Category Archives: Uncategorized

04.30.19
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The Drafted Temple Guys

 

dogsofwar

Two of these guys (9 and 7) got drafted by the NFL

The curious case of Bryon Cowart illustrated just what a strange draft this was for the Temple guys picked in by NFL teams over a very long weekend.

Michael Dogbe, 6-3, 284, who was the most dominant player on the field in a 35-14 win over Maryland last fall, slipped to the seventh round and was chosen by the Arizona Cardinals. Dogbe had 72 tackles, including 12.5 for losses, seven sacks and three forced fumbles. He ran a 4.94 40-yard dash on Temple’s pro day.

Cowart, who was MIA against Temple, was picked in the fifth round by the New England Patriots. Cowart, also pretty much the same size (6-3, 298),  had 38 tackles, no sacks and ran a 5.16 40-yard dash.

You guess who the most impactful player in the NFL will be over the next few years. My money is with Dogbe.

Without getting into boring rep details on the lifts, Dogbe’s strength numbers also dwarfed those of Cowart.

To me, what you do on the field is the most important thing and Dogbe excelled there, especially in the head-to-head matchup at Byrd Stadium.

Rock Ya-Sin went, as expected, in the second round by the Indianapolis Colts so there can be no complaints there.

The other Rock, Armstead, is another story entirely.

The Eagles saw fit to pick Penn State’s Miles Sanders ahead of Armstead in the second round, even though Armstead is faster (4.45 at the combine to 4.49) and had 1,078 yards in 10 games while it took Sanders 13 games to accumulate his 1,274 yards. Plus, Armstead scored 13 touchdowns in those 10 games versus Sanders’ nine in 13.

That’s a much closer call than the Dogbe/Cowart comparison because Armstead has a longer history of being hurt at Temple than Sanders did at Penn State. A strong case can be made that since Sanders has less tread on his tires than Armstead, the Eagles made a better pick.

Fortunately, all of these players will get their chances (as will some Temple undrafted FAs as well, including Delvon Randall, who hitched on with the Eagles) but, to me, Dogbe is the one playing with the biggest chip on his shoulder and those guys usually do very well in the NFL.

Friday: Shot Chart

04.23.19
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What’s Next for Temple? A NY6 Bowl

visual proof

Getting an AAC championship home game would be a logical next step.

A few days ago, we checked a few of the boxes that we once did not think were possible for Temple football:

  • Beating Penn State
  • Two NFL first-round draft choices
  • A National Player of the Year
  • A league championship
  • College football game day

A cynic might suggest there’s not much left to accomplish as long as this program has Group of Five status but the Owls can do something either this year or next that they haven’t been able to do so far:

  • An AAC championship HOME game
  • A New Year’s Six Bowl Game.

It certainly isn’t low-hanging fruit this year as both Cincinnati and UCF figure to be picked ahead of Temple. Even if the Owls won the AAC, scheduling Bucknell could prove to knock them out of an NY6 game–this year either the Fiesta Bowl or the Peach Bowl–just like the ill-advised Stony Brook game probably had a big hand in knocking the AAC champions out of the Cotton Bowl in 2016. Had the Owls then scheduled, say, an ACC team or another (good, not average) Big 10 team and beaten them, they would have had at least as compelling a resume as unbeaten Western Michigan did.

next

That’s probably the strongest argument for dropping all FCS opponents going forward, at least from Temple’s perspective and maybe the league’s as a whole.

Still, the Owls now have a coach who has beaten the Big 10 in four of the six games he has played them and more talent here than he did at his last stop so he should not be afraid of asking Pat Kraft to upgrade the non-conference portion of the schedule and that, combined with another AAC championship, is what this program should strive to accomplish.

If not this year, then certainly next when the Owls should be stronger and UCF and Cincy weaker.

Friday: Gauging The Competition

Sunday: Bulking Up a Position

Tuesday: Shot Chart

 

04.17.19
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5 Takeaways From Spring Ball

Five takeaways from spring football which just concluded with the Saturday’s Cherry and White practice:

Offensive line getting thin

Usually, you don’t think about offensive linemen being thin but, certainly, the ranks of the offensive line thinned considerably with the loss of former Chestnut Hill Academy standout Darien Byrant to a transfer on Monday. New OL coach Joe Tripodi said last week that his primary concern was getting eight offensive linemen ready to play and that he had eight. We hope he wasn’t including Byrant among the eight because he now only has seven ready offensive linemen going into the season. Byrant could not crack the starting lineup in two years but the Owls have an outstanding first-team group of center Matt Hennessy (6-4, 295), guards Jovahn Fair (6-2, 300) and Vince Picozzi (6-4, 295) and tackles Isaac Moore (6-7, 305) and Adam Klein (6-5, 264).  This might be an area to scour the JUCO ranks for an immediate signee as Bryant’s departure has freed up a scholarship.

Screenshot 2019-04-14 at 8.01.54 PM

Russo on a different level

Defensive backs know who the good wide receivers and quarterbacks are so, when Keyvone Bruton was asked on April 6th what player on the entire team has stood out the most, his mention of quarterback Anthony Russo was an eye-opener: “I know he was good last year but, this year, he’s just on a different level as far as throwing the ball, knowing the offense.”  Toss in the fact that new head coach Rod Carey has said backup Todd Centeio has established himself as reliable and Trad Beatty is just behind him makes the Owls much more solid in this position than they have been in years. Russo’s TD/Int ratio should improve by getting away from Dave Patenaude, who used the pass to establish the run. Carey’s offenses have always used the run to establish the pass and that’s where Russo’s skill set should shine.

wright

Waiting on Wright

Carey also said that wide receiver Isaiah Wright would be “moved around a lot” to utilize his explosiveness. A lot of people have interpreted that to 15 carries a game and a couple of pass receptions but, to me at least, putting Wright full-time at running back makes the most sense. Up that to 20 carries a game and the Owls will be that much more explosive because they have the luxury of play-makers at wide receiver like Branden Mack, Jadan Blue, Freddie Johnson, and Randle Jones. The Owls have no such depth at running back although Jager Gardner and Tyliek Raynor should be able to split the remaining carries. A guy who came out of nowhere this spring is Valley Forge Military Academy product Trayvon Ruley, where he was a two-time conference MVP.

Open competition at corner

While there is an open competition for the starting cornerback position, Temple is the only team among the 130  in FBS with two returning cornerbacks who have had returned interceptions for touchdowns (Christian Braswell versus UConn and Ty Mason versus Tulsa) and they might not even be the best cornerback on the team because Linwood Crump Jr. has the most experience.  Baylor transfer Harrison Hand will be in the mix if he gets the OK from the NCAA clearinghouse.

Defensive Line is set

If you thought the defensive line was good last year, it just might be better this one and that’s despite losing NFL draft choice Michael Dogbe and underrated interior run defender Freddy Booth-Lloyd. Starting ends Quincy Roche, Dana Levine and Zack Mesday return but will be pushed by JUCO phenom Nickolos Madurie (6-6, 230), who had 17.5 sacks in his last full season. Interior is solid with Karamo Dioubate (6-3, 295) and Dan Archibong (6-6, 285). Depth here, like on the OL, could be an issue but that’s something the coaching staff has time to address between now and summer camp. Departures have freed up a couple of scholarships and this might be the time to grab a couple of JUCO impact linemen.

Even without that kind of insurance policy, you have to feel sorry for Bucknell and maybe even Maryland and Georgia Tech.

Friday: Checking The Boxes

(Back to a Tue-Fri-Sun rotation until summer practice)

Tuesday: What’s Next?

Friday: Gauging the Competition

04.01.19
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20th Century Solution to 21st Century Problem

 

NYT2009010619123017C

At $5 a pop, people will be lining up for these seats at the new Temple stadium

You hear it all the time about modern-day problems of all sorts.

“You can’t apply 20th Century solutions to 21st Century problems.”

Strangely enough, from what we hear, Temple is close to announcing that a 20th Century solution will solve its most vexing problem of the last half-decade: Getting a neighborhood set on saying no to change its mind and say yes.

rooftop

A radical stadium design by the new stadium opens up seats in one end zone to be controlled by residents on the Norris side of 15th Street, with all of the proceeds for tickets sold on their rooftops going to the homeowners.

Temple got the idea from looking at photos of nearby Shibe Park, where 100 years ago the residents of Lehigh Avenue got some needed supplemental income by selling rooftop seating to Phillies and A’s fans.

“Money talks and it seems that the Norris Street people are listening,” one Temple source said. “We’re close. The new design will be a horseshoe and the open end will be facing the Norris Street side. We will build some pretty nice bleachers on the top of those houses and provide ticket takers and security at the front door of each house. The people who live there can go shopping on us for a couple of hours and, once the game is over, we will clean everything up and return the houses to those folks as they were.

“It’s a win-win for Temple and the community and we hope to present this idea at the next stadium stompers’ meeting. Hard for us to believe these people who are struggling financially will turn down this kind of financial windfall. Plus, Temple will have the most unique stadium design in the country. The rooftop seats will go for $5 each with the regular seating at $50 a ticket so there will be enough incentive for fans to use them.”

Applying good old-fashioned capitalism and an economic solution to the problem seems to work better than what the university has done over the past five years, pleading its case to a small group of people covering their ears.

“Hell, we’ll even call it Stompers Stadium if that’s what they want,” the Temple source said.

Happy April’s Fool Day everyone!!!!

 

 

03.19.19
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Season Tickets: Preaching to the Choir

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

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

image_handler

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

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

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

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

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

The problems have been the other games.

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

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

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

Thursday: Temple Pro Day

 

02.05.19
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Dear Rod: Just My Two Cents

wamo

Editor’s Note: Pretty much every time I felt Temple did the right thing on a coaching hire, I dashed off a note to the new coach congratulating him on the gig. That meant only Al Golden and Matt Rhule got letters. Al sent me a note telling me that he was still waiting on a player who could turn out to be the best in his first class, Kee-Ayre Griffin, and asking me to wish him luck. Matt called me and we had a very cordial and nice 35-minute conversation and he picked my brain on which Temple fans to network with and how to build support. Haven’t heard from Rod yet, but will keep his thoughts under wraps until after he’s gone when I do. If it’s after six years with four division and two league titles, it will be a successful run. We typed this on a word processor and sent it in an old-fashioned, stamped envelope. He should have received it last Thursday.

Dear Rod,

Belated congratulations for getting the Temple head coaching job from a 40-year season ticket holder and Temple alumn.
I wanted to send this right away but knew you were engrossed in hitting the ground running with recruiting and staffing obligations but I was there in the room on the day you introduced and was impressed in a way that I was not on prior coaching introductions.
I have a vested interest in you succeeding because, ever since Al Golden left, I’ve always felt that the Temple head coaching model should be hiring a successful FBS head coach and you certainly fit that description.
Golden was what Temple needed in 2005–someone who knew how to build a program from the ground up–with a binder full of ideas on how to do it.
wright
Once he left five years later, the program was already established and 20,000 Temple fans drove down I95 from Philadelphia to watch the Owls play UCLA in the Eagle Bank Bowl.
Since then, it’s been a succession of coordinators with eyes on a higher prize than Temple. These kids are the prize and they deserve the stability someone like you can give them and that’s the same kind of stability you gave those kids at Northern Illinois.
I have a strong feeling you will hit the ground running because this is a ready-made team with very little in the way of holes to be filled.
With the Owls seven-deep at the wide receiver position, nothing would help you hit the ground running (pun intended) than making Isaiah Wright a lead tailback.
Just my two cents. I’m sure others will offer their two cents as well. It comes with the territory, as you well know.
Again, congratulations. As underwhelmed I was the day Manny Diaz was hired, that’s how overwhelmed I was on your day.
Good luck,
Mike Gibson
Thursday: Who’s Coming and Who’s Staying?
Saturday: The Second Recruiting Day
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

01.16.19
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Getting The Old Gang Back Together

niu

Now that the official Temple coaching directory lists as many as four holdovers added to the new Rod Carey staff, we can assume that they all either have sat down to debrief Carey or will do so soon.

It’s now official that Gabe Infante, Adam DiMichele, Ed Foley and Fran Brown are on the staff with their titles to be sorted out in less than two weeks.

Who knows what has been said?

 

It could have went or will go down something like this:

Carey: I’d like to welcome you guys. Pat (Kraft) said a lot of great things about you all. Just wanted to get a feel of where the program is at and how you would like to improve it.

Foley: I’ll take that question first. We got killed in the bowl game because we had a 27-14 lead and were not able to close it out with some effective running behind a good offensive line. That was our MO the entire season.

edfoley

Ed Foley has consistently had the Temple special teams near the top of the NCAA stats over the last decade and is expected to continue in that role.

Carey: Missouri?

Foley: No, modus operandi. That’s a particular way of doing things. We had Rock Armstead do that for us and he was injured before the game. I think he tripped over the Elvis status on the way out of the bus. Whatever, we didn’t have that feature back and we want to find one.

Brown: I’m on it. I’m looking at a kid in Florida and another in Jersey who can step right in and maybe take over.

Carey: What are our options from the roster?

DiMichele: We’ve got two, maybe three, NFL potential receivers in Isaiah Wright, Branden Mack and Sean Ryan plus a couple of promising guys behind them in Randle Jones and Freddie Johnson. Only one of those guys, Wright, has played tailback before. He had seven carries in a game there in Matt’s last year. He’s a first-team All-American kickoff and punt returner and, for his entire career here, both Matt and Geoff have talked about getting him the ball more and I can’t think of a better way to get him the ball 20 times a game than putting him behind the quarterback.

infante

Gabe Infante is a legendary high school football coach in Philadelphia.

Carey: I like the idea. Offensively, you guys know the roster. What would you run with this personnel grouping?

Foley: Don’t ask me. I’m 0-2 in bowl games.

Carey: I’ve got you beat there. I’m 0-6.

Infante: I’ll chime in here. Being from the Philadelphia Catholic League, I had the pleasure of watching Anthony Russo …

Carey: Who?

Infante: Our starting quarterback, Anthony Russo.

Carey: Yeah, I saw him on TV. He’s pretty good.

Infante: Yes, but the Georgia Tech cabal had him running a pass-run option. With all due respect, that’s crazy. He’s no more of a RPO guy than Tom Brady is with the Patriots and you didn’t see Bill Belichick running that against the Chargers yesterday. Go with the pro set, put a fullback in front of Wright to clear the way, mix in a lot of play-action fakes to the running backs and Anthony will have Mack and Ryan and tight end Kenny Yeboah running so free he won’t know which one to pick out.

Carey: Cabal. That’s a good word. Did you go to the Prep or just coach there?

Infante: The kids were the ones using the fancy words, so a few rubbed off on me.

Carey: Back to the point: Running the ball with a great tailback following a blocking fullback and then hitting explosive downfield plays in the play-action passing game is just good midwestern-style football, Gabe. What position did Manny Diaz have you coaching?

Infante: Linebackers.

Carey: Forget that, I’m moving you to the offensive side of the ball.

Infante: Thanks, Rod.

Carey: That settles it. We’re running a pro set and putting Wright at tailback and Fran, go find me the Rock Armstead of the future to back him up. Anything else? Meeting adjourned. I’ve got to go to Pat Kraft’s office and see what I can do to get Bucknell off the schedule and get us another Power 5 game instead. We’re going to need another P5 win if we’re going to get into the four-team playoff.

days

The official Temple coaching directory as of 1-15-19

Friday: Why This Staff is Already Better Than the One at GT

Monday: Mr. Mayhem is Gone But Not Forgotten

 

01.01.19
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The Cleanup Begins

Pat O’Connor (left) to Pat Kraft on Monday morning

My only living relative who cares so little about football she watched Star Trek reruns during the last Super Bowl,  listened to my Manny Diaz U-Turn story and said:

“What a fine mess that guy who hired him got Temple into. …”

neal

“That pretty much sums it up,” I said. “It’s a nuclear-type cleanup now.”

Diaz was the Chernobyl of college football coaching hires.  If my relative thinks it’s a mess, I’m pretty sure Temple Board Chairman Pat O’Connor and President Dick Englert and a lot of the other trustees think it’s a mess, too.

That’s not to mention our players and fans. In addition, anybody who recruits against Temple now has fruit so low-hanging to pick from it has fallen on the ground.

Now the cleanup begins.

You are going to see a lot of Pat Kraft defenders on the internet who say: “He could not have seen this coming” and “he can’t be blamed for this” but if I saw it coming the guy who gets paid the big bucks to do the hiring should have, too. This is what we wrote in a caption the day after Diaz was hired:

disclosure

This was written 20 days ago

The point is that this hire was Temple’s way of telling Miami “we’re going to train your next coach and, don’t worry, he will make all of the mistakes on our watch at our expense and, by the time we hand him off give him to you, he’ll be a polished guy.”


Diaz was the Chernobyl
of college football
coaching hires

Everything about this guy, from an entire career in warm-weather climates to the fact that his dad was the freaking Mayor of Miami screamed he was going back to Miami. One year, two years, seventeen days, what’s the difference? That should have all been factored into the Temple hire. If Temple is going to get a rental, get a ready-made one–a guy who can give this current very talented team a path to next year’s AAC title.

This is no time for a trainee.

payraise

This is the answer Geoff Collins gave in his Temple presser two years ago when asked if he was here to stay: “Every kid in there is going to know that I’m going to love them and there’s too much to do now in every moment to think about anything than what happens in the current moment.”

This is the answer Diaz gave at his presser: “All you can do is give them everything you have at the moment. You’ve got to work to improve every day, then go on to the next one.”

Anything sound familiar in those two comments?

Nothing about staying at Temple and building a winning legacy.  Those days might be over, but to achieve a championship now, the days of training rentals for other programs should be over. They should have been over three weeks ago.

Temple should go out and get a polished head coach who can give these fantastic returning players a championship in 2019. There’s a guy named Brown who can do it and it’s not Fran. It’s Neal. All he has done for Troy is do something Temple has never done–win 10 games three-straight years and beaten teams like LSU and Nebraska. Troy is paying him 1/3d of what Temple could and he would be worth every penny.

A 2019 AAC championship and an NY6 bowl would clean up a pretty big mess.

Thursday: Fizzy’s Corner

Saturday: The Slower Pace

 

12.30.18
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Fizzy’s Corner: The Green Monster

weinraub

Fizzy here at the Boca Raton Bowl, where 6,000-plus Temple fans attended and because of this Independence Bowl fiasco that might be the last time where Temple has more than a hundred fans at any bowl game.

Editor’s Note: Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub, a former Temple player, brings up the interesting concept in this piece that can simply be boiled down to this: If you are going to have a bowl game with no Temple head coach, no Temple star players, then get ready for no Temple fans in the future. 

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Our two best players quit. Our best offensive player, Ryquell Armstead, and our best cornerback, Rock Ya-Sin, who was supposed to cover Duke’s best receiver, both quit and didn’t play in the bowl game.  Instead of coming clean, coach Ed Foley came up with some claptrap about this was a medical staff decision.  If you believed that, then you must also believe that the Eagles’ Jim Schwartz is a great defensive coordinator.

Why?

nothappy

Temple fans were not happy with the two Rocks

Both players accepted invitations to the Senior Bowl on January 26th, and Rock will also play in the East/West game on January 19th. That’s why they declined to play; it’s called the green flu.  I sure it’s because they thought they might get hurt and ruin their chances to be highly drafted by the NFL.  Two tough as nails football players let their brothers down after fighting with them through thick and thin. If you don’t think that had a major effect on the outcome of the game, you’re just naive.

I was at a friend’s house watching the game ( I left after the third quarter.), and when I got home I told my wife what happened.  My wife knows very little about college football, but Cheryl’s first words were, “Why does that surprise you?  Their coach quit.”  Yes indeed, their coach did quit as did the previous three before him. Is it any wonder it was only a matter of time before this, me first – screw you, attitude filtered down to the players.  Thinking back to the guys I played with, it’s unimaginable to me that a teammate would do this.  But then again, I’m now sure I’m the one who’s naive.

As far as the coaching, well, I’m so pissed right now that the coaching seems relatively unimportant.  The butchering of the last sequence of plays right before the end of the first half with three timeouts left should go down in the hall of shame. Slowing down the blitzing in the second half only allowed a great pro prospect QB all the time in the world to catch fire.  Of course, we dropped untold passes.

So in college football, the coaches quit on their teams, and now seniors quit on their teams.  When is it our turn?  It’s been sixty years of Temple football for me now. Maybe it’s time I say, “Fer who, fer what?”  How about those who spent a few grand to travel to the game, only to see a half-assed effort?  What about the undecided recruits? Major college football is now as much “pay to play” as the NFL.  I wanna go back to the last century.

P.S. The only good news, was great news. Marc Narducci reports unsubstantiated sources say that Temple’s offensive coordinator, Dave Patenaude, is going to Georgia Tech with Geoff Collins.  Thank you, oh great omnipotent being.  Maybe our Broad Street Offense can become the Philly Soft Pretzel Offense, under the new guy. (You want some mustard on that?)

Wednesday: The Cleanup Begins