01.19.17
by

A Giant Proposition

highpoint

With all of those Cherry-clad Owl fans behind the team holding that championship symbol, definitely the high point of my 40 years as a Temple fan. The guy in the beige sports coat is …  Avery Williams, who played only in the first half of the Navy game.

The Peggy Lee song “Is That All There is?” reached No. 11 on the Pop hit charts in 1969 and that pretty much describes where the Temple football program is now.

Are there more “good old days to come” or were the best of days a month or so behind us?

Unless the Owls get into a Power 5 conference, and that is something that is not on any radar screen now, they pretty much reached the pinnacle of what they can do by winning the championship of the American Athletic Conference.

Any encore past that would be a Giant Proposition (although not to be confused with the New York Giants’ proposition to Temple that appears elsewhere in this post) and we all know how hard the Owls had to scratch and claw to reach that goal.

possible

Giants picked the best college team they could think of to challenge

The legacy of the 1979 team (top 20 finish) appears to be safe for the foreseeable future and even that team did not have the street cred of the 1934 team, which was so good a NFL team challenged it to a game to, in their words, “determine which version of football was better, college or pro.” The New York Giants could have chosen any school to challenge, but they chose Temple.

So, in these days, what the 2016 team did was truly remarkable.

They had to win seven games in a row with each game being an elimination game and that was a tough task, but they did it. The rules are so stacked against G5 teams that one of them will never win a national championship, so really the only thing that Temple football has not done since joining a FBS league is finish in the top 25 and make a NY6 bowl and win more than 10 games.

Those appear to be more realistic goals for the 2018 team, not the 2017 one. However talented the quarterback will be this season, and he will be, it is too much to expect him to do in his first year what a four-year starter did in his last.

This year, the goal simply has to be getting to a bowl game and winning it but the Owls have already done that (2011) so would that be a unique achievement? No. It looks like the team will take a slight step back next season, winning anywhere from 6-9 games. There have been Temple teams which have surprised before and this may be one of them.

Getting into a NY6 bowl and winning it is really the best the Owls can do at this point and probably should be the goal every year, realistic or not.  There is also something to be said for having a winning program every year and that is something most of the other 126 FBS programs cannot say.

Until then, or such time as the Philadelphia Eagles become the opposing team in the Cherry and White vs. Green Day Game, hoisting that AAC title trophy will always be considered the good old days.

Saturday: Fly On The Wall

Monday: The Next Jerry Rice?

01.17.17
by

Patenaude’s Pudding

 

With apologies to Bill Cosby, the proof about anyone is in the pudding and we’re not talking Jello here.

Not what they say, but what they do, and, for that, any Temple fan has got to love new offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude.

patenaudebox

The first words out of Patenaude’s mouth in the above interview with the always prepared Morgyn Seigfried were this: “Well, right out of the gate, we’re going right back to the things that have been great here, Temple TUFF, being physical, coming down hill, running the ball, play-action.”

That’s the “what they say” part; we’ll get to the “what they do part” a little later.

If those were the first words out of his mouth in an interview with me, my next two words would have been: “You’re hired.”

According to no less an authority than departed head coach Matt Rhule, the Owls have an NFL fullback, Nick Sharga, and, as long as they have him, they might as well use his unique talents to open up the run game for both the tailbacks and, maybe at least 3-4 times a game, for himself. Establishing the run brings the linebackers and the safeties up closer to the line of scrimmage and makes them suckers for the play-action pass. New quarterback Anthony Russo is going to need that extra second or two play action gives him next year because main quarterback protection, left tackle Dion Dawkins, is off to some lucky team as an NFL first-rounder. Deftly fake it into the belly of, say, Ryquell Armstead, after Armstead rips open a patented (or, in this case, Patenauded) 20-yard run, and Russo will have Temple receivers running so free through the secondary he will not know which one to pick out.

You don’t fix what isn’t broken and, to his credit, Patenaude recognizes that the system Matt Rhule has run from an offensive perspective was never broken. Two tight ends, a fullback, smash-mouth football, play-action, is ingrained in the Temple TUFF mentality and sets the Owls apart from every other team in the AAC. It also helps them eat clock and keep the defense fresh and, if you check the scores the last two years you have noticed that Temple is the only team that plays defense on a consistent basis in the AAC.

The real tasty part of the Patenaude Pudding, though, is the results. At Coastal Carolina, the Grenadier offense under him had virtually the same number of yards and touchdowns running as it did passing. When an offense does that, it is like a shell game where the defense doesn’t know what shell the ball is under or who to tackle.

That’s the best kind of desert and it will be served to Temple fans this fall in tasty helpings. If it works, get ready for some delicious offensive numbers this fall.

Thursday: Eye Of The Needle

Saturday: Fly On The Wall

01.15.17
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Helicopter Recruiting

Did not like the way this chopper took off. Ed Foley must have been flying.

Helicopter Parenting is a term that has been around for a while and it means a parent or parents who take an excessive interest in the lives of their children, almost to an unhealthy level.

helicopterparent

Geoff Collins thanks God he landed safe and sound.

A much more recent phrase is Helicopter Recruiting, and that has an entirely different connotation. What might be unhealthy parenting usually translates into healthy recruiting and recruits almost universally love to be recruited that way.

Plus, it enables a coach to get to a lot of places on the same day.

Count new Temple football head coach Geoff Collins as a devotee of Helicopter Recruiting, something old coach Matt Rhule did not particularly like.

The first coach from the area who did this was Greg Schiano at Rutgers eight years ago and it produced some outstanding recruiting classes for the Scarlet Knights.

Right now, Temple fans will settle for Collins holding serve with most of Rhule’s 16 committed recruits and that apparently is the plan. If Collins can poach a couple of Power 5 recruits, something that Rhule and Al Golden seemed to do toward Signing Day, that can only be considered a bonus.

Really, Collins cannot be fairly judged by this recruiting class. We hear he’s a great recruiter, but that will be determined by his next class, not his first. One recruit we can talk about is Florida quarterback Todd Centeio because he already is enrolled at Temple and in the luxurious Morgan Hall. He’s a three-star and undoubtedly will give the other quarterbacks a run for their money.

Todd Centeio already is enrolled at Temple.

We usually do not like to talk about specific recruits in this space because of two reasons. One, these guys have not signed their names on the dotted lines yet and, two, the NCAA has specific rules against contacting recruits and we adhere to them.

If such news breaks our way, we’ll report it but, for now, we will leave the Helicopter recruiting to a good pilot named Geoff Collins.

Tuesday: The Patenaude Effect

01.13.17
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God And The Power 5

baylor

Amazing how $7 million can make someone (not me) a fan of another team so quickly.

When Matt Rhule took over the head coaching job at Baylor, one of the reasons he gave was that he was called to accept the position because of his faith.

That kind of stunned the people who knew him at Temple over nearly the last 10 years because no one had ever heard him mention his “faith” or “God” in a public statement in any of his press conferences at the Edberg-Olson Football Complex.

Many had just written off the comment as “playing to the audience.” That said, in his first press conference at Temple University, was his statement of “wanting Bill (Bradshaw) to allow me to sign a 15-year contract” also playing to the crowd?

Probably.

Still, I could see God listening to all of this and giving the Dikembe Motoembo “no” waving finger to Rhule on both counts.

That begs the question. How come God has never called for one of these big-time coaches to come help a lesser school than a Power 5 one?

You know, the same God who might agree with the Pope on this:

impossible

To me, God is the Being who says to go help the weaker become stronger.

In college football, that means telling the big-time coach to go help the G5 team, not the P5 team.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.

The photo of Matt Rhule cheering for the Baylor basketball team does not sit well with me, not because I wish him ill but because it represents the perfect illustration of power and money over weakness and poverty.

It is amazing how $7 million dollars makes one a fan of another team so quickly.

I would like to think that if I was offered $7 million tomorrow to be a fan of, say, Alabama and reject my fandom of Temple that I would say no and I am fairly confident no amount of money could make me reject  the team I love.

God must love the Power 5 over the Group of 5. I’m still waiting (hell, praying) for the first photo of Nick Saban or Dabo Sweeney saying at a press conference that they have been called to a school like Temple or Navy because God called  them to go there.

Because God gave me common sense, I will not hold my breath but I would love to, err, God-willing live long enough to see that day.

Sunday: Recruiting Thoughts

01.11.17
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New DC Johnson Has Been Here Before

taver

The last time Taver Johnson attended a Temple game the crowd was 1/15th this large.

The last time Temple fans saw Taver Johnson in action as a defensive coordinator, the Owls’ program was in the gutter and in desperate need of intervention.

Probably none of them remember him.

Then, Johnson was the DC at Miami (Ohio) and there was an announced crowd of 11,257 (“missing about 9,000 no-shows”  according to an AP story on the game) in the stands at Lincoln Financial Field but, in reality, you could count the crowd in about 20 minutes and probably come up with one third of that number. Outside, before the game, there were five fans tailgating in the rain in Lot K waiting for the game to begin right up to a half-hour before kickoff.

johnson

Taver Johnson’s last stop was Purdue.

Five, as in the number that comes after four and before six, and the day will go down in Temple football infamy, Oct. 29, 2005. The entire lot was empty except for those five fans.

In all fairness, in those days there was a larger group of Temple tailgaters a couple of lots over at the Jethro Lot but those five in two cars were all that showed in Lot K that  rainy day.

The gloomy rain was a fitting backdrop for a program that hit rock bottom with only two directions apparent: Up or out. The talk of tailgate that day was speculating on the miracle man  who could save the program because then coach Bobby Wallace had already announced he was not coming back at the end of the year, nudged out by the administration. Rick Neuheisel’s name came up, as did Frank Solich’s. Al Golden was an unknown at the time to any of the five Temple fans left.

I know. I was one of them. The other four shall remain nameless, but they have all witnessed a rebirth in the program and the tailgate atmosphere that is truly remarkable. The Owls were able to start crawling out of the gutter a  couple of months later when a Virginia assistant coach named Al Golden, also a DC, was named head coach.

Johnson’s defense was impressive in a 41-14 win over the Owls, but so was every other defense that played against the Owls that year. That was the ninth loss in an 0-11 season on the way to 20-straight losses.

Now Johnson is back and will roam the sidelines in the same capacity this year as DC of the Owls. Ironically, same sideline, too, because the “home” side for Temple was the other side of the Linc in those days.

It seems like a good hire for new head coach Geoff Collins. In that year of 2005, Johnson presided over a Miami defense that spearheaded a 7-4 record. In addition to “holding” Temple to two touchdowns, his defense limited Cincinnati to 16 points, Buffalo to 13 and Ohio to 10.

That was Johnson’s only experience as a FBS defensive coordinator.  His most recent experience was Purdue defensive backs’ coach the last two years and that was the same Purdue team that gave up 63 points to Penn State. Still, he brings a mostly P5 coaching set to Temple and that has to be a plus because he will go on the recruiting trail looking for a P5 skill set. He was at Arkansas (linebackers and cornerbacks) in 2012 and 2013 and coached the cornerbacks at Ohio State from 2007-2012.

He even served as interim head coach of the Razorbacks.

When he finally roams the sidelines, he will see a whole other side of Temple, both on the field and in the stands, that he saw the first time and the impression should be a favorable one. We can only hope those fans have a favorable impression of the work Johnson does in their view, but we won’t know for sure until about midway through the 2017 season.

Friday: God and The Power 5

01.09.17
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Cherry and White Bowls Matter

NCAA Football: Military Bowl-Temple vs Wake Forest

These are the disturbing images Owls have seen walking off the field the last two seasons.

rockets

The next time someone tells you a bowl game is a meaningless post-season exhibition game, tell them the story of the last two Temple football seasons.

Each time, the Owls flushed down the toilet the priceless ring of a Top 25 finish by losing to underdogs.

That meant that Vegas had faith in the Owls—1.5 favorites over Toledo and 12.5 favorites over Wake Forest—but that circumstances prevented the Owls from winning and appearing in the Top 25 for two straight seasons. Vegas is usually right, so something went terribly wrong for the Owls at the end of the last two seasons.

If that weren’t enough in and of itself (it is), consider this: Top 25 voters the next year, for the most part, are lazy journalists who just list the teams who were from the Top 25 the year before. Those teams have a built-in advantage over the rest of the other 102 FBS teams because, once in that Top 25 club, you have to play your way out. It is much harder to play your way in from the outside.

That’s the way college football works.

Had the Owls, No. 24 in the CFB poll, beat Wake Forest, they would have likely risen above fellow state school Pittsburgh, the No. 23 team, that lost to Northwestern in the Pinstripe Bowl. Had they beaten Wake Forest coming off a win over Toledo the year prior, they would have established themselves as a more permanent Top 25 presence and that perception in a pro town like Philadelphia would have been invaluable.

We now know why that did not happen. The Owls went heavy on the fun and sun in Boca two bowls ago and, this year, the entire defensive staff missed eight practices leading up to the bowl game.

A Temple program that hemorrhages coaches out the door of the E-O is doomed to this fate, unless new coach Geoff Collins sticks around for a few years. He almost certainly is assured to be here through a bowl game next year and this is where the Owls must make their move for 2018, by establishing themselves in the Top 25 with a bowl win and setting themselves up for upward mobility a year after that.

The Owls should be in a bowl next season and, once there, the entire Temple community from the Board of Trustees to the football element must realize how valuable it is to win this time. That should be the “unfinished business” Collins makes sure is transacted next year under, hopefully, a new and more original slogan.

 

Wednesday: Waiting For A Puff of Gray Smoke

Friday: God And The Power 5

Sunday: Threading The Needle

01.07.17
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How Good Is Anthony Russo?

russo

Just after the Cincinnati game, a fellow Temple fan who I have known through the dark days said something that gave me pause.

“Without P.J. next year, we’re screwed,” he said.

“Nah,” I said, “(Anthony) Russo’s really good.”

“How do we know?” he said.

“I know.”

“How?”

“He was probably the best quarterback I’ve ever seen at the high school level.”

“That was HIGH SCHOOL,” he shot back.

“Relax, I know.”

…. And the discussion went on and on like that and he started pissing me off.

My real business, long before getting into this Temple football blogging thing as a side piece, was covering high school football for some 30 years for two local newspapers, the final 15 at the Philadelphia Inquirer. In that time, I’ve gotten very good at separating the wheat from the chaff.  I’ve watched 15 Russo games in person and several more on television.

He is the real deal from a great league, much like St. Joseph’s Prep’s Rich Gannon was the real deal before becoming a NFL MVP. I saw Matt Ryan play at Penn Charter and Tom Savage play at Cardinal O’Hara. Anthony Russo on the same level was significantly better than all three and I usually always side with the older guys. He is well-prepared for a great career at Temple.

Trust me, Russo is the wheat and everybody else is the chaff.

While all we know at this point is that Anthony Russo will battle Logan Marchi and Frank Nutile for the starting quarterback job at Temple next year, it really isn’t a fair fight from where I’m standing. It’s a little like Chuck Wepner against Ali (Muhammad, not Kareem). The kid not only has talent, but the moxie, the drive to succeed and the “it” factor other ex-Temple quarterbacks did not have.

Russo excelled at about the highest level of high school football there is. Temple has not recruited a quarterback on his level of achievement ever. A transfer, Steve Joachim, was certainly of his ability and skill set but that was a transfer who played in games for a Top 10 team (Penn State) before coming to Temple. Joachim was a good-enough athlete to be named first-team All-State in both basketball and football. He ended up winning the Maxwell Award as the national College Football Player of the Year at Temple (beating out Heisman winner Archie Griffin of Ohio State).

Russo is an Elite 11 quarterback, who independent of his 35 touchdown passes in his senior year for state champion Archbishop Wood, was given the stamp of approval by none other than Trent Dilfer, who is both an analyst and a quarterback guru. Even though Dilfer is a Super Bowl winner, he is much better at analyzing the quarterback position than playing it. Russo throws a great deep ball and his footwork and field vision is impeccable, allowing him to choose from multiple targets at the exact same time. The best thing about this kid is his humble personality. He does not assume he is better than everyone else and he is willing to compete for everything. Look who is the person (No. 15) at the end of this video congratulating P.J.:

Does this mean Russo will be better than P.J. right away? No, because other factors go into this equation like offensive line play but, by the end of four years, Russo will break a few of P.J.’s records and that will be a good thing for Temple. Another factor that concerns me is that he is opening against Notre Dame. I wish that opponent was Villanova so he could get his feet wet, but those are factors beyond Temple’s control. No worries, though, Anthony Russo will be just fine.

I’m betting on great and it is a house and farm bet. Hell, I’ll throw in the 2004 Chevy Cavalier with 138,000 miles on it.

My friend has agita for no good reason.

Monday: Cherry and White Bowls Matter

01.05.17
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How Do We Know About Collins?

geoffrey

Great story on Coachingsearch.com about Geoff Collins.

About a year ago, just about every Rutgers’ fan was singing the praises of getting an Urban Meyers’ disciple in then Ohio State co-defensive coordinator Chris Ash.


“Over the last 4
years, I’ve helped
Matt (Rhule) with
key decisions within
the program; philosophy
shifts at different times.”
_ Geoff Collins

A few of those same fans are singing a different tune about Ash now. Rutgers lost to Michigan, 78-0; Ohio State, 58-0 and Penn State, 38-0 (yes, the same Penn State team that beat Temple by a measly touchdown). The Scarlet Knights are coming off a 2-10 season and some people are questioning his game day coaching ability. Even the media has joined in as NJ.com called the loss to Michigan State “all on Chris Ash.”

The point being the 100 percent praise Ash received a year ago mollified considerably after watching the guy with the clipboard in his hands.


If those decisions
were to utilize
the fullback to
jump start an ailing
running game and ditch
the four wides and
go to a play-action
passing game, expect
Temple to head to
a NY6 bowl under Collins

Geoff Collins has received universal praise as Temple’s new hire, just like Ash did a year ago at Rutgers, so the question some fans might ask about Collins is “How do we know he won’t be a Chris Ash?”

You know, like another hot assistant, like UConn’s Bob Diaco—the national college football assistant coach of the year in 2012 with Notre Dame—who falls on his face as a head coach. Heck, we don’t know if Ash will join Diaco but a 2-10 first season with one of the wins over Howard doesn’t engender a lot of confidence among the North Jersey faithful. What they have learned in East Hartford and Piscataway is being the greatest assistant coach in the world does not automatically translate to being a great head coach. They are two different jobs and even Matt Rhule had a rocky first couple of years. For every assistant who turns into a great head coach like Rhule, there are 10 guys like Diaco who need to get fired. Head coaches who move from one place where they did well as a head coach to another have a higher rate of success. Those are the guys P5 schools can afford to hire.

As far as assistants go, the answer is we do not know, but the weight of the evidence is in Collins’ favor over Ash or Diaco.

goldenash

RU fans wanted Golden over Ash in this poll.

The truth is, with an assistant coach, you never know but there are a couple of things with Collins that give him a little more street cred than say, an Ash or a Diaco. One, the Temple program is in much better shape, player-wise, than the Rutgers or UConn. Two, no less of an authority on Temple football than Matt Rhule himself said the hire of Collins was a “home run” and, three, in two coaching stops along with way, Collins was Rhule’s boss, not the other way around. Rhule learned from Collins. Four, Collins was a coordinator, not a “co-coordinator” like Ash, so you know the Florida Mayhem defense was his production and there are no blurred lines on who contributed what. Collins already has been a coach at Temple of sorts over the last four years as “helped Matt with key decisions within the program” according to this interview.

If those decisions were to utilize the fullback to jump start an ailing running game and ditch the four wides and go to a play-action passing game, expect Temple to head to a NY6 bowl under Collins.

Now all Collins has to do is perform on game day and, from what he has done in the days leading up to his first one, all systems are go for a great liftoff.

01.03.17
by

Staff: Quality Over Speed

spouses

This helmet won seven-straight games between a black helmet loss and a white helmet one.

There is a long stretch of empty offices between the ones occupied by Ed Foley, the other two holdovers (Chris Wiesehan, Frisman Jackson) and head coach Geoff Collins at the Edberg-Olson Complex.

Already, Dave Patenaude has taken over the offensive coordinator’s office that Glenn Thomas used to occupy and the leading candidate to replace defensive coordinator Phil Snow is reportedly Florida defensive backs’ coach Torrian Gray. The only holdup seems to be Collins talking Gray into taking the job and the fact that Gray is a Lakeland (Fla.) native reluctant to leave. The process seems a little bit slower in comparison to past Temple head coaches (for instance, by this time in 2011, Steve Addazio had pilfered Chuck Heater and Scot Loeffler from the national champion Florida staff) but, hopefully, Collins is taking his time to sort through the 457 text messages he got asking him for a job.

spouse

If Geoff Collins recruits coaches and players like he recruits spouses, Owls should be in good shape.

If Randy Shannon, as expected, gets the Florida DC job, though, moving up to Temple DC would be a nice move for Gray. One monkey wrench Florida head coach Jim McElwain could throw in is to make Shannon and Gray co-coordinators, which means that Collins will have to look elsewhere.

If that’s the case, so far, so good because quality beats quantity every day of the week and Temple should not settle for less. These are much tougher decisions for Collins than, say, going with the Cherry helmet at the top of this post. That one should be a no-brainer.

Patenaude, the former offensive coordinator at Coastal Carolina, is known for a roughly equal distribution between rushing and passing yards there and that bodes well for the Owls to keep their play-action passing game which features a significant dose of fullback blocking.

Defense should also not be a concern because Collins was arguably the best defensive coordinator in college football last year and should have a significant say on that side of the football.

As far as Temple, Rhule seems to have raided virtually the entire staff. Even Rob Dvoracek, whose name has not been reported going to Dallas, even is joining Baylor. (I got that nugget from his mother at the Military Bowl.) Also joining Rhule is former Cardinal O’Hara running back Damiere Shaw, another guy who rose through the graduate assistant ranks. Another student assistant, Mike Wallace, is leaving to join Thomas, Rhule and Phil Snow.

When it comes to coaching staffs, only the G5 schools seem to get significantly raided by the P5 schools and not the other way around.

Still, Collins has enough coaching contacts scattered throughout the nation—even more than Rhule—to find a decent staff. He should be given the time to find the best.

Thursday: How Do We Know?

01.01.17
by

The Three Things

temperor

In order to improve Temple football, Geoff Collins will be talking about three things and they won’t be the Temperors (who we readily admit are people, not things).

When Collins recovers from both a well-deserved birthday and New Year’s Eve celebration (both on the same day), he will get to work on his next project as head coach of Temple University’s football team. That is,  to sit down with each of the 105 scholarship players in the program and ask them what the three things they most like about the program and the three things that can most be improved.

As a service to any players who feel potentially stumped by this exercise, we offer a Cliff Notes’ cheat sheet.

sharga

The 3 Most Likeable Things

1) Emphasis On Defense

Very much like Navy with the triple option, Temple has carved out a unique identity as a program. The Owls win by playing great defense, an emphasis on special teams and running the football. Defense does indeed win championships and Temple really is the only team that played defense in the AAC on a consistent basis. The Owls have finished in the top 10 in defenses four of the last six years and, in a league that has high-scoring teams but few that play defense, that identity sets them apart from the rest. That’s an identity that should be embraced with newfound Mayhem.

nick

2) Offense Plays Off Run

Helping out the defense was an emphasis on the running game, which controlled the clock and kept the defense fresh. Off the running game, the Owls were able to make explosive plays in the passing game by faking the ball into the belly of one their two 918-yard rushers (Ryquell Armstead, Jahad Thomas), bringing the linebackers and safeties up to the line of scrimmage and tossing the ball over the outstretched arms of those same defenders. It is a winning formula. The Owls should keep it.

3) Use Of The Fullback

Temple is one of the very few teams in the country that utilizes the fullback in the running game. While Nick Sharga is here, the Owls should use him leading the tailback on toss sweeps behind their best lineman to suppress the will of the opposition. In a 46-30 win over USF, Sharga led the way for Armstead to gain 200 yards and his blocking was so fierce he had the USF defensive backs running away from him to avoid contact in the second half. Reward him with a carry or two or three a game. He can knock over defenders just as well with the ball in his hands as without.

Three Improvements

1) Coaching Stability

This has to be the first thing on the minds of the kids, the bleeding of coaches out the door of the E-O what seems every couple of years now. While actions are more important than words, words are important now. Instead of saying things like “I love South Philly macaroni” or “I would sign a 15-year contract here if Bill would let me” try to be the one coach who sets himself apart from the rest. One way to do it is to say something like “I believe in the sanctity of contracts and I will be here for as long as my contract says” or to tell recruits “I will definitely be here when you graduate.” Then make those words your bond. Certainly beats saying “I deal in the here and now.”

springer

2)  Cherry and White Game

For years, the Cherry and White game has been played in the cramped confines of the practice facility. Now that the brand new soccer complex is available four blocks away, it should be moved there. The place seats significantly more people than the Edberg Olson complex and people will not have to be straining for a view of the game. USF plays spring football games at its soccer facility and Temple should do the same.

helmetgif

Hopefully, the Owls will wear the distinctive Cherry T .

3) Don’t Tempt Karma

There should be a uniform code on uniforms because that’s what the word means. Not the ones the Owls wear most of the time (Cherry helmets with the ‘][‘ with white or cherry tops), but the ones that bring nothing but bad luck. The Owls won seven-straight games wearing the distinctive Cherry helmets with the White ‘][‘ but then, for some reason, decided to wear white helmets in a 34-26 loss to Wake Forest. They wore black helmets in their previous loss, at Memphis. Whatever is done with the uniforms, ditch the White and Black helmets and go Cherry. We are the Cherry and White, not the White and Cherry or the Black and Cherry. The school is blessed with the best dominant color in all of sports. Let’s accentuate it and keep the helmet brand the same or at least keep the color of the helmets the same and spell out TEMPLE on the side.

Tuesday: The Staff