Category Archives: Uncategorized

01.19.18
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Stadium: End Of The Beginning

 

badurban

Seats here are too far away from stadium and not on top of the field like this other example of a great urban stadium within essentially the same square acreage footprint.

urban

Roughly six years ago, a Temple University Board of Trustees member told a friend of mine at the NCAA Tournament that a football stadium on campus was a “done deal.”

My friend has a lot deeper pockets than me and often traveled to see the football team in remote Middle Atlantic Conference places like Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and Oxford, Ohio, with reports about the Temple fan presence there.

Often, he was it–the guy who was invited to home tailgates by the Central Michigan and Fake Miami fans like an alien who landed in a flying saucer.

This December, his move to Coral Gables, Florida made him a more likely prospect than I to make the Gasparilla Bowl and he bellied up to President Dick Englert at a pre-game function and dropped the question about whether or not Temple will build a new football stadium.

“We’ll see,” the coy Englert said.

goodurban

Temple fans should accept no less than this kind of stadium

Well, we saw a little bit on Thursday when the university announced to the world that the stadium is presenting plans to the city for the building of a “multi-purpose facility.” Notice the word “multi-purpose.” If it had been “a stadium” the already negative view of many of the city pols would have been further polarized.

Make no mistake about what happened Thursday.

This is not the end of the stadium process but the end of the beginning. The end is a long, long way away.

It was nice to finally see an artist’s conception of the stadium. To me, that was disappointing. The seats are too slopped back and not on top of the field. Some tinkering needs to be done on the architects’ end. Make the stadium like Boston College here and we’re in; otherwise, where is the Temple home field advantage?

The timeline that many stadium proponents state continues to be: Shovel in the ground by August, stadium done by 2019.

For someone who has lived in Philadelphia all of my life and knows the ins and outs of the corrupt political system here, that’s a pipe dream.

Figure on two years of hassle with the city and a shovel in the ground by 2019 at best. At worst, figure a thumbs’ down from the city and an extended Linc lease. I’m a lean toward a stadium at Temple because I think the ceiling for interest in Temple football is 35K at best. That still looks horrible in a 70K stadium and perception to many is reality.  Still, to think that today’s announcement puts this on a fast track to completion is pure fallacy.

Plan on going to that stadium for the opener maybe 2021 but more likely 2022.

I will have to eat a lot more salads, drink a lot fewer beers and work out about two extra hours a day to definitively  say I will see The Promised Land with you but I promise to try.

From what I’ve been told by my Philadelphia City Council peeps, there are 10 elected members and seven at-large members. For this to pass in the county, there will have to be nine votes. Right now, Temple can count on four. Getting to nine will not be impossible, but it will be close to impossible.

This is not the end but the end of the beginning. The end of the end could be longer than anyone knows. In short, not a done deal by a longshot.

Monday: Five Unanswered Questions

01.12.18
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Heating Things Up: Hiring Adam DiMichele

Every once in a while, Temple coach Geoff Collins does something that makes you think he gets his surroundings.

Hiring Adam DiMichele certainly qualifies with one of those somethings.

DiMichele is now the “recruiting coordinator” and the 10th fulltime assistant as allowed by the NCAA as of last Tuesday.

Hey, he could have hired another Coastal Carolina guy.

DiMichele kicks McNabb's butt

Adam as a Philadelphia Eagle (hey, they still need a backup to Sudfeld)

I’m not so provincial that I believe Collins should hire all Temple guys to coach at Temple but, with Adam, I’ve got a soft spot.

Including P.J. Walker, Steve Joachim, Matty Baker, Tim Riordan, Henry Burris and Lee Saltz, Adam DiMichele is my favorite Temple quarterback of all time.

Notice I wrote “favorite” and not “best.”

Favorite is because he was the conduit between a lot of bad years and a lot of good ones.

Sitting at Franklin Field right behind the late, great Peter “Doc” Chodoff watching Temple get waxed during the Dark Ages that culminated in a 20-game losing streak, Doc turned to me and said, “Mike, why does every other team have a better quarterback than Temple?”

“I’ve always said the same thing. Seems like it’s been that way forever, Doc. I don’t know.”
Doc Chodoff got a field named after him a few years later, right around the time  I got my quarterback who was better than the bad guy’s quarterback.

His name was Adam DiMichele.

DiMichele was the bridge between the 20-game losing streak and what Temple football is today. Had not Buffalo completed an inexplicable “Hail Mary” pass, he would have led the Owls to a bowl game in 2008.

Had not Joe Paterno denied him a transfer waiver, DiMichele—not Chester Stewart nor Vaughn Charlton—would have been the quarterback in the 2009 Eagle Bank Bowl and there is no doubt in my mind he would be the difference.

DiMichele was part of a lot of great plays while at Temple, my favorite being the “fake knee down” against Navy in the 2008 season. Temple looked like it was going to run out the clock but DiMichele feigned the knee and pulled it up just before it hit the ground and found Bruce Francis 30 yards behind the nearest defensive back. Francis walked in but the Owls lost that game, 33-27, in overtime. The year prior, DiMichele flipped the ball back to D’yonne Crudup on a double-reverse and Crudup tried to hit him in the end zone for a game-winning TD against UConn, but DiMichele tipped the ball to Francis, who caught it but it was ruled a non-catch.

DiMichele was always the quarterback of a fullback-oriented offense that head coach Al Golden and offensive coordinator George DeLeone believed in and was the beneficiary of a strong running game that set up great play-action passing. Hopefully, Adam will have enough influence on Dave Patenaude to go away from Coastal Carolina Soft back to Temple TUFF. If anyone can convince Patenaude to put Nitro back there leading the way for Rock and David Hood, it’s Adam DiMichele.

More than that, though, he’s got to convince Collins and, by getting hired, he’s at least halfway there.

Monday: The 2018 Power 5 Opponents

01.10.18
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Paul Palmer: The Power of A Resume

vinny

Too bad they don’t allow college football nominees to sit down and type out a resume in order to be selected in the Hall of Fame.

Temple’s Paul Palmer would have been selected seven years ago when he was first nominated. All he would have needed to do is type some numbers compared to guys already in there and include a computer printout that had Temple’s schedule ranked in the Top 10 of the hardest schedules in two of his three seasons.

It should have been a no-brainer a long time ago.

Palmer not only had the minimum requirement of being selected as a first-team All-America, but his numbers were far better than a lot of backs already in the Hall of Fame.

Check this list out. The other two guys on this group were already in the Hall during Paul’s first year of eligibility:

dayne

In other words, he should have been in there a long time ago.

Now he joins former Temple coaches Pop Warner, Ray Morrison and Wayne Hardin in the Hall of Fame and becomes the first Temple football player in the Hall in a history that began well over 100 years ago.

Temple had national stat leaders before Paul arrived on the scene, with Sam Shaffer leading the nation in interceptions and Paul Loughran kickoff and punt return yards, but Palmer took the numbers to a new level. lawhorn

When Palmer was at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Md., Bruce Arians was the only Division I coach to offer him a scholarship and it paid off big-time for Arians and the Owls. Palmer had 100-yard rushing games 21 times and six 200-yard rushing games. In 1986, he led the nation with 1,866 rushing yards and 1,976 yards from scrimmage.

He broke the single-season all-purpose yard record previously held by USC’s Marcus Allen with his 2,633 yards that year.

Temple Owls Paul Palmer
He finished second to Vinny Testaverde in the 1986 Heisman Trophy balloting but probably should have finished first.

The numbers do not lie and now the truth is in the pudding or, more precisely, the Hall of Fame in Atlanta.

The induction will be on Dec. 1, and that day should be a party for all Owl fans.

Friday: Heating Things Up

Monday: Hope For Offense

Wednesday: February Surprise

01.01.18
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A New Year: High Hopes

Maybe Geoff Collins is right and I am wrong.

High Hopes was the song Harry Kalas popularized with the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies and it became the team’s unofficial fight song through the 2008 World Championship season.

 

Philly guy Ed Foley adopted the song for Temple football and, as Collins said, after the Gasparilla Bowl, “can we sing our song?”

High Hopes indeed because that’s how high Collins has set the bar for this 2018 season. Collins says Cotton Bowl and I will sign for that right now.

As we enter the New Year today, that is my most fervent wish for my favorite sports team: The Temple Football Owls.

In the pre-game game prep for the Gasparilla Bowl, Collins mentioned to both announcers that the goal for 2018 for the Owls was the Cotton Bowl. I can only assume that’s where the NY6 game involving the G5 “champion” is located.

bestoftemple

To me, the minimum way to achieve that goal would be to appear in the AAC title game for the third-straight year and win it for the second time in that limited frame and hope somebody like Boise State has a less impressive season than the Owls do.

Personally, I don’t see it but Collins is closer to the team than I am so I yield to his expertise in that area. The recruits appear to include a handful who will challenge for starting spots, so maybe Collins figures he has plugged all the holes. Recruiting is the byproduct of a charismatic staff and a great school in a World Class city that appeals to more students than ever before. In 2017, Temple went over 40,000 students for the first time. Young people find Temple a very exciting place to be and it’s no surprise that some of those young people are great football players.

nickfinal

Nick Sharga’s final message to the team

As followers to this blog have learned over the last decade, we tell it like it is—good, bad or indifferent and, as much as I’d like to be sitting in the Cotton Bowl one year to the day from now (perhaps even beating, say, a Penn State), I do not see it happening. Not after losing the entire defensive secondary—except for its best player, Delvon Randall—or losing its two best edge rushers, two great wide receivers, a solid left offensive tackle and the best fullback in the country.

That’s a lot of losses, even more impactful than losing a first-round NFL edge rusher (Haason Reddick) and a four-year starting quarterback (P.J. Walker) from two years ago.

The positives are that the Owls have found at least one quarterback they can win with, Frank Nutile, and Ryquell Armstead and David Hood are big-time running backs who should both be fully healthy after injuries this season.

To me, getting back to seven wins would be more realistic and everything on top of that would be gravy.

Since I like gravy, I’m stashing away a little money each week so I can pour it on my crow and eat it exactly one year to the day from now in Texas. If high hopes are achieved, these wonderful ants will prove they can move a pretty big rubber tree plant.

Wednesday: Stadium Thoughts

12.24.17
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TEN REASONS NOT TO BUILD TEMPLE STADIUM

faustadiumday

AECOM built the FAU stadium and will be one of the two architects for this one.

 Editor’s Note: Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub checks in with his thoughts on the stadium. He’s against it. I’m ambivalent. If no stadium means a permanent move to Franklin Field, I’m for the stadium. If we can extend the lease at the Linc, that’s the preferable option. Ironically, Fizzy played all of his home games in  a place called Temple Stadium.

By: Dave (Fizzy) Weinraub

  1. NEIGHBORHOOD DOESN’T WANT IT
  1. TEMPLE DOESN’T NEED IT – It needs the Eagles to give Temple the same deal the Rooneys give the University of Pittsburgh – Pitt just pays expenses and gets half the net from the concessions. A blue ribbon committee should meet personally with Jeffrey Lurie.
  1. IT CLOSES OFF 15TH STREET – Disrupting southbound traffic
  1. PARKING WILL BE SCATTERED AROUND CAMPUS – Making it very difficult for older fans to walk to the stadium.
  1. THERE WILL BE NO COMMON TAILGATE AREA WITH ACCESSIBILITY TO

FAN’S CARS FOR FOOD AND BEVERAGES – Temple says the open space for tailgating is the quad, but you can’t drive your car there.

  1. TRAFFIC WILL BE HORRENDOUS – Broad Street has lights at almost every corner.  The number streets have either lights or stop signs at every corner.
  1. DON’T SAY TAKE THE SUBWAY  – Most older fans are not going to take the subway. Drive or take the subway to a night game; HA! HA!
  1. THE LINC HAS EASY ACCESSIBILITY FROM SOUTH JERSEY, ROUTE 95, THE AIRPORT AND DELAWARE, AND THE SCHUYLKILL EXPRESSWAY.  That’s why it was built there.  How will fans from all those suburbs possibly drive to campus?  There will be gigantic traffic jams at Broad & Vine.
  1. TEMPLE WILL LOSE A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF THEIR OLDER FANS AND SOME OF THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS – Most of the season ticket holders are older folks, forty to eighty tears old.  Most of the big givers to the university are from this age bracket. Given the problems listed above, many will not purchase season tickets and lose allegiance to Temple.
  1. AS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THE INQUIRER, A FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF SCHOOLS NOT IN THE POWER FIVE FOOTBALL CONFERENCES WHO BUILT NEW STADIUMS, ARE CARRYING LARGE, UNNECESSARY DEBT.

Even the Egyptians have stopped building pyramids.

Tomorrow: Merry Christmas!!!

Wednesday: Season Analysis

Friday: Recruiting

 

12.22.17
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Bowl Win: Christmas Gift Nicely Wrapped

One of the many bowl watch parties across the city of Philadelphia had a pretty creative title.

The “I’m-Too-Poor-To-Go-To-The-Gasparilla-Bowl” party was held at an establishment better known for indoor simulated golf on Delaware Avenue.

I had planned to attend but SEPTA strongly advised people coming into town late Thursday to avoid the Regional Rail—my favorite mode of travel—due to a power failure earlier in the day.

tailgate

So it was off to my neighborhood taproom within a couple of blocks from my house.

Once there, I was surrounded by a group of St. Joseph’s University fans who “hated Temple because they want to displace all the residents to build a stadium” and actively rooted against the Owls.

Never mind that they had all their facts wrong. People who talk about the stadium usually do.

It was with smug satisfaction that I saw that group of haters leaving with their heads between their legs when the Owls built a 21-3 lead in the fourth quarter.

The 28-3 win was a nice Christmas gift for a group of Temple fans who were disillusioned by the results of the last two seasons. It was a long bus ride home from last year for me, but I watched with satisfaction after an agonizingly slow start last night.

It was nice that the Owls followed our advice of putting a nice target on NFL prospect Alex McGough (pronounced MA-GOO, even though we initially though it was pronounced MA-GOW). They hit him hard enough early to knock him out. If you hit quarterbacks hard enough, a lot of good things can happen and those things are usually fumbles, sacks and interceptions. You never hope for someone to hurt and I really would have liked to seen the Owls win with McGough in the game. Alex, we hardly knew ye and I felt bad for the kid when he pounded the turf and left the field for his final time in the first half.

You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure out this this game would have been a whole lot closer with McGough in there, and that was too bad for FIU. Nobody felt sorry for the Owls when they missed six starters in a 31-28 overtime loss at Army, so they were due for some breaks in those areas.

Finishing 7-6 and returning a bowl MVP quarterback certainly is a whole lot better than finishing 6-7. Head coach Geoff Collins would have had a lot of explaining to do about greatness not quitting but finishing 6-7 or #TheStandard being a losing one in the offseason.

Now the Owls can say they are winners for three years in a row and bowl winners for the first time since 2011.

The future looks good for the Owls, although I wasn’t buying the Cotton Bowl narrative the announcers said Geoff Collins was selling.

In my mind, the Owls have no more than an outside shot at winning the AAC but the game day coaching and the offensive scheme are among the things that need to be addressed in the off-season.

Monday: Fizzy’s Thoughts On Stadium

Wednesday: Season Analysis

Friday: The Early Haul

 

12.20.17
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Temple-FIU: The Best Pass Defense is ….

mcgough

Temple needs to put this guy on his backside early and often.

The last time Temple head coach Geoff Collins faced a one-dimensional team, the game plan was OK for all but 1 minute and 15 seconds.

That was when Army ditched its triple-option attack and passed the ball downfield for the last 75 yards with the Owls holding a 28-21 lead.

It should have never happened because the Owls should have known the Cadets had one time out to negotiate those 75 yards. They should have eschewed the prevent defense for an all-out assault on a backup quarterback not used to throwing the ball.

Temple should have not made him comfortable back there.

youngbruce

                                                                             “I say this from being an ex-quarterback.The best pass defense is putting the quarterback on his backside”_ Bruce Arians, 1988

But it did, and it was another of many first-year mistakes for a first-year head coach and allowed Army to tie the game with one second left and force overtime in an ingnomious 31-28 overtime defeat.

Florida International, the bowl opponent tomorrow night, is one-dimensional but the dimension is passing, not running. Alex McGough, its quarterback, is 6-foot-2, 187 pounds and has thrown for 17 touchdowns against eight interceptions while racking up 2,791 yards. Head coach Butch Davis calls him the best quarterback he has ever coached on any level.

What the Owls should have done is what they should do tomorrow night (8 p.m., ESPN). Bruce Arians once said his pass defense never got good until he figured out by late in his career at Temple was that the best defense was to put the opposing quarterback on his backside.

The lesson, he said, was learned in a 35-30 win at Rutgers—the same Rutgers’ team that had beaten Penn State earlier that year. With about as much time left and as much distance to cover as Army did this season, a quarterback named Scott Erney passed the Scarlet Knights from his own 20 to the Owls’ 30 with three quick throws against a prevent defense. Arians called a timeout, and rather heatedly discussed what the Owls should do with then defensive coordinator Nick Rapone.

“I told Nick to go jailbreak (eight-man rush),” Arians said. “I decided if I was going to go down, it would be with my guns blazing.”

saintpete

Tailgating weather should be nice

The Owls had Erney in their sights the next three plays and found himself on his backside for the each time and the game ended way back on the Rutgers’ 41 with a defensive lineman named Swift Burch sitting on top of him.

“I say this from being an ex-quarterback,” Arians said. “The best pass defense is putting the quarterback on his backside. If you can’t get to him with four, send five. If you can’t get to him with five, send six. We had to send eight but we got it done and that’s the bottom line.”

If these Owls treat Mr. McGough has rudely as those Owls treated Mr. Erney, they should be hoisting a nice trophy tomorrow night.

Friday: Bowl Analysis

12.18.17
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This Week In TU Football: The Padre Pio Factor

signingday

Signing day is almost as important for the Owls as the bowl game itself.

As a kid growing up in Catholic school, I was told that Padre Pio—the newly minted Saint—could be in two places at one time.

It’s easy to be both skeptical and fascinated by the possibility. Try as I might, I’ve never been able to master the art of bilocation.

Too bad Geoff Collins hasn’t, either.

Collins will only seem to be in two places at one time this week, culling a recruiting class that needs several signatures by Wednesday and then coaching a football game his university desperately needs to win on Thursday, but that’s the task he has been given.

While both are important, the No. 1 priority should be winning the bowl game for a couple of reasons.

One, the school has only won two games in its history.

Two, as important as recruiting is, the end game of that endeavor has always been to identify enough talent that can win championships and, failing that, bowl games.

To be fair, it’s also the task that faces Florida International University head coach Butch Davis but the pressure to win now is greater for Collins because he has to replace so much of the guts of not only a 6-6 Temple team, but a 10-2 one. A rather convincing argument can be made that guys like Nick Sharga, Keith Kirkwood, Adonis Jennings, Artrel Foster, Sean Chandler and Jacob Martin contributed as much to that championship as P.J. Walker, Jahad Thomas, Hassan Reddick, Avery Williams, Averee Robinson and Colin Thompson did. It’s the reason why we think this team should have won either eight or nine games, not six or seven. The schemes, especially on offense, wasted a Mother lode of talent.

The case is that the Owls will be two years removed from the guts of a championship team and those losses could be felt more severely next year than this one. A great haul on early signing day followed by the momentum of a bowl win would reassure any doubting Thomases out there but that’s a different Saint for a different day.

Wednesday: Bowl Preview

Friday: Bowl Analysis

Monday: The Early Haul

12.15.17
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Geoff Collins’ Shocking Admission

 

dunce

Go through the posts on this website and you will find several references of Temple’s offense being one where the coaches tried to fit a square peg into a round hole.

shargamilk

So you can excuse us for wondering just where Temple head football coach got this notion from when he uttered this quote at the inaugural Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl press conference.

“I think we were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole on offense,” Collins said. “Once we got a good taste of who our personnel was on offense, it kind of took off.”

Collins could have saved a whole lot of time and heartache by reading what was posted here in September.

Maybe he did.

This is what we wrote in a post on Sept. 22, after a 43-7 loss to USF:

“Ask any Temple fan who followed the team over the last 40 years (I will raise my hand here) who the best set of receivers are in Temple history and that fan will probably say the current group of Ventell Bryant, Adonis Jennings, Keith Kirkwood and Isaiah Wright. Any offense that has those four guys on it is not rebuilding, it should be reloading.

Emphasis on “should be” because the coaching is the X-factor here. Temple won the past two seasons because it catered an offense to suit the talents of its players, and did not try to force fit a square peg (spread offense) into a round hole (play-action offense). A good head coach tailors a scheme to the talent he has, not the talent he wants.”

Better late than never, but putting the square pegs into the square holes and the round ones should have been something that was figured out by August, not by the end of October. The real sad thing is that Collins seemed to be onto it at the season ticket holder party when one season-ticket holder asked him to “never take Nick Sharga out of the game” and Collins responded by saying that he would not and, if anything, Sharga’s role as a lead-blocker in a play-action-oriented offense would be greater than it was a year ago. For reasons only Collins knows, he lied. Maybe he allowed offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude to have too much input.


At least Collins dictated a heavy dose of play action over the final six games of the year and that saved their season. That was the personnel they had all along.


“Temple won the past two
seasons because it catered
an offense to suit the
talents of its players,
and did not try to force
fit a square peg (spread offense)
into a round hole (play-action offense)”
_ Temple Football Forever, Sept. 22, 2017

“I think we were trying to kind
of fit a square peg in a round
hole on offense. Once we got
a really good taste of who
our personnel was,
it kind of took off.”
_ Geoff Collins, Dec. 6, 2017


The Owls took way too long to figure out that they never needed a “running” quarterback as much as they needed a guy with a big enough arm to get the ball to their most talented players on offense, their wide receivers. They figured out too late that many of the “drops” they suffered in September were the result of these same receivers circling back on poorly thrown balls. When they inserted the guy with the big arm, those receivers caught balls in stride and away they went, usually into the end zone.

Collins followed the outline of the advice, although we would have liked to seen more running from guys like Ryquell Armstead and David Hood behind a guy like Nick Sharga.

Maybe next year with those two behind a guy who goes by the nickname of Nitro, opening passing lanes for a guy who goes by the name Juice.

Let’s hope a second-year coach isn’t as slow on the uptake as the first-year one was. One of the fastest ways to fix a problem is to recognize it and, with that one quote, Collins showed there is hope for a better future plan.

Monday: The Padre Pio Factor

Wednesday: Bowl Preview

Friday: Bowl Analysis

Christmas: Season Analysis

12.11.17
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FIU-Temple: A Test of The Hiring Method

butch

There is no written hiring test when evaluating future Temple football head coaches, post-Geoff Collins Era, only an outline of “types” in this current convoluted system, a copy of which should be emailed to every Group of 5 athletic director.

Even the person who sees things through Cherry and White glasses know Collins could not be long for Temple, hopefully for the right reasons, but at least a measure of stability could be achieved with a different hiring model going forward.

For the time being, as long as only the Power 5 can have the coaches they want, the G5 schools that include Temple will be left to pick among these three types:

THE HOT COORDINATOR–Collins himself falls into this category. This is the high-risk, high-reward method. Since the “hot coordinator” usually has never been a head coach, no one knows how he will react once he has a clipboard in his hands. Temple has tried this route with its last three head coaches and that has turned the coaching door at the E-O into a revolving one. Maybe it needs to re-evaluate that thinking in the future.

houston

THE PROVEN FBS HEAD COACH–FIU’s Butch Davis falls into that category.  Coming off 5-7 and 4-8 seasons, Davis’ first year as FIU coach is an impressive one. He turned 5-7 and 4-8 talent into eight-win talent. Compare that to Collins turning a solid core from a 10-win team into a six-win team, and you have evidence that this could be the way to go for Temple in the future. Davis did not have to learn how to be a head coach on the job; he already was a championship coach at Miami and knows how to push the right buttons. He has already seen what life is like chasing the big bucks in the NFL and college football and is more likely to stay and build something than the first type.

cignetti

THE FCS CHICKEN SALAD MAKER–This is a guy who does more with FCS talent than the current Temple coach does with Temple talent. There are a few of those guys out there who can turn “chicken shit into chicken salad.” For brevity purposes, we will mention two here: JMU’s Mike Houston and Elon’s Curt Cignetti. Last year, Houston led JMU to a 14-1 record and the national championship. At the Citadel, he led that team to a Southern Conference championship and, before that, led Lenoir-Rhyne to three first-place finishes. This guy has winner stamped on his farhead. This year, Houston has JMU ranked No. 1 in the nation and his team beat ECU and Villanova worse than Temple did. At Elon, Cignetti–a former Temple assistant–also had a more comfortable win over Villanova than Temple did. In his first year as head coach there, he turned what had been a 2-9 team in 2016 into an 8-4 team this year.

So one of the questions to be answered in a little over a week is if Temple hired the right type. Winning or losing that one game should give Pat Kraft a very large insight into if he made the right choice or not.

Wednesday: A Closer Look at FIU