… Breaking News: Temple’s proposed game with Hawaii is ‘off the table’ … Hawaii could not resolve ticket issues on its end …

Note Boston College was beaten badly by Temple, yet beat Navy, 37-0. This was the only time I ever saw Hardin say he was outcoached but Temple had better personnel than Marshall and won, 31-10.

Not long ago in the general scheme of history, Temple was known as having a smart football team.
Smart coach.
Smart players.
“I was outcoached by Wayne Hardin again,” Joe Paterno said after his second-straight one-point win in a row over the Owls in the 1970s. “We were lucky they didn’t connect on that two-point conversion.”
“Hardin is outcoaching Joe again,” late Allentown Morning Call sports columnist John Kunda said out loud  in the press box after Temple took a 7-6 lead on PSU at halftime in 1979.
Everybody in the press box laughed because they knew it was true.
Something happened along the way to change that perception, certainly in the 1990s, and again maybe in the last couple of weeks.

I get all the Temple TUFF talk and the team generally over the last five years has been as tough as nails.
What’s alarming is the number of extremely dumb plays being made out there by both players and coaches. Here are four touchdowns worth of stupidity at Pitt:
1) Ball goes off Temple player’s leg on a punt, leading to an early Pittsburgh possession.
2) Temple player catches a kickoff while standing on the sideline. If you are standing on the sideline at the 10, that’s usually a pretty good clue the ball is going to go out of bounds.
3) Temple player gets the ball stripped. That probably falls more in the area of toughness than smartness, but it takes some smarts to secure the ball.
4) Also at Pitt, Temple gets two cracks at a score inside the 5. On third down, instead of rolling Clint Granger out on a pass/run option, the Owls run it up the middle behind an inexperienced offensive line and a true freshman running back. That’s just beyond stupid. Give Granger two cracks at finding a receiver in the end zone on a rollout.
To me, that’s the most egregious stupidity because it came from a coaching staff who should be thinking on the fly better.
Just once, I’d like to see the team play as smart as those Hardin teams did most of the time.
There’s still four games to get the team’s head in the same place as their heart. If that doesn’t happen, there won’t be a fifth.

Tomorrow: The Road Ahead

There’s a storm coming our way and it’s headed for 10th and Diamond.

It’s pretty damming when Kent State is able to befuddle Rutgers with a sophisticated offensive scheme while Temple is stuck in the Stone Age, offensively. Kent State has no more offensive talent than Temple has

Batten down the hatches, this storm headed our way is going to be a bad one.
Hurricane Sandy?
Heck no.
All those Temple haters waiting to come out of the woodwork to pile on the Owls’ program, Steve Addazio, the quarterbacks, the kids and the coaches.
Is some of it warranted?
Sure.
I’ve been the first to criticize the offensive scheme and I will continue to do so until it is changed from a run-to-set-up-the-pass approach to a pass-to-set-up-the-run.
To me, nothing would maximize the ability of the Owls’ great running backs more than play action on first down, bubble screens, shovel passes to spread the field and open up the run.
This run-first to set up the pass has been a disaster.
I wrote as much after losses (Maryland) and I was just as adamant about it after wins (UConn).
It’s pretty damming when Kent State is able to befuddle Rutgers with a sophisticated offensive scheme while Temple is stuck in the Stone Age, offensively. Kent State has no more offensive talent than Temple has and that includes the line.
This is what I wrote after the UConn win and I highlighted it in red:

The way this team currently is constructed, the run can never set up the pass. It’s not going to work. It’s got to be the other way around.

On defense, I wrote last week that Temple was beaten on so many jump balls in the secondary that they needed to get 6-foot-3 scout team quarterback Kevin Newsome, a three-time All-State safety in Virginia, back there and move another 6-3 player, Vaughn Carraway, from safety to corner in order to best utilize their best athletes.

This from former Temple hoop great Mike Vreeswyk yesterday. I know who is embarrassing here and it ain’t Temple football.

That didn’t happen and the Owls’ secondary got scorched again.
The Owls need playmakers in the secondary and Newsome would be a playmaker. He looks good holding the clipboard on the sideline, but he’d look a lot better getting a pick six and holding the ball over his head in the end zone.
The coaches are big boys.
They can take it.
I will not criticize the kids, though.

The kids are another story.
I believe they are giving their all in some misguided schemes.
Right now, I believe big changes have to be made on defense in order to put the Owls’ best athletes on the field.
Newsome and Carraway and Anthony Robey need to be back there. Put your tallest, fastest, highest-jumping athletes on the back line.
Heck, with the D-line so thin due to suspensions and the linebacking corps top-heavy in talent, I would also seriously consider going from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defensive scheme. Play Hershey Walton at nose guard and John Youboty and Sean Daniels at end and rotate in the other guys. That gives you two more athletic and faster guys in there to either rush the QB or make game-changing plays in the secondary.
Kent State beat Rutgers by disguising its defense and forcing turnovers. Mostly because of that, the Flashes got seven turnovers. The RU turnovers were the result of pressure, something TU almost never dials up on defense. Instead of tipped balls becoming interceptions, the TU secondary’s best move is tackling a guy 20 yards downfield.
Temple played a vanilla defense against Rutgers and did nothing to force turnovers.
Yeah, it’s a gamble now to change the base defense from 5-2 to 3-4 in four practice days but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing next week and expecting a different result.
Really, could they do worse than give up 47 points to a Pitt team that had a hard time scoring 20 on Buffalo?
The other problem with that is you need practice time to do it and the oncoming storm doesn’t help. Maybe the Eagles could allow use of NovaCare but that’s far from an optimal solution.
The Owls are looking at getting ready for Louisville with mimimal outdoor practice time.
That’s a double wammy of a storm and far from a perfect one.

Will today be the day the Owls finally throw play-action on first down or will  it be Groundhog Day again?

It only seems fitting that the Temple football team flew over Punxsutawney on the way to the University of Pittsburgh for today’s game with the Panthers.
Every game day this year I feel like Bill Murray’s character in the movie Groundhog Day. Murray was a weather man who is reluctantly sent to cover a story about the day. On the “next” day, he wakes to discover it is Groundhog Day again and again. He comes to the realization that he’s doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing over and over again.
 I’m not at that same point with Steve Addazio’s offensive approach, but I’ve got to admit at least five of the six MORNING AFTER game days I’ve waken with the idea that I’m going to be stuck in eternity of an antiquated “three Groundhogs and a cloud of dust” offensive approach.
On the other day, Temple went 16 for 20 passing and scored 37 points.
You look at all of these other big-time teams in the SEC and Big 10 and they all integrate a balanced approach of running and passing on first down. At Temple, it’s 75.9 percent running on first down and that’s never a good thing.
In football, as in life, you need balance.
So today’s theme, other than Groundhog Day, is Hope and Change:

Hope: Owls use play-action fakes to Montel Harris on first down to allow quarterback Chris Coyer time to find open receivers running through the secondary.
Change: Temple receivers catch the ball.

Hope: Daz runs Harris when the defense is on its heels, not when there are eight guys in the box.
Change: Move the sticks.

Change: Defensive line finally gets pressure on the opposing quarterback.
Hope: Ball is put up in the air for grabs and Vaughn Carraway and Anthony Robey come up with picks.

Hope: Matty Brown is healthy.
Change: Brown breaks first big return since Villanova.

Maybe today will be a day hope turns into change.

Picks this week: I have not picked in a few weeks because nothing jumps out at me. A few games jump out at me this week and the top one was Boston College being a 1-point favorite against Maryland. I think Maryland wins this game outright, but am staying away from the game due to the injury of QB Perry Hills.
Other picks:
KENT STATE getting 13.5 at Rutgers; NORTH CAROLINA STATE getting 7.5 at North Carolina; PENN STATE getting 1 at home vs. Ohio State; TOLEDO giving 7.5 at Buffalo.
Record for the season straight up: 9-4.
Record for the season ATS: 8-5

“Wilbur, tell coach Addazio the best blueprint to beat Pitt is the spread offense.”

The only architect I ever knew was Wilbur Post, who spent his working days in the barn talking to a horse named Mr. Ed while making blueprints.
Mr. Ed even talked back.
They say Frank Lloyd Wright was the greatest architect of all time, but he died a year before Mr. Ed came on the air as a CBS Television smash hit.
So Wilbur Post was the only architect I ever knew.

Youngstown State drew up the blueprint for beating Pitt.

Blueprints come to mind this year because Temple head football coach Steve Addazio had a nice blueprint to beat Maryland and tossed it in the trash and a nice blueprint to beat Penn State and tossed it in the trash and now he has a nice blueprint to beat Pitt tomorrow.
 I hope he doesn’t throw that in the trash, too.
Youngstown State beat Pitt, 31-17, at Heinz Field using the spread offense that Addazio talked about Temple using all summer.
 “We now have the quarterbacks we need to run the kind of offense we wanted to run last year,” Addazio said before the season. “I’m talking about explosive plays downfield in the passing game.”
Nice words, but have you seen any signs of Temple using the spread this year?
 I didn’t think so.
 Now would be a good time to dust that off.

 From the Sept. 1 USA Today: “This wasn’t a last-second stunner. The Penguins never trailed, baffling Pitt with a spread offense that kept the Panthers off balance during a soggy night at Heinz Field . Youngstown State converted 11 of 16 third downs and held the ball for more than 35 minutes.”
Temple lost to Maryland in my mind largely because the Owls did not follow the blueprint William and Mary coach Jimmye Laycock drew up to battle Maryland to a 7-6 game. Laycock noted that Maryland was playing a true freshman quarterback, Perry Hills, out of necessity. He figured that if the freshman was blitzed enough so he wouldn’t have time to throw, good things would happen for the Tribe. So Laycock blitzed the heck out of Hills (14 times), got three sacks and three picks.
Temple?
Blitzed Hills just twice, getting to him once, but allowed Hills the time to throw all kinds of jump balls to talented Maryland receivers.
Ohio coach Frank Solich drew up a nice blueprint to beat Penn State and all but hand-delivered it to 10th and Diamond. A lot of quick one-drop slants to move the sticks and keep the Big 10 pass rush away. It befuddled Penn State all day in a 24-13 win.
 Temple?
 Ran up the middle all day and lost by the same score.
Now Youngstown State has delivered the blueprint, maybe even UPS special delivery, to beat Pitt and it is by utilizing a spread offense. I’m told Temple has that offense somewhere in its repertoire.
Let’s hope they open the mail at the E-O.

 BE Offensive Player of the Week Montel Harris mentions two words in this video that sound great together.

The best weekend in recent Temple football history is over.
First Big East game in eight years, first BE win in eight years, large enthusiastic crowd, all good things.
The only way to make it better is to keep on pushing on and top it every week from this point out.
The focus when the kids put the pads on tomorrow should be on one thing and one thing only:
Beating UConn.

Montel Harris and Ryan Alderman exchange thoughts on how to make moves in the open field. Photo by Mike Edwards

The Huskies are no slouch, either. They won at Maryland and lost by three to an NC State team that just took down Florida State.
It’ll be important to buckle down the chin straps Saturday in Storrs, Conn.
I think this is a much better matchup for Temple than USF was because the Huskies have had trouble moving the ball and the Owls are just starting to find their offensive and defensive identities. UConn doesn’t have a QB who can make big gains out of broken plays like B.J. Daniels can. That theory goes out the window, though, if the Owls don’t play with the fire they showed against USF. The Owls have a history of losing focus after recent big wins.
For these purposes, we’ll call it The Toledo Syndrome.
That’s why the Owls should listen to Winston Churchill (and Steve Addazio) this week:
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” Churchill said.
Here’s some recent Owl history:
2011:
TEMPLE 38, Maryland 7 _ At Maryland, franchise running back Bernard Pierce went for 159 yards and five touchdowns as the Owls took down an ACC foe that beat Al Golden’s Miami team, 32-24, two weeks prior. The next week? Owls lost at home, 36-13, to Toledo. After the Toledo loss, Addazio put the Owls back in pads and Pierce said “that was the hardest week of practice we ever had.” Owls went on to beat Ball State, 42-0.
TEMPLE 34, Buffalo 0 _ After a second-straight shutout win, Owls lay a 13-10 egg at Bowling Green. Five straight quarters of woeful offensive football got Chester Stewart a permanent seat on the bench. After becoming the starter, Chris Coyer finished the season with four straight wins.
2010:
TEMPLE 30, Uconn 16 _ After beating the eventual BE champs at home by two touchdowns, Owls fail to get a whole lot of offense going in the second half of a 22-13 loss to Penn State. Probably more due to Bernard Pierce spraining his ankle after giving the Owls a 13-12 halftime lead than a letdown, though.
2008:
TEMPLE 14, Ohio 10 _ Owls beat Ohio on a last-minute touchdown pass at home on national TV from Adam DiMichele to Steve Maneri then go to Navy, build a lead and lose, 33-27, when Golden eschews the kneeldown and hands off to Kee-Ayre Griffin, whose fumble was taken in for a score on the penultimate play of regulation. Golden could have kicked it to Navy and forced a triple-option team to go 80 yards with 17 seconds left and no time outs. Instead of allowing KAG a seat on the bus ride home, Golden throws him under it postgame.
But then, the program was just learning how to be great.
The sign of a great program is to follow one good win with another.
The Owls have a chance to do that on Saturday.

Steve Addazio calls the win over USF his biggest in the post-game presser.

The biggest play in the biggest Temple game this century was made by the guy on the cover of the The Temple Gameday Homecoming program.
Marcus Green blocked the field goal on the day when he was the only player on the gameday cover.
I mean, you can’t make that stuff up.

Cody Booth makes “Temple TUFF” TD catch .

A 45-yard field goal certainly is no chip shot, but Green made sure the 26,000 fans did not have to watch the agonizing flight of the ball toward the goal post.
After so many twists and turns and heart-stopping plays in Temple’s 37-28 win over South Florida, Green probably saved the defibrillators from being used on a few older alumni.
There were other heroes, too, some who didn’t even play.
Kevin Newsome simulated South Florida quarterback B.J. Daniels in practice last week and that helped the Owls’ defense.
“Kevin Newsome, he was phenomenal, ” head coach Steve Addazio said. “Kevin Newsome’s coming into his own, by the way. He can really run explosively and he can really throw. We really appreciated what he’s done and where he is right now.”
The Owls are three-deep at quarterback with Newsome and Juice Granger backing up Coyer.
Temple baseball star Connor Reilly is no slouch at No. 4, either.
Still, I’d like to see the defense improved by putting Newsome at safety and moving Vaughn Carraway from safety to corner opposite lock-down sophomore Anthony Robey. Carraway’s got the speed to play corner and, at 6-3, 215 with a 37-inch vertical and a 4.5 40, Newsome would be a playmaker roaming the middle of the field at safety. If needed at QB, it wouldn’t take long to bring him on the other side of the ball.
Certainly beats Newsome holding a clipboard and running the scout team for the remaining seven games.
Have Reilly simulate the UConn QB next week.
Just a thought.
The other people who didn’t play and helped were the fans.
Everybody, from the student section, through the alumni were involved and loud and active.
When the fight song “T for Temple U” was sung in the second half, all 26,000 fans were on their feet and belting the song out at the top of their lungs. I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime but I hope to see it again in two weeks. These fans weren’t sitting on their hands. I was proud to be one of them. They were indeed the 12th man.
The team has to go to UConn and win a game next week but Rutgers thinks they are going to take over Lincoln Financial Field. I think they’ll be surprised that the stadium is solidly Temple’s now. They remember the “back in the day” Temple. They haven’t seen the new Temple.
They will.
Really, there were about 22 heroes on the field and this space is not large enough to list them all but, at least on offense, you’ve got to give credit to quarterback Chris Coyer, who was 16 for 20 with no picks and running back Montel Harris, who had 24 carries for 133 yards and two touchdowns.
Matty Brown left the game after accumulating 134 all-purpose yards and he got the longest standing ovation I can ever remember for a Temple player when he gingerly walked off the field in the fourth quarter.
The fans know Brown embodies the definition of Temple TUFF and sent him a message telling him that.
Hopefully, he will be OK.
The Owls were more than OK.
If they play with the competitive fire they showed Saturday, this season could get real interesting going forward.

Fans need to get crazy like here and not just the student section.

That sound you heard was Steve Addazio scratching his bald head.
While William and Mary offered a clear blueprint for Temple to beat Maryland and Ohio’s Frank Solich wrote the book on how to beat Penn State, there was not much to glean from Ball State’s 31-27 win over South Florida a couple of weeks ago.

Skip Holtz wants Brandon McManus to squib kick to his team. McManus has 15 touchbacks.

I know.
I pieced together all of the clips I could find off Ball State’s excellent TV network and this is what I found:
Ball State beat South Florida the old-fashioned way:
The Cardinals earned it.

Tweet from Greg Auman of the Tampa Tribune.

No special formula like William and Mary’s blitzing of a Maryland true freshman quarterback or Solich’s quick-slant passing game moving the sticks against Penn State.
Just a couple of great plays by quarterback Keith Winning, throwing a tight spiral twice into the corner of the end zone and the BSU player making great catches over his shoulder.
Easier said than done.
One way would be for the fans to get off their hands and cheer. The team needs to hear “Let’s Go Temple” early and often and not just when they get behind.
My guess is Temple is just concentrating on being the best Temple the Owls can be:
Here’s what the Owls must do:
1) Get away from the ground-and-pound philosophy they used so much in the first three games. Sure, the Owls can run the ball but only after establishing the pass as a viable threat. Roll Chris Coyer out of the pocket and hit those five-yard slants to playmakers like Jalen Fitzpatrick, Romond Deloatch and Khalif Herbin. Then go back to the run behind right tackle Martin Wallace after Wyatt Benson leads either Matty Brown or Montel Harris through the hole. Mix it up. Get both Harris and Brown in space by utilizing screen passes, shovel passes and pitchouts.
2) Play Temple defense. That means swarming to the ball and sacking the quarterback. It also means being aggressive  when the ball is in the air. That’s Vaughn Carraway’s ball as much as it is the receivers. Step in front of it and pick it off, rather than let the guy catch it and tackling him 20 yards down the field. Keep B.J. Daniels in the pocket, but get after him, too.
3) Make special teams plays that make a difference. It’s time for Brown  to bust a big one.
4) Bring the Temple swagger back. The Owls must play confidently and aggressively, not the passive team on their heels that we saw the last two games. Think back to how the Owls played in a 42-0 win over Ball State and a 34-0 win over Buffalo last year for reference.

Picks this week: BOSTON COLLEGE giving 9 1/2 at Army; WEST VIRGINIA getting 7 at Texas; UCLA giving 2 1/2 at California.
Locks of the week: None
Record: 4-1 overall, 1-1 locks of the week (had Toledo as a pick at Western Michigan and Rockets won, 37-17; lost with Ball State at Kent State).

Tomorrow: Complete analysis of the game

Dick Kenney’s barefoot FG gave MSU a 10-0 lead over ND in 1966.

The first “Game of the Century” of my lifetime was the infamous 1966 showdown between host Michigan State and Notre Dame.
Infamous, because Notre Dame head coach Ara Parseighan elected to fall on the ball with a 10-10 tie rather than go for the win. Notre Dame was ranked No. 1 at the time, Michigan State No. 2. That might have had something to do with the decision.
Too young to remember it, but I read up about it when subsequent “Games of the Century” followed in 1968 (Harvard vs. Yale) and 1971 (Oklahoma vs. Nebraska).
By 1971, I was old enough to know that “Game of the Century” didn’t mean “Games of the Century” so I did some research.
All three had legitimate claims.
Notre Dame was No. 1, Michigan No. 2.
Nebraska No. 1, Oklahoma No. 2.
Harvard and Yale?
The last game between Ivy League schools when one (Yale, ranked No. 22) was nationally relevant.

All great hype, all great games.
A lot of debate there, so I couldn’t decide.
That got me to thinking.
What is Temple’s Game of the Century?
Since this century technically started in 2001, I’ve narrowed it down to two choices:
Eagle Bank Bowl, 2009
Temple vs. South Florida, 2012
Eagle Bank Bowl is a fine choice because that was Temple’s first trip to a bowl in 30 years and gave the Owls an opportunity to beat a “name” opponent (UCLA) on national TV. The Owls fell short in that one, 30-21, primarily because franchise running back Bernard Pierce pulled a hammy and didn’t play in the second half after leading the Owls to a 21-10 lead.
Tomorrow’s Temple vs. South Florida game is a better choice, at least in my mind.
That’s because Temple is in the UNIQUE position (unlike any other team in the United States) to play a first game in a conference that kicked it out for being non-competitive and the statement Temple can make is to beat an opponent who got votes as the best team in the Big East in a pre-season poll.
In fact, Louisville got 24 votes to finish in first place. South Florida got the other four.
Temple has gotten hammered in the Big East media and elsewhere for losing its non-conference games in a conference that has three unbeaten teams. Even South Florida (Nevada) has a quality win.
Temple does not.
Yet.
If Temple wins, it gets to make a statement it could not make in any other game this century, beating a team that was at least going into the season considered one of the best two in the conference. It can make a statement before a large Homecoming Day crowd saying 26 wins in three years is no fluke and not the product of being in the MAC.
If Temple loses, it’s just another game and could cause an unexpected slide backward.
If Temple wins, it’s saying something else, like Temple is a contender for the title right now, not five years down the road. Montel Harris’ dream of leading the Owls to the Orange Bowl remains alive.
Game of the Century?
You bet.
And that ain’t no hyperbole, pardon my French.

Tomorrow: Game Day Preview

The clock is certainly ticking on all of us and, when someone remembers the good works we did as youngsters, it means a lot.
When I was a kid, Doug Shobert was my favorite quarterback.
I remember Shobert well.

Lance Johnstone as an Owl.

He didn’t play for my pro team, the Philadelphia Eagles, but he played for my favorite college team, the Temple Owls.
Shobert was Wayne Hardin’s first quarterback at Temple and he will be inducted into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame on Saturday with the other football inductee, Lance Johnstone.
I blacked out during Johnstone’s years because the Owls never won more than two games in any of them but I also remember Johnstone as a tough player who did the Owls proud. I don’t remember Lance as I do Doug, primarily because the Owls won in the Shobert days pretty much all the time.
Lance, though, did something Doug didn’t do: Have a career in the NFL.
Lance, though, broke Steve Conjar’s record for tackles in a season with 288 and Conjar was a helluva player.
Ironically enough, Shobert broke the record for completion percentage in the North-South game set by another high-profile Hardin quarterback, a guy named Roger “The Dodger” Staubach.
So Shobert was taught well.

Homecoming weather should be great.

Later, as a sports writer in Doylestown, I covered some of Shobert’s Quakertown teams. Shobert went on on a high note in 1987, with an 8-3-1 season, as head coach of the Panthers (I still think Quakertown should be named the Quakers). After dealing with him professionally, I can truly say that Doug was/is as great a person as he was a quarterback.
His wife at the time, Cookie Shobert, was a reporter for the Quakertown Free Press.
At the other end of our coverage area at the time, in Upper Moreland, I also dealt with Joe Injaychock, who was head coach there. Injaychock started at cornerback on the same teams Shobert played for at Temple. I don’t think Joe is going to make the Temple Hall of Fame, but he was a good high school football coach and part of a terrific cornerback tandem with Joe Cioffi.
A lot of good football minds came out of those teams and they owe the education to Hardin, the greatest football mind of all.
On Saturday, remain in the stands at halftime and give both Shobert and Johnstone a rousing ovation.

Tomorrow Fast Forward Friday: Biggest Temple game this century?

Steve Addazio talks the new E-O with TFF partner No2-minutewarning.com

Approaching 10 years later, Temple fans have to read the same things being said about the program that were said back then:
“Temple is bringing the conference down. Temple is poop. Temple shouldn’t be here.”
A quick survey of Big East message boards and that’s the predominant reaction. Quick was all my stomach could take. That RU board is one example. The rest of the Big East pretty much feels the same way.
Perception is reality throughout the Big East.
It’s not my reality, though.

As this photo aptly demonstrates, the great majority of fans at last year’s TU-PSU game were wearing Cherry. Hopefully, the Owls get a big and loud crowd for Homecoming.

I still think this is a Temple team that has under-performed to date and will get better as the season progresses.
The Owls need to get that old Temple swagger back, the one that allowed the team to win 16 of its last 20 games at Lincoln Financial Field.
Swarming on defense, picking off balls in the air instead of allowing the receiver to catch it and tackle him 20 yards downfield, is a good place to start. It would help if the Owls pass rushers, led by John Youboty and Sean Daniels, get to the quarterback and put him down instead of being a split-second too late like they were at Penn State. I hope they take a look at Adrian Robinson’s spin move and sprinter’s speed dash to the QB for pointers on how it’s done.
I think the offense will be OK now that Steve Addazio and Ryan Day have had three games to determine how best to move the ball. The Owls have weapons all over the place in quarterback Chris Coyer, RBs Montel Harris and Matty Brown and 6-6 WR Deon Miller and speedsters Jalen Fitzpatrick, Romond Deloatch and Khalif Herbin. Deloatch, Herbin and Sam Benjamin, all true freshmen, have been running with the first team this week. It’s just a matter of getting them the ball in space where they can do their thing. Pounding the ball up the middle is not this team’s thing. It may be Penn State’s, but it’s not Temple’s.
I still think that the schedule isn’t as demanding as some people make it out to be.
So, when Temple plays South Florida on Saturday (noon, LFF), the Owls will be playing for respect.
Lose, and we have to listen to that poop talk for one more week.
Win, and some eyebrows get raised (although I wouldn’t be surprised if the result of the win is for the rest of the conference to hammer USF).
Win that winnable game and a winnable game against UConn next week and more than eyebrows get raised.
Listen, it’s not going to be easy. USF won at a very good Nevada team, yet it lost to a mediocre Ball State team. The Bulls are an enigma.
If the Owls play well, they can beat anybody on their schedule. If they play poorly, they can also lose to anybody.
The Owls ripped off four-straight wins to end the season last year.
Ripping off four straight here would change a lot of perceptions about Temple once and for all.
Now is the time to do it.