Category Archives: Temple football

04.16.21
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We’re No. 1 (and No. 119)

Duece Mathis stares down a receiver in practice. (Photo courtesy of Zamani Feelings)

A couple of recently released numbers illustrates the current state of Temple football these days.

Temple is No. 1 both in the AAC and all of G5 football in terms of transfers out via the portal (15) and No. 119 in terms of ESPN’s 2021 Power College Football Index. The network has the Owls finishing dead last in the AAC.

If you’ve been following this space since the end of a depressing 1-6 season, you shouldn’t be surprised.

Our contention all along is that too many good players have gone out the front door and not enough have come in the back door for the Owls to realistically be favored in more than two games of the upcoming 12-game season.

Not all our friends have agreed with us.

We’re hearing a lot of “now that Rod Carey has his quarterback and can run his system” the Owls will be successful.

We shall see.

When everyone on the outside says you stink and you don’t smell it, it’s probably you, not them.

When ESPN says you are back in the dreaded Bottom 10 (there are only 127 FBS teams, so do the math) and nobody in your league lost as much talent as you did, you tend to listen.

Not since Al Golden did CPR on the Temple program did I ever think we would return to those days.

We are here.

This brings us to another number.

Eighteen.

No one in my recent memory–with the possible exception of Montel Harris in 2012–has been expected to make as much of an impact as No. 18, quarterback Duece Mathis. The difference between then and now is that some publications had Harris as the preseason No. 1 player in the ACC (not AAC) before he transferred from Boston College to Temple.

The player Temple is counting on now had more interceptions than touchdown passes in his only duty as an FBS quarterback.

“Well, he’s a big-time SEC guy and Anthony Russo was not,” the contrarions say.

Remember the last big-time Big 12 quarterback Temple brought in, Re-al Mitchell? He was supposed to give Russo a run for his money and he did not look like a starting-level AAC quarterback, let alone a replacement for a top five Temple all-timer. Just because you are the No. 2 quarterback at Iowa State one year doesn’t mean you are going to light it up at Temple the next. My initial feelings after seeing Mitchell quarterback Temple was that we were fucked (excuse the language) without Russo.

That turned out to be true, at least in 2020.

Who’s to say the No. 3 quarterback at Georgia (after things shook out) is better than the No. 2 quarterback at Iowa State?

Now maybe Mathis proves to be a lot better than Mitchell.

He better, but that’s an unfair amount of pressure to put on one young guy and involves probably unrealistic expectations and that’s why the numbers don’t look good for Temple right now.

Whatever the dwindling number of Rod Carey apologists say.

Monday: The New Guy

04.12.21
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Keeping it between the boards

Gavin Dionisio should compete for the kicking job.

As a young man, I was charged with taking a final look at the sports pages before they hit the hard-scrabble streets of Doylestown.

One guy who needed heavy editing was a NASCAR “writer” named Eddie Blain.

He always ended with a signature closing line: “Keep it between the boards.”

Except one time.

We’ll say it was a typo.

“Keep it between the broads.”

Funny line and the people in the composing room loved it, but I couldn’t let it go. I had to send another version of the story out with the correct closing line.

The keep it between the boards line referred to keeping the cars on the track and out of danger.

That story reminded me a little of the Temple kicking game last year.

It should be a little easier to keep kickoffs inbounds than it was to keep cars inside the track but each kickoff was a painful exercise in covering the eyes and listening to the play-by-play to see if it wasn’t a disaster.

The Owls had five kickoffs go out of bounds last year, two in just one game.

How does that happen?

Who allows this slop to hit the streets?

Oh.

Rod Carey.

When guys like Don Bitterlich, Nick Mike-Mayer, Brandon McManus, Austin Jones and Aaron Boumerhi were here, the Owls went four years at a time without a single kickoff going out of bonds. That’s a total of about 20 years. Even Jerry Berndt had good kickers in Cardinal Dougherty’s Bill and Bob Wright and Bobby Wallace had a solid kicker in Cap Poklemba.

Temple fans have gotten into the habit of assuming that part of the game was on auto pilot. Really, even though Will Mobley was an OK short-distance kicker, the Owls haven’t had a home run hitting kicker since Carey didn’t guarantee Boumerhi’s scholarship,, forcing him to transfer to Boston College.

They still might not, but at least they understand they have a problem and that’s a change in the right direction.

Fortunately, the Owls brought in Archbishop Ryan all-state kicker Gavin Dionisio to challenge Rory Bell for the job this year. We checked with some Ryan guys we know (it’s our other alma mater) and Dionisio did not have a single kick go out of bounds in his three years as Ryan’s main kicker. Hopefully, the competition on kickoffs makes Bell better in that area, too.

Gavin isn’t perfect–his longest field goal in high school was only 38 yards–but it’s nice to know that it should be OK to assume the kickoffs will be kept between football’s version of the boards for a change.

Friday: A Big Target

04.08.21
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Shock: Apologies to coach Rod Carey

Thanks to Zamani Feelings for this great and rare footage of Paul Palmer against Bama.

The newest headline on Youtube by some content creators is the word shock followed by the topic of choice.

Algorithms dictate that using the word shock creates an uptick in page views but, in this case, it’s appropriate because Temple head coach Rod Carey has received (I believe) a lot of fair criticism during and after a 1-6 season.

The shock is simply this: I have scheduled my apology column to coach Carey and it will appear in this space on Nov. 28, the day after the final against Navy. As I see it now, Carey will have to pull a Jesus and turn the very few impact players he has on defense (in terms of sacks, interceptions, and fumble recoveries) into Loaves and Fishes.

Don’t even get me started on special teams.

The best thing I can say about Rod Carey right now is he has a nice hoodie.

I don’t expect to have to write it, but I hope I do.

For it to appear, though, the requirements are simply this: An eight-win regular season, not even a championship or a bowl win.

Why eight?

That’s pretty much the standard we’ve been used to around here since Al Golden went 9-3 in the 2009 regular season. Since then, the Owls have had more eight-win (or more) seasons than not and that’s the standard Temple fans have both enjoyed and expected.

The shock was 1-6 precipitated in some part by a COVID outbreak, sure, but in larger part by poor preparation. In my mind, there is never an excuse to give up 31 points to a triple-option team when you have nine months to prepare for a triple-option team and especially since two prior opponents showed your defensive coaching room how to hold said team to 7 and 3 points, respectively.

To me, a win over Navy would have been the confidence-builder needed not to get to a 2-5 season but potentially a 4-3 season but we will never know that now. Early season wins are so important not just for the psyche of the team but the psyche of a fan base.

That’s water under the dam.

Damn.

Right now, a new dam is being build at Temple football spring practice and we will see if it holds water.

If it does, a 500-word apology will appear in this space on Nov. 28 and it’s something I fervently hope to write.

Shock.

Monday: Keeping it Between the Boards

04.02.21
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Fools Day Plus 1: Hope springs eternal

An example of a well-done AF joke is here about frequent poster and friend of Temple Football Forever Rob Vaughn.

At about this time every year on this site we’ve done our usual April Fool’s post.

Not this year.

Sometimes we crack ourselves up and, based on a lot of the comments attached below the past posts, some of those cracked a lot of you up.

Big 10 explores idea of adding Temple – Temple Football Forever (wordpress.com)

Addazio’s first 5-star recruit: Urban Meyer – Temple Football Forever (wordpress.com)

Robby Anderson: The Prodigal Son Returns – Temple Football Forever (wordpress.com)

Sky’s the limit for 6-11 walk-on freshman – Temple Football Forever (wordpress.com)

We’re glad it did.

Nothing funny (humorous) about the program this year but a lot of funny (odd) things about it.

Still, we have at least one “RutgersAl” on the Owlsdaily.com message board who really feels the Owls are going to win the AAC championship every year. (Rutgers Al would always go on the RU board and predict unbeaten seasons that usually ended up closer to 0-12 than 12-0.) A good 40 percent of the respondents agreed with our “Al” to some degree that the Owls do not face impeding gloom. Hope springs eternal, it would seem. To that, MH55–one of the more sane posters over there–replied with this:

“At the time of my post, 40% of those polled believe TU will be .500 or better. I have no idea how these folks think Temple has improved their roster to the tune of 5+ more wins. This team lost quite a bit of talent from its 1 win season and the depth is paper thin at many critical positions…”

Paper thin indeed.

Other than wide receiver and arguably offensive line, the 2021 Owls are paper thin at every other position group.

In a sport like football where guys go down all of the time, that is a recipe for disaster.

That begs a question.

Does the well-paid professional football staff at Temple even realize this or are they shuffling the papers knowing that their demise is inevitable?

Or are they kidding themselves?

On April’s Fools plus one, that is the funniest (odd, not humorous) joke of all.

Monday: Spring Practice Begins

03.29.21
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Selling Like Hot Cakes

Occasionally, you have to tip your hat to an entrepreneur like Joe Greenwood.

The former Temple great defensive back under Bruce Arians sometimes sells Temple-related stuff but he really hit the jackpot thanks to his old coach winning the Super Bowl.

He sold out a first mailing and a second mailing of the above T-shirts and sweatshirts (I got the black hoodie) highlighting the Temple/Tampa Bay connection: “Temple Bay Buccaneers.”

(Nice play on words.)

I don’t know the exact number of sales but it’s in the hundreds and will be seen all over Lot K this fall if fans are indeed allowed. I think Joe got so overwhelmed he’s done with the selling for now but I’m glad he provided them when he did. I would say they are selling like hot cakes but I don’t think even Perkins Pancake House had this much success with their product as Joe did with his.

The Temple schedule was a whole lot tougher under Arians than Carey.

It’s definitely a conversation-starter.

On one of my bike rides through the Pennypack on Saturday while proudly wearing my swag, I ran into an old Temple football player and we got to talking about the Bruce Arians legacy.

“Hey, Mike, you think Bruce Arians winning the Super Bowl will help Temple football?”

Good question.

No, probably because the current regime doesn’t keep or even celebrate past (or even present) Temple connections.

Hell, I definitely think Matt Rhule and Al Golden would have been able to exploit the Super Bowl success had they been here now instead of Rod Carey. A few days after Matt Rhule got the Temple job he asked me for Bruce Arians’ cell number and I had to ask former player Sheldon Morris for permission to give it to him (because that’s the only reason I had it). Sheldon said yes and Rhule and Arians struck up a cordial relationship that exists to this day.

I don’t think Carey values the Temple football history as much as he does, say, NIU’s and that’s pretty sad.

What’s even sadder is longtime Temple loyalists like Fran Brown and Ed Foley have exited stage right and not necessarily on their own accord. Adam DiMichele, who really should be QB coach or offensive coordinator by now, doesn’t seem to have the same trust of this staff that he did with Rhule or even Geoff Collins.

What the Arians Super Bowl win does, though, is cement his legacy as a real good coach at Temple. I’ve been writing this blog for more than 15 years now and it’s well-documented here that Arians–by posting two winning seasons against a Top 10 schedule–performed a near-miracle at Temple considering he had nothing in terms of facilities.

Temple now plays schedules ranked in the high 80s. In the championship season of 2016, for instance, Temple played the 89th-ranked schedule in the country.

It’s a whole different ballgame.

Not only has Arians proven to be a great coach, he developed great coaches with a Temple pedigree and, in Nick Rapone, took a guy who was a great coach at Temple (twice) and made him a Super Bowl winner.

So the pride in Temple and Tampa Bay will be there for all to see in the fall. Greenwood and Arians left Temple on the same day, but they still bleed Cherry and White and that’s what the swag will best represent this fall.

Maybe the winning attitude will spread into Lincoln Financial Field where it is really needed after 1-6.

Friday: Hope Springs Eternal

03.25.21
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Trolling Temple Football Forever

Full disclosure: I shop at Costco instead of Walmart because I like the fact that Costco pays its employees $15 an hour.

I believe that’s a fair amount to spend on someone who puts his or her lives on the line dealing with the general public, now more literally than figuratively, sadly.

I don’t visit Walmart and run up and down the aisles and scream they suck and tell all of the other shoppers to go to Costco.

If I don’t like something, I just go elsewhere.

I fully expect if you don’t like Temple Football Forever, I will get the same treatment.

I hope I do.

I don’t do this to please the audience or to get subscriptions or twitter follows. I do this as a labor of love.

I love Temple football and want it to maintain the same kind of standard it achieved under Al Golden and Matt Rhule and often submit for your approval their blueprint for success and hope the current regime follows it. I want championships and despise 1-6 seasons and the avoidable reasons for it.

This post today is about someone who doesn’t feel the same way about TFF as I do Walmart or Costco.

Every time I post something, he posts a criticism. He might as well be pissing into the wind because I know his IP address (it’s Horsham) and I’ve banned him for life from this site even though he tries to post under many different aliases, some very famous Temple football-related names.

I feel sorry for the guy.

When I offered five questions for Rod Carey in my last post, he basically said go ask the guy the questions. My whole point was that the paid people following Temple don’t have the balls to go ask him in regular press conferences. What are they afraid of, that Rod Carey is going to beat them up for asking tough questions?

To not understand the difference between an opinion blogger and an objective journalist is a special kind of stupid.

The whole point of blogging is to offer opinions on how things might be better. It is not to cover the team per se. If this guy has his own, he is free to start his own blog.

To spend that much time and effort on negativity about what someone else says or writes who you clearly hate indicates to me he has no life or no life at least worth living. Just walk away, Renee. The very definition of being mentally ill is being obsessed with someone or something you don’t like. That is deeply disturbed territory.

I hope I never see this guy in Costco or he might be carrying an AR-15.

Monday: Resuming regular programming

03.22.21
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5 Questions and (possible) answers

Well, that was quick.

Weston Kramer, we hardly knew ye.

As soon as Kramer got to Philadelphia, he did a U-Turn. It was reminiscent of the time Matt Rhule hired Nick Rolovich to be his first offensive coordinator, only to see Rolovich accept the job one day and reconsider the next.

At least Kramer thought about it a little.

The All-MAC tackle decided on Feb. 18 to commit to Temple and then, a little over a month later, de-committed from that commitment, according to the twitter handle CFB Blitz.

Why?

Rod Carey’s got a lot of “splaining” to do.

Just another question that will remain unanswered for awhile–or at least until the Philadelphia press assembles at spring practice in April

Head coach Rod Carey has a lot of questions to answer, some that will be asked, some that might not.

We can only guess what his answers will be now so we’re projecting what Carey might say:

1), What happened with Weston Kramer?

Carey: “Philadelphia can be a huge culture shock for Midwest guys. The bus dropped Weston off at 10th and Diamond and Wes wasn’t all that comfortable with the surroundings. We told him to give it a month and that’s just what he did. He packed his bags, we shook his hand (with gloves on, off course, for COVID protocols) and gave him a bus ticket home.”

2) Do you think your special teams are a problem?

Carey: “No, I actually think we were quite good on special teams in 2020. That situation where we had an extra point blocked and returned for two against Cincy didn’t happen last year, so that’s progress. This year our goal is to clean up those darn kickoffs that keep going out of bounds and two years from now we’ll address returning some punts. We’re not going to fix special teams in one year. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

3) Why do all the coaching departures/demotions seem to guys with Temple and local connections?

Carey: “Pat (Kraft) wanted me to keep (Ed) Foley, Adam DiMichele, Fran (Brown) and Gabe (Infante), so I did that. He didn’t say that I had to keep Ed as the special teams coach, so I moved him to an off-the-field capacity and Ed balked at that. Fran and I didn’t get along. Pat isn’t here anymore and Fran (Dunphy) says he doesn’t care what I do, so I’m working on getting Gabe and Adam off the field and hiring a couple more NIU guys.”

4) What would you consider a successful 2021 season?

Carey: “Well, we won one game in 2020, so two wins would be doubling the win total but we’d like to win more than two. Let’s leave it at that.”

5) What will be your message to the fans at the August season-ticket party?

Carey: “I don’t think we’re having one, thank God. I can imagine some of them are pretty upset with me right now.”

We’ll try to match up our projections with the real answers in a couple of weeks, although I’m not hopeful more than one of them will ever be asked.

Friday: Trolling Temple

03.15.21
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Special Teams clues abound for Temple

Temple’s special teams have pretty much been a humorless joke over the last two years.

You can learn a lot from thumbing through the bios in the latest Temple Football Media Guide.

If fixing teams is a priority–and it should be–the Temple coaches should be pouring over those lists to find guys with moves and speed who can help on that squad.

Does Temple football special teams coach Brett Diersen know backup wide receiver Kadas Reams has been clocked at 4.37 in the 40-yard dash?

Does he know defensive back Trey Blair played offense at Haverford High AND scored touchdown on both kickoff and punt returns as a senior?

You would think so but the Owls were content to have as their No. 1 punt returner last year a guy named Willie Erdman or came to the table with no such speed stats or history of success in the return game even at the high school level. It would be more accurate to call Erdman a “fair catch specialist” instead of a “punt return specialist.”

And both Reams and Blair were on the team last year.

Special teams used to be elite at Temple. Love to get back to those days again.

Knowing those facts, it’s not hard to come to a couple of conclusions: 1) they didn’t know and 2) they didn’t care.

Wide receiver Branden Mack blocked a punt under Geoff Gollins but was not on the punt return (don’t know if the Owls even have a punt block) team. He is 6-6 with a wingspan of 97 inches. Mack isn’t here anymore, but the Owls do have 6-6 guys with similar wingspans. It’s just logical to put your tallest and longest guys on your kick block teams. Steve Addazio’s Owls would not have won a game at UConn had he not put 6-6 wide receiver Deon Miller on special teams, where he blocked a field goal.

Having success in the special teams is knowing the, err, special talents of your personnel and using those talents to make plays. The Owls have shown no interest in two years about making dynamic plays in the special teams area and that needs to change starting when spring practice begins in two weeks.

We can talk about Diersen and his shortcomings all we want but the ultimate responsibility for the special teams success rests with the programs’ CEO, Rod Carey. If Carey is more comfortable with personal relationships with members of his staff than he is about getting the most of the talent he has, that’s a problem.

One of many we’ve seen in the last two years.

Opening two books would help: the American Coaches Association’s Complete Guide to Special Teams and one other.

The Temple Football Media Guide.

Friday: Sports Talk and Temple Football

03.12.21
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Spring practice: Admitting a problem

Because Thursday was the first 70-degree day in an otherwise ridiculously horrible winter, I got out on the Lectric E Bike and went for a spin on the Pennypack Trail.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew Temple was playing basketball in the AAC tournament, but that’s no longer a priority.

It hasn’t been for some time. I watched a couple of games earlier this season and came away so uninspired by this team, I tuned them out.

Getting out and enjoying the day is the priority over Temple basketball.

Instead of Harry Donahue and John Baum, my playlist on the headphones included Post Malone, Dua Lupa, Arianna Grande mixed in with a little Earth, Wind and Fire, Harry Chapin and Bryan Adams.

Temple basketball never entered my mind until I got home in the middle of the afternoon and read this post from a longtime fixture (who predates even me) on the Temple football sideline:

“Great game Temple BB. Looks like the future is bright for this team.”

Wow, I thought.

Temple won.

Then I opened my phone.

“Tap for updates.”

I tapped.

Temple lost to a 9-12 team.

That did not compute.

I thought Temple played a great game. I thought the future was bright.

Instead, a once nationally renowned program lost to a 9-12 team and one of our long-time fans thought that was an encouraging sign.

Have our expectations fallen that low?

That’s a little like, after a loss to Wagner this fall, the same guy says: “Great game, Temple FB. The future is bright for this team.”

Exaggerating for effect, but you get the drift.

The first step toward fixing a problem is admitting you have one and the two marquee sports at Temple are two big problems right now.

That’s why, somewhere between spring bike rides, I will be checking in on spring practice that begins in a couple of weeks.

Does Temple football head coach Rod Carey believe his special teams are horrific or does he believe they are on their way to getting fixed?

To me, special teams should be two things: Dynamic and dependable.

The dynamic part will be putting a punt returner back there who has sub 4.5-speed and the moves of Timmy and Matty Brown and someone who is able to make the first guy miss and pick up at least. … AT LEAST … the equivalent of a first-down (10-yard gain or above) on every punt return. In the absence of that, a jailbreak punt block would be nice.

The dependable part would be no blocked extra points returned for two (as in Cincy circa 2019) or kickoffs out of bounds (too many times to mention in 2020).

We haven’t seen either dynamic or dependable in the two years of the Rod Carey Regime and that’s the No. 1 thing that needs to be fixed this spring.

If he refuses to admit he has a problem, it will never be fixed and that’s why tuning out of Temple football should be as easy as tuning out of Temple basketball was yesterday.

Of course, the priority here is getting my favorite sports team by far (Temple football) fixed because that’s what the fall should be all about. Hopefully, the current staff cares enough about their careers to understand the problem and address it. Otherwise, they will have punched their ticket out of Philadelphia.

Monday: How to address it?

Friday: Trolling Costco

03.08.21
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TU Fans: Fair-weather or all-weather?

For someone who hates to get up early, the thing I missed most about the 2020 was getting up at 5:30 or so a half-dozen times a year and making my way to Lincoln Financial Field by no later than 8 or 9.

I’ve been doing that for the better part of 40 years now and to suspend that routine seemed strange.

It was strange.

No one was happier to see the tailgate expand from seven to seven (or more) thousand than the late Dan Glammer, who passed away at the tender age of 46 shortly after seeing the Owls play in the Eagle Bank Bowl.

I thought about that when someone accused me of being a “fair-weather fan” because of this post last week.

I remember tailgating near the end of one season where the Owls went 0-11 under Bobby Wallace and the pre-game tailgate at Lot K included Ted DeLapp, Rick Gabe, Nittany Owl, a guy named Fred, the late Dan Glammer, Lazygote and me.

We looked around the lot not five hours before the game but more like five minutes and we were it. That was it on that rainy pre-game against Miami (Ohio). Seven guys. Maybe more in the Jetro Lot a couple of blocks away where the late Wes Sornisky was holding court with a few ex-Temple players.

Now it’s grown exponentially but those days were never to be forgotten. The pre-game talk that day was that we were going to hire a coach to bring us to the Promised Land. One guy mentioned Rick Neuheisel. Fred brought up Frank Solich. One guy mentioned John Latina.

None of us have ever heard of Al Golden at that point.

It turned out he was the right choice.

We all came back every week during a 20-game losing streak because we knew that, under a good coach, Temple football–despite paltry facilities in those days–could thrive.

It turned out we were right. Because largely of Al Golden, Temple went from being laughed at to being respected and he was the coach the Owls needed at that time.

My point then, as it is now, is that once we came out of the Dark Ages, we should have a minimal expectation of never returning to them. Everyone there nodded in agreement. Temple football should never have zero, 1 or 2-win seasons again.

Those fans there that day were the all-weather fans, not the fair-weathered ones. None of us expected Temple to win the championship every year, but winning seasons (or at least non-losing ones) should be the standard going forward.

A 1-6 season opened some eyes, even though a lot of us got up just before noon on days we were used to getting up at 5:30. Some blamed COVID, but I thought that excuse was too easy. COVID didn’t cause four kickoffs to go out of bounds (two in a row). COVID didn’t cause a pandemic of fair catches. COVID didn’t cause the Owls to throw a pass short of the goal line on a critical two-point conversion at Navy when they had a 6-6 receiver covered by a 5-10 corner in the back of the end zone.

The standard remains and that’s why 2021 is important to keeping whatever fan base Temple football has left or even have a chance at expanding it.

Friday: Dynamic and Dependable