Category Archives: Temple football

03.23.19
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Temple football: Let’s try stability

 

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Pat Kraft promised the kids stability and he delivered

Just the other day, St. Joseph’s University gave up a whole lot of stability for a future of uncertainty.

Unfortunately, we won’t know if the firing of Phil Martelli as that school’s head basketball coach is a good thing or a bad thing until a couple of years down the line because we don’t know who the new guy is.

When former athletic director Bill Bradshaw turned Temple football from a perennial loser into a perennial winner by hiring Al Golden he said famously: “Let’s try winning.”

Now his successor, Dr. Pat Kraft, seems to be saying, “let’s try adding stability to the winning.”

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Fran Brown procuring players and Rod Carey coaching them should be an unbeatable combo for Temple football. Photo credit: Zamani Feelings

The stability Kraft purchased with $10 million of monopoly money is a whole lot recognizable. Kraft made the buyout of new head coach Rod Carey $10 million partly because that’s exactly the amount that UCF made Josh Heupel’s buyout. UCF went unbeaten during the regular season and, if anyone was the hot young head coach out of the AAC, it was that guy.

None of the Power 5 teams in need of a head coach approached him, partly because the buyout was $6 million higher than the going rate for such things. Even the Board of Trustees for big-time schools have limits.

“I told Pat to make it (the buyout) whatever he wanted,” Carey told the press on the day he was hired. “I wanted to be here.”

The difference between St. Joe basketball and Temple football is this: Temple got a guy who already was a successful head coach on the level Temple football is trying to play and gave that new guy more talent than he had in his last place of employment. Unless St. Joe is able to hire someone like Buffalo coach Nate Oates there is no certainty that it traded stability for excellence. St. Joe is more likely to grab the Swarthmore coach than Oates and that is no slam dunk. Temple fans found out that a guy who was a legend in Division II doesn’t automatically become a legend in Division One.

Temple now has both stability and excellence and the fact that Temple foes can no longer recruit against the Owls using the argument that the coach is likely to leave is going to reap rewards in that area. That, plus the fact that assistant head coach Fran Brown is one of the best recruiters in the business.

Kraft promised a team weary of the revolving door of coaches going through the revolving door E-O stability and he delivered. It should pay dividends, maybe immediately, but certainly over the long haul.

Monday: The New AAC Contract

Wednesday: Thoughts on Spring Ball So Far

Friday: Mark Your Calendar

Monday: Glass Houses

03.21.19
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Temple pro day confirms suspicions

NJ.com takes a look at Rock Ya-Sin.

In between filling out March Madness brackets and pouring over scouting reports on Belmont, something else important happened on the campus of Temple University on Monday.

Temple Pro Day.

It confirmed a couple of notable suspicions: One, Ryquell Armstead is really that fast and, two, Michael Dogbe got screwed out of an NFL combine invitation.

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Credit: Owlsports.com

Some people (not I) thought Armstead’s 4.45 in the 40-yard dash at the combine might have been a fluke but Armstead was able to duplicate the same exact time on Monday, causing him to have a long talk with Philadelphia Eagles’ running back coach Duce Staley. The Eagles apparently are interested in Armstead and the interest is mutual. Frankly, after pouring over the available free agent backs and the other draft choices and the current roster of the Eagles, I think Armstead would do very well here. I don’t see Josh Adams, the current starter, bringing more explosiveness to the table than Armstead.

It’s already been proven by a neutral clock that Armstead would smoke Adams in a foot race. I think the Eagles should take a chance on Armstead, particularly if he’s available in the 4-5 round area.

With Dogbe, he put up 34 reps on the bench press and came in at 6-3 and 284 pounds. Only one other player at the NFL combine had that many reps at that weight. I see Dogbe as a No. 2 pick, potentially a one.

Rock Ya-Sin, considered by many one of the top five DBs in the draft, could also go as high as the second round and did nothing to diminish those prospects.

Other Owls of note were safety Rodney Williams, who had a 4.46 40 and another safety, Delvon Randall.  It’s nice to know that Nick Sharga is still pursuing his dream and hopefully the New England Patriots were taking notice. He would be the perfect player in that system.

If Temple pro day proved anything, it is that as many as four Owls could be drafted and more added with free agency.

That probably will do a lot more for the school’s image than the end of a basketball season in March Madness.

03.19.19
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Season Tickets: Preaching to the Choir

Three weeks ago, I got my annual season ticket call from the guy who handles my account.

Nice guy and I told him that I would renew before the April deadline.

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Nothing would help Temple more than a stadium full of these people

We engaged in a little small talk and he asked me if I liked the new coach (I did), liked the game-day experience (I did) and what I thought of the game host (I thought she was terrific and reminded me very much of the cupcake girl in the above video). I wish I could remember her name, but I don’t. I think she does a terrific job and oozes charisma just like her doppelganger Camila Cabello. She’s a Temple student on Temple TV and I hope she continues to be a worthy successor to Ryan Rinaldi.

When I hung up the phone, though, I thought a couple of things: One, no amount of great shows on the Jumbotron will put people in the stands like winning and, two, even that might not be enough to impress the people Temple needs to impress.

Temple needs to direct all of its expenditures into becoming a Power 5 school.

Ironically, though, Temple would have been a Power 5 school a long time ago if it was able to duplicate the game-day experience the Owls had in 2015 for home games against Penn State and Notre Dame. In those games, the Owls had more home fans than both ND and PSU in capacity crowds, were much louder and had terrific TV numbers.

The problems have been the other games.

Frankly, Lincoln Financial Field is too big a venue and the Temple Board of Trustees tried to address this in building a campus stadium. Halve the tickets and create a demand that does not exist now. Nothing would impress the P5 more than a sold-out Temple stadium, whether it is a 35K one or 70K one. That seems to have hit a brick wall called the community.

When I hung up the phone it occurred to me, that the guy on the other end was preaching to the choir. People like me who have had season tickets for 40 years (minus one) will keep coming back. It’s the other ones that Temple needs to reach, the bulk of the 275,000 living alumni, the 40,000 full-time students and the 12,500 full-time employees.

If just one-quarter of that number get behind the football Owls consistently on a Saturday afternoon, that’s a Power 5 team that cannot be stopped.

Thursday: Temple Pro Day

 

03.16.19
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Carey: First Impressions Could Not Be Better

Normally, at this time of the spring practice coaches usually bullbleep their way through media sessions and say this guy or that guy looked good.

That happened before with Temple coaches Steve Addazio and Geoff Collins, not so much with Al Golden and Matt Rhule.

Judging from the video posted on Shawn Pastor’s excellent OwlsDaily.com site, Rod Carey has planted his flag very much with the latter group and not the former. In it, he said he got to know the faces and now that the helmets are on, he’s asking which guy was what. When he was pressed for specific players, he didn’t make stuff up just saying that it’s to be determined.

That is the best first impression of all.

Fortunately, we are not alone.


“Excited to see what a real
coach with good talent can
do here, been a few years
since we’ve had someone in
charge I am excited about.”
_ former Temple linebacker
Matt Powell

Matt Powell, a former walk-on linebacker who earned a scholarship under Al Golden, sent us a note yesterday with this remarkably perceptive remark: “Excited to see what a real coach with good talent can do here, been a few years since we’ve had someone in charge I am excited about.”

Me, too.

The video didn’t prove that there is no bullbleep with the new coach, but it was at least Exhibit A in a case that will be proven over time.

Each coach Temple has hired has brought something to the table. Al Golden brought organization and terrific recruiting skills, Steve Addazio hired a staff that was a Power 5 one, not a G5 one. Matt Rhule contributed concepts learned from Tom Coughlin and was able to bake a delicious recipe from ingredients in the Golden and Daz cookbooks.

Collins?

I’m thinking. Guy was enthusiastic, I’ll give him that, but so were the others.

Carey brings in 52-30 record in a league Temple did not dominate, beat a team last year Temple could not beat (with lesser talent than Temple) and those credentials represent an improvement on the past.

Being brutally honest on opening day is just icing a cake which should be tasty.

Tuesday: Call To Season Tickets

Thursday: Pro Day Thoughts

Saturday: A Whole Lot of Stability

Monday (3/25): Return to Mon/Wed/Fri pub schedule until C and W Day

 

03.12.19
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5 Priorities for Temple spring ball

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At the start of every spring practice, Bruce Arians used to give a little speech to the Temple players.

It always closed with, in a strange Southern accent for a York, Pa. boy: “Get your work done.”

Spring ball at Temple, which begins today, has changed a lot since Arians. The rock-strewn practice field is now the Pavilion. Geasey Field is waiting for a stadium that will probably never arrive.

Back then, the work pretty much started on the first day of spring ball. Today, it’s just a continuation of a 365-day deal. Just because the NCAA insists on a spring ball structure that includes 15 organized practices, that doesn’t mean nothing gets done on the other days. The work continues, not starts, today, but should be at least five points of emphasis near the top of new head coach Rod Carey’s list (in no particular order):

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Return to Normalcy 

That means structured depth charts, not vague “above-the-line’ concepts. Since Carey is starting with a clean slate, everybody else does, too, so don’t expect a full depth chart until after the spring game. It also probably means less D.J. playing and band participation while the work is getting done.

Restoring Depth 

Carey has said the difference between being a new coach at Temple and elsewhere is that a new coach elsewhere has to start from scratch with a bad football team. At Temple, this new coach inherits a good football team across those two first-team depth charts. One of the challenges this year, is finding depth, particularly on the offensive and defensive lines. It’s great to have players like Zack Mesday, Karamo Dioubate, Dan Archibong and Dana Levine returning along the defensive line, but it’s time to identify their replacements. The same can be said for the offensive line.

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Finding a Running Back 

Unless you count current wide receiver Isaiah Wright, a one-time running back No. 3 on the depth chart under Matt Rhule, there is no Ryquell Armstead, Jahad Thomas or Bernard Pierce-level talent on this roster. That’s why you have you have to count Wright since the Owls did not go out and get a big-time JUCO or grad transfer there. Will Carey have the courage to experiment with Wright back there? Having an embarrassment of riches at wide receiver (Sean Ryan, Branden Mack, Jadan Blue, Freddie Johnson, and Randall Jones) should buy a lot of courage. Blue is particularly interesting because he was by far the star of the spring game last year and had to sit out the fall.

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Fixing the Offense 

Right at the top of winning football is protecting your quarterback and getting to the bad guy’s quarterback. Offensively, Dave Patenaude thought the best way to protect a quarterback with an NFL-level skill set was telling Anthony Russo to slide. The Owls will have to do much better than that this year and take a page out of Bill Belichick’s book and abandon the RPO offense. Belichick won a championship by keeping his prototypical NFL skill set quarterback upright with an effective running game that set up all sorts of interesting play-action options downfield and that is the way the Temple personnel is set up.

Sound Defensive Concepts

Mayhem was promised by the last coaching staff but rarely delivered. Geoff Collins’ schemes often gambled and produced some effective takeaway stats, but also factored into games where the Owls gave up 57, 52 and 45 points–all losses. In a halftime basketball interview with Harry Donahue, Carey said he puts a premium on a defense that keeps the bad guys out of the end zone even if that means fewer turnovers.

That sounds like a plan. The work doesn’t begin today but continues in a more structured environment.

Bruce Arians would probably approve of the approach.

Thursday: Numbers Guessing

 

03.09.19
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Armstead’s 4.45 makes him intriguing for Eagles

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Forget the over 1,000 yards rushing and 13 touchdowns last year.

Temple running back Ryquell Armstead made a lot of money at the NFL combine with a 4.45 40-yard dash, the second-fastest among the running backs invited.

Armstead came into the combine listed as a “potential seventh-rounder or undrafted free agent” but moved up at least a couple of rounds with that eye-opening time.

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Maybe even with the Philadelphia Eagles, who need a running back. The Eagles have been reluctant about drafting Temple players in the past and leaked a story to the Philly media about their interest in Florida Atlantic running back Devin Singletary. The FAU back bombed in this speed time at the combine, clocking a 4.73. They have also shown interest in Memphis’ Darrell Henderson even though a number of AAC coaches (including former Houston coach Major Applewhite) called Armstead “by far the toughest running back in our league.”

Armstead has always put up the numbers on the field, the only question was about his durability and how he would fare in the combine. The fact that he fared much better in the combine than a couple of other Eagle targets has to at least put him in the conversation because of the Eagles’ emphasis on combine numbers in the past.

For a team that sorely missed Jay Ajay last year, Rock would be a significant upgrade in that area and probably can be grabbed in the fourth or fifth round, enabling the Eagles to address other needs in the first few rounds.

Let’s hope Howie Roseman and company in thinking about that because whatever team adds Armstead is getting a potential starter who has the speed to be an explosive cog in the running game.

 

03.07.19
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A New (Old) Twist to Single-Digit Tradition

tyler

Tyler Matakevich was the ultimate single digit, a walk-on turned national POY

What do new Coke, Team Jeopardy and the Temple football single-digit tradition under Geoff Collins have in common?

All represent a failed attempt to improve a product that was already perfect.

Fortunately, we can say for all three traditions, sanity has been restored.

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The Temple football single-digit tradition was established by Al Golden with one purpose in mind: Have the players all work hard to achieve a goal and have them recognize other players who have stood out among their peers. Voting was limited to players only because Golden always felt that they know who the tough guys wearing the numbers 1-9 were. Matt Rhule, who coached under Golden, felt the same way.

Two carpetbaggers from Florida, Steve Addazio and Collins highjacked the process by picking the tough guys with only limited input from the players.

 

Much to his credit, new head coach Rod Carey has brought back the tradition the way it was intended.

“We’re going to let the players pick them,” Carey said. “From listening to some people here, that’s the way the deal was originally intended and I kind of like the players having control of that.”

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A question on Jeopardy last week.

There are a couple of things there that impress me about Carey. He’s willing to listen to the Temple guys–most likely we’re talking assistant coach Ed Foley here–and he wants full player participation in this endeavor.

I like it, too.

Players get in the meeting room, write the guy’s name on a piece of paper and drop it in a hat and the guys with the most votes get digits 1-9.

The only sad thing here is that offensive linemen are prohibited from NCAA rule from wearing the numbers 1-9. Otherwise, you know guys like Dion Dawkins, Kyle Friend and current center Matt Hennessy would be wearing them.

As a big Jeopardy fan, watching the show in the last two weeks was pure torture because there was much discussion about strategy than playing the game. We were back to the show the way it was originally intended and it was a good enough game to begin with that never needed tinkering. Alex Trebek, who is facing an uphill cancer battle, established a solid brand with a good formula that never needed to be tinkered with.

The same can be said of Temple’s single-digit brand.

Leaving the single-digit tradition at Temple to a players’ only deal falls into the same category. Kudos to Carey for recognizing that.

Saturday: Making That Money

03.02.19
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Pure Gold: Temple-Rutgers 1988

Prospectors made a dangerous trip across the continent in 1849 looking for a few nuggets of good near a mill owned by a guy named Sutter.

Different things have varying value to people but I found some real value in a Throwback Thursday post the other day from former Temple offensive lineman Ray Haynes (No. 71 in your program in the above video).

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To me, the value in this Temple vs. Rutgers game (1988) was that it only existed in my memory. I was in the press box that day and remembered a lot of detail but, in my searches on the internet, was not able to find it until Ray posted it. That’s the problem with a lot of past Temple games. You can get almost every game Alabama has played in the last 50 years, but it’s almost impossible to find any Temple game film in the 1980s or before.

I used to have the national broadcast of the Garden State Bowl but I lost that tape. I hope to see it again someday.

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I don’t know how Haynes got this Rutgers’ game  (maybe an old recording on a VCR) but I’m glad he did. It was a trip back into a simpler time when a road game meant not a trek across the country but a simple hour drive up Route 95 and 206. It also meant shorter trips to places like Syracuse, Penn State and West Virginia.

Maybe all of these Eastern Regional schools will one day see the logic in forming a football alliance again, but probably not in any of our lifetimes.

It also reminded me of the rivalry Temple and Rutgers used to have and how that Rutgers’ team was able to beat Penn State and Michigan State that year, but not Bruce Arians’ Owls.

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It was abundantly clear how hard-fought that game was and how Bruce Arians’ teams played with a purpose, especially on offense, that made a lot of sense. To me, Arians’ schemes were more sophisticated and effective in 1988 than any of the schemes we’ve seen from Al Golden, Steve Addazio, Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins since.

Hopefully, new Temple coach Rod Carey will bring that kind of gameday expertise back to the Owls and be able to raise the level already good talent here and that will create a domino effect that begets wins and more talent.

That’s the kind of Gold maybe Pat Kraft was prospecting for when he took a chance on Carey.

Meanwhile, finding this precious memory Pure Gold.

Tuesday: The 360 Single Digit Twist

Thursday: The Season Ticket Call

Saturday: Spring Practice To-Do List

02.28.19
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Gabe Infante Hints at New Offense

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National High School Coach of the Year Gabe Infante will have a positive impact on both Temple’s game plans and recruiting

A few weeks back, a writer for Philly Voice named Joe Santoliquito (who I will henceforth drop the journalistic norm and refer to him as Joe in any second reference) made a big splash by spilling some locker room gossip about Carson Wentz.

No names were attached to the quotes in that piece but it got a lot of attention.

Nice story and it got a lot of clicks for a website called Philly Voice but a more newsworthy story Joe did last week received as much splash as a pebble skipping across a puddle on 13th Street.

In other words, none.

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It deserves mention here because it says a lot more about the other Lincoln Financial Field football tenant, Temple University.  Full disclosure here: As a big fan of the Catholic League, I’ve followed Infante’s teams closely over the last decade and I can write without hesitation that it was the best-coached team, college, high school or NFL, I’ve seen in that time frame. Infante will have a positive impact on Temple’s preparation and recruiting, which has been lacking in the past couple of years.

Joe did a story on new Temple running backs’ coach Gabe Infante and, in it, Gabe went on record as saying more revealing than anyone said in that Wentz story: “There’s no chance to catch your breath and learn how to do it, while you’re installing a new offense.”

On the surface, that’s a pretty innocuous remark. Of course, moving to a new job would naturally involve a new offense except for the fact that St. Joseph’s Prep and Northern Illinois ran essentially the same read-option offense a year ago. It was also pretty much the same offensive look Dave Patenaude ran at Temple last year.

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While Prep and NIU had the personnel to run such an offense, Temple does not. The Owls have a classic NFL skill set passer in Anthony Russo and fans had to cringe every time Patenaude was asking a talent like that to slide, which he did rather well.

Maybe this group of accomplished coaches looked at the current Temple personnel grouping and decided to fit the offense around the skills of the players they have and not tried to force a system onto ill-fitting players. The offense Temple should run is the exact same system Bill Belichick ran while leading the New England Patriots to the NFL championship–heavy use of the fullback to establish the run and explosive downfield plays in the passing game as a result of play-action.

Definitely the antithesis of the RPO game and something to look forward to in the weeks ahead.

Joe wrote a story that had a lot more meat to it than his Wentz one because it attached a name to a quote and hinted at real positive change.

We should find out soon enough but, with Infante around, the Owls should be in pretty good shape.

Saturday: Pure Gold

Tuesday: The Annual Season Ticket Call

Thursday: 5 Things to Watch in Spring Practice

 

02.26.19
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Carey Tweets Up a Storm (for him)

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Pedestrian is a pretty good word to describe Rod Carey’s approach to social media.

His twitter account usually consists of shoutouts to the other Temple athletic teams, mostly men’s basketball, and a season ticket promo.

So that’s why when the new Temple football coach came up the tweet at the top of this post it could have raised a few eyebrows and definitely both of mine. Carey isn’t as savvy as Collins was with social media, but Collins wasn’t as savvy on game day as I would have liked. To me, I can do without the social media savvy and if the tradeoff is some good old-fashioned game-day coaching.

I think it is. We will find out not in August against Bucknell (I could probably coach the Owls to a win on that day), but the early part of September.

Since Carey did not specify the reason for being so fired-up, the timeline of the tweet matches up with the Owls getting their first commitment for the 2020 recruiting class and that is Dyshier Clary, a defensive end from Woodrow Wilson High in Camden, N.J. A couple of things here. Clary is 6-3 and 210 pounds and, while the 6-3 part is good for a major college DE, the 210 part is not. He’s going to have to do a lot of filling in and weight training to get up to even what a good AAC DE usually goes but the good news is that he has a senior year to do that.

The best thing about the Carey tweet is some of the responses:

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The above was the first response to Carey, but I’m afraid they are keeping even Temple football coaches out of the loop regarding stadium news. It’s interesting that neither Carey nor Manny Diaz even mentioned the stadium in their pressers while both Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins said they had seen the stadium renderings and “would do everything they could” to make it a reality.  Since we heard nothing from those two, I’m convinced the BOT has either soured on or tabled the entire project indefinitely.

Another fan asked the question: “Is Bryce Harper moving close by?”

My hope was that the Owls dropped Bucknell in favor of an opening-week trip to Rutgers, of course helping the Bison schedule a game with UMass (which is scheduled to play at Rutgers that Friday night).

That would fire me up, but Carey has a whole other set of priorities with building a first full recruiting class so we will just have to settle for that.

For recruiting, as in tweeting, you have to walk first before you run so we can’t expect anything more than pedestrian at this point.

Thursday: New Offense?

Saturday: A Special Trip Down Memory Lane

Tuesday: Season Ticket Push