Category Archives: Temple football

02.23.19
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Temple 2019: Upgrading The X’s and O’s

The great Bear Bryant once said: “It’s not about the X’s and O’s, it’s about the Jimmie’s and Joe’s.”

Given Byrant’s six national championships at Alabama, there is a lot of street cred behind that remark.

Still, when it comes to Temple’s football history, if you really look at it, it’s more about the X’s and O’s.

bright

Mark Bright, a “legacy” recruit, became the MVP of the Garden State Bowl

 

Look at the 1979 team for instance. The above video is the coaches’ game film from the 28-17 Garden State Bowl win over California. (A big thanks to Zamani Feelings for unearthing this pure gold. I once had a copy of the national broadcast of this game but lost it.) In it, you will find a lot of guys who had only one other scholarship offer or none outplaying a lot of guys who were four stars for one of the PAC-10 powers of the day.

None other than Bill Belichick has said that game film illustrated a masterful coaching job by Wayne Hardin that day. “I looked at that a lot and I lot of things didn’t make sense at first, but then rewound it and said, ‘Geez, I knew what Wayne is trying to do there and now it makes sense.’ ”

Bright

Mark Bright was the son of Jim Bright, the starting fullback of the 1950 Owls’ team.

The MVP of the game, fullback Mark Bright, had no scholarship offers out of William Tennent High school in Warminster but Hardin took a flier on him because Mark’s dad, Jim Bright (the then principal at New Hope-Solebury High), was a starting fullback for the 1950 Owls. “At Temple, we take care of our own,” Hardin said the day he signed Mark.

Hardin broke down film as well as he made it mandatory viewing for other legendary coaches and he saw something in Bright’s game that he liked. Same for starting quarterback Brian Broomell, who was recruited out of Sterling High in South Jersey as a strong safety. Broomell was good enough to crack the starting lineup as a true freshman on defense, something that never happened in those days and Hardin, needing a quarterback, converted that athleticism to the offense the next year.

finalpoll

Other players on that team like linebackers Steve Conjar and Mike Curcio became the Jimmies and Joes under Hardin they probably weren’t before they got to Temple and it all added up to the best team in modern Temple history. Hopefully, with 2019 being the 40-year anniversary of that first bowl win they will be honored at halftime of a game this fall.

That’s where 2019 comes into play. There are a lot of Jimmies and Joes on the team along with the documented fact that Rod Carey is the first proven winning FBS-level head coach to come into the school since Hardin.  Geoff Collins really did not have that kind of knowledge nor did even the Sainted Matt Rhule or the devilish Steve Addazio. Carey is not Hardin, but if he’s even close it’s a significant upgrade in the X’s and O’s department.

Mix the knowledge of X’s and O’s that Carey has with the Jimmies and Joes who have been mostly the product of Matt Rhule’s hard recruiting and this could be a special season. For it to be the most special season of all, this is the minimum benchmark: 11 wins, including a bowl game, and at least a No. 17 or better ranking in both major polls.

The 1979 Temple team proved you needed both X’s and O’s and Jimmies and Joes and it should be fascinating to see if the 2019 team can use that same formula to produce similar results.

Tuesday: Tweet Storm

Thursday: Hinting at a New Offense

Saturday: Season Ticket Call

 

02.14.19
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Loving The Schedule on Valentine’s Day

temple

Over the next few weeks, fans are going to be hearing a lot about Quadrant 1 and 2 wins.

It’s a new way for the NCAA to determine the at-large teams in the 68-team men’s basketball field and assigns weight to each win based on a formula of RPI, the strength of schedule and home or away.

Fortunately, college football fans don’t have to worry about that.

Every win is just as important as the rest and that’s why I have never understood the phrase “trap game” or “letdown.” When you play only a dozen regular-season games, there should be no trap games or letdowns. You work your tail off for 353 days and get to show the fruits of that labor on the rest of the days so every Saturday should be showtime.

Penciling in wins and losses this far away is a fun exercise fraught with dangers. In Temple football history, there have always been unexpected wins and losses and that’s every year, not just every few years. The only outlier was the 1979 season when the Owls won every game they were supposed to win and reached up and upset a team or two on the way to a 10-2 season.

cupid

Cupid loves this Temple schedule, with the exception of the Bucknell game.

Still, the season can somewhat be broken down into quadrants. The technical meaning of a quadrant is four quarters of a circle.

In college football, that’s three games apiece.

Coming out of the first quadrant, the college football “world” probably expects Temple to come out 2-1 with wins over Bucknell and Buffalo and a loss to revenge-minded Maryland. Temple fans know better. I have to like the Owls’ chances at home in that one. Bucknell is a given and pretty much this same team (minus Rock Armstead) was able to thrash Maryland on the road last year.

So that’s a 3-0 quadrant in my mind.

The second quadrant is a little tougher with a home game against Georgia Tech, a trip to ECU, and a home game against Memphis. In my mind, any time you take Dave Patenaude off Temple you give the Owls an extra seven points. When you take him out of Temple and give him to the bad guys, that’s another seven points for the Owls. So that’s a win.

ECU will not be a 49-6 cakewalk that it was last time because Mike Houston is a far better coach than Scotty Montgomery. Memphis has had four solid recruiting years and seamless coaching so that’s a tough one, even at home. We’ll give that quadrant a 2-1, leaving the Owls at 5-1 at the midway mark.

Owls should win at SMU to kick off the third quadrant but UCF will be tough. That game looked winnable when Milton McKenzie–easily the single best player who faced Temple last season–went down with a broken leg, but UCF went out and replaced him with Brandon Wimbush. So that game suddenly becomes more problematic than it already was and, realistically, a loss. Owls bounce back at SMU. Getting a week off before traveling to USF for the next game should help so we will make that a 2-1 quadrant for a 7-2 record.

Owls finish off with home games against Tulane and UConn sandwiched around a tough trip to Cincy and 2-1 would be a decent way to finish up that quadrant for a 9-3 season.

Of course, you always hope for 12-0 and a league championship but, given these quadrants, signing for 9-3 right now would be a nice consolation prize.

Saturday: The Alliance of Football and Temple

02.12.19
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A Trade That Benefits Both Ballclubs

Christy-Mathewson–Memorial-Stadium-Interior-Courtesy-of-Bucknell-Athletics

Bucknell might be able to entice Nicholls State to visit its 13,100-seat Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium on 8/31

On the floor level of the Wells Fargo Center, there were smiles all around Sunday afternoon for what Sixers’ general manager Elton Brand was able to pull off.

He immediately upgraded the Sixers with a megastar like Tobias Harris and some valuable pieces that upgraded the bench. Still, like any good trade, to get something Brand had to give something and those were mostly draft picks that are going to make the Clippers a more valuable franchise down the road.

The Sixers are playing for now. The Clippers are playing for the future. It was a trade that benefited both ballclubs considering their current circumstances.

oldperson

The reaction of most Temple fans when they first saw Bucknell on the schedule

That’s why current Temple athletic director Dr. Pat Kraft should be considering a trade for the football Owls. Getting Bucknell off the schedule would benefit the Bison from decimating their current roster due to injuries and would benefit Temple by getting it a possible Power 5 win the Owls might desperately need if they were fortunate enough to win the AAC.

“We just got a better today; a lot better,” Kraft said on the day he hired Rod Carey.

This whole dilemma reminds me of a conversation I had with Bill Bradshaw when he was named athletic director. He said he looked at the schedule and when he saw that Temple had a game the next season that did not make sense, he would immediately make calls to switch with other schools. Bradshaw saw it as a challenge and the conversations with other ADs eventually led him to schedule a series with Notre Dame.

Kraft needs to be as flexible now as Bradshaw was then.

The Owls need to win now and capitalize on it. Playing Bucknell does Temple zero good. It gives the Owls an extra (seventh instead of six) home games, but have Temple fans done anything over the last 40 years or so to deserve a seventh home game? I think not. If they were filling the Linc on a regular basis, they deserve an extra home game now and then. At best, Bucknell attracts 22K fans for an August 31 date.

Here are five possible trades Kraft could make now that would benefit both ballclubs:

Friday, Aug. 30

    • UMass at Rutgers _ This would be the ideal trade. Temple would bring 20K fans to Piscataway alone and Bucknell can go play at UMass, a much more competitive game for them. Some say Rutgers would be “afraid” to play big bad Temple. I say give them a call and find out for sure.

Saturday, Aug. 31

  • Montana State at Texas Tech _ Kraft has said in the past that “it’s hard to get games against (Power 5) teams because they don’t want to play us.” Hard to believe Texas Tech would risk a loss to an FCS power like Montana State and be “afraid” to play Temple. The guarantee Tech could give Temple to visit would pay for Bucknell to travel to Montana State.
  • Nicholls at Kansas State _ Last year, Nicholls went to Kansas and beat the Jayhawks. That has got to get the attention of the Wildcats, who might be wary of the same thing happening to them. Hard to believe new KSU coach Chris Klieman who won six of the last seven FCS titles at North Dakota State would be afraid of Temple. Have Bucknell travel to Nicholls and the Owls to the fake Manhattan.
  • Portland State at Arkansas _  Razorbacks’ head coach Chad Morris is familiar with Temple having coached against the Owls as SMU’s head coach. It might be easier selling Arkansas fans on an FBS opponent rather than Portland State. The trip to the West Coast to play Portland State might be more educational for the Bucknell kids than a trip to South Philadelphia.

  • Screenshot 2019-02-11 at 10.33.31 PM

    Curt Cignetti takes his JMU squad to WVA; he might be up for a swap of games with Bucknell so the Owls can return to the scene of this crime.

  • James Madison at West Virginia  _ While driving across the interstate might be a short trip for JMU fans, new James Madison football coach Curt Cignetti (a former Temple assistant) knows he has a better chance to make a first impression with a solid win over Bucknell than a road loss to Neal Brown in his first game as WVA head coach. Temple and WVA have a history that goes way back. James Madison would be a nice trip for the Bucknell kids.

These are five trades that would benefit both Temple and Bucknell and all of the above schools. Like any good trade, it involves working the phones and that’s what Dr. Pat Kraft should be doing in the next couple of months.

If it worked for Elton Brand, and the Sixers,  it can work for Pat Kraft and the football team five miles up Broad Street.

Thursday: A Closer Look at the Schedule

02.07.19
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A Different Kind of Signing Day

 

Zamani Feelings found this gem of a video and sent it to us … enjoy.. over 20 years ago.

Just like Cherry and White Day and the season ticket-holder celebration, the first Wednesday in February has been a staple of the calendar of many Temple football fans.

Not this year.

Last month, I made a call to the athletic department asking if there was any sign-up deadline for fans attending this year’s event.

“We’re not having one this year,” the friendly but somewhat sad voice on the other end said.

next

I was only slightly surprised because the Owls were hosting UConn in basketball last night and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to kill two birds, basketball and football, with one stone.

While the disastrous Manny Diaz hiring was a big part of this year’s reason, February signing days at Temple could go the way of the Dodo Bird.

You saw it coming two years ago when Geoff Collins pretty much wrapped up his class by the Bad Boy Mowers’ Bowl. He held a signing day on St. Petersburg Beach and that was that. They still had a February signing day, though, mostly for the fans to catch up. No catching up needed this year because no significant news was made between the first and second signing day.

This, like the anti-climatic bowl game,  could be the new norm at Temple.

Group of Five schools now have pretty much targeted the early December date as their primary target date. The reasoning is that if you have to wait on a player until February that player is probably waiting on a Power 5 offer anyway. If a player doesn’t want to be here, he’s probably not going to be a good player here.

The Owls were able to get 18 signatures on the dotted line by December and partly because Collins was handing out scholarships like candy to role players in a week or two before he left, they are now one over the 85 scholarship limit. That’s a problem The Minister of Mayhem left for Rod Carey to deal with.

In the meantime, hardcore Temple fans have one more free day on their schedule. Maybe next year’s ceremony will be held on the beach while preparing for a more meaningful bowl game.

We can only hope.

Five Players Already Enrolled:

Kennique Bonner Steward QB 6-3 215 Huntersville, N.C. William A. Hough
Re’Mahn Davis RB 5-9 222 San Francisco, Calif. Blair Academy
M.J. Griffin DB 6-1 189 Ypsilanti, Mich. Saline
Yvandy Rigby LB 6-2 205 Egg Harbor Twp., N.J. Egg Harbor Twp./Milford
Victor Stoffel OL 6-8 282 Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm International

Not enrolled but expected by July: 

Simon Abedimungu DL 6-5 221 Rockville, Md. Richard Montgomery
Mahmud Dioubate ATH 6-2 180 Philadelphia, Pa. John Bartram
Jermaine Donaldson OL 6-4 300 Voorhees, N.J. Eastern Regional
Kwesi Evans WR 6-3 198 Parkville, Md. St. Frances Academy
Chris Fowx OL 6-6 300 Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Archbishop Stepinac
De’Von Fox WR 5-10 173 Maple Heights, Ohio Maple Heights
Thomas Joe-Kamara DB 6-0 191 Dayton, N.J. South Brunswick
Jordan Magee LB 6-3 208 Dover, Del. Dover
Wisdom Quarshie DL 6-3 310 Sicklerville, N.J. St. Joseph (Hammonton)
Edward Saydee ATH 5-11 189 Philadelphia, Pa. William Penn Charter
Jacoby Sharpe DL 6-3 240 Sugar Hill, Ga. Lanier
Nate Wyatt DB 6-1 176 Somerset, N.J. St. Joseph (Metuchen)

Saturday: Five Newbies To Watch (and one who got away)

 

01.29.19
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Great And Minimal Expectations

In college football, every year is a new year and the expectations are adjusted based on a number of variables.

The math can be somewhat complicated but it always includes a variable of this formula=returning talent + coaching – minus competition.

To me, considering all of the above variables, the minimum expectation would be for Temple to have the same eight regular-season wins next year as it did this year.

Maybe more.

Anything more than eight would be great.

Minimal is eight.

Figure it this way:

The talent level is at least as good as it was a season ago. Anthony Russo might be Temple’s first drafted quarterback since Steve Joachim was a sixth-round choice in 1975.  He has an NFL skill set and only needs to reduce the interceptions and add to the touchdowns to draw interest.

The challenge would be replacing Rock Armstead as the tailback. I was always a Jager Gardner fan but, to me, if you haven’t shown you can do it by your senior year, it’s time to look in a new direction. Gardner hasn’t shown enough.

There is no doubt in my mind that Isaiah Wright can do the job on the same or higher level than Rock did and that’s where the coaching comes into play.

The Owls spent the past two seasons misusing a lot of their talent. They had two great fullbacks, Nick Sharga and Rob Ritrovato, who the last coaching staff refused to use and they had a great defensive end, Karamo Dioubate, that they insisted on using inside. Dioubate, when he was recruited, was ranked by one scouting service as the No. 5 high school DE in the nation. When was the last time Temple recruited a position player ranked that high? Maybe Paulsboro quarterback Kevin Harvey, but that was it. Dioubate deserves a chance to be unleashed on the quarterback from his more comfortable position.

So maybe a full FBS staff–like the one Rod Carey already has in the fold–is able to come to these conclusions quicker than the heavy FCS staff Geoff Collins had.

We shall see.

Competition?

There’s no doubt in my mind that Cincinnati–which brought 35 true and redshirt freshmen with them on the travel squad to Philly–will be favored this year and UCF should not miss a beat with Brandon Wimbush at quarterback.

That leaves Temple No. 3 in the East and that’s a fair minimum goal for the Owls to achieve.

That would be the first indication that Carey is a solid choice.

If they can somehow win the league title, Carey will be a better choice than even I thought he was and I thought he was the better of the two coaching choices Pat Kraft made in December.

Thursday: Carey’s Cliff Notes

01.25.19
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Russo’s First Full Season: Pretty Darn Good

russo

When you think of great Temple quarterbacks in the era of FBS football, the names of Steve Joachim, Henry Burris, P.J. Walker, and Brian Broomell come to mind.

All had decent first years as a Temple quarterback.

Few of them had better first seasons than the current Temple quarterback, Anthony Russo.

A lot of them had the advantage of getting their feet wet for a few plays in a year or two before their first one.

noticemeister

Russo and P.J. Walker were the only ones whose heads were plunged into the water for the full baptism and both came out of it pretty well.

To me, the most important statistic that a quarterback can have is wins, followed by touchdowns vs. interceptions and passing rating in that order. Russo had seven wins (would have been eight had he not been forced to sit out of the UConn game with a hand injury) and his 14 touchdowns and 14 interceptions ratio would have been boosted by anything from five to six touchdown passes against that porous Huskie secondary. Certainly, Anthony wasn’t perfect but his first season ranks with the best in Temple history.

I thought about that a lot over the last few days because one of the few harsh critics of Anthony’s play is a former Temple quarterback who doesn’t belong with the famous. Infamous, maybe. Certainly not famous so he shall remain nameless. This quarterback’s first full season at Temple: Three touchdown passes, nine interceptions.

‘Nuff said.

I told him that, if I was him, Russo would be the last guy I’d be criticizing and left it at that.

Some interesting tidbits here are that Joachim played in 11 games with Penn State in the 1971 season, completing 16 of 41 passes for seven touchdowns and only three interceptions before transferring to Temple. Broomell was the Owls’ starting strong safety on defense as a true freshman in the 1976 season only to be eased into a backup quarterback role in 1977 before being named the true starter in 1978. He led the 1979 team to a 10-2 overall record and a final No. 17 ranking in both major polls. Broomell led the nation in passing efficiency that year.

Here are some of, in my mind, the first full years of the very best of the best Temple quarterbacks:

fullsters

Tomorrow: Great and Minimal Expectations

Thursday: Cliff Notes For Carey

01.23.19
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5 Things We Won’t Miss About Mr. Mayhem

maymeister

The promised Mayhem really never arrived in the form of a national top-ranked defense.

Sometimes you have to look back to look forward.

Today is one of those times.

Geoff Collins is now Georgia Tech’s problem.

In my mind, at least, he earned no higher than a “C” grade in his two years at Temple. The Mayhem promised really never materialized and his defensive reputation never transferred with him to Temple, where the Owls were torched for 52, 45 and 49 points in three important games, only one of which was a win. He had 10-win talent in his first season and won seven and probably an even better team in his second and won eight. A good grade (B) would have resulted in more wins than that. A great grade would have been beating the teams he should have beaten and won a game or two against teams he  was not favored to beat.

To me, the essential questions after the Collins’ departure is, “Do you believe Collins was JUST a good coach for Temple and do you believe there are better coaches than Collins for Temple?”

The answer to both questions is yes and I believe Rod Carey is part of an unidentified number of available head coaches who would be BETTER for Temple than Collins was. (I also believe guys like Chris Creighton and Lance Leipold would have been better, but we will never know.) What we do know is that a staff at James Madison University, led by current ECU head coach Mike Houston, was able to beat Villanova with JMU talent 37-0 only a couple of weeks after Collins’ staff lost to the same team, 19-17, with Temple talent.

Whether Carey is better will be determined in December, not before. These are five things that we will not miss about Collins:

above

Above The Line

For a number of great reasons, the tradition of the Temple depth chart will return and not something vague as the “above the line” concept of Collins. I have not talked to a single ex-Temple player who ever thought getting rid of a depth chart was a good idea. Mike Curcio, a great Temple linebacker who later played with the Philadelphia Eagles, told me nothing motivated him to become a starter than seeing his name as No. 3 on the TU linebacker depth chart. Above the line served no useful purpose. Now the players know where they stand and what they have to do to move up the depth chart and that’s a good thing.

moneydowns

Money Downs

Nothing made more a mockery of the money down thing than for Temple to be rated No. 129 in third-down conversions halfway through the season than to see “money down” signs on third down. While the Owls improved after that, they were in debt most of the season.

An Offensive Abomination

Nick Sharga’s lead blocking as a fullback for tailbacks Jahad Thomas and Ryquell Armstead was as big a reason as any for the 2016 Owls winning the AAC title. The two combined for nearly 2,000 yards of rushing and Armstead scored 14 touchdowns, 13 of them behind devastating Sharga blocks. Before the 2017 season, Collins promised that “we are going to use (Sharga) even more than they did last year” and that “I’m his fullback coach; he’s the best fullback in the country.” Yet Collins stood idly by and did nothing as his OC, Dave Patenaude, eliminated the fullback position at Temple. Patenaude was probably the most ill-suited coach for Temple, head or assistant, since Jerry Berndt. His passing on first-and-goal after Isaiah Wright was tripped up at the 1 cost the Owls a win at Army in 2017. His passing on first-and-goal at the Navy 7 with 1:28 left and the Middies with no timeouts left resulted in an interception and a near-loss. His game-calling against Villanova directly resulted in one loss and nearly another. Only 45 offensive touchdowns on a 2018 team that included Anthony Russo, Ventell Byrant, Armstead, Wright, Branden Mack and Rob Ritrovato was malfeasance of the highest order. Atlanta is going to love this guy.

WWE Superstars at Practice

Collins had WWE Super Star Titus O’Neil visit practice in the week before the 2017 Villanova game. I can’t imagine how that helped the Owls avoid three-straight offsides penalties that the defense incurred in that game.

Less Talk, More Action

At Rod Carey’s first press conference, he said that good football teams don’t talk about being tough they just are. Collins talked a lot about juice. The hope here is that the juice will be seen and not heard.

Friday: Comparing First Seasons

 

01.21.19
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Red Flags and The Carey Hiring

This is the only (somewhat) Red Flag I care about.

It would not be a Temple coaching search, post-Al Golden at least, to find a red flag or two on the field.

We found several in the short-lived hiring of Manny Diaz that had to do with him never being a head coach before, lack of knowledge and recruiting ties in the Northeast, never having coached north of Jacksonville and having a father who was Mayor of Miami. All those flags pointed in the direction of a U-Turn back South, although we thought it might be a year, not 17 days.


Rod Carey isn’t perfect,
nor without red flags,
but he has won before
in a difficult league
and his green flags
seem to outnumber
his red ones

Steve Addazio, the Florida assistant, was perhaps the most-hated man in Gainesville when he took the Temple job.

Matt Rhule was a guy who the players lobbied for twice before he was awarded the Temple job.  Dick Vermeil said about fans lobbying for the backup quarterback when Ron Jaworski was struggling: “If you listen to the fans, soon you’ll be sitting next to them.”  That pretty much applies to athletic directors listening to players.

Geoff Collins’ Mayhem defense was torched against Tennessee, Alabama and Florida State in the weeks before he was hired at Temple.

The reality is that Hardin was as close to perfection as you can get and any Temple fans who remember him have been spoiled. Golden had a pass in that he was given an impossible job–end a 20-game losing streak and rid the program of malcontents, all while bringing up the APR.

Now Rod Carey comes aboard and his only red flag was that a significant portion of the Northern Illinois’ fanbase was happy to see him go.  I haven’t been able to find a single columnist or beat writer who covered NIU criticize him, but a lot of fans did not hold him in high esteem.

this

nation

Interesting that the middle fan could not spell DeKalb

The Temple Red Flag File

JERRY BERNDT _ For some reason, Temple President Peter J. Liacouras was enamored with Berndt, who never had a real record as a winning head coach before. RED FLAG: He was 0-11 with the Owls (Rice Owls) the year before he was hired by the Temple Owls. He also got to go 1-10 with the Temple Owls, making him the only head coach in history to go a combined 1-21 for two teams named the Owls. Berndt could not recruit his way out of a paper bag.

RON DICKERSON _ Joe Paterno, no big lover of Temple football (thank God in retrospect), urged Dickerson not to take the Temple job. When Dickerson was adamant about taking it, Joe supported Dickerson, saying that “Ron is the best defensive coordinator in the country.” RED FLAG: The “best defensive coordinator in the country” allowed 55 points in his last regular-season game, after moving from Penn State to Clemson. Dickerson was in over his head as a CEO. He could recruit, but he couldn’t coach his way out of the same paper bag Berndt recruited from.

BOBBY WALLACE _ The man won three Division II titles, but those were Division II titles, taking the scraps of players not wanted by the big Southern schools like Auburn and Alabama. Because he was hooked into the Southern recruiting system, he found some good players for that level. Those kind of players would never work for Temple and Wallace found out that the hard way. RED FLAG: He didn’t have the level of drive or commitment needed to succeed at football’s highest level, no desire to live in the Northeast and Temple wasted eight years of their fans’ lives as a result.

With Carey, the red flag (note singular) does not seem to be as egregious as the ones with the above coaches and it seems to be something at least he has owned.

His first words upon hearing Pat Kraft’s glowing introduction:

“That was more nice things said about me than I’ve heard in the last six years,” Carey said.

Maybe those NIU fans were spoiled. Maybe Carey has learned from any perceived flaws.

It’s hard to imagine a Temple fanbase happy to see a coach leave who has won four division and two league titles in six years. Rod Carey isn’t perfect, nor without red flags, but he has won before in a difficult league and his green flags seem to outnumber his red ones.

Wednesday: 5 Things We Won’t Miss About Mr. Mayhem

Friday: Comparing First Years

Monday: Minimal Expectations

Wednesday: This Year’s Lab Experiment

Friday: A Primer

01.18.19
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New Staff: Substance Over Flash

 

knowles

From left, Knowles, Rice and Stewart sound like a law firm who are ready to defend the Owls on that side of the field this fall.

The pieces to the puzzle that is Rod Carey’s new staff are mostly there, it’s just a matter of fitting them together.

What we do know is this:

There will be a decidedly FBS flavor for the one taking over compared to the mostly FCS one that left the Edberg Olson Complex for Atlanta over a month ago.

That’s a departure from the previous University of Florida coordinator who took over and represents a trend in a more positive direction for the program as a whole.

When Steve Addazio came from Florida to take over Temple prior to the 2011 season, he brought with him a national champion defensive coordinator (Chuck Heater) and a national champion quarterback coach (Scot Loeffler). When Geoff Collins came from the same school, he bought the Gators’ equipment guy and coordinators from Kennesaw State and Coastal Carolina.

rushmore

Pat Kraft promised the players he wanted stability and both he and Rod Carey delivered it with this “Mount Rushmore” of Temple stability, Fran, ADM, Foles and Gabe. This speaks volumes about both Carey and Kraft.

Big difference and it showed in games the Owls had no business of being close in (the first Villanova game) or losing (UConn and Army, 2017) and Villanova and Buffalo (2018). Two years in a row, Collins’ FCS coaches were badly outcoached by Villanova’s FCS coaches.

While you could argue with the results on the field, the equipment was top-notch.

Rod Carey’s additions from Northern Illinois have much more solid football credentials. Mix in the Temple holdovers, including former Baylor assistant head coach Fran Brown, and this has the making of one of the best Temple staffs in a long time.

We don’t know who the offensive coordinator will be, but hopefully it will be a guy who helps the Owls get back to the Temple TUFF style of offensive football that was run under both Al Golden and Matt Rhule, more of a running game mixed in with a play-action passing one.

The addition of Jeff Knowles as defensive coordinator is probably the best get by Carey so far. Knowles had the NIU defense in the top 35 in the country last year and coached three years at North Carolina State. In his first season as defensive coordinator this past fall, the Huskies were second in the FBS in sacks with 50, trailing only national champion Clemson. The Huskies were ranked 11th in the nation in rushing yards allowed per game (109.2), 10th in team tackles for loss per game (7.9) NIU had six all-Mid-American Conference selections on its defense

Melvin Rice, the DB coach, coached last year at NIU and four years at Minnesota and DL coach Walter Stewart played at Cincinnati (so he’s very familiar with Temple) and had one of the best pass-rushing units in the country at NIU last year. Joe Tripodi, who holds a masters from the Harvard of the Big 10 (Northwestern), is the new OL coach. Craig Harmon, who was the QB coach at NIU, also comes over as Carey’s staff meshes with the Temple holdovers.

While Manny Diaz’s poaching of Temple strength coach David Feeley–who he never met before arriving on Temple’s campus one month ago yesterday–was particularly troubling, the Owls get the NIU strength coach Brad Ohrt, who played on the Appalachian State team that beat Michigan and has been with the Miami Dolphins and USC, among other squads. For all that Feeley did with Temple, the Owls were still pushed around in the Buffalo and Nova games and Ohrt did not allow that to happen to NIU against Buffalo.

The Owls should be strong next year.

In more ways than one.

Monday: Red Flag On The Field

 

 

01.14.19
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Temple’s Rod Carey Has Good Company

 

Since the presser started 14 minutes late, advance timestamp to 14:01

The two best coaches I’ve ever known are both gone now but had very similar personalities and approaches to the game of football.

One, Wayne Hardin, was the best college coach I ever knew and the other, Mike Pettine, Sr., was the best high school one. I feel blessed to have known both so well.

Neither was loved by his players during those playing years. Those coaches were more fathers than brothers, who basically said “if you live in my house, you live by my rules.”

Both maintained the only fun in football is winning.

All the players loved, even worshipped,  both years later. The kids then, now adults, realized they were playing for a tough taskmaster whose only goal was to get the most out of their talent and that’s the best love of all.

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Legendary TU linebacker Steve Conjar (left) feared being called into Wayne Hardin’s office as a player, but loved him like a son years later.

I thought about that because a lot of what I heard at the podium in person from Rod Carey on his first day as head coach of Temple University was what I heard from Hardin while covering the Owls for The Temple News and what I heard from Pettine from covering perennial state champion Central Bucks West in the late 1970s through the 1980s.

Both coaches were respected by their players but there was a dash of healthy fear there, too.

Pettine got the most out of 5-10, 170-pound players than any coach I ever saw and coached a school that had no more than 1,000 boys to a 324-26-2 overall record.

Hardin also did the impossible, taking both Navy and Temple high up the national rankings. No coach has had Navy or Temple ranked as high since Hardin and for some pretty good reasons.

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CB West never jumped offsides or had false starts because Mike Pettine made sure they ran the drill until they got it right.

Hardin and Pettine set the boundaries between player and coach by laying down the law.

Carey did the same on Friday afternoon, repeating, “Do you hear me?” twice and getting a “yes, sir” from the players in the back of the room. I haven’t heard Temple players say yes sir to a coach in a long time.

That was a “wow” moment because it reminded me so much of Hardin and Pettine.

Carey said he would not talk about being tough because tough teams don’t need to talk about it, that they just are tough.

Carey talked about building trust over time because he knew it would be disingenuous to do otherwise.

More than anything, though, is that he promised to be real and that the players would eventually come to appreciate that.

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If this scene is replicated in December at Lincoln Financial Field, all of the hard work in practice will be rewarded. Suggestion to Carey: Make Isaiah Wright the starting tailback and it will be.

For me, at least, the last two Temple coaches attempted to be “buddies” or “friends” of the players a bit too much. Under the last regime, there was too much talk about swag and money downs and too little action and too many times you wondered if they ever even practiced. Two seasons ago, for instance, in a 16-13 win over Villanova, the defensive line was baited into three-straight offsides’ penalties. That simply does not happen if business is taken care in practice during the week. In the prior regime, Temple was called for 148 yards in penalties in a 34-27 loss at Penn State, robbing the Owls of a chance for consecutive victories over that program and similarly robbing a G5 league champion a win over a P5 league champion. Get even under that low bar of 100 yards of penalties and the Owls win that game. Practice is the time to get things cleaned up.

You can be a good coach as a brother figure.

Only father figures make great head coaches.

Carey is showing clear signs as being among the latter group, just like Pettine and Hardin were and, to me, that’s the best compliment a head coach can get. It’s going to be hard for Carey to be as smart as those two guys were because they were true geniuses, but at least the emphasis getting down to work is there.

The hard part will be spring and summer practice. The fun part will winning on Saturdays and that’s the way it should be.

Wednesday: Foley and Brown Debrief Carey