Category Archives: Temple football

11.01.21
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Carey: The Big Announcement?

This piece could rival Tolstoy’s War and Peace in number of pages. Good luck, Mike.

As far as splashes on the first day of the job go, Arthur Johnson’s as Temple University’s new athletic director could be epic today.

If he does what he SHOULD do, it will be.

So far this season, six college football coaches have already been fired. TCU’s Gary Patterson is No. 6.

Does Temple make Rod Carey Lucky Number Seven today?

Temple sports history says no, but Johnson is from Texas where they do things on a big scale and don’t tolerate fools, so there is a chance.

Put it this way: New President Jason Wingard read the riot act to the entire athletic department, including Carey, prior to the Akron game and the message was simply that Temple won’t tolerate anything but excellence.

Since then, except for what now looks like an outlier against Memphis, the football program has been a national embarrassment.

Maybe Wingard was waiting to get his guy in place to prove that he was serious and Johnson certainly is his guy.

Naming Gabe Infante the interim head coach, making Preston Brown the assistant head coach and keeping the position coaches seems to be a perfect temporary solution. Fire the head coach, and the offensive and defensive coordinators. Hold a press conference and tell the entire Temple community that the school will leave no stone unturned to find the best head coach available. Tell the players and the recruits to hold off on the portal and decommitting for a while, the cavalry is coming to rescue them.

At least one former Temple player talks about the current state of the program here.

Maybe Johnson feels comfortable in bringing in someone from Texas like Patterson. He could do a whole lot worse. The guy was unbeaten (13-0) in 2010 and would not face unreasonable expectations in Philadelphia. They would build a statue for him if he can win 10.

There is, though, a not-so-secret formula to win at Temple and it eschews the big-name type for the hungry younger guy.

Infante fits that profile. He is extremely popular with the players and was National High School Coach of the Year in 2018. He reminds fans of qualities of past Temple successful head coaches. One, a local guy wired into Mid-Atlantic recruiting. Two, an accomplished head coach who has been the CEO of a championship program. Three, a hungry go-getter type. The same players who probably will be going through the motions against East Carolina this week under Carey will be flying around and trying to make plays for Infante.

For a sure thing, though, Johnson could place a phone call to Cincinnati and gauge Al Golden’s interest in Chapter Two at Temple. Golden has already won here and has the formula for Temple TUFF secret sauce. Even if AG says no, Johnson can ask him about candidates who he feels certain could succeed here. It would be a productive phone call either way.

Or Johnson can do nothing on his first day on the job here. Push a few papers, make a few phone calls, shake a few hands.

We’re kinda used to that around here.

Doing what TCU and Texas Tech just did would be a most welcome and pleasant surprise.

Wednesday: Fizzy

Friday: ECU Preview

10.30.21
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Rod Carey: Excuses, not reasons

Not now, but maybe tomorrow or Monday. We can only hope.

Another blowout Temple loss, and more excuses from head coach Rod Carey.

Just to be clear: Excuses are not reasons.

Not valid ones anyway.

The latest Carey excuse after a 49-7 loss to UCF was this:

“Obviously when you beat yourselves against a good football team like that, the score is going to reflect what it did today,” Carey said.

Thanks, Rod.

Temple fans chanted for Rod Carey to be fired and Temple players agreed with them. What is the Temple administration waiting for?

After the USF game, he said this:

“So obviously we just got beat bad, that’s the only way to put it.  They took it to us tonight and we’ve got to do better as coaches, we’ve got to do better as players, and we’ve got to get back to work at it.”

After the Cincy game, he said this:

“So obviously I’m upset with the outcome. I’m upset with the second half especially. We did not play well. And they’re a really good team on top of it. So when you do not play well against good teams, that happens. So really disappointing. I thought that first half we gave ourselves a shot after giving them a free touchdown there. So it’s just what it is. We’ve got to get back to work. We’ve got to keep improving. And the bye week comes at a good time for us and we’ll go from there.”

Thanks to OwlsDaily.com for those quotes.

Sense a pattern here?

I do.

The same pattern and the same excuses will continue until the Owls finish 3-9 and close out the season.

The post-season press conference probably will be an amalgamation of all of those quotes contained in one disgusting paragraph.

My overwhelming thought today is why bother?

Arthur Johnson sitting with his son. He needs to teach the kid a life lesson that dad doesn’t accept bullbleep.

New Temple athletic director Arthur Johnson was spotted sitting on a folding chair and listening to those same quotes we outlined here now.

If Johnson was paying any attention, they sounded remarkably similar to the excuses Carey gave after earlier games.

A good CEO doesn’t accept excuses from a bad employee. He just thanks the employee for his services, asks for the key to the office and finds someone who doesn’t make excuses.

In the five years Al Golden spent here, he made zero excuses and solved many problems. If I’m Johnson, I’d place a phone call to Golden either Sunday or Monday and gauge his interest. If he says no, I’d pick his brain and get suggestions on the next guy.

What I won’t do?

Sit in the back on a folding chair and listen to Carey’s bullshit one more week.

Monday: A Big Announcement

10.29.21
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TU-UCF: What the last six days tells you

This graphic illustrates the difference between Warren Ruggierio and Mike Uremovich

As a Temple fan who just watched a mediocre East Carolina team dismantle South Florida on Thursday night, I came away with one overwhelming prevailing feeling.

We’re fucked.

Excuse the language. If I had a Youtube or Facebook account, I would probably be kicked off the platform but I’m given a little more lattitde on my own site.

Put it this way: East Carolina needed a freak late score to beat that terrific powerhouse Charleston Southern, 31-28, and absolutely hammered a team that the Temple coaching staff had no clue how to stop. Honestly, before a few weeks ago, I did not know Charleston Southern had a football team but looking into its season so far, it has lost to Monmouth (41-14), Robert Morris (31-24) and the team that made Bobby Wallace famous, North Alabama (45-22). Monmouth lost to Princeton of the Ivy League.

I’m glad Temple doesn’t have Princeton on the schedule this season. It’s already too embarrassing and, if Dr. Jason Wingard doesn’t dismiss this staff between now and the end of the season, he’s culpable in bringing Temple down to that level.

Temple is 15-2 in painted end zone games; probably 15-3 after Saturday.

Everyone talks about how Temple’s defense, led by Jeff Knowles, could not stop USF but at least an equal blame has to got to Mike Uremovich’s offense. The Owls could only manage 34 plays and under 17 minutes of offense under Uremovich’s tutorship. That produced a whopping 14 points.

Meanwhile, against a better defense on the same day with approximately the same number of plays and minutes, Wake Forest scored 70 points on a good Army team.

No escaping the conclusion that University of Delaware grad Warren Ruggiero is a better offensive coach than Uremovich, who is only here because he is cozy with Rod Carey. Am I missing something here? Do you see any innovation or creativity in Temple’s offense? Why hasn’t Uremovich used a terrific high school quarterback, Trey Blair, to throw a halfback pass yet? Is he saving it for the bowl game? News flash: This team ain’t making a bowl. Why do we see Edward Saydee in there on first-and-goal from the 3 instead of the pile-driving Tavon Ruley?

More blame goes his way season-wise, at least from my perspective, than Knowles because he’s got too many weapons to be producing too few points. In Randle Jones and Jadan Blue, he’s got NFL receivers. In Ruley, he’s got a power back who should be gold in the red zone but is seldom used there. In Amad Anderson, he’s got a big-time productive wide receiver at Purdue who has about 1/10th of that production here. In Dwan Mathis, he has Temple’s first four-star quarterback since Kevin Harvey. In Kyle Dobbins, he made the only back who scored three touchdowns in a game for Temple disappear after that game.

Don’t get me started on the special teams coach. I haven’t seen a punt block or a return to the house since Geoff Collins was here.

As disappointing as 4-3 UCF is, there is no way a 3-4 Temple team isn’t more disappointing.

At least UCF is missing superstar quarterback Dillon Gabriel.

There is no similar excuse for Temple.

The wise guys in Vegas have UCF as “only” a 10.5 favorite.

The “wiser” guys in Philadelphia who have watched not only Temple against USF but ECU against that same team know better.

Temple’s coaches have no idea what they are doing but savvy Philadelphia football fans already knew that.

The Vegas wise guys evidently need another Saturday to convince them.

Picks this week: Going to use some underdogs to rebound from my only poor week. Going with unbeaten SMU (+1) to win at Houston, VIRGINIA TECH getting 4.5 at the fighting Geoff Collins’ (GT), NAVY getting 11 at Tulsa and ILLINOIS getting 2 over visiting Rutgers.

Last week: Won on Ohio State, lost in WMU, UMASS and NC STate bringing our record ATS to 18-14-1.

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.25.21
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TU football word of the day: Malaise

The lack of a real celebration here tells a lot..

A pretty intelligent guy who often visits the Edberg Olson Complex and has a finger on the pulse of Temple football used a word that surprised me about the general vibe around the place.

Not last night, not last week, but way back in February.

“I’ve never seen the place so dead,” he said. “There’s a malaise around the program right now with all of the players leaving and a lot of those staying unhappy. Very few of the kids like the guy (Rod Carey). He’s no Matt. He’s not even Geoff (Collins). Practices use to be fun. Hell, lifting in the offseason used to be fun. There’s no fun anymore.”

Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word malaise: “a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify.”

Owls used to have fun in the snow in February.
No fun under Rod Carey.

Uh-oh, I thought.

That’s one of the reasons why I went out on a limb Feb. 11 in this space and predicted a 2-10 season. I was wrong by a game. It’s going to be 3-9.

Football is a game. It should be fun. At Temple, it’s not.

That much became abundantly clear when the Owls got pushed around on Saturday night by a 1-5 USF team that hadn’t won a conference game in two years.

This coaching staff had 15 days to prepare for that 1-5 team and came out with a game plan so puzzling that just about every Temple fan got scabs from scratching their heads. After a cornerback got ran down by a tight end on a muffed field goal, I thought, “no problem. We’re going to put Tavon Ruley in there and he’s going to need no more than one or two plays to get a 7-0 lead.”

No.

The much lighter Edward Saydee was in and stuffed on first and then they held on second down and the Owls threw an interception on the next play.

Nice drive.

The Owls didn’t adjust to a four-man front until the fourth quarter to stop the run and, by that time, it was far too late. The adjustment should have been in the first, not fourth, quarter.

You can tell a lot about a team by its body language.

The Owls seemed listless and there was nobody in the defensive huddle to fire up the troops.

Even when the Owls scored a touchdown, they were lifeless. There was almost no celebration. It was almost like a relief.

Malaise indeed.

I was tempted to go to twitter and constantly hit refresh with search items Sunday like “Rod Carey” and “Temple football” hoping for an announcement of a press conference at Sullivan Hall to fire the head coach. I didn’t bother because I know how Temple leadership makes major decisions.

History shows it’s deliberately and often too late to solve the problem. Just like the school’s football coach, they wait until the fourth quarter to solve a problem that should have been taken care of in the first.

There’s another word for that.

Inertia.

Friday: UCF Preview

10.23.21
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Dr. Wingard: It’s time to make a change

To: Dr. Jason Wingard

President, Temple University

Sullivan Hall

Broad Street and Montgomery Avenues

Philadelphia, PA 19122

Dear President Wingard,

You’ve played big-time college football.

You, more than anyone else, know a couple of simple Football 101 facts:

One, when a team refuses to pass but gouges your defense on runs, you put eight men in the box and dare them to pass.

We’re popular in Kuwait on Sunday. Views of TFF from end of the game last night until 9 a.m. this morning. Maybe some oil money is coming to buy out Rod Carey’s contract.

Two, when you get a first-and-goal early in the game on the bad guy’s 3-yard line, you put your POWER back in the game, not your scatback. Tavon Ruley would have produced a 7-0 lead. Edward Saydee is a good back but not the guy you want in there when you want to move bodies.

Three, when your highly-paid coaching staff refuses to understand those basic football concepts,, it’s time to get another highly-paid coaching staff.

That’s pretty much the story in a nutshell of Saturday night’s USF 34-14 win over our beloved Temple Owls.

You know it.

Your fans know it.

No lies detected …

Your coaching staff is clueless.

These people are from Northern Illinois. They don’t understand Temple. They hate Philadelphia. They can’t fathom Temple TUFF. They never will.

They were 1-6 last season. They will finish 3-9 this season.

It’s time for a change.

The sooner the better.

Yes, buying out the remaining three years of a coach who makes $2 million per year will cost the university major coin but put it this way.

You cannot sell this staff to the fanbase next year. Spend money, replace the guy, sell maybe 10x as many season tickets over the next 12 months.

Keep him for another year and you might not sell more than 400 season tickets in a 70,000-seat stadium for the 2022 season. This university doesn’t deserve that national embarrassment. People in Philadelphia are knowledgeable about the game. They can’t stomach three-men fronts against run-only offenses. They can’t stomach a guy who is so unpopular with his players that they routinely leave for other pastures.

Bring back Al Golden, who has proven he can win here, or give the job to a more hungry guy who is popular with the players like Gabe Infante.

You came to Temple promising bold leadership. Nothing would send a bolder leadership message to the 300,000-plus Temple alumni that you won’t accept the performance of this coaching staff.

Spend money to make money.

Fire Rod Carey no later than Monday. If you can get into the office on Sunday, that would even be better. I don’t speak for my 300,000 fellow Temple alumni nor the 40,000 current full-time students or 12,500 employees but I’m confident the great majority agree with me today.

Don’t wait until Arthur Johnson arrives in his office Nov. 1. You can fill him in on the details once he gets settled.

We cannot wait until the end of the season.

Sincerely,

Mike Gibson

Editor and Publisher

Temple Football Forever

Monday: Word of the day

Friday: UCF Preview

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.22.21
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USF: A must-win for Rod Carey

Gabe Infante is lurking in the shadows of Rod Carey in more ways than one.

In about 24 hours, we will find out how desperate Rod Carey is to cement his career legacy.

Will he go down as an interesting guy who won a couple of MAC titles and feasted on Big 10 teams enough to earn a contract at Temple or will he go down as a guy who moved on up to the East Side and never fit into the neighborhood?

By 10 p.m. Saturday, we will find out whether this prediction is real or just coachspeak from BC’s Jeff Hafley

He looks more like Tom Willis than George Jefferson to me and I’m not talking skin pigment.

If you’ve followed this space since Feb. 18, we wrote here that the Owls were more likely to finish 2-10 than 10-2 or even 6-6 because Carey and his staff did not do enough in the offseason to replenish the 15 good players who walked out the door with 15 better ones since the end of last season.

Even then, we wrote would you be satisfied with even four wins after averaging eight in the decade before COVID? Absolutely not was the resounding answer.

We thought it was time to go big or go home (Northern Illinois being home in this case) for this staff and they certainly did not go big.

Dwan Mathis had a good game against Memphis and a bad game against Cincy. He needs to run like a mad dog and keep drives alive for the Owls to beat USF.

If they don’t beat South Florida, they are on a path to go home.

South Florida is by far the worst team remaining on the schedule and, if the Owls lose, they are on an inextricable slide to a 3-9 season. It might be enough to get Carey fired, even with three years remaining on his contract.

The reason being simply this: According to OwlsDaily.com, new Temple President Dr. Jason Wingard called everyone in the athletic department (Carey included) for a group meeting and read the riot act and said the department was not meeting expectations, including the football team. The next day Wingard made a personal appearance at the football practice facility and gave the kind of pep talk to the team it had not heard since Matt Rhule.

Temple scored 45 of the last 48 points in a rout of Akron two days later.

If Temple finishes 3-9 coming off a 1-6 season, Wingard is the kind of guy who could convince the BOT to spend money to make money and eat the remaining three years of Carey’s contract and get a better CEO for the football program. In hiring new AD Arthur Johnson (the Director of FOOTBALL operations at Texas), Wingard sent a clear signal that winning in FOOTBALL is the biggest priority for Temple athletics right now.

For Carey, it better start now.

Saturday night (7 p.m., ESPN+) will simply come down to this: Can Carey be flexible enough to devise a game plan that keeps USF on its heels? Does he throw something that USF hasn’t seen on game film (i.e., a halfback pass from backup running back Trey Blair to Randle Jones for six) or a blocked punt? Go big or go home includes taking chances in the game plan as well as bringing in overwhelming numbers in the transfer portal.

Hell, no Temple fans have ever seen a blocked punt under Carey but they saw plenty under even the mediocre reign of Geoff Collins.

One thing Carey has going for him is playmakers. In guys like Jones, all-time leading receiver Jadan Blue, Dwan Mathis, Blair, Manny Walker, Keyshawn Paul, William Kwenkeu, Cameron Ruiz and M.J. Griffin, he’s got significantly more playmakers than USF does. Backup corner Ty Mason is one of only 10 Temple players in the three-century history of the sport to return an interception for six points. He’s a playmaker as well. Putting those guys in position to make plays is his job and the job of the NIU carpetbaggers. Mathis intrigued me against Memphis BUT he raised serious questions about his intestinal fortitude against Cincinnati. He did not look like a guy who wanted to win two weeks ago but maybe the fire in his belly returns against USF.

Say, for argument’s sake, it does and the Owls come out with an Akron-type win. Not only does Carey’s job become more secure, but the Owls build the kind of confidence that can set them on an impressive winning streak. No way Wingard or Johnson fire Carey then nor should they want to at that point. For the kids’ sake and for the fans’ sake, you kinda hope it happens. Long-term is a different story.

Winning on Saturday night and building the kind of team chemistry that steals a couple more later would save Carey’s job but it’s becoming an increasingly hard scenario to envision, even if you are looking into a Cherry and White crystal ball.

Picks This Week: OHIO STATE -21 at Indiana (Buckeyes want to show separation between them and Cincy if it comes down to those two teams; what better way to do it than blowing out Indy more than Cincy did); WESTERN MICHIGAN (a team that won at Pitt) -2.5 at Toledo; UMASS +35.5 at Florida State (Jacksonville State won there and UMASS is on that level); NORTH CAROLINA STATE -3 at Miami (proving for the umpteenth time that while Carey might not be the answer at Temple, Diaz certainly wasn’t either).

Latest update: Last week, lost on WMU, UMASS and NC State and won on Ohio State. The 1-3 mark ATS brings us to 18-14-1 on the seaosn 1 on the season.

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.15.21
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Coping without Temple football

More smiles on the Temple sideline than I ever want to see with the Owls down 52-3

If I had my druthers, Temple football would start the first week of September and end the first week of January with no interruptions in the first three months.

This week is one of the interruptions.

The Owls are on a bye week and, instead of watching a game I have already seen in person on TV, I go to the DVR and review some games I’ve haven’t yet checked out.

One of them was Villanova at Penn State, a somewhat respectable 38-17 loss for the Wildcats.

Carey gave up, it’s no wonder his players followed his lead.

After just finishing watching the entire three hours of that game, my anger issues kicked into play.

“How in the hell can Villanova, a team with 20 less scholarships, give Penn State a much better game than Temple gave Cincinnati?”

Villanova had to play in arguably a more hostile environment against arguably a similar team yet was not embarrassed.

Temple was last Friday night and it was on national television for all to see.

Temple was mocked nationally once again as it has been many times under Rod Carey and, if it made me mad, I’m sure I’m not the only Temple fan who felt that way.

Gabe Infante’s burner account (just kidding; I agree with this guy)

The answer was simple: Coaching and determination.

Villanova’s players actually chased down Penn State receivers and backs running through its secondary, several times catching them.

On othe other hand, Temple defenders waved half-heartedly and watched as the Bearcats went on by for long scores.

This is what happens when you have players committed to a coach (Mark Ferrante) and a prorgram and players who do not believe in a head coach (Rod Carey) and that said head coach has to hire mercenaries to replace guys who were committed to Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins.

Forget Temple fans, though.

Impartial football observers like former unbeaten Tulane quarterback Shaun King have also shaken their heads about Carey’s in-game decisions.

People are noticing. Not just Temple people but smart football people around the country. Already, Arthur Johnson is calling on big-time Temple donors and asking their opinions. I’m just a Joe Schmoe one lottery ticket away from being a big-time donor but if Mr. Johnson called me, I’d tell him the problem with Temple football is as clear as the nose on Jimmy Durante’s face and the difference between the effort of Mark Ferrante’s players versus the effort of Rod Carey’s. If you don’t notice that, you do not have two eyes.

It won’t matter unless Jason Wingard and Arthur Johnson start to notice.

This week’s picks: All undervalued favorites this week: Like Nebraska -4 at a Minnesota team that got beat by Bowling Green; also home Buffalo -8 against a truly horrific Ohio squad and Ball State -1.5 at Eastern Michigan and Fresno State -3.5 at Wyoming.

Latest update: Lost on Nebraska and Buffalo, won on Fresno State and Ball State. The 2-2 mark ATS brings us to 17-11-1 on the season.

Monday: The Difference between USF and Temple

10.10.21
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Russell Conwell’s clear-cut choice: Gabe Infante

Two-time national high school championship head coach Gabe Infante’s SJP teams practiced at 12th and Cecil B. Moore. That’s the definition of a diamond in your own backyard.

Wasn’t able to get the seance I requested with Temple University founder Russell Conwell over the weekend, so instead did the next-best thing.

Read everything he wrote.

In between those lines was the answer to the question I’ve been looking for: Who should be Temple’s next head football coach?

Conwell gave a clear and loud answer to that.

Gabe Infante.

That’s because, long before Conwell founded Temple University, he became famous for his “Acres of Diamonds” story that later became his best-selling book.

The Cliff Notes version is that the story is about an African Farmer who sold his farm to search for diamonds elsewhere when, ironically, his own farmland (which he sold to finance his search), literally contained Acres of Diamonds.

Since Temple posted consecutive 10-win seasons, and Matt Rhule left for Baylor, the Owls have traveled far outside their perimeter to search for the guy who would keep their diamond supply coming but have largely come up short.

Former Temple and current Buffalo Bills’ RB Ray Davis talks about the Rod Carey staff in this text message.

Eight blocks away was a guy mining diamonds at 17th and Thompson all along and his name was Gabe Infante.

Going 91-22 as a head coach (they need head coach experience) at St. Joseph’s Prep and winning four-straight large school Pennsylvania state football titles.

Even Gabe realized that wasn’t enough to realize his dream of becoming a college football head coach and left that comfortable job to search for his own diamonds as a Temple assistant coach. In three years at Temple, just about every player called him the best coach on the staff by far.

Rod Carey, a Midwesterner who didn’t understand Philadelphia and Temple, cut Infante loose but he landed on his feet as an assistant at Penn State and, now, assistant head coach at Duke, which is one of the best college football stories in the country this year.

Much like Rhule needed to leave Temple and gain a year of experience with the New York Giants under Tom Coughlin, Infante has left Temple with a treasure trove of knowledge and experience to build a big-time program that can only help Temple now.

It is his time and his place and, if Temple AD Arthur Johnson realizes that, Temple the University will realize its own Acres of Diamonds.

Gabe Infante is a legendary high school football coach in Philadelphia.

I have seen plenty of his games when he was head coach at the Prep and his teams never jumped offsides, never had false starts and always made dynamic plays on special teams. Their offensive line sprinted to the line of scrimmage for every play. (No lie. Check the film.) They were more well-drilled than most college and NFL teams.

At the beginning of this search, I thought it might be a cool thing for Johnson to hire former Temple head coach Geoff Collins and the neatest sound bite from the hiring press conference would be for him to say: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I reintroduce to you the only head coach in the 130-year history of Temple football to never have a losing season.”

No doubt that Collins wants to come back and there would be applause all around but Collins had his time here and left.

It is now Gabe Infante’s time.

If you could ask Russell Conwell, you would know his answer.

Friday: North Texas Preview

10.08.21
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Temple: Worst special teams in history

Whether he wants to admit it or not, Rod Carey cannot say his special teams by delegation produced better results than any of Ed Foley’s special teams at Temple.

If someone gave Rod Carey a blueprint to destroy Temple football on the day he was hired, it would be this:

“Hey, Rod. How about firing the best special teams coach in the country and giving the defense an extra coach on the field?”

“Yeah, Joe (or Fran or Pat), that sounds like a pretty good idea to me.”

Some time later, Carey had this conversation with Ed Foley:

“Sorry, Ed. Gonna have to move you upstairs. We need another defensive coach on the field.”

Ed: “Fuck that. I’m outta here.”

Carey: “See ya.”

With Dwan Mathis throwing the ball into the ground on 3d and 17, it might be time to get behind Justin Lynch. In over 40 years of watching Temple football, I’ve never seen a Temple quarterback give up like Mathis did Friday night.

Since then, Temple has has been a national embarrassment on special teams. That’s a nice way of putting it. Probably a better way would be the Owls suck royally.

That certainly wasn’t the reason for Temple’s 52-3 loss at Cincinnati on Friday night but it definitely was the reason why the Owls gave up 14 early points that they could absolutely not afford if they were to have any confidence going forward.

In a potential blowout game, you need some early confidence and Temple got none of that.

In a 61-14 opening-day loss to Rutgers, Jadan Blue routinely let the ball go over his head on the 30 and allowed it to bounce inside the 5. Blue, my favorite CURRENT Temple player, showed absolutely no interest in advancing the ball and that’s his job.

Against Cincy, he muffed a punt that led to six.

That got him pulled.

Love the guy, but it should no longer be his job.

His replacement, Amad Anderson, muffed another one a short time later than led to another Cincy six.

When you are a 29.5-point underdog, can’t make those plays.

Why doesn’t Cincy muff punts? Why didn’t Temple under Matt Rhule?

Those were not plays Ed Foley’s special teams made.

Foley’s teams routinely returned punts for touchdowns and blocked the bad guys’ kicks for touchdowns the other way.

Again, not the reason for a loss but certainly the reason that it wasn’t a 31-3 loss or even more cosmetic. Those 14 points in terms of the Owls’ confidence in winning were worth much more, say, 28 points.

Temple fans deserve to have a kind of team that locks down the “most easy” of the three phases of the game and Rod Carey in his capacity as CEO has failed to do that nor has he shown any interest in fixing it. Special teams are 1/3d of the game. Carey thinks they are 1/10th.

Hopefully, new AD Arthur Johnson was taking notes in Cincinnati on Friday night. If not, he will get an earful from Temple fans once the team plane lands in Philadelphia.

Monday: Listen and Learn

10.08.21
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TU-Cincy: Dwan’s coming out party?

Right now, it’s pretty clear what the planned ESPN TV narrative will be for tonight’s game, Temple at Cincinnati (7 p.m., main network).

If Golden shows up for the second-straight Owl upset, Arthur Johnson might give him an offer he can’t refuse to be a football consultant.

Group of Five team returns home to adoring fans ranked No. 5 in the country with a real hope of being the first team of the sub-FBS group to make the four-team playoff.

Narratives can change, though, depending upon what happens once the ball is kicked off.

For Temple, nothing would be better than the narrative to change to the play of former Elite 11 quarterback and five-star recruit Dwan Mathis.

Owl fans caught a glimpse of what Mathis can do–maybe on the regular–when he took a simple zone read for himself instead of handing to a running back and went 39 yards in a 34-31 win over Memphis. Mathis was too fast for the defensive end and juked the defensive back to pick up a big gain. Mix in 35 completions for 322 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions and the Homecoming crowd of 28,356 got a nice glimpse into the future.

Remember, he did not play at all in a 28-3 loss to Boston College and that game was 21-3 with two minutes left in the fourth quarter.

“If that’s what he looks like on an 80 percent ankle, I’d like to see what he can do on a 100 percent one,” former Georgia starting quarterback Hudson Mason said while doing the game as an ESPN analyst last week.

Hell, maybe Mathis went from 80 percent to 100 percent this week.

We will find out in a few hours.

Like Mason, Mathis is a former starting quarterback at Georgia.

Unlike Mason, Mathis has world-class speed and can turn a simple tuck-and-run into an 80-yard touchdown on any given play.

By comparison, Cincinnati faced a pair of statues in the two Notre Dame quarterbacks it pummeled a week ago. Murray State didn’t have a quarterback like Mathis nor did Indiana.

Temple does.

Doesn’t say WHEN the showers will end but let’s hope it’s by 7.

Mathis can turn around this narrative pretty fast, especially if the Owls’ experienced offensive line and staple of good-but-not-great running backs have a modicum of early success. If the Bearcats go for the running back, Mathis has shown a pretty good instinct for keeping the ball when he sees a lane.

It might not translate into an 80-yard touchdown, but if it keeps enough drives alive for the Owls to get their share of first downs, it won’t have to be. This is the kind of game that the Owls might be better off rolling the pocket and throwing to the best wide receiver tandem in the American Athletic Conference. Watching the Owls on film, Luke Fickell hasn’t seen Mathis take off that much nor throw on the run. He hasn’t seen running back and former quarterback Trey Blair throw a pass off a pitchout, either.

This would be a good time for head coach Rod Carey and offensive coordinator Mike Uremovich to rip off those pages in the playbook and tape them to Mathis’ arm.

Then the narrative changes to how good Mathis and how good Temple can be and not so much Cincy-centric. Right now, everyone is assuming Cincinnati will breeze through the remainder of its schedule and, as UCF found out at Navy last week, assuming anything is dangerous.

Instead of the assumption that Cincy runs the table, a good Temple start could have the announcers talking about Al Golden’s presence for the second-straight game (after not being at a Temple game in a decade) and what a good-luck charm he has become for the Owls. Maybe a sideline reporter pulls new Temple athletic director Arthur Johnson aside for a chat about his vision for Temple’s athletic future.

Maybe even someone brings up the fact that Temple would deliver the nation’s fourth-largest TV market for any Power 5 conference which might be interested in addition to competitive football and basketball programs.

If the Owls win, ESPN will be talking about Temple beating Cincinnati in five of the last six football meetings. Since Cincy is playing for Big 12 prestige, not the AAC’s, nothing would please most of the current members of the league than that narrative supplanting the one ESPN has planned.

Picks this week: I never bet Temple (to win or lose) but the 12.5 over/under in points scored seems way too low. Think the Owls score at least 17, maybe more, but won’t include it in my official picks.

Official picks: IOWA (-2) over visiting Penn State, MEMPHIS (+3.5) at Tulsa (Vegas overreacted to the Temple loss, think Memphis not only covers but wins this game outright), COLORADO STATE (-1.5) over visiting San Jose State and MICHIGAN STATE (-5) in a revenge spot at Rutgers. (CSU’s win over Toledo was more impressive than SJS’s loss to Western Michigan and MSU now has a big-time running back that it did not have last year.)

Latest update: Won on Iowa (23-20), lost on Memphis, won on Colorado State (32-15), won on Michigan State (31-13). For the weekend, our 3-1 record ATS brings us to 15-9-1 ATS on the season.

Tomorrow: Game Analysis