Rather than getting smacked in the mouth again by Temple, Danny O’Brien decided to transfer to Wisconsin, where he is the starting QB.

Any way you look at it, Maryland doesn’t figure to be as strong for Saturday’s noon showdown with Temple as it was last year at this time.

Considering Temple pounded Maryland, 38-7, on the road last year, that wasn’t very strong.

In a 7-6 win over William and Mary, which may or may not be better than Villanova (I don’t think they are more than 10 points better, if that), the Terrapins played 14 new players and 12 of them were true freshmen.

That was caused by the departures of 24 scholarship players (yes, 24) for “non-injury” reasons after Randy Edsall was hired as head coach two seasons ago.

Then there is the question of injuries.

Unlike Temple, Maryland was hit hard by injuries in the preseason.

 Thirteen players missed the season opener due to various injuries and ailments: defensive linemen Keith Bowers, Isaiah Ross and Andre Monroe; defensive backs Isaac Goins, A.J. Hendy and Matt Robinson; linebackers Kenneth Tate and Abner Logan; quarterbacks C.J. Brown and Dustin Dailey, running back Brandon Ross; offensive lineman Josh Cary; and place-kicker Nick Ferrara. Both Monroe and Brown are out for the season.

With all that said, if the Temple players think Maryland is going to be a pushover, Temple sets itself up for a loss like the one to Toledo or the one at Bowling Green last year.

Remember, Maryland was the team that taunted Temple in the pre-game warmups last year, calling the Owls a “JV team.”
I don’t think the Owls are going to make the same mistake this year.
They have a healthy respect of every team on the schedule, including Maryland’s wounded team.
It’s now all about being Temple TUFF, both physically and mentally.
Take care of the toughness aspect and Temple should be fine this Saturday and every Saturday going forward.
I have a feeling this season is going to be one fun ride.
Everybody hop on board.

I gotta play this week, dis one is personal
— Jeremiah Hendy (@Aj_SelfMade) September 4, 2012

From the looks of this tweet, I’d say the chances of Maryland’s Jeremiah Hendy being academically eligible for Saturday are problematic. Dis one? Really? How did he get into Maryland?

Watch No. 10, Chris Coyer, throw a hellacious block on this play.

After watching the Big East’s first non-conference slate of game results, there is an unmistakable conclusion to be made.
Temple CAN win this conference.
Will it?
A lot will depend on getting from week to week injury-free, like the Owls did after a 41-10 win over Villanova and pretty much like the Owls did last year.
Most people had the Temple at Pitt game as “problematic” going into the season.
Now, after Youngstown State’s 31-17 win there, it is anything but problematic.
Remember, Pitt is a program with four head coaches in a little over a year. Kirk Herbstreit’s pick of the Panthers to win the Big East despite all that turmoil is almost laughable.
Rutgers’ fans like to talk about going 12-0, but the Scarlet Knights had a 10-6 lead going into the fourth quarter against a Tulane team that was 3-9 a year ago.
Rutgers, like Pitt, looks very beatable.
UCONN beat UMASS, 37-0, but how good is UMASS? Villanova beat UMASS on the road, 37-10, last year.
South Florida beat Chattanooga, 34-13, but the battling Chatterboxes would have gotten drilled by Villanova by about the same score.
Temple will probably have 35K for Homecoming Day against South Florida and that will be a tough environment for the Bulls to win.
To me, Cincinnati and Louisville are the Owls’ main competition, not Rutgers, Pitt, Syracuse or UConn.
One of those games, Cincinnati, is at home. Louisville beat Kentucky, 32-14, but Louisville also lost at home to FIU last year.
Temple plays some key games at home and that could be the difference.
Against Villanova, Temple had 32K of the 33K fans, as Steve Addazio correctly noted on WIP.
“We had 32 thousand fans and Nova had only a thousand,” Addazio said. “The Villanova fans were limited to two sections. Temple had all the rest.”
If the Owls can take care of business against Maryland and beat Penn State, attendance is set up for the rest of the season and LFF becomes an intimidating place to play.
Since the Owls need every game to become bowl eligible, the non-conference games such as Maryland are just as important as the Big East games.
Addazio said the true character of this team will be how it responds after a big win, such as Villanova, or a tough defeat. I think this team loves playing football and won’t have the hiccups last year’s team had.
At least I hope so.
Maryland will be another test of Temple TUFF.

Matty Brown turns the corner on the way to an electrifying touchdown run.

You can color Temple’s 41-10 win over Villanova two ways on Friday night.
Vanilla or Brown?
I choose Brown, as in Matty Brown.
Those of us who have watched this young man play for the past three years at Temple University knew he would not relinquish his No. 1 spot on the Temple running back totem pole without a fight and, boy, did he put up a knock-down, drag out fight on Friday night.
Brown finished with 19 carries for 145 yards, upstaging the No. 1 returning ball carrier in BCS football, Montel Harris.

Or did he?
It was quite obvious Temple was running a vanilla offense against Villanova.
Chris Coyer, the quarterback who showed he could throw the ball effectively over the last four games of the 2011 season, was reined in all night.
On one of his first-half throws, Coyer hit C.J. Hammond between the 8 and the 0 and Hammond could not pull in the ball before a Villanova defender made contact.
After that, it seemed that Steve Addazio and new offensive coordinator Ryan Day essentially shelved the passing game, knowing that they could still beat Villanova with the running attack.
Behind Brown and third-string tailback Kenny Harper, the Owls proved Day and Daz right.
Harris, I’m told, has been battling a hammy but should be 100 percent by Saturday afternoon.
If so, then maybe Harris, not Brown, will be the featured back against Maryland.
Either way, the Owls are in a good place.
Brown was great and Harper was very, very good.
Why mess with anything fancy when you know you can win this way?
I think the Owls will eventually need Coyer’s play-action game, but it was not needed Friday night.
Coyer was an effective game manager who threw a dynamite crackback block on Brown’s touchdown run.
Chuck Heater’s defense was OK, considering the number of starters that had to be replaced. I would have liked to seen more tackles for losses, but 41-10 is 41-10.
Maryland should be tougher than Villanova, but nothing the Owls can’t handle.
Either Vanilla or Brown, this offense has some serious weapons and they should all be on display before long.
I predicted 49-7. I can’t be unhappy with 41-10.
In another development, the Owls received an inquiry from Oregon State to play a game on Sept. 15.
Owls said come here, take it or leave it.
Oregon State leaved it.
Good.
Beating Penn State would be one of the biggest wins in Temple football history and I don’t want a cross-country trip interfering in that kind of event.
For now, though, beat Maryland. One game at a time.

I don’t know what the final score will be, but this is an artist’s depiction of it.

The best coaching I ever got in sports came the first time I picked up a baseball bat.
The field was on Roosevelt Boulevard in Far Northeast Philadelphia and I was a 10-year-old playing for Our Lady of Calvary’s Athletic Association travel team.
After watching me swing for the fences all day, my coach took me aside.
“Son, just make contact. You’ll be surprised how far the ball goes.”
The next day, instead of hitting a lot of foul balls, I started to hit line drives into the gap.
So it goes with Temple’s football team tomorrow night.

Temple vs. Villanova: Lincoln Financial Field
 Game time: 7 p.m.
 Weather: 90 degrees and clear at kickoff; in the low 90s earlier in the day.
 Tailgating lots open: 2 p.m. No team flags allowed in Lot K this year due to solar panels, which have recently been installed.
 TV: ESPN3
Radio: Temple (Harry Donahue play-by-play; Steve Joachim color), WIP (610AM); Villanova (Joe Eichhorn play-by-play; Ryan Fannon color), WPEN (950AM)
(If you really can’t get down to the game and want to know the correct down and distance and don’t want to be confused otherwise, listen to the Villanova broadcast)

Just play make a lot of contact, play hard and tough and smart and even the Owls might be surprised how high the score goes.
Try to swing for the fences and win the game 88-0 in the first quarter and the game might be one of those nail-biters going into the fourth quarter.
It won’t be 88-0, but I don’t think it will be 27-24 like the first Temple vs. Villanova game in the four-game Mayor’s Cup series was.
If the Owls just make contact and play the way they are capable of, the final score will fall somewhere between that.
Something like last year’s 42-7 score.

What Villanova has going for it is experience and great coaching.
Andy Talley is a terrific coach who always has his teams ready. Expect a funky play or two like a pass off a double-reverse or a double pass. Talley has come up with at least one of them in the past three Temple games and two of them worked for long gains.
The experience part I’m not so much worried about. Ten starters return on defense and eight on offense. When you go 2-9 in FCS play, though, maybe fewer starters returning would be more helpful.

Do Temple U. and the kids who play for it a favor by planning to watch the game in person. This is your team. They need you more than ever this season.

The Wildcats have an athletic receiver in Norman White and a couple of fine running backs in Austin Medley and Kevin Monangai. Still, the Owls have the makings of a fierce pass rush in ends John Youboty and Sean Daniels and some solid run-stoppers led by preseason All-Big East nose tackle Levi Brown. Maybe quarterback Chris Polotny will be able to find White. Maybe he will be on his backside most of the game.
I think Vaughn Carraway, one of the nation’s top wide receiver recruits when he played at Muhlenberg High, will be able to make some plays at the free safety position.
I also think sophomore Anthony Robey, who missed some games last season, will be a lock-down corner this year. Linebackers Blaze Caponegro and Ahkeem Smith were solid last year. Nate D. Smith might be the best of the bunch this season.
The Owls’ special teams should do well against their Villanova counterparts as Matty Brown will still be returning kicks, as well as Jalen Fitzpatrick on punts. I hope all Brandon McManus has to do is kick off and does a record 40-yard dash toward the sideline.
We all know what Chris Coyer can do. The junior quarterback is unbeaten as a Temple starter.
I’ll be most excited to see Montel Harris live after being wowed for the last three months watching every frame of film on him. As I see it, the way he differs from Pierce is that he’s better able to get the tough yardage between the tackles, but is not the “home run” hitter Pierce was. That might be better for the Plan to Win.  Bleed the defense with 8-10-15-yard gains, keep the clock moving and shorten the game.
Everybody talks about the lack of experience on the offensive line. Nobody talks about how great a blocker fullback Wyatt Benson is or how great a blocker tight end Cody Booth is or how solid returner starters Sean Boyle (center) and Martin Wallace (tackle) are. If they don’t know now, they soon will.
Head coach Steve Addazio’s “Plan to Win” this year is simple:
Run the ball to shorten the game, make explosive plays downfield off play-action passes, avoid turnovers, make plays on the special teams and play solid defense.
Most of all make contact, Temple TUFF-style.

Saturday: Game recap (no story tomorrow due to tailgating)

That orange bag in the background might be an omen of things to come.

If my math is correct, Montel Harris mentions the Orange Bowl not once but twice in the video above.
I like the way Temple’s newest and maybe greatest running back sets the bar.
For the past three years, Temple has had a remarkable 1-2 running back combination, Bernie and The Bug.
We’ve still got Matty Brown, the Bug, so we’ll have to come up with a nickname for Harris as well.

Montel Harris being carried off by the Owls after beating Cincinnati at LFF for the Big East title? Perhaps.

Why not Electric Orange?
So close to the season opener, Harris knows the reasons why you play the game is to win and win championships.
The nice thing about this being opening weekend is that you can win them all at this point and why not go for it?
Harris understands if Temple wins the Big East, it will be Temple going to the Orange Bowl and no amount of backroom politics can keep the Owls out.
To that end, I’m glad Harris is on Temple’s side.
His exploits are well-documented on this website. Had he remained at Boston College, he would have been the all-time leading rusher in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference. That’s a conference that includes Florida State, Miami (Fla.), Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech, among other storied football schools.

Let’s not forget The Bug, TU’s No. 1 AP rusher last year.

Harris said his injured leg is 100 percent and that it is so good it is better than the other leg.
If that’s true, and I have no reason to believe it isn’t, Harris represents an upgrade over Bernard Pierce, who was merely a third-round NFL draft choice.
As good as Pierce was, I’m 100 percent sure he would not have had the first three years in the ACC that Montel Harris did.
Fortunately, I have 11 games in which to prove my hypothesis.
It won’t be proven by mere stats because I don’t think Harris will match BP’s 27 touchdowns and 1,737 yards. But it will be proven by wins and that’s really all I care about.
“Bernard was a heckuva football player and this guy (Harris) is a heckuva football player,” head coach Steve Addazio said. “He’s got great balance. He’s never off his feet. He’s a smart guy. You need to only tell him things once and he picks it right up.”
If Harris and Brown as a tandem can help the Owls win more games than last year, there’s a good chance Temple fans will be making plans for a winter trip to Miami (Florida, not Ohio) where they might run into Al Golden.

It’s nice to know that Harris is on the same page.
It’s no secret that Addazio counseled Pierce to stay at Temple for his senior year and was not happy when Bernard decided to leave. Addazio’s thought process was that if you are not a first-round draft choice, you should stay in college, enjoy your senior year and get your degree.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Harris proved Daz right about Pierce by parlaying his only season at Temple into a first-round NFL pick?
If Harris leads Temple to the Orange Bowl, he not only positions himself into the first round but into the Heisman Trophy conversation as well. Pierce could have done the same, but we will never know.
Harris has his chance and so do the Owls.
Electric Orange indeed.
One BC fan’s view of how MH8’s season will end:

 Tomorrow: Temple vs. Villanova preview

Social media being what it is, kids sometimes write things in 140 characters or less without a whole lot of thought process involved.
Count Villanova running back Kevin Monangai among the thoughtless.
For some reason we can’t fathom back in March, Monangai welcomed Temple to the Big East in football with this tweet: “Temple is going to the Big East this season, just another good reason for us to snap on them  Aug. 31 on national television.”
Huh?

Hopefully, Laura and 39K of her fellow fulltime students will take the subway to the game on Friday night. My favorite part of this story is “being mean to the Villanova people on the subway” on the way home.

Does “us” mean Villanova?
Does “us” mean a 2-9 FCS team?
Is the “snapping on” going to be done to a 9-4 BCS team?
Monangai, who will be wearing No. 2, is one of the many reasons I hate Villanova but he also is the No. 1 reason why I am 100 percent convinced Temple will be doing all the snapping come Friday night.
I was worried about our kids getting up for this game, even though the Temple student body, alumni, employees, policemen and cafeteria workers hate Villanova more than any other school.
I didn’t think our players understood the backstory of the underhandedness Villanova went through to keep Temple out of the Big East.

How Villanova really feels about Temple (immediate graph above).

They do understand trash talking, though, and I think that Monangai tweet got their attention.
Monangai is part and parcel of this smug attitude people on the Main Line have about Temple.
This is a school that spent two hours on a Big East Conference call “doing nothing but bashing” Temple, according to New York Post reporter Lenn Robbins.
You’ll never find a Temple player tweeting “we’re going to snap on them” about  any opponent. Temple does its talking on the field.

They obviously did not learn a lesson in respect last year after a 42-7 loss.
More than ever, they need to be taught one now.
I’ve met some people I like at Villanova, but you can count them all on the fingers of one hand.
I like head football coach Andy Talley, a great man and a great coach nearing the end of a brilliant career. His involvement with Bone Marrow charities is laudable. He has always been complimentary about Temple football.
I like Villanova football play-by-play guy Joe Eichhorn. His broadcasts are crisp and his calls are impeccable. I was a frequent guest on Joe’s Suburban Cable TV sports shows when I worked at the Doylestown Intelligencer. When Hatboro-Horsham won the state baseball championship, I did the color to Joe’s play-by-play on WBUX-AM. He is a way better play-by-play guy than Harry Donahue. I wish he did Temple games.
Still, even Joe irks me at times.
Whenever Temple loses in football, he’s the first guy I get a message from. When Temple beats, say, Maryland, 38-7, he disappears.
Must be the Villanova influence.
I’ve met the Coyer sisters and they are not only talented basketball players who will start at Villanova soon, but incredibly nice people with great parents and a cool brother.
I like them.
The Coyers, Andy Talley, Joe Eichhorn.
That’s four Villanova people I like.
Everyone else I hate and those are the people who need to be taught a lesson one final time on Friday night.
Temple head coach Steve Addazio was more diplomatic than I am at the season-ticketholders’ party: “We don’t like Villanova.”
Maybe when the Owls help No. 2 from underneath the pile, they will snap like the guys from West Side Story.
For all I know, West Side Story could be the Thursday night pre-game film at the E-O.

Tomorrow: Electric Orange, the Montel Harris Story

Steve Addazio talks in front of a girl in a dunk tank, while the Diamond Marching Band sounds better than ever in the background.

For at least the third time this summer, representatives of the Temple football team reached out to the Temple football fans.
It’s now high time for the Temple football fans to reach out to the Temple football team.
If one thing is critical for Temple’s success in the new Big East, it’s that the 271,000 living Temple alumni (we’ll give the dead ones a pass) embrace these wonderful representatives of Temple University.
Temple’s good name is riding on these guys and, ultimately, us.
Wayne Hardin once said that for Temple to fill the stadium, it will have to do so with Temple people. He pointed out then that there were 135,000 living alumni, 30,000 students, 12,500 fulltime employees.
Now the numbers are 271K and 39K for students and about the same number of employees as back in the Hardin days.
Looks like the “Joe Philadelphia” fans will be clinging to the Eagles for awhile but the “Temple people” have a more exciting and more local team to root for so they should do it.
While we need the old standby fans, the ones you see in Lot K every weekend, we need an infusion of new blood, too.
With an event in Ocean City, one in New York City, one in Los Angeles even, Steve Addazio has been reaching out to those fans for needed support.
Yesterday’s event was a “kill-two-birds-with-one-stone” deal at Xfinity Live.
Media Day (canceled earlier due to Garrett Reid’s passing) combined with the scheduled Fan Fest.
From all accounts, a good time was had by all.
Because my 2004 Chevy Cavalier kicked my butt before inspection yesterday ($683.50 for a front bumper at Classic Auto Worxx and $385 for rear breaks; don’t ever park in a Walmart lot), I was unable to attend. I did get around to an event in New York City and, of course, got a healthy dose of Vitamin A at the season-ticket holders party.
So the old Chevy is now fully inspected and ready for the season.
That’s when I’m most needed as a fan and when Temple’s fans, both old and new, are most needed.
One week to go.
The Villanova game attendance will send an early message to the Big East that our fans our ready. It could be the usual 32K but an upgrade in the 35-37K area would send that message. Villanova returned more tickets than ever this season, so it will have to be all Temple fans (as usual in this four-game series).
Let’s pack the house, get loud and stand more than sit this year.

Just came across this gem of a video above of Chris Coyer speaking to a pair of Big East media types on BE Media Day.
Coyer’s done a lot of growing up in less than a year, both on the field and off the field.
Gotta love the comment “thanks for having me” to those two guys.
You have about a 10-second ad to fight through, but the interview that comes afterward is worth the time, not so much for the routine questions but for the thoughtful answers.
Plus, Coyer speaks about coach Chuck Heater, the defense, and the comfort level such an outstanding defense gives the Owls but adding that it doesn’t affect how the offense approaches things.
As far as the latest scrimmage goes, head coach Steve Addazio said he is excited to have Coyer separate himself from the other two guys.
No surprise in that, but Daz also has hopes the other two will do some catching up.
I don’t care how Juice Granger and Kevin Newsome speak to the media, as long as they move the team and turn the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard into an adding machine just like I think guys like Coyer, Montel Harris, Matty Brown, Jalen Fitzpatrick and Alex Jackson will.
Aug. 31 can’t come soon enough.

A Tuesday sit down with Steve Addazio recently that sheds light on camp approach.

  Both Athlon and Phil Steele have the Owls in the basement.

In the same category of a somewhat older guy playing fullcourt basketball with 20-year-olds, falls the wisdom of putting too much faith in preseason college football magazines.
Both are pretty dumb.
I learned the former the hard way on Sunday shooting around on the neighborhood courts. I’ve always been able to shoot a basketball so every so often I like to take that skill for a spin around the block, like an cherished antique car sitting in the driveway, in order to keep the battery charged.
This Sunday, on the court next to me, there were seven 20-year-olds shooting around. They stopped to watch me as I hit nine three-pointers in a row.
One of them said they needed me to go a full four-on-four.
Against my better judgment and all the good voices inside my head, I said OK.
Shirts and skins, the oldest rivalry in sports. For mostly aesthetic purposes, they put the “old head” on the shirt team.
Since I’ve been running five miles a day this summer, I thought I could handle it. And I did for three hours of pure fun. I felt fine afterward, fine going home and fine going to bed.
The hard pounding and stopping on the basketball court took its toll and by 3 a.m. the next day, I could not get out of bed. Result: Knee injury.
Common sense said I should have told the kids no, but my pride said yes. Pride goeth before the fall, they say.
Same thing with college football magazines.

Local edition of Lindy’s has Silas Redd on cover.

Every time I see one at the local Giant Super Market, I pick it up with the intent to buy it. I look for the Temple references. Giant had Lindy’s and Athlon (both $7.99) and a much thicker Phil Steele Yearly ($8.95). One of them, the Lindy’s edition in the store (not the one pictured left), had Silas Redd on the cover in Penn State uniform.
I know the Redd thing is a deadline issue, but it was still clueless to put him on the cover knowing that Penn State was hanging under a very dark cloud by presstime.
Just as clueless, they all say Temple is going to finish last in the Big East and they all point to the loss of the starters on both sides of the ball.
None of them say that, in many cases, the replacements are better. Sean Boyle, in my mind, is a better center than John Palumbo (no offense intended, Mr. Palumbo).
They all mention that Bernard Pierce is gone. They just give passing reference to both Matty Brown and Montel Harris, who could be (and empirical evidence shows is) better than Bernard Pierce. None of them mention that Brown was Temple’s No. 1 all-purpose runner last year (and Pierce was No. 2 in that category).
They all mention leading tackler Stephen Johnson leaving. None of them talk about his replacement, Nate D. Smith. I’m going out on a very strong limb here and writing that Nate D. Smith will have an outstanding year at MLB for the Owls. If he doesn’t lead them in tackles, it will be because all of the Big East running backs will be tackled by the linemen before they get to the linebackers.
None of them mention the Owls know what they are doing on offense this year, running a true spread with three true spread quarterbacks, after fumbling around a year trying to find an offense that best suited the needs of two QBs with limited skill sets.
None of them mention that the Owls have a great kicking game, with maybe the best punter and placekicker in the nation (Brandon McManus). None of them mention that Chuck Heater is considered among the best defensive coordinators in the country, which he is. None of them write that a great running game, quarterback and defense and kicking game are prime ingredients for championship teams. The current Owls appear to have all of those ingredients. A running game shortens the clock and a kicking game wins the battle of field position and maybe steals a close game or two with a long FG.
I know the Owls will be way better than last place in the Big East. I’m hoping for first. If they finish second, it will only be behind Cincinnati, not preseason favorite Louisville. I don’t think they will go any lower than that. Pride says I should buy the magazines and shove it in their faces at the end of the season.
Common sense says I should leave them on the rack.
This time, I listened to common sense.
I should have done that Sunday.