Category Archives: Temple football

03.10.16
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Ash Saturday At Temple Clinic

clinic
If Temple football really has a rival, it is not Penn State, Villanova or UConn or Cincinnati but Rutgers.
A rivalry needs really three ingredients for the main course:

Geography
Hatred
Competitive History

chumpions

Congrats and good luck to the basketball team.

Only for Rutgers can you place an emphatic checkmark next to those categories. When Temple had good football coaches (Wayne Hardin and Bruce Arians) and a continuing series with the Scarlet Knights, those coaches usually took care of business. When Temple went through a Berndt and Dickerson Dark Age, Rutgers had the advantage. Heck, even Bobby Wallace won four in a row against the Scarlet Knights.

The schools should be playing every single year. Piscataway is a short drive or Temple fans and the Linc is a short drive for RU fans. It makes too much sense. Neither Rutgers nor Temple should be playing Howard or Stony Brook.
The recent controversy is inviting a hated rival, Rutgers, to the Temple coaches’ clinic on April 2. Plenty of Temple fans seem to be against the idea, but I think it is much ado about nothing because the representative of the hated rival, new head coach Chris Ash, knows nothing about the hate.

In fact, until 2020—the next Temple vs. Rutgers game—you could say he is a friend. These coaching clinics are nothing more than an exchange of ideas and, if Ash has a good idea that Temple can “borrow” then his presence will be worthwhile. The same can be said for Matt Rhule, George DeLeone or any of the other guest speakers.
Maybe someone will come up to an alternative to the “dog stare” offense and, if the Owls can adopt that, it will save their fans a lot of angst this fall.

No news will come out of this clinic, not matter how much TU fans might be hoping for a Howard-Stony Brook game that would make an early renewal of the TU-RU rivalry possible this season. The brainstorming should be beneficial to all parties.

Saturday: Fullback Options That Would Allow Sharga to play LB

03.08.16
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Six Months To Defend Triple Option

army

How ND blew up the Army triple option.

Stopping the triple option is all in the timing.

This year, unlike 2014, the Temple football team has all the time in the world to prepare for Army’s confounding—but not as confounding as Navy’s was—triple option. The Owls have six full months before the opener with Army, and they should probably be setting aside some practice time each day to get the reads down.

Before you say “it’s just Army” please note that the Cadets gave Penn State all it could handle a year ago before falling, 20-14. Temple should always take the approach that it is not too good to lose to anyone and not too bad to beat anyone.

breaking

Scheduling is breaking for the Owls to go 7-0 into the USF game, if they  can win at PSU.

Army is just one part of the schedule that sets up beautifully for the Owls because, if you are going to play a triple option team, opening day is the best week to play one.

The Owls failed miserably in a 31-24 loss to Navy in 2014 because of a number of reasons. It was the second game of the season and they had only one week to prepare for the triple option after the high of going down to Vanderbilt and coming away with a 37-7 win over an SEC team. (Ohio State “held” Navy to just 17 in the opener the week before, admittedly with far better talent than the Owls.)

The triple option is designed to take advantage of defenses by allowing the quarterback to make his reads during the play, not before. That means the defense is rarely in position to make the play and any pre-snap reads are useless.

The Owls should be mentally prepared to not get to down when Army gets its yards. The key is limiting big plays and forcing turnovers. That’s one of the reasons why quick penetration against this kind of offense (the kind a 5-2 might afford) could cause bad reads and turnovers. The Owls also have the kind of speed on the back end of their defense that will probably help them from giving up big plays.

Blitzing would be a bad idea because a 5-2 could provide plenty of penetration without giving up numbers. Blitzing teams usually run past their assignments in a triple option. Staying home and keeping contain is the way to stop the triple option.

The “A” and “B” gap is the key to stopping the triple option. The first read the QB makes is to the A gap fullback and if, say, nose guard Averee Robinson blows up the center, the “B” gap option is either the QB going outside or pitching to the trailing halfback. A Sharif Finch honing in on the QB means that stopping the pitchman falls to a DT like Michael Dogbe or the new guys, Karamo Dioubate or Greg Webb. There is always single-digit linebackers like Avery Williams (2) or Stephaun Marshall (6) coming up on support.

Obviously, a savvy coordinator like Phil Snow knows all of this so the extra time he has to work on it should make for a better outcome than the week he had to prepare for the 31-24 loss to Navy.

Thursday: Ash Wednesday at Matt Rhule Football Camp

03.06.16
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The Curious Saquon Barkley Narrative

barkley

If the Owls play a 5-2 defense, Averee Robinson will blow up the PSU center often enough to allow Praise Martin-Oquike, Greg Webb and Karamo Dioubate and company to get through and tackle the QB before he can even hand off to Saquon Barkley.

According a mental health website, the seven stages of grief can be paired down to three—disbelief, acceptance and rationalization.

When it comes to Penn State’s loss to Temple last September, we’ve already seen one and two but only now are we seeing number three. On several message boards, and in Philly.com under the name Ruben Amaro, Penn State fans have appeared and said “if Saquon Barkley played against Temple, we would have won.”

Huh?

That narrative is a reach, even for Penn State fans. The Nits lost by 17 and by 27-0 over the last three quarters. Barkley did play and got one yard on one carry. How does that extrapolate out to 100 yards on 25 more carries? The only numbers we have against Temple is that had Barkley got the 25 carries Penn State fans wanted him to get, he would have finished with 25 yards, and maybe Penn State would never have scored its only touchdown (a run by Akeel Lynch). Those are hard numbers, not the “gut” of some Penn State fans talking.

Let’s face it, Penn State losing to Temple was a bitter pill to swallow for these fans and they might have to hold their nose and down the same medicine in State College on Sept. 17.

The thought process there—not here—is that Temple is “losing everybody” and that Barkley and the returning Penn Staters will roll over the Owls. They do not know that Temple ran in two entire defensive units in the second half of the season, with many of the freshman, sophomore and junior backups playing roughly the same amount of time as the senior starters.

The thinking here is that Penn State is going to be surprised by Temple’s ability to stop the run and put the same clamps down on Christian Hackenberg’s successor that they did to Hackenberg himself. Offensively, P.J. Walker and Jahad Thomas—who had 134 more yards than Barkley in the Sept. 5 game—should put even more than 27 on the board this time.

No doubt Temple will be getting points on 9/17 and I’ll be flying to Vegas and putting my money down on the Owls, even if it is as little as two or three. Temple knows Barkley is good, but it also knows his one carry wasn’t the reason the Owls won. A large segment of the PSU fan base won’t admit that now, but they will find out in a few months that narrative is faulty, too.

Ignorance isn’t a stage of grief but, in this case, it should be.

Tuesday: Six months to practice against a triple option

03.04.16
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Tennessee Tech’s Season Could Provide Useful Clues

field

Normally, the only football team Temple fans follow in Tennessee is conference rival Memphis.

Now, there are at least a couple of good reasons to follow another one: Tennessee Tech and it is not strictly because at least two former high-profile Temple football assistants are on the staff, and one is head coach Marcus Satterfield.

There are a couple of interesting subplots involved here because Satterfield was a wide-open spread guy who wanted to put five wide receivers on the field every time he could. Head coach Matt Rhule reined him in with a more conventional approach this season, emphasizing the run game. I always had that feeling that Satterfield would send five wides out every time Rhule would turn his back to talk to the defense but, fortunately, that didn’t happen.

Much.

If Satterfield spreads the ball all over the place for TT, we will know that there was a basic difference in offensive philosophy between Rhule and his former coordinator. Since the TT games are not on TV, we will try to judge that by YouTube. Maybe the Golden Eagles will have the “Dog Stare” offense. Geez, I hope Temple streamlines that out of the playbook.

Another subplot is the appearance of Tyree Foreman as running backs coach for Satterfield. Foreman and Temple had a parting of the ways two years ago and the rumor was that Rhule fired him. Now he’s back with Satterfield, who obviously had a difference of opinion.

We will find out a lot about what happened at Temple the last couple of years by looking at the way TT runs things. Either way, good luck to Marcus in whatever he does. The feeling here is that, for Temple at least, the addition by subtraction will be noticeable.

Sunday: The Curious Saquon Barkley Narrative

Tuesday: The Triple Option

Thursday: Ash Wednesday at Matt Rhule Camp

Saturday: Possible Fullback Replacements for Nick Sharga

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.