04.21.16
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Black Helmets and Dual Threats

Only Cherry and White helmets here and it should remain that way.

Somebody up there must not like black helmets on Temple football players.

What happened against USF—a 44-23 stunner—was just another reminder that nothing good happens when Temple football players wear black helmets. From the loss to Navy in 90-degree temperatures in 2014 and last year’s USF disaster and even some awful play against winless UCF, black helmets and Temple football do not mix. It’s just bad Karma. Temple is blessed with two great colors, Cherry and White, and the Owls should count those blessings. Counting to two should not be that hard.

Quinton Flowers, South Florida football,

Quinton Flowers

Putting the black helmets away should be the first thing on the 2016 Unfinished Business agenda, and the easiest. The next thing could be the biggest key: stopping dual-threat quarterbacks.

For all of the talk about position changes, recruiting and surprises coming out of Temple football’s 2016 spring camp, the real key for the Owls this season will be stopping Greg Ward and Quinton Flowers.

South Florida’s Flowers is on the regular-season home schedule and Houston’s Ward could play against the Owls in the AAC championship game and they better devise a method for stopping them or their expectations of a great season could be dashed. Quite likely, the Owls will have to beat Flowers to get to Ward, so today is not too early to devising a plan to stop one to get to the other.

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Flowers posted 320 total yards, passing for 230 and running for 90 with three total TDs (two passing, one rushing) in the Bulls’ 44-23 win over Temple in November. Those numbers were unacceptable because the Owls insisted on playing their base defense against Flowers with no tweaks designed to slow him down. That was pretty much their approach in two other losses to dual-threat quarterbacks. The Owls lost four games a year ago and three of them were to dual-threat quarterbacks—Flowers, Ward and Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer. The other loss was to a conventional drop back quarterback with functional mobility, Toledo’s Phillip Ely.

So what happens in the defensive war room at the team’s practice facility between now and the start of the season is just as important as any personnel developments along the way. Defensive coordinator Phil Snow could have tipped his hand this spring that help is on the way when he moved his best cornerback, Sean Chandler, to safety. Having the speedy and sure-tackling Chandler spy Flowers could cause USF problems because Flowers won’t have the time to see the field and make plays.

At least that should be the plan. Executing it will go a long way toward unlocking a great season for Temple.

Saturday: Opponents Spring Games

Monday: 5 Temple Players Who Will Be Drafted

Wednesday: One Play Away

Friday: Millennials and Dust Devils

04.19.16
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5 Things Learned From Spring Practice

Connecticut v Temple

Sharif Finch #56, Tavon Young #1, Jahad Thomas #5, and Dion Dawkins #66 of the Temple Owls celebrate with the American Conference East Division trophy. Most of the guys in this photo return.  (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

The outside perception of Temple football is that the Owls lost so much senior leadership that they cannot possibly repeat as AAC East champions, let alone contend for the title.

Temple fans know differently, though, because the tradition of single-digit numbers dictates the Owls have plenty of battle-tested leadership returning. Teammates vote single digits to the nine toughest players on the team and five of those single-digit players from last year are returning this season. That’s a solid enough foundation of both leadership and toughness returning for the Owls to make a significant run at the overall title.

Other than the bombshell of three-year starting receiver Romond Deloatch being switched to defense, the Owls had a number of surprising developments coming out of the annual Cherry and White game on Saturday. These five stood out most for head coach Matt Rhule’s team.

Connecticut v Temple

(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

5. Jahad Thomas Could Be Switched To Slot

Thomas was named first-team All-AAC tailback with 17 rushing touchdowns and 1,287 rushing yards, but all six of his 100-yard games were in the first half of the season. To maximize his game-breaking talent and preserve his body, Rhule said Thomas could be split out and used as a slot receiver.

Temple v SMU

(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

4. Ryquell Armstead Leads Tailback War

The war for starting tailback appears to be won by sophomore Ryquell Armstead, whose experience as a high school track star—he ran a New Jersey state-best 10.8 in the 100 meters as a senior—makes him a home run threat. Do not sell another sophomore, Jager Gardner, short. Against SMU, Gardner had the longest run from scrimmage, a 96-yard touchdown, in Temple history.

AAC Championship - Temple v Houston

(Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

3. Sean Chandler Moves To Safety

Only two players in the nation had multiple interception returns for touchdowns and one was Temple cornerback Sean Chandler. With the emergence of four-star recruit Kareem Ali Jr. at one corner, Chandler could take those break-on-the-ball instincts to the middle of the field and play safety.

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2. Linebackers Strength Of Defense

While Temple opponents can be comforted by the fact that All-American linebacker Tyler Matakevich has graduated, Temple fans know the real deal is that three starting linebackers—Avery Williams (2), Jarred Alwan (41) and Stephaun Marshall (6)—return with a total of 40 starts under their belts. “Our chemistry was ridiculous (in spring practice),” Alwan said. That meant ridiculously good, not ridiculously bad.

AAC Championship - Temple v Houston

  (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

  1. QB P.J. Walker Is Difference-Maker

While the focus is on Houston quarterback Greg Ward and USF quarterback Quenton Flowers, P.J. Walker could be the conference’s best quarterback this season. If he makes the same jump from junior to senior year as he did from sophomore to junior season, the Owls could take home the AAC title. Walker jumped from 13 touchdown passes and 15 interceptions as a sophomore to a 19 and eight as a junior. A similar jump should mean a title.

Thursday: Real Key To Season

04.17.16
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Deloatch Could Make Impact At Defensive End

Matt Rhule hits on some key points postgame.

The hard numbers coming out of Saturday’s Cherry and White Game were three touchdown passes by P.J. Walker in the White’s 35-25win over the Cherry.

That’s important, because Walker is going to have a big year and the Owls are going to crush Army and Stony Brook in their first two games. With a four-year starter like Walker at quarterback, I also like their chances against anybody Penn State uses at quarterback in the third, which leads us to the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey likes to say).

Putting pressure on that PSU quarterback is going be more important and a guy like Romond Deloatch could hold that key.

Romond Deloatch, Temple football,

When we last saw Romond Deloatch, he was walking off the field in disgust following the Toledo game.

Three years ago, Matt Rhule dipped into Charlie Strong’s playbook when he decided to discipline wide receiver Romond Deloatch for missing a team meeting. As a punishment, Rhule put Deloatch on defense.

The only punishing done that day, though, was by Deloatch, who had what is believed to be a team-high seven sacks in a scrimmage. The move was reminiscent of Strong, then the Louisville head coach, who punished a quarterback named Marcus Smith by putting him at defensive end in a practice four years ago.

sked

The difference, though, was Strong kept Smith at end and he became a first-round draft choice of the Philadelphia Eagles.  Rhule, having made his point, put Deloatch back at starting wide receiver for Temple. Rhule and the defensive coaches filed away that sophomore performance and now Deloatch is back at defensive end in Saturday’s annual spring game. Quarterback P.J. Walker’s White team beat Deloatch’s Cherry team, 35-25, but the score in these games are never has important as the personnel moves and Deloatch’s is certainly one of the most unusual in Temple history.

At times, Deloatch appeared unblockable, but because the quarterback was not “live” there were no stats kept on sacks. Like Smith, though, Deloatch’s long arms, leaping ability, first step to the quarterback and lean frame (6-foot-4, 220 pounds), make him an intriguing weapon at defensive end. At the very least, the experiment will continue into the fall and Deloatch could be a specialty pass rusher in third-and-long situations. Either way, if Deloatch is able to disrupt things there are a whole lot of talented guys on that DL that can contribute to collapsing the pocket, too.

If he gets seven sacks in the opener against Army, and seven more against Stony Brook, the PSU quarterback—whoever he is—might be wise to take out an insurance policy.

Tuesday: 5 Things We’ve Learned This Spring

Thursday: The Real Key to the Season

Saturday: Opponents Spring Games

04.15.16
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Cherry and White: A Day For Good Guys

My favorite answer here comes at the 10:35 time stamp.

Full disclosure: I hate the Cherry and White game, but love Cherry and White Day.

I always have felt the same way about the game, because the Cherry and White game pits the Good Guys vs. the Good Guys. If, say, Marshall Ellick beats Nate Hairston on a fly pattern for six, half of me is high-fiving, but the other half is not returning the high five. The reasoning is simple. Half of me thinks we’re going to have a great vertical passing game and the other half is concerned about replacing Tavon Young at a corner.

If our defensive line gets 10 sacks, I’m worried about our offensive line. If Jager Gardner, Ryquell Armstead and Jahad Thomas gain 300 yards against the defense, I’m just as worried about the defensive line as I am excited about the offensive line.

stadiumnew

Work, in  a manner of speaking, already being done on new stadium site.

And on and on …

You get the idea.

There are really no winners and losers when the good guys play the good guys. To really get a feel for how the Owls will be this summer, we will all have to wait until the Army game. Or Stony Brook. Even then, it might be too early because

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Field samples taken earlier this week.

Penn State should be the telling game.

For the first 10 or so Cherry and White games, I left Geasey Field or Temple Stadium or Ambler thinking the Owls would go unbeaten. It’s the last 30  years or so I’ve discovered the real truth. You cannot tell anything from the game itself.

The day, though, is another story. It’s a chance for Temple fans to get together again and that is  where the real victory is. There is no better place to pick up Temple “stuff” than Cherry and White Day, so bring cash.

kid

Just what is this guy’s problem?

This year, with a new stadium on the horizon, there should be a palpable excitement among those fans knowing this is one of the last two or three games on the East side of campus. With that in mind, it would be nice to see a drawing depicting two things: 1) What the stadium will look like; 2) Will it be North-South or East-West? Fifty percent of the people swear up and down on a stack of bibles that the stadium will be East-West, while another 50 percent will swear that it is North-South. Me? I would like for it to be North-South (better view of Center City), but the land configuration dictates East-West.

Other than that, as Jose from Norristown might say, I would like to see a donation jar to purchase former Owl kicker Wes Sornisky his own grave stone (he is buried anonymously in a Potter’s Field in Delaware after dying alone in a fire),  a folding chair in Doc Chodoff’s name to given to a loyal fan and the revival of the Mark Bresani Spirit Award given to the most spirited player of the spring.

Maybe not this year, but certainly in the future.

Sunday: General Cherry and White Thoughts

04.13.16
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Practice Concerns

 

P.J. Walker is ready for a big senior year in 2016.  Interesting that Adam DiMichele (background) is never far away.

So far, I haven’t seen the word “ameliorate” as a word of the day at the end of the Bill O’Reilly show, but it is a good word as any to describe how the Temple football practices have evolved this spring.

The definition of the word is “to make or become better, more bearable, or more satisfactory” and, since head coach Matt Rhule has not canceled any practices in the last two weeks, the trend has to be interpreted that, in his mind, things have gotten more satisfactory.

cherryweather

Weather could not be better.

Rhule canceled practice a couple of week ago citing concerns about both senior leadership and the speed the redshirt freshman were learning the system.  Since Rhule the football CEO, we fans—the shareholders—should have been concerned that he had practice concerns. Since those concerns have “ameliorated” we have less to worry about.

The senior leadership has gotten markedly better and hopefully they will show the red shirt freshmen the way.

There is not much about this team I worry about. I think it is a double-digit win team but that doesn’t mean it is perfect. A little more girth in the middle of the defensive line would help. Not all that concerned about the linebackers, safeties or corners.

On offense, I have confidence in the line as tackle Dion Dawkins is the next NFL draft choice and Brendan McGowan has proven to be a capable replacement for Kyle Friend and there is a whole lot of talent battling for the remaining spots.

The running backs are deep and talented and I have a gut feeling that Jager Gardner is a future star.

In the passing game, I would like to see P.J. Walker able to fake it into the line, sucker up the LBs and safeties to the line of scrimmage, and float a long ball in stride for six. I haven’t seen that since Jalen Fitzpatrick (UConn, Penn State) in 2014. Maybe Cortrelle Simpson is that guy; maybe it’s Marshall Ellick. I was somewhat surprised Robby Anderson ran a track 4.37 on pro day, because he didn’t show it on the field last year. Maybe a guy like Ellick, who runs a track 4.5, runs a football 4.37.

On special teams, would be nice to see a Delano Green, a guy who can flip the field position all by himself, and fewer fair catches. Maybe, out of Sean Chandler, Simpson and Kareem Ali, one guy will emerge.

Either way, since it snowed last Saturday and will be 70 and sunny this Saturday, any other concerns have been, well, ameliorated.

Friday: Good Guys vs. Good Guys

04.11.16
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First Game Week Of Season

cherryandwhite

When you roughly have only a dozen games per season (and hopefully a couple more this one), it is more than OK to count the Cherry and White Game as one.

It is and it isn’t.

The great Paul Palmer—in my mind, the greatest Temple football player of my lifetime—messaged me a couple of days ago and said he did not play in a single Cherry and White game, so take this game for what little it is worth.

The actual game itself is not as important as getting Temple fans together. In my mind, Temple fans are the greatest fans in the country. You know, the few, the proud, the Marines? That’s Temple fans. It takes a leather neck and a leather heart to be one as I have been for nearly 40 years now. It’s easy to be a fan of Alabama. That team goes to a bowl every year. Try being a fan of a team which wins a bowl once every 32 years.

That’s hard.

So getting together with the guys who have been through these wars will be a special reunion. It is never near the absolute heroes who were getting shot at on Wake Island or Iwo Jima, but the verbal insults hurled by Fordham fans (“Temple sucks”) hurt in their own small way nonetheless.

I will admit that the Temple sucks from lowly Fordham probably was the low point.

Temple doesn’t suck anymore and let’s keep it that way.

If anything, Cherry and White represents hope for the future and the one game where there is a metaphysical certainly that no one will yell “Temple sucks” after it is over.

Wednesday: Practice Concerns

04.09.16
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Who Is Marshall Ellick?

 

Evidently, Marshall was a QB in high school but catches some passes at the 3-minute mark.

Every morning the local Allentown television station, WFMZ, throws a question in with its weather report and the one Tuesday morning was: Philadelphia is a one-day drive from what percent of the United States’ population?

ellick

Marshall Ellick last year.

The answer was 40 percent and the weather guy, Matt Broderick, made clear he did not mean one of those kind of 18-hour drives where you have to stick toothpicks in your eyes to keep from driving off the road, just a leisurely eight-hour or less one. It is one of those reasons Temple is in a prime position to be a football power, so close to so much talent and located in a transportation hub and world-class city like Philadelphia.

With so much of the population so close, it goes to figure that Temple will get its share of not only top talent inside that circle, but guys who are overlooked.

Redshirt sophomore Marshall Ellick might be one of those guys.

The same day Philadelphia was the answer to a trivia question on TV, Temple football head coach Matt Rhule noted that one of those guys within that drive, Marshall Ellick, from Richmond, Va., came out of nowhere to be a candidate for a starting wide receiver job.

Marshall Ellick?

There are not very many things that surprise me about Temple football, but I have to admit Marshall Ellick’s name being a candidate to start at wide receiver is one of the biggest camp surprises in recent years. According to the participation charts, Ellick, who wears No. 84 now (and wore No. 14 in last year’s spring game and No. 24 last fall), was in a few games on special teams and caught no passes.

This was surprising not just because of Ellick’s lack of recent playing time, but because there are so many other guys who apparently have a head start on him. Guys like Ventell Bryant, Romond Deloatch and Cortrelle Simpson.

He is 6-2, 205, ran a 4.5-40 in high school (maybe he’s faster now) and is a walk-on who has a chance, some say very good, to start. As far as stories go this spring, it’s hard to beat that and just a reminder to print out a program before you leave the house on April 16.

Monday: First Game Week of 2016

Wednesday: Practice Concerns

Friday: Good Guys vs. Good Guys

Sunday (4/17): Post C and W Thoughts

Tuesday: Only a Play Away

04.07.16
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5 Questions That Need To Be Answered

 

Jahad Thomas looks good catching the ball.

After every spring practice, Temple head football coach Matt Rhule gets approached by reporters asking him a battery of questions. They are usually informative ones, like listing the injured and the players who look good so far. You know Pravda is going in there lobbing up softballs, and that’s been their modus operandi since Rhule was hired in 2012 so that is probably not going to change. On the other hand, Temple video person Morgyn Seigfried needs to be given props for asking some of the best questions that can be seen every day on the Temple video site. Still, there have been a number of tough questions that have not been asked and need to be answered, so hopefully Seigfried or someone like Marc Narducci will get around to asking these five before the April 16 spring game.

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Look at the Temple fans in Houston.

  1. Will The ‘Dog Stare Offense’ Be Scrapped?

In the 24-13 loss at Houston in the AAC championship game, the Owls wasted 20-25 seconds on every play looking over to the sidelines for a call in the fourth quarter. Down 11 points with 7:18 left, the Owls needed to conserve every second of time but they instead gave a clinic on how to waste it. How is this problem being addressed?

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Ryquell Armstead.

  1. What Is Up With The Run Game?

The Owls have added former offensive coordinator George DeLeone as their “run game” coordinator, the first-ever coach in the program to be designated as such. Why did Rhule feel the need to hire a run game coordinator and how does he mesh with new OC Glenn Thomas?

 

  1. What Is The Plan For Karamo Dioubate?

On the day Temple got a signature from incoming four-star defensive lineman Karamo Dioubate, he was offered by Alabama. Is the plan to play Dioubate inside, where he is needed, or outside, where there is an overabundance of talent?

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Jahad  Thomas

  1. Will Greg Webb Be Eligible?

Greg Webb, a four-star defensive tackle who originally signed at North Carolina, and could not academically qualify there or at Temple last year. Will he be eligible to play in the fall? If so, he is an immediate impact starter and could lessen the blow of losing Matt Ioannidis.

 

  1. Could Jahad Thomas Be Moved?

It’s no secret explosive running back Jahad Thomas, who is only 5-10, 170, wore down at the end of last season. Of his six 100-yard games, four were in the first seven games. Is there any possibility of moving Thomas to the slot and making room for Ryquell Armstead at running back?

Saturday: Who Is Marshall Ellick?

04.05.16
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Stadium Funding: The Other 99 Percent

sanders

Bernie Sanders’ HQ are inside the doors at the corner of 10th and Diamond.

When it comes to funding the new stadium, Temple University has done relatively well with the 1 percent, getting roughly $26 million from donors who rate near the top one percent of wage earners who currently are alumni.

It’s the other 99 percent that have not been mined yet, so the inspiration for that might be literally across the street from Temple football’s current headquarters.

Without getting into the specifics of politics, Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders—who is speaking at the Liacouras Center on Wednesday night–has opened his Pennsylvania North Philadelphia campaign headquarters at 1000 Diamond Street, directly across the street from the Edberg-Olson complex. If the stadium fund-raisers take a page from Bernie’s fund-raising book, here is what they could do to grab the remaining private funding:

Set up a GoFundMe account and email every single Temple grad. The pitch could be something like this: “We’ve raised several seven-figure donations, but we want every Temple grad to feel like they are a part of this so, like Bernie, we are asking for $27 from each of you. Twenty-seven dollars, not 1 million or even $100,000. We want to start a stadium funding revolution.”

Link the GoFundMe site through the university’s main site and away we go.

Hopefully, the Temple fans respond a little better than they did with the private GoFundMe site for Matt Rhule’s Jetpack which was put up after the Penn State game and has raised $0 dollars so far.

That site was supposed to be a joke, but a similar site for a stadium could be genius.

Thursday: 5 Questions That Need To Be Asked

04.03.16
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First Scrimmage: ‘We’re Not Very Good’

 

Sometimes you have to read between the lines when you listen to some of these early football interviews.

The biggest takeaway from the first scrimmage interview with Temple head coach Matt Rhule—which Morgyn Siegfried does very well—is that “we’re not a very good football team right now.”

Taken on its face value, that’s not good.unfinished

Listen more, though, and Rhule will say that Jahad Thomas didn’t play and Jager Gardner was banged up, but Ryquell Armstead was healthy and making plays all over the place. Those three guys are the keys to making the run game work and it takes just one to make it work. If the run game works, then the rest of the offense works because P.J. Walker’s fakes into the belly of any running back make passing plays much more effective.

 

If the run game is working, then Walker’s fakes to, say, Jager Gardner, bring the linebackers and the safeties closer to the line of scrimmage and the seams in the passing game become that much more open for guys like Adonis Jennings, Ventell Bryant, Cortrelle Simpson, Romond Deloatch, Kip Patton and Colin Thompson. If Jahad is still banged up, more reason to split him out and make him an explosive stretch-the-field receiver where he will be less banged up. It’s not like the Owls are thin on game-breaking running backs.

Small gains in the run game lead to explosive plays in the passing game.

Then, listen to the defensive coaches interview and a whole different viewpoint emerges. “Our chemistry is ridiculous,” was one comment Jared Alwan made of the linebackers and he meant ridiculously good, not ridiculously bad.

The truth is somewhere in between “we’re not a very good football team right now” and “we’re going to be very good by April 16.”

And, hopefully, better by September. It’s all coachspeak right now until then. In my mind, this is a 10-11 win team and nothing anyone says other than an injury to Walker changes that paradigm.

Tuesday: Temple’s 99 percent

Thursday: 5 Questions That Need To Be Asked