Category Archives: Temple football

12.01.13
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Twice as good as 1-11

Gotta wonder where this use of Chris Coyer was 10 other games (he missed one due to injury) because I think he could have won the Paul Hornung Award and the Owls would have been much more successful if he was targeted as little as five times a game.

Every so often, message board reading is about as good a way to check out the pulse of the Temple fan base as there is.

It used to be the post-game tailgates but, after an 0-6 start to the season, most of those familiar faces were gone.

So the message boards it is.

Some of the stuff is pretty well-written, like a post this morning from someone who calls himself “Owlfather.”

Now I don’t know if he’s a father, but I assume he’s an Owl and he pretty much put both this season and next in a nutshell by saying Temple has “crossed the Rubicon” with Matt Rhule and, if the team finished 1-11, he’s going to be in a Catch-22 situation because  he’s going to have a hard time holding together what was once the No. 30-ranked recruiting class in the country. (Now, depending on which recruiting service you subscribe to, it’s no higher than the mid-60s.) Catch-22 is a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions, which is what Matt Rhule faces after going 2-10. Failure on the field could lead to failure in recruiting (teams recruiting against Temple will love to point out the Owls were 2-10) and failure in recruiting could lead to further failure on the field–a classic Catch-22 situation.

Props to that guy for bringing up both Catch-22, required summer reading my junior year of high school, and Crossing the Rubicon to put this season in perspective.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, today’s 41-21 win at Memphis notwithstanding. (For those wanting to see a complete replay of the game, click here and follow down the list to the Temple game.)

I love historical analogies and “crossing the Rubicon” means there is no going back with Matt Rhule.  It refers to Caesar in 49 B.C. faced with two choices:  To cross the Rubicon, confront Pompey (not Keith) and begin a bloody civil war to become a ruler of Rome or retreat, thus obeying the Roman Senate. He chose to cross the Rubicon.  The expression, crossing the Rubicon means that there is no going back, once a line or a point in time, however you’d like to interpret it, is crossed.

Same thing with Matt Rhule and Temple football.  It has been my position all along that Temple will not fire him BUT that he’s got to do a better job next year than he did this. So I don’t think the 2-10 final record as opposed to 1-11 changed that dynamic considerably. Had Temple beaten the teams it was supposed to beat going into the season (Army, Memphis, Idaho,  Fordham and UConn) and stolen the Rutgers’ game, it would have been making plans to attend the nicest bowl game the school has ever been picked as a participant. I also think that if you score 49 points in any game, you should have the defensive integrity to win it (SMU).

That’s got to happen next year and that’s why Rhule is going to have to look inward and ask himself if the soon-to-be 58-year-old Phil Snow is the right guy to stop today’s sophisticated pistol and spread offenses. I don’t think he is, but that’s a conclusion Rhule will have to come to on his own. Could he get Chuck Heater back? Heater had Temple’s defense ranked No. 3 in points allowed in 2011 and followed that this year by having Marshall ranked No. 23. Marshall, Marshall, Marshall. Or maybe Nick Rapone from the Arizona Cardinals? Would DC be a “promotion” from NFL DB coach? I think so, because Snow himself went from Detroit Lions’ DB coach (of an 0-16 team) to DC at Eastern Michigan and Rapone has Philadelphia roots. Speaking of Eastern Michigan, that school fired Ron English as its head coach and English was a very good DC at Michigan  before he got the EMU job. Maybe he’s available. So there are better DCs than Phil Snow out there and let’s go get one.

Winning today made the offseason much more palatable but there is much more work to do and we’ll have a clue whether it gets done first by the staff decisions Rhule makes in the next few weeks and second by National LOI day if he’s able to hold the class together.

Fourth and inches? Since Rutgers, it’s been P.J. Walker behind Kyle Friend for three first downs in three attempts, something we were yelling for him to do at RU so maybe he’s either heard or learned  at least something.

Great job by Morry Kamara. Thanks, Morry. P.J. Walker and Robby Anderson are stone-cold studs. Maybe next year is Temple’s turn to beat Penn State on a Hail Mary.

11.24.13
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There’s the real world and there’s Temple

The real world coaching hot seat.

The real world coaching hot seat. You can take Matt Rhule off that list.

In the real world, an employee who shows gross incompetence gets a period of about two months, not a year or years to evaluate his performance.

It’s called a probationary period.

Matt Rhule’s  probationary period has come and gone and, in the long and storied history  Temple football employees, he deserves a longer look.

In the real world, the boss calls Rhule in after a performance like Saturday night (and a lot of Saturday days before that) and says, “Matt, you’re a good guy, but you are not cut out for this job. The guy who hired you wasn’t my guy. I now have my own guy as athletic director I want to have my own guy as head football coach. After watching Pete Lembo beat Indiana with Ball State talent every year, I decided he’s my guy. I want to be able to beat Penn State with Temple talent next year and I think he’s better suited to do that than you are. That’s why I’m bringing in Pete Lembo from Muncie, Ind. to replace you at the end of the season. You can coach the final game. Good luck, Matt. Here’s your severance check. No hard feelings. I think Kutztown might have an opening after next season. I’ll give you a good reference.”

That’s what the real world does. That’s what USC did to Lane Kiffin (a winning coach this season). That’s what UConn did to Paul Pasqualoni. That’s what evenly lowly Eastern Michigan did to Ron English.

There’s the real world and there’s Temple.

At Temple, they allowed a most incompetent coach, Bobby Wallace, hang around  for eight years to nearly destroy a program.

In one of the comments in the story below, a poster named Dave says he “would not be shocked” to see Rhule fired by 10 a.m. Monday morning.

I would.

That’s just not the way Temple has operated for the past 30 years. Maybe the new guys, Neil Theobald and Kevin Clark, are much more connected to the real world of major intercollegiate athletics than the Ann Weaver Harts and the David Adamanys were.

I’m OK with how Temple does business in this way. You need to give a guy five years, not one or two.

Still, I get that he wants to be the anti-Daz with all this passing, but did the thought EVER occur to him that Zaire Williams could have ripped of a few second-half runs like that spectacular touchdown run he had in the first half if given the chance?  Tunnel-vision, that’s what it is. You do not abandon the run game with a 21-0 lead, you embrace the run game.

 

Addazio had virtually the same talent against a better UConn team last year and shut the Huskies out in the second half. Rhule allowed a worse version of the Huskies to score 28 points in the second half. With the same talent, the only variable in this lab experiment is coaching.

How do you play Central Florida so well and lose to a team Central Florida beat, 63-17? Mind-boggling. How do you lose to arguably the worst team in the history of the FBS in Idaho (double-mind boggling)? How do you lose to a Fordham team that lost to Lafayette (triple-mind-boggling)?

In this high-stakes’ game of major college intercollegiate athletics, three strikes like that usually mean you are out. Temple doesn’t play that game of hardball and we are OK with that here and now. Five years from now, maybe not but Matt deserves a longer look.

Halftime Adjustments?

Game First Half Points Second Half Points
Notre Dame 6 0
Houston 13 0
Cincinnati 20 0
UConn 21 0

Temple is the only team in America with these dubious distinctions: Giving two ESPN Bottom 10 teams their only win of the season and being the only team shut out in the second half of four games. Either the coaches of four other teams are coming up with a lot of adjustments or the coach of one team isn’t. Or both.

 

11.22.13
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A Most Special Group of Seniors

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My favorite internet photo of the Eagle Bank Bowl because it shows only about 1/10th of the Temple fans who were there. Twenty thousand Temple fans traveling to D.C. for a bowl game is something I will always remember.

While paging through my copy of the Eagle Bank Bowl program from the 2009 game, I was stunned to see many of the current football players for Temple on that roster.

A college career these days usually is four years and most of those players would have graduated by now but, in my mind, 2009 represented the rebirth of Temple football from what was essentially a 30-year slumber and a lot of those guys were there.  Chris Coyer was throwing the ball to Ryan Alderman every day in practice and Coyer was named the Scout Team MVP the week before Vaughn Charlton started against UCLA in the Eagle Bank Bowl.

The best helmet by far this year. I hope they keep it.

The best helmet this year. I hope they keep it.

Who knows would have happened had Coyer started the bowl game, but I think he might have made just enough plays with his arm and feet to have won it in the second half after Bernard Pierce went down in the first half. Al Golden was 100 percent right in preserving Coyer’s redshirt at the expense of a loss to UCLA in a bowl game but, in retrospect, he was probably a lot more talented than Charlton and Stewart even then. I do know for metaphysical certainty that had Joe Paterno granted Adam DiMichele his release he would have had an extra year of eligibility and Temple would have probably won the MAC that year and maybe have had the same kind of year Northern Illinois is having this season.

Either way, as a Temple fan in D.C.,  freezing your ass off watching a football game never felt so good, at least for the first half.

Kamal Johnson, a defensive tackle, had a sack in the Eagle Bank Bowl and another in the New Mexico Bowl and is the only Temple player I’ve ever known to have sacks while playing for the Owls in two bowl games.

I hope he’s not the last.

Click on the photo for five upsets this weekend.

Click on the photo for five upsets this weekend.

One of the current seniors, Sean Boyle, spent much of the 2008 year (no, that’s not a typo) centering the ball to Adam DiMichele. Imagine that? Boyle played on an offensive line in front of DiMichele, Charlton, Coyer, Chester Stewart, Clinton Granger, Mike Gerardi, Connor Reilly and as a teammate to P.J. Walker. I once said “Hi, Pat” to Sean and he shot back, “Mike, I’m Sean.” Could not tell the difference between Sean and his twin brother Pat. Sorry, Sean. I will always remember both guys as great Owls.

I will go to my grave thinking that Chris Coyer was grossly underutilized by an offensive coordinator, Marcus Satterfield, who never really understood how his versatility could have created so many more scoring opportunities in the passing and running game.

While Ryan Alderman was not my choice to return punts this year (I would have picked the redshirted Khalif Herbin), I walked up to him and thanked him after an early game for not fair catching. “We need to make that an offensive play,” I told Ryan. (He’ll probably get off a good return tomorrow night. That’s my prediction.)

Juice Granger could have quit when they moved him from quarterback but he didn’t and caught a touchdown pass in the Cincinnati game. That was a great moment in a year devoid of great moments. Whatever you think about Juice, just remember, he was the quarterback who “managed” the team to 63 points in a win at Army last year and would have “managed” the team to more than 50 points against Fordham if the team adopted a similar game plan this season. The team was getting six yards a pop (5.8, exactly) against Fordham on the run in the first quarter but then inexplicably stopped running.

I talked to Cody Booth’s dad before the Houston game and lamented they haven’t thrown the tackle eligible pass to him. They still haven’t. Kid has the best hands on the team and he plays tackle, they should throw at least one tackle eligible pass in his direction. In the NFL, this is allowed on any play in which a lineman declares to the ref to be eligible. In college, it’s allowed only on fourth down FG attempts, which would be a perfect fake from a FG formation for Temple. In fact, I have serious doubts that this coaching staff even knows HOW to draw up a tackle eligible play on the blackboard. In the diagram below, the right tackle (in this case) would be eligible:

Cody Booth would be eligible if he lined up on the far right as a TE in this formation.

Cody Booth would be eligible if he lined up on the far right as a RT in this formation.

Paul Layton is the Montel Harris of punting. He will go down in my mind as one of the three greatest punters in Temple history, right up there with Brandon McManus and Casey Murphy. He understands the art and just doesn’t boom for the sake of booming. Temple’s downed more kicks inside the 10 this year than I remember in a long time. I think his game translates well to the next level.

In many ways, this is my favorite group of seniors because they were all around when it changed from losing to winning.

Things did not turn out the way I expected for them this year because of dumb coaching last year (running the ball 75.9 percent of the time on both first and second down, setting up third-down disaster scenarios) and even dumber coaching this year: No quarterback sneak robbed the team of a win at Rutgers, using a punter to attempt a 25-yard FG  against Houston when a perfectly good backup kicker (Nick Visco) was available cost them a 16-15 lead with less than 2 minutes left in that one. Visco later went 7 for 7 in from the same distance in extra points at SMU. That cost the team two wins right there. Not pounding the ball against terrible run defenses (Fordham and Idaho) cost the team two more wins. Matt Rhule spent this year learning on the job and these seniors were the Guinea Pigs. My stance all season was Rhule should have learned on the job at place like Kutztown, not a place like Temple. At the Temple level, this is a too big a business to hire a CEO who requires on-the-job training. The Temple community learned that lesson the hard way with the bottom line being 1-9 and there are simply no excuses for 1-9.

So it is with great sadness that we as Temple fans say goodbye to these players tomorrow night (7 p.m., ESPN3) in their final home game at Lincoln Financial Field. UConn is the opponent.

They deserved a lot better.

NO NAME POS YR HT WT HOMETOWN HIGH SCHOOL PREVIOUS SCHOOL

3 Clinton Granger QB Sr. 6-3 230 Philadelphia, Pa. George Washington Pierce College
4 Ryan Alderman WR Sr. 5-9 175 Downingtown, Pa. Bishop Shanahan
6 Blaze Caponegro LB Sr. 6-1 225 Allenwood, N.J. Wall Township
9 Levi Brown DL Sr. 6-2 300 Bethlehem, Pa. Liberty
10 Chris Coyer HB Sr. 6-3 250 Oak Hill Va. Oakton
11 Zamel Johnson DB Sr. 6-0 175 Staten Island, N.Y. Port Richmond Hofstra
15 Paul Layton P Sr. 6-1 215 Burnt Hills, N.Y. Ballston Lake Albany
21 Abdul Smith DB Sr. 6-0 205 Trenton, N.J. Perkioman School Rutgers
50 Jeff Whittingham OL Sr. 6-2 305 Atlantic City, N.J. Atlantic City
63 Pete White OL Sr. 6-4 330 Upper Marlboro, Md. St. John’s Maryland
74 Evan Regas OL Sr. 6-4 320 Toms River, N.J. Toms River North
76 Cody Booth OL Sr. 6-5 285 Millersville, Pa. Penn Manor
78 Sean Boyle OL Sr. 6-5 305 Towson, Md. Calvert Hall College HS
83 Chris Parthemore TE Sr. 6-4 250 New Cumberland, Pa. Cedar Cliff
86 Deon Miller WR Sr. 6-5 210 Highland Springs, Va. Highland Springs Fork Union Military Academy
93 Kamal Johnson DL Sr. 6-4 310 Willingboro, N.J. Willingboro
 Some of these guys I had the pleasure to meet and they are great people.
11.12.13
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UCF’s O’Leary is one of the best

George O'Leary's time was short at ND.

George O’Leary’s time was short at ND.

George O’Leary was the best coach in Notre Dame history who lasted only five days on the job. We’ll never know if he would have been the best who lasted 500 days or 5,000 days, but nothing in his coaching history suggests he would not have been.
When the Irish hired O’Leary, then 55, in December of 2001, I thought they were getting a terrific coach.
I still do.
Heck, if he had not fudged his resume, he might still be there. He’s THAT good of a coach.
Notre Dame had to fire him (technically, he resigned), because that’s what they did in those days to people who got jobs off fake resumes.
To me, though, the guy did not commit a crime. He didn’t stick up a bank, kill or molest someone. Embellishing his resume did not change the fact that he was an accomplished head coach at Georgia Tech and probably would have been an accomplished head coach at Notre Dame.

O'Leary's downfall is when he said he played at UNH but no one there could remember him.

O’Leary’s downfall came when he said he played at UNH but no one there could remember him.

We’ll never know that, but those Temple fans not sickened to the pit of their stomachs by seeing the numbers 1-8 next to the word Temple in the papers will see at least one well-coached team when the Black Knights come to Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday at noon. Other Temple fans have already checked out.

Can’t blame them. They were hoping for better than the 4-7 Daz gave them last year. Those hopes were dashed a long time ago, buried under the rubble of disgraceful losses to Fordham and Idaho.

O’Leary dots the I’s and crosses the T’s on every game plan. If he’s beaten, it’s because the talent on the other side of the ball is better. He’s not afraid to use the quarterback sneak on fourth-and-inches. He’s probably afraid NOT to, it’s such a high-percentage call. O’Leary watches the film, picks out an opponents’ weakness, and attacks that weakness. If O’Leary was playing, say, a FCS team with a 247-pound-average defensive line, he would probably use his 305-pound-average OL to pound that FCS team into submission via the run game. If O’Leary was playing the 125th-ranked rushing defense in the FBS, dome or no dome, he probably would commit a game plan heavily laden in all kinds of running plays and probably save the eleven overthrown 50-yard bombs for another day.

That’s the kind of advantage a seasoned head coach gives the team he’s coaching and the school he works for.

If you get the feeling that Temple coaches NEVER watch the film of opponents or check their tendencies, this season has provided enough evidence to convict on all counts.

After Al Golden left Temple, I thought the Owls should go after someone who fit the O’Leary profile: A proven success as a head coach, a guy on the rise, not a recycled has-been like Dennis Franchione or Larry Coker.
Golden was perfect for his time because, at THAT time, Temple needed a young guy with the boundless energy to roll up his sleeves and build a program brick by brick.
After Al left, the foundation was already solid.
It did not need to be taken down and rebuilt again and that’s why someone who fit the O’Leary profile, say a MAC head coach who did nothing but win, was just the right person who could take Temple to the next level. For Temple, a perfectly nice brick house has been knocked down for no good reason.

Fortunately for fans in Orlando, O’Leary became available to UCF and he’s done nothing but win down there.
Notre Dame’s loss is Central Florida’s gain and ask any of their fans who make the trip North if they care one wit whether or not he fudged his resume.
All that matters to them is winning. Temple’s administration and fans should demand no less.

 

11.09.13
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TU football should strive for what TU hoops, soccer have done

Image

This is the 1953 Temple men’s soccer team which finished unbeaten and untied and No. 1 in the nation. The untied part is pretty amazing when you consider that 0-0 is the most common score in that sport and there was no overtime back then.

Imagine, if you will, Matt Rhule going through his next six seasons at Temple like this:

Winning four league championships, making bowl games six straight years and winning two of them. Then, in an informal poll of other FBS coaches, Rhule is named the most underrated coach in the country.

danny

Ryan Alderman up for Wueffel Award. Could not happen to a nicer guy. Hope he wins it. Click on photo for details.

Would you sign for that, without the hope of any higher ceiling?

Give me the papers right now. I’ve got the pen ready.

Well, the Temple men’s basketball season opens today and that’s just what Fran Dunphy has done. I’ve never understood the criticism of Fran because he’s done for basketball what I’ve always wanted for football. Substitute NCAA appearances for bowl games and there you have it. He was also named the most underrated coach in the country in a poll of his peers last year.

Temple fans freezing their arses off in the parking lot at JFK.

Temple fans freezing their arses off in the parking lot at JFK.

After a first year of adjusting to Temple from a Hall of Fame career as a Penn head coach, Dunphy won three straight post-season tournament A-10 playoff titles and followed that up with a regular-season A10 League championship the next.

Let’s hope these crater-sized potholes in the road for Matt Rhule this year are part of the adjustment process.

Fran Dunphy is 2-4 in NCAA tournament games with the Owls, but would you consider a 2-4 bowl record by Rhule a success? I know I would because, in football like basketball, getting there is the hardest part.

Now consider what coach Dave MacWilliams has done with this current edition of the men’s soccer team. Picked to finish last in the American Athletic Conference, the Owls finished first during the regular season. Anything after this is gravy. If Rhule does the same thing with the football team, which no doubt will be picked to finish last or near-last next year, he will be doing the same kind of job MacWilliams has done this season.

MacWilliams and Dunphy are two coaches Temple fans do not have to make excuses for and two standards of excellence that Temple should strive for in any sport.

It’s not much to ask for football, either.

10.23.13
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On paper, not a good matchup for Owls

A plus from this film is that SMU does not appear to have a significant home field advantage.

Fortunately, they do not play football real football games on paper or Madden or Xbox because, if you input all of the relevant statistics into a computer, Saturday’s game (3 p.m., EST) at SMU does not favor Temple in any way.

The Owls have struggled against passing teams and the Mustangs are the No. 8 passing team in the nation. Heck, the Owls have struggled against passing teams for the last two years. These stats against just four foes illustrates that a lot better than mere words:

Team PC-PA-INT Yards Touchdowns
Notre Dame 17-27-0 355 3
Houston 29-48-0 305 0
Fordham 23-36-0 320 2
Cincinnati 31-37-0 270 2

Not good. Not good at all. Add to that Idaho, freaking Idaho I call them because I still cannot believe Temple lost to that team, had 301 yards against the Owls and it’s hard to imagine SMU not pushing 400 through the air on Saturday.

I think the Owls do have some talent on the back line of their secondary, particularly in players like Anthony Robey and Tavon Young and maybe Young’s interception last week was the start of something big.

Let’s hope so. SMU has a big-time quarterback in Garrett Gilbert, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound senior who has put up some amazing statistics: 208 completions in 329 attempts for 2,096 yards and 11 touchdowns so far this season. Worse yet, the Owls have shown an alarming tendency for giving up the “easy” patterns, the slant and the out. Brendan Kay used the out to complete 31 of 37 attempts. Two Houston quarterbacks went 29 for 48 with mostly slants over the middle.

Click on the fat Vandy guys for 5 upsets this week.

Click on the Vandy guys for 5 upsets this week.

SMU coach June Jones, an accomplished college football coach who knows what he’s doing, probably has figured that out by now.

What can Temple do, then?

I’ve always said there are three keys to winning in football, from the Pee-Wee Level to the NFL: 1) Limit turnovers; 2) Protect your quarterback; 3) Put the other quarterback on his ass.

Although all are important for Temple this Saturday, No. 3 should be the No. 1 priority this week if  the Owls are going to have any chance to win.  Guys like Matt Ioannidis, Shabaz Ahmed and Averee Robinson MUST put relentless pressure on Gilbert. It can’t be a part-time, some-time thing. It must be a full-time thing, both sacks and knockdowns. That’s a lot of pressure heaped upon very few young guys, but if they get to Gilbert early and often, they might be able to force fumbles and interceptions. Robinson had five sacks in the spring game. If he gets two or three in this one and Ahmed a pair and Ioannidis just one, the Owls win going away. Or any combination of five or more.  No sacks mean no win. The guys up front must give guys like Robey and Young a chance to intercept the ball by pressuring Gilbert into mistakes.

Those guys have shown signs of coming on and they must all have good games on Saturday if the Owls are going to come away with a win.  SMU is beatable. The Mustangs needed a last-second play to beat the lone FCS team on their schedule, Montana State, 31-30. Montana State is 5-2. The Owls failed to beat the lone FCS team on their schedule, losing on a last-second play to 8-0 Fordham.

Nothing on paper says the Owls will win, but this game will be played on the same sprint turf kind of surface the Owls practice on every day and,  if they are able to put Gilbert on it enough, they can put the pre-game paper in the shredder.

Tyler Matakevich is going to become the first player in the nation to hit 100 tackles this season.

Tyler Matakevich is going to become the first player in the nation to hit 100 tackles this season.

10.22.13
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Chris Coyer: The James Casey of Temple

Anthony Vasser

James Casey while playing quarterback for the Rice Owls.

All of this talk about James Casey being the “emergency quarterback” of the Philadelphia Eagles got me to looking up Casey’s credentials as a potential quarterback should both Michael Vick and Matt Barkley go down on Sunday.
Since Nick Foles already is out with a concussion, it looks like Casey would not be in over his head as a quarterback because he was more than a serviceable at that position while playing for the Owls.
The Rice Owls.

Call James Casey the Chris Coyer of Rice. Or, if you will, call Chris Coyer the James Casey of Temple. Very similar skill sets. Very similar-type players.

Temple's Chris Coyer catching at a halfback option pass from Jalen Fitzpatrick in front of Deiontrez Mount and Keith Brown. (See, trick plays do work.)

Temple’s Chris Coyer catching at a halfback option pass from Jalen Fitzpatrick for a first down in front of Deiontrez Mount and Keith Brown. (See, trick plays do work.)

Casey, like Coyer, made a position change his senior year and, like Coyer, moved from quarterback to tight end.
Unlike Coyer, though, the coaching staff at Rice used Casey wisely as he became the first player in the history of the NCAA to do this: Throw a touchdown, run for a touchdown and catch a touchdown all in the same game. Casey did this twice for the Owls.

Casey was second in the country in 2008 with 111 receptions, which set a Conference-USA record. He caught 13 touchdowns, rushed for six more and threw a pair. Those are the kind of stats I thought Coyer could have put up if he was targeted enough in the Temple offense this season. That’s not going to happen, but that doesn’t mean he can’t throw for a touchdown, run for a touchdown and pass for a touchdown in one or two or more of the remaining Temple games.

Since there are five games left, I’d like to see Coyer do this twice, maybe three times, for Temple.
Heck, five times would be nice but I realize I’ve been spitting into the wind all season on this issue.
Coyer is a pretty talented player. Those of us who have seen him all these years, even his one or two detractors (don’t get those people, but they are out there), have to agree on that.
He can run. He can throw. He can catch. He can block.
I realize Coyer is needed to block now more than ever, but I would like to see some plays to free him up to throw the ball out of non-Wildcat formations. On those plays, Chris Parthemore (see his perfect seal block in the slideshow below) can be used as a blocking tight end.
Since there currently are no plays in the Marcus Satterfield playbook for the tight end reverse, pitch and throw downfield, maybe line Coyer up as a fullback, have him rip off a few runs to set up a toss pitch option pass downfield.

Great play for Coyer, running to the left, not the right as shown here.

Great play for Coyer, running to the left, not the right as shown here.

Too much to ask?
Yeah, probably.

I asked Chris after the game on Saturday if the tight end reverse, toss and throw downfield off it was in the playbook and he said no.

My immediate reaction was to say a four-letter word preceded by the word “Oh.” (Sorry, Mrs. Coyer.)

There should be a way, though, to have Coyer run the a couple of plays out of the fullback position, establish himself as a threat running the ball inside the tackles and then quick toss and have him throw the ball down the field. I’m 90 percent certain you can get a safety to bite with that kind of setup.

It worked a few times for the Rice Owls with James Casey.

It can also work for the Temple Owls with Chris Coyer.