my fellow Owl fan and friend Phil and I were staying) and we saw George , then the Huskies’ OC, on the way out. He recognized us (we think from signing days), nodded, and we went into the meeting room and came away with a UConn offensive playbook that was left behind. It was beautiful, blue, in a binder, and filled with every UConn play.

I won’t say what happened to the playbook, but Temple shut out UConn in the second half on the way to a 17-14 OT win.

Moral of the story is keep a closer eye on those Temple playbooks this season but otherwise to thank goodness George DeLeone is on our side again.

02.14.16
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Temple Better Be Paying Attention

Cincinnati Enquirer blows cover off Bearcats' Big 12 bid.

Cincinnati Enquirer blows cover off Bearcats’ Big 12 bid.

Since it was too cold to go outside on Saturday, time is never wasted watching ESPN 30 for 30 episodes of the award-winning series. The Saturday one featuring the Big East particularly pertained to Temple.

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino hit the nail on the head when he said: “In all of those Big East meetings, everybody was swearing unity and allegiance to the Big East and the minute they were over, all of the athletic directors were on the phone trying to make deals with another conference.”

It is with that backdrop that Temple should be concerned with the Cincinnati Enquirer’s report today that the President of that university was in active talks with the Big 12 to get his team out of the American Athletic Conference (AAC).

Temple should be paying attention because, if it was not obvious before, it is every man (school) for himself and without Cincy and UConn, Temple could one day wake up and find itself in nothing more prestigious than Conference USA.

The Oklahoma President says that it is all about TV and, if so, Temple—not Cincy—holds the ace in this deck of cards and that’s something Neil D. Theobald and Pat Kraft should be hammering home. Temple should be looking out for Temple, period.

From the Enquirer’s report, it is clear that Cincy is taking that approach.

02.10.16
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AAC Needs To Step Up Its Game

aaceast

Every night a certain political commentary program ends its night with a Tip of The Day. Forget the fact that the “tip” isn’t really a tip but a closing thought by the anchor, but, after getting a good look at the AAC composite schedule (above) a tip is in order:

The AAC, if it is going to be a serious conference, needs to step up its game. It is not going to happen this year and, because of the way schedules are made years in advance, it may not even happen next year. But it needs to happen.

The South Carolina States, Tennessee-Martins, Towsons and, yes, even Stony Brooks have to be removed from the schedules, the sooner the better. It’s not like the AAC is a Power 5 conference and the in-conference games are not sooooo tough that the league’s members need to bake cupcakes for the early portion of their schedules.

The AAC needs to do what it did last year—play the ACC seven times and beat them four times in the regular season. That’s the way a conference builds a strong reputation, not beating up on the Tennessee-Martins of the world. Yet that’s the team Cincinnati opens with on Sept. 3.

Other head-scratching games opening week include South Carolina State at UCF, Maine at UConn, West Carolina at East Carolina and South Florida hosting Towson. Those could have been scheduled against P5 teams and the AAC needs to schedule those games and win them. (Yet, UConn deserves a lot of credit for scheduling three ACC opponents.)

Temple could set an example in the process by dumping the Stony Brook game (9/9). It would take some work by Dr. Pat Kraft, but it would be worth it. Have Stony Brook play Howard that day, then offer to go on the road to Rutgers, which is scheduled to play Howard that day. Rutgers is just arrogant enough to think it could beat Temple and, from Temple’s perspective, the game offers P.J. Walker and Jahad Thomas—among others—a final chance to win there. It would also wipe out the bad taste of 2013 and give the Owls a chance for consecutive wins over Big 10 teams. It’s worth picking up a phone, making calls to Stony Brook, Howard and Rutgers and making this happen.

That’s the way a G5 conference builds a reputation, not by playing cupcakes but by seeking out the power schools and beating them. That’s how John Chaney built Temple into a national basketball power and lifted up the A10 in the process. Temple football can do the same for the G5.

02.09.16
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Ignorance And The Stadium

owland

Because Temple is an educational institution, I do not expect President Neil D. Theobald or Temple University to give up educating some very misinformed individuals on the subject of a proposed new on-campus football stadium.

I do, however, understand how difficult this must be for men of their intelligence.  Now I have serious doubts that this will ever get built because of Temple’s history of having been through this with the on-campus basketball facility. Peter J. Liacouras did not get that built until he threatened to move the entire campus to Ambler, but I don’t think Theobald has the chops or permissions to make a similar threat. The extortion demands from the city and community for this are going to make that robbery look like a simple pickpocket.

That holdup aside, it seems, to me, that there are two important issues here.

One is represented by Anna in this video.

This very naïve person needs a simple economics lesson: “Temple is telling us they can’t afford $15 an hour and now all of a sudden they have $100 million for a stadium.” The $100 million is from moving the LFF money and private donations. Try going to a big donor and saying, “Err, doc, change of plans. No stadium, but can we use your $3 million contribution to raise Temple workers to $15 an hour?” Somewhat surprised Doug Shimell lets these statements to unchallenged. Maybe Jesse Watters of The O’Reilly Factor should be doing these interviews, not a local freelance hack like Shimell.

memory.JPG

The second issue is a similar one, but slightly different. I read about 85 comments after the proposed stadium story and I cannot believe how dense people can be.

Many of them write Temple can spend the $100 million earmarked for the stadium on academics. The only reason that anywhere close to $100 million will be raised (as well at the current LFF rent) is for football. These are donors who can do whatever they please with their hard-earned money. They are galvanized by the thought of a stadium on campus. They don’t want to give to build another chemistry lab. It’s either $100 mil for a stadium or 0 for anything else.

These small-minded individuals who are doing the protesting now can get jobs for Temple asking the same people to give to academics and they will get the same response, probably a hangup click.

When will they get it through their enormously thick skulls that this money isn’t for a stadium OR academics, but it’s for a stadium or nothing? If their skulls are that thick, Temple must redo the entrance examination and weed out this stupidity before they get to the registration desk. Being able to pass Logic 101 should be the base requirement before admission to Temple University.

That’s the reality.

02.07.16
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Fizzy’s Evaluation On Mark

weinraub

Fizzy’s magnetic personality carried the day in Boca Raton.

One of the great things about being a Temple football fan back in the day is that you met literally every other Temple fan.

Every. Single. One.

In the parking lot of the Fake Miami (Ohio) game in 2005, I counted five fans about an hour before the game in Lot K. Five, the number after four and before six. This was the hour before the kickoff and it was including me. I’m sure there were more who made it in the stadium, but not many.



“As I sat totally
drenched in Boca
and watched the
horror unfold, I
saw the most
unimaginative major
college offense I’ve
ever seen. In the
whole first half,
we gained 65 yards,
and only 5 yards in
the second quarter.
As usual, the play
selection was abysmal.”
_ Former Owl player
Fizzy Weinraub

Things have changed for the better, thanks to people like Matt Rhule and Al Golden.

One of those fans is an unforgettable character named David Weinraub, except nobody calls him David and everybody calls him Fizzy. I have been honored to call him friend for at least a decade. He was a player under George Makris. As a young sportswriter, I covered another player under Makris, Bill Juzwiak, who was literally the funniest coach I ever covered. Juz was Fizz’s teammate, and after I shared a couple of stories with Fizz about him, we became fast tailgate friends.

Juzwiak coached William Tennent to a championship in the old Suburban One League and, if you know anything about William Tennent football, that’s a remarkable achievement.



” … the design of
Temple’s offense …
usually runs in
one direction,
straight ahead,
and there’s no
balance. There
are few reverses,
counters, traps,
misdirections,
bootlegs and
end-arounds.”
_ Former Owl player
Fizzy Weinraub

Juzwiak was just as funny after losses, maybe more, than he was after wins. At Norristown, the Panthers led, 7-6, at halftime and lost the game, 20-7. While a group of reporters were wrapping up with Juz, from the other side of the field the guy covering the game for the Norristown Times-Herald came running over to Juzwiak and said, out of the breath, the kid said, “Coach, coach, coach .. you led, 7-6, at halftime and fumbled seven times in the second half. What did you tell the team at halftime?”

Juzwiak looked the kid up and down and paused before saying: “I certainly didn’t tell them to fumble.”

Today’s take of the Temple season is from Juzwiak’s teammate, Fizzy, easily as funny and unforgettable as Juzwiak but someone who has a serious take on the season that every Temple fan and coach should take to heart.

I would change the name of his blog to something with pizazz that incorporates the name Fizzy (Fizzy’s Pizzis?), but his serious take of the season is right here and it is worth a read.

02.05.16
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Wide Receivers Lost and Found

wrchart

Win some, lose some.

The Owls lost Darnell Salomon to USF and Dae’Lun Darien to Penn State, but gained Freddie Johnson, Randle Jones and Isaiah Wright.

Time will tell, but I like that trade for a couple of reasons.

keithgloster

Keith Gloster

Ideally, Temple rarely has the perfect combination of receivers on the field at the same time. It happened only a couple of times in my memory. Willie Marshall was a Robbie Anderson-type wide receiver in the Bruce Arians’ Era, made all the more dangerous by a 4.3 speedster named Keith Gloster lined up in the slot. Marshall was a 6-foot-3 guy with a 37-inch vertical leap, whose specialty was catching passes in the red zone and over the middle. Gloster opened the middle for Marshall by stretching the field and going deep. A similar situation also existed in the Wayne Hardin years with Rich Drayton and Gerald “Sweet Feet” Lucear and maybe to a lesser extent far later with Bruce Francis and Travis Sheldon under Al Golden.

In the past couple of seasons, though, Temple’s been top-heavy in the same type of receivers—tall guys who are effective in the red zone but rarely stretch the field.

By all accounts, Dae’Lun is the same type of player Romond Deloatch, Anderson, Ventell Bryant and Keith Kirkwood are today–guys who are fairly reliable, have good hands, make plays over the middle but won’t necessarily stretch the field.

In Isaiah Wright, though, the Owls have a “best of both worlds” player, a guy who can make the big catch over the middle and take it to the house and, if Johnson or Jones turns out to be on the other of the field, his presence even makes Wright more dangerous. Other recruits could fill that role,  or maybe someone on the current squad, like 4.3 sprinter Cortrelle Simpson.

Temple fans will probably be following the progress of Darien from afar and Salomon from a relatively closer spot, USF. The numbers say Salomon will have the best career, but he’s had discipline and character issues that make his future far from a slam dunk. So Wright, Jones and Johnson could be just what they needed all along.

Willie Marshall and Keith Gloster should be especially proud.

Tomorrow: Karamo Dioubate