Category Archives: Temple football

11.19.20
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ECU-Temple: A Fork in The Road

When late night TV wasn’t as political and arguably more funny, Johnny Carson had a few notable characters.

One of them was an infomercial guy named Art Fern who talked about forks in the road.

“How do you get there? Let me tell you friends, how do you get there! You take the San Diego Freeway to the Ventura Freeway. You drive to the Slauson Cutoff, get out of your car, cut off your Slauson, get back in your car, then you drive six miles till you see the Giant Neon Vice-Squad Cop. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Well, Saturday’s noon showdown against visiting East Carolina is the ultimate “Fork in the Road” game for Temple.

This is how Temple used to dominate East Carolina, with a fullback (Nick Sharga), leading the way for an elite tailback (Jahad Thomas). Now the Owls don’t even use a fullback and the elite tailback has seen enough of Rod Carey’s RPO offense to transfer out in the middle of the season.

The two teams have similar records (1-5 for Temple, 1-6 for ECU) but are seemingly headed in different directions. ECU has been on an upward swing against AAC opponents, certainly more competitive than Temple has been. The Owls have slowly been on the decline and their 1-5 is considerably less impressive than the Pirates.

Temple TUFF: Sharga (4) leads the way for Armstead (25)

COVID?

Everybody has COVID issues and the Owls have got to stop using that as an excuse and just win a damn game.

Consider this: In the last four games, the Owls have lost by double digits. In their last seven games of the 2019 season, the Owls lost four and three of them were by double-digits. Before now, the last time the Owls lost four consecutive games by double digits was in Steve Addazio’s final season, 2012, when they lost to Rutgers (35-10), Pitt (47-17), Louisville (45-17) and Cincinnati (34-10).

On the other hand, in two of its last three games, ECU has been more competitive than Temple in losses to some good teams–Tulsa (30-34) and Tulane (21-38) before being blown out by Cincinnati, 55-17. ECU beat South Florida by 20 and the Owls needed a miracle fumble left on the carpet to beat USF by two.

There’s no disgrace losing to Cincy, either. A lot of good teams have been blown out by the Bearcats this season and Temple won’t play Cincy until the final game next week.

Fork in the road indeed. Apparently ECU, under former James Madison head coach Mike Houston, is headed in the right direction while someone needs to tell Rod Carey Temple needs to upgrade its GPS system.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Pirates are a 3.5-favorite against a program that it has never beaten in American Conference play?

The Owls have a true freshman quarterback in Matt Duncan, but Tulane also had a true freshman quarterback and did not use that as an excuse. The Owls have rolled out two quarterbacks since Anthony Russo and, frankly, none is an acceptable AAC-level quarterback.

Duncan’s got to put the big boy pants on and lead the Owls to a win or this entire program is about to go down the wrong road and hit a wall. If they total their ride, it will be a long time before they get back on the road to respectability again.

Friday night pick: Usually never go for a 32.5-point favorite, but really like a solid FAU Owls’ squad to lay the wood on UMass.

Saturday picks: Coastal Carolina laying the 6.5 against visiting App. State, Liberty getting the 3.5 at NC State, and Georgia State laying 3 at South Alabama.

Update: Evened the season record at 3-3 by going 2-1 against the spread. FAU easily covered the 8.5 as did Wisconsin the 3.5. Only loss was Nebraska beating PSU. LT and Rice postponed due to COVID. Record this week: 2-1. Overall: 3-3.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

11.16.20
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Fizz’s state of the Temple Football Union address

Editor’s Note: I want to thank Fizz for getting this in so soon. I thought I wouldn’t be able to get to it until Tuesday for Wednesday. I think he was being facetious about the buying out of the contract part at the end because, based on my preliminary calculations, we are about $5,000,985.50 short right now.

Fizzy

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

I want to begin by congratulating Central Florida coach Josh Heupel for pulling his starters after the third quarter. It showed so much class and good sense. Most other coaches would have run up the score, but he didn’t and saved his first-teamers from possible injury.

     Next, I want to apologize to Mike Gibson for not getting him my copy on Sunday after the game. Part of the problem was I just stared at the screen because I couldn’t think of anything to say that I hadn’t said before.

The TU 1958 unis

     I’ve been associated with Temple football for sixty-two years. It started in 1958 when I was a walk-on with a half-scholarship. After my freshman year, I got full tuition, and it was worth the immense sum of $375.00 per semester. Therefore, for a total of $2,250, I acquired all the blows to my head, which helped me become what I am today.

     As I’ve said just about everything before, I’m only going to make a few quick comments. Temple has had the ball in good field position for three straight games and over a minute left on the clock at halftime. In each of those games, Temple chose to run out the clock. Down 21 – 3, against Central Florida, they didn’t try to score.

     Who coaches like this? Is this what they do in Northern Illinois? Perhaps it’s so cold up there; they want to get back in the locker room. The Central Florida game, however, was played in Florida. Maybe there were lots of flies.

     As a former coach, I saw a few other things that annoyed the hell out of me. Throughout the game, the Temple players were chatting up the opposition. Why? You’re losing; concentrate on the game. Play ball!

     On an underthrown pass in the third quarter, our receiver stood and watched instead of coming back and trying to knock the ball away. Also, defenders continually throw their shoulders at the runner instead of tackling the proper way. 

      You might say these aren’t a big deal. To me, though, it shows a lack of discipline and an acceptance of losing.

     I’ve watched the Temple football program go up, down, and sideways through my many years. My opinion is the program is now quickly deteriorating.  Yes, I usually criticize the coaching strategy. However, when two of our best players choose to leave the program for greener pastures, it scares the hell out of me. Usually, when players transfer, it’s because they don’t get enough playing time. These guys were starters.

     The main reason programs go up, down, and sideways is coaching. Coach Carey is in the second year of a five-year contract. For me, last season was terribly disappointing with all the second-half blowouts. The proof of that pudding is six guys from that team are now playing in the NFL. So I’ve started a fund to buy out the remainder of his three years for 4.5 million dollars. Here are the pledges I’ve received so far.

Teammate Rick Walsh – $5    

Teammate Vic Baga – $6.50

Classmate Don Rosenberg  – $5

There’s also a commitment from another teammate who’d like to stay anonymous and is currently indisposed. He said he’d match anything we raise. If you’d like to pledge, please contact Mike Gibson.

Thursday: ECU

11.14.20
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TU Football 2020: Tragicomedy

A play containing both elements of tragedy and comedy is called a tragicomedy and, after six games, that’s is probably the best word to describe Temple’s 2020 football season.

Tragedy, because an inordinate number of players have gotten either sick or injured and an undermanned team going into the season just cannot afford that.

This is the guy who turned Temple’s special teams from No. 1 in the nation to No. 130, but he’s a friend of Rod Carey, so that’s got to count for something.

Comedy, because we already knew Temple’s special teams were the Keystone Cops last year and nothing that has happened this year has changed that. The program says Brett Diersen is both the “outside linebackers coach/special teams coordinator” but he might as well be Charlie Chaplin. Special teams are not supposed to made your opponent laugh, but that’s what Temple’s have done for nearly two years under CEO Rod Carey. Outside linebackers aren’t much better, but this is the guy Carey jettisoned Temple legendary ST coach Ed Foley for and he had that aspect of the team on auto pilot for nearly a decade.

You can’t have both tragedy and comedy in both areas and be a successful football team and the Owls proved that for the fifth time this season in a 38-13 loss at Central Florida on Saturday night.

What is Rod Carey football when it comes to special teams?

Rod Carey football is having a slow white guy return punts and I can say that because I’m a slow white guy. The difference being that I’m a boomer and Carey has slow white guys in their 20s returning punts. In a school with athletes out the wazoo like Temple, there should be at least 10 in the football program who can both catch a punt and make the first guy miss, let alone the rest of the student body of nearly 40,000 full-time students.

Carey is obviously satisfied with just catching the ball and getting the offense started. That would be understandable if the Temple offense could do anything, but it can’t. You’ve got to make the punt return a dangerous offensive play, just like it used to be at Temple when guys like Matty Brown, Delano Green and even Isaiah Wright (the Wright of Geoff Collins, not Carey) were the returners.

What is Rod Carey football?

Rod Carey football is not even going after the punt when the UCF punter has to kick with his foot near the back of the end zone. Every other recent Temple coach would have had a jailbreak punt block on in that situation.

Not Rod Carey. Why make the punter uncomfortable when you can just let him get off a 50-yard punt?

Rod Carey football is kicking a field goal down 38-10 for window dressing when he could have rolled his quarterback out on a run/pass option for a touchdown with eight minutes left.

Rod Carey football is not challenging a call when his freshman wide receiver makes a spectacular catch with his foot inbounds with four minutes left.

If there’s one constant about Carey’s approach to the game is that he plays it way too passive and his team has adopted the personality of their head coach.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

11.12.20
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Temple-UCF: Inside the War Room

Gotta wonder what happens when all the Temple coaches get together to game plan the next opponent on the schedule.

Since what happens in the Coaches Conference Room at the E-O is not televised, we can only imagine.

Full disclosure: After watching the first few Temple games, I’m convinced they don’t even game plan for an opponent.

Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt that they were so embarrassed they lost 62-21 to UCF at home last year and they don’t want that history to repeat itself before a national TV audience (ESPN-U, 7:30 p.m.) on Saturday night.

Rod Carey: “Fellas, we’re feeling a little heat here. Temple fans are used to winning and my plan to use this fall as an extension of spring practice probably isn’t working. I got hammered by an anonymous fan on Temple Football Forever Thursday. I want to win. You want to win. Anyone have any ideas how we extend the game to the fourth quarter Saturday night and steal it then?”

Mike Uremovich: “Rod, you know what we did at Northern. We played the RPO every game and accepted the results.”

Rod: “Gabe, any ideas?”

Gabe Infante: “We are playing into their hands that way. If we run the RPO, they don’t respect the quarterback’s ability to run the ball, and they are going to come after Anthony on the next two downs. He will probably either get sacked or throw incompletions. Not Anthony’s fault at all, but asking him to run is not his forte and probably will result in giving Dillon Gabriel about a zillion more possessions than he needs to have.”

Rod: “What do we do to avoid that?”

Gabe: “When I was the head coach at (St. Joseph’s) Prep, we played a lot of nationally ranked Florida teams with much more speed than us but we always beat them.”

Rod: “How?”

Gabe Infante after beating Florida’s top-ranked high school team.

Gabe: “Put two tight ends on the field, put a fullback on the field, line up in run formations on first down. They’ve seen our film. They expect the run on first down. Fake them out by throwing short passes, run on second down, keep the sticks and clock moving. Take a chance every now and then with a fake to our tailback, followed by a deep ball. Keep the defense off balance. Those high-octane offenses never saw the ball. We had eight-minute drives each quarter. We’d get seven points one quarter, three points the next, seven at the beginning of the third and, before you know it, we had a 17-0 lead and they were playing catch up. We’re from Philly, 17th and Thompson, and that’s only five blocks west and five blocks south from this room we’re in now. We used our toughness to our advantage.”

Rod: “Sounds good but we run the RPO. That’s what we do.”

Gabe: “That’s precisely the point. That’s what they do. They are more comfortable with us doing what they do, throwing passes, stopping the clock, giving them more possessions. I’d say let’s make them uncomfortable and keep our defense off the field. I’m the running backs coach but I’m all for helping our defense any way I can.”

Rod: “Mike, what do you think?”

Mike: “We didn’t do that at NIU, Rod. I’m not comfortable with a fullback and two tight ends.”

Rod: “That settles it. We’re going to do what we do and let the chips fall where they may.”

Gabe: “But, Rod, the chips haven’t fallen our way so far, let’s try other chips.”

Rod: “Gabe, I love you, man, but this is what got me to 52-30 at NIU and I’m sticking with the plan Saturday night. Meeting adjourned.”

(Coaches get up leaving the room while Adam DiMichele can heard mumbling under his breath: “That’s also what got us beat 62-21 last year.”)

Rod: “Adam, did you say anything?”

Adam: “No, nothing, Rod.”

Rod: “OK, let’s do this. Let’s beat them at their game.”

Picks this week: Went 1-2 opening week against the spread and skipped last week, but like a few games on the docket this weekend. First, Friday night the Florida Atlantic Owls covering the 8.5 spread at nearby FIU. On Saturday, taking Wisconsin to cover the 3.5 at Michigan and Penn State the same number at Nebraska. For the final game, going for Louisiana Tech to cover the 1.5 against the visiting Rice Owls. All favorites this week, no underdogs.

Update: Evened the season record at 3-3 by going 2-1 against the spread. FAU easily covered the 8.5 as did Wisconsin the 3.5. Only loss was Nebraska beating PSU. LT and Rice postponed due to COVID. Record this week: 2-1. Overall: 3-3.

Saturday Night: Game Analysis

11.09.20
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Fizzy: Once again, TU comes up short

This is when there was a lot of hitting in practice and pride six days a week leading up to game day where it was shown on the field and it was Temple handing out the 47-23 beatings.

Editor’s Note: Former Temple football player Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub brings the perspective not only of a player but a lifetime of coaching football, teaching and writing. He breaks down the SMU game here.

 

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Once again, the collapse began at the last possession before the half. The ball was at the 40, and Temple faced a first and 25, with about 1:43 left on the clock. There was plenty of time to throw a few passes downfield and attempt to score. Maybe you’d get a penalty or a big gain. Inexplicably, Temple tried to run out the clock (they failed) and gave momentum over to SMU.

      Once again, a team destroyed Temple in the second half. It’s the seventh time since the arrival of coach Rod Carey that Temple collapsed after intermission. It seems the only thing the Temple coaches adjust at half-time is their shorts.

     Once again, Temple had a first and goal, and a chance to gain the lead. This time it was in the third quarter. They ran on first down. They ran on second down. They ran on third down and had to kick a field goal. Not even Woody Hayes at Ohio State would have run three times. The coaches still haven’t learned that first down is when you innovate. 

     You’ll notice each of the above paragraphs began with, “once again.” I’m so tired of making the same comments over and over. 

Somewhere the sun is shining,

somewhere the skies are blue

But not with the Temple football group,

because our team is knee-deep in poop

Friday: UCF

11.05.20
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SMU hit the jackpot with Dykes

A competent coach would have given this guy a lead blocking fullback and designed a play-action passing game off fakes to him after establishing the run. But no, Rod Carey wants to do the same RPO stuff at Temple he did at NIU. It’s not working, Rod.

While the jury is still out on Rod Carey’s tenure at Temple (although the deliberation room is hostile), they’ve reached a verdict about SMU’s Sonny Dykes in Dallas.

Innocent of any charges he cannot coach after mixed reviews at a brief stint of head coach at California of the PAC-12.

Carey, on the other hand, is not facing a friendly jury after turning an eight-win Temple team into a likely 1-7 squad this season.

When Temple wanted to rebuild its program, it went with an up-and-coming coordinator, Al Golden, who was a top recruiter at Boston College, Penn State and Virginia. When it wanted stability after Steve Addazio, it went with a Golden disciple in Matt Rhule. It went somewhat back to the prior model with Geoff Collins, the difference being his recruiting chops were in the South. With Carey, the Owls went for a G5 head coach.

SMU did it differently, grabbing a Power 5 head coach who had some success at a higher level than the AAC and what Dykes has done at SMU is certainly more impressive than what Carey has done here.

The two coaching styles compare and contrast this Saturday (noon, ESPN+) at Lincoln Financial Field before a “capacity” crowd of 7,500 fans. (Capacity in that the City of Philadelphia will only allow that many Temple fans to enter the stadium due to COVID protocols.)

Dykes has a 21-12 record at SMU (including 6-1 this season and ranked No. 18 in the USA Today Coaches poll) and that includes getting his feet wet with a 5-7 opening season. Dykes has done it a little differently from Carey, turning last year into a 10-2 record season by grabbing 15 starters, mostly high-level Power 5 recruits, out of the transfer portal.

Dykes did it by offering guys an immediate chance to play and no one benefited from that more than starting quarterback Shane Buechele. While at Texas, he led the Longhorns to a win over Iowa State but lost his job to current starter Sam Ehlinger and transferred to SMU.

Dykes is a players’ coach who is able to keep his star players happy.

This is a Ray Davis’ retweet from Halloween

Contrast this to the gruff style of Carey, who is hemorrhaging good players at a level Temple fans have never seen. Last year, the Owls lost quarterback Toddy Centeio in the portal to Colorado State, as well as AAC Defensive Player of the Year Quincy Roche (Miami) and tight end Kenny Yeboah (Ole Miss). No one knows where Ray Davis is headed but losing a player who gained over 900 yards from scrimmage as the Owls’ best running back is a continuation of the bleeding.

Compare that to the places Carey was able to attract players from: Wake Forest (Manny Walker), NIU (C.J. Perez) and Dayton (Michael Niese.)

Usually, opposing coaches gush over Temple prior to the game but not this time. When asked about Temple, this is the only thing he had to say about the Owls: “We just have to worry about ourselves more than we have to worry about Temple.”

No one can blame him because he has a happy group of players and evidence points to that we cannot same the same about Carey’s Temple group right now.

The jury has reached a favorable verdict about Dykes and, while the foreman hasn’t announced anything yet, it’s hard to find anyone giving Carey a thumbs up right now.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

11.03.20
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Temple defense: The unspoken truth

It’s real bad when South Alabama gives Tulane a better game than Temple does.

How bad is it?

It’s bad.

Really bad.

Even when Anthony Russo gets back to fix the offense, and sadly that’s not this week, the unspoken truth about Temple football is that the defense cannot be fixed.

It’s this bad:

Temple’s defense gave up 37 points to South Florida, a team that scored only 27 on The Citadel, 13 against Tulsa and 24 against East Carolina.

Temple’s defense gave up 38 points to a Tulane team that could score only 27 on South Alabama and 24 on Navy. South Alabama? That noted power which lost to UAB, 42-10?

Yep.

Temple’s defense gave up 31 points to a Navy team that could only score three against BYU and 7 against Air Force.

If Rod Carey falters, looming in the shadows behind him is Gabe Infante

And very little of the above had to do with COVID, because much of the evidence had been there before head coach Rod Carey could pull that excuse.

What did Quincy Roche know and when did he know it?

It would be nice if the AAC Defensive Player of the Year had stayed at Temple to bolster a virtually non-existent pass rush, but he did not and Temple did not get an adequate replacement for him. Did Roche have a problem with Rod Carey? Or Jeff Knowles? Or Walter Stewart?

Carey went into the season shrugging off the personnel departures like Roche, quarterback Toddy Centeio and tight end Kenny Yeboah, saying “we want to go with the guys who want to be here.”

Think about that point and extrapolate it for a second. If the entire starting offense and defense wanted to leave but the scout teams on both sides of the ball want to stay, do you really want to go with the guys who want to be here?

Why do only the good guys want to leave?

Do you think the Owls would have done better than three points if Toddy was still here?

I do.

The evidence is that the offense is an AAC high-quality one when Russo is in the game, scoring 29 against both Navy and Memphis and 32 (one was a defensive score) against USF. That’s on the high end of opponents against those teams.

Three points with two backup quarterbacks against a poor defense like Tulane is inexcusable, but it matters little if the defense cannot keep people off the scoreboard and nothing we’ve seen thus far provides any evidence that will change.

That’s the unspoken truth about this season.

Until maybe now.

Friday: SMU preview

11.02.20
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Loss leaves Fizzy speechless

The difference between Midwestern nice and Philly fans is this NIU fan apologizes.

Editor’s Note: Like many of us, a 38-3 loss to a Tulane team that barely beat South Alabama left a lot of Temple fans speechless and Fizzy was one of them. He could understandably muster up only a few words in the form of this poem

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

I watched the game in disbelief,

as our football program crashed on a reef

Yes, there were injuries and infections galore,

but I couldn’t help shuddering at the final score

We couldn’t tally on the air or ground,

and somewhere an offense needs to be found

A freshman quarterback killed us with passes,

our coverages and strategies stuck in molasses.

I’ve watched Temple football for over sixty years,

and this downward spiral has me literally in tears

The many excuses simply won’t float,

All I can say is make sure you vote.

Tuesday: How bad is it?

Friday: SMU

10.31.20
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How Did Temple Get This Bad This Fast?

In any other year, Rod Carey would be on the hot seat at Temple University after a 1-3 start.

As we’ve all found out since about mid-March, this is not just any other year.

In the year of Covid, probably two or three years of it, really, no one is getting fired at any university because the revenue streams coming in are so unpredictable. The Owls are allowed almost no fans this year and next year is up in the air as well.

The university is in the hole for $10 million of a five-year contract to Carey and there is no Lew Katz around willing to eat it.

How did Temple go. in just two short weeks, from the No. 1 team in conference wins (since championship play began in 2015) to a likely 1-7 season?

In a word, Pride. In other, stubbornness.

As King Solomon, a pretty wise guy himself, said: “Pride Goeth Before the Fall.”

In Carey’s case, he had a nice “square peg” offense at Northern Illinois in the RPO and players suited enough for him there to post a 52-30 record as a FBS head coach. When he came to Temple, he found himself with “round hole” players who were more suited to a pro-set offense, and a quarterback who could never sell a defense on a RPO but is damn good at flinging it down the field after the run is established off play action.

Those of us who thought Carey might have been a good hire did so thinking a good coach adjusts his schemes to his available personnel and not try to force an ill-fitting system onto some great players from another system.

I did not see that coming. I thought a professional head coach would be able to improvise and adjust. Carey has not been.

What we learned in Temple’s 38-3 loss to Tulane–a loss that broke an 86-year (five games since the 1934 Sugar Bowl loss) winning streak–was that Anthony Russo is only about 10x a better quarterback than his two backups and that might be a conservative estimate.

Get well soon, Anthony.

Even more than that, though, is that Temple should have been 3-0 coming into the game had the Owls approached the red zone with some simple shit like throwing the fade to Branden Mack on first down instead of dicking around with runs on the first two downs. You’ve got a 6-6 wide receiver and a quarterback more than capable of throwing a fade like this and you piss away two wins by throwing a dump pass short of the goal (Navy) and running straight up the gut followed by a quarterback draw (Memphis)?

This is what Carey should have done for the 2-point conversion at Navy (30-second mark)

If Temple is paying Carey $2 million a year for that, the administration should demand its money back for those two losses alone.

Temple needed a running back and a pass rusher in the offseason but passed up on chances to get running back Ricky Slade from Penn State (who went to Old Dominion) and defensive end Scott Patchan (Miami, who went to Colorado State). Both were arguably better than any player they had here at both positions. Those are administrative errors, but Carey’s coaching errors cost the Owls two precious wins prior to the Tulane fiasco.

Due to missing 13 players (covid) and Russo (shoulder) it is hard to blame Carey for the loss to Tulane but, in the history of college football, rotating quarterbacks has resulted in about zero wins in 1 million games.. That’s why, if Russo is injured, you’ve got about three days to settle on one guy and not use a game as an audition.

This ain’t Hamilton where you audition guys to play the role of Aaron Burr during the play itself.

The Owls have tried two methods of hiring head coaches, one bringing in up-and-coming assistants, and one bringing in a proven FBS winning head coach. They haven’t tried the Greg Schiano Method (hiring a guy who proved he could do the same exact job at a high level), but Al Golden is available. Maybe even a better option is grabbing a local head coaching legend like Gabe Infante, who has been proven to be a great gameday coach.

So far, the prior two methods have been problematic. If Temple goes back to the old way, do you trust Fran Dunphy to identify the next Matt Rhule?

I don’t. Fran is more likely to bring a guy like Bob Diaco than he is a Jeff Hadley.

One led to a revolving door that ended finally after an 18-day turnaround. Another brought in a guy who wanted to do it his way when he was delivered a blueprint for winning at Temple long before he got here.

He ignored it and now we’re stuck with him for three more years. Saturday was ugly, but it’s about to becoming uglier and, unless one of us hits the lottery and are willing to buy him out, we can’t do a damn thing about it.

Brace for impact. To paraphrase King Solomon (and Barry McGuire), we’re on the eve of destruction.

Monday: Fizzy