02.21.16
by

A Stadium David Jones Can Be Proud Of

plans

Imagine in say, 10 years, an impartial visiting fan who happens to be one of the best sports writers in America writes this of the new Temple Football Stadium which, for purposes here, we will just call The Apollo:

“It simply is the best place in the region to watch a game. I’ve been going there since it opened a couple of years ago and it is … bright, warm, inviting and fun. Concession food is decent, booths adequately staffed. Above all, the student section is tremendous—full of energy and volume and ritual gags … marketing directors can’t prefabricate this sort of fun. It’s organic and spontaneous and precisely why college sports are awesome. This venue is stigmatized by outdated fear of North Philly and shouldn’t be. The best place to watch a game in Pennsylvania.”

owlet

Imagine this view of Center City.

A great writer did pen those wonderful words about an on-campus sports facility and it was long-time Penn State football beat writer Dave Jones of the Harrisburg Patriot-News. He was writing about the current Liacouras Center.

The point here is that Temple got this on-campus basketball facility right 20 years ago and, if Jones can give the same glowing report of this Apollo that he can of that Apollo then Temple will have gotten this stadium right. In that story, published exactly five years ago (Feb. 20, 2011), Jones ranked it the top basketball venue by far in the state, ahead of Pitt’s Petersen Events Center (third) and well ahead of Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Arena (dead last). Of that cavernous place, Jones wrote: “If it weren’t for the small, hard-core, following of students, this place would be a $55 million Bingo Hall. Often, it is anyway.” Jones added: “Everyone has his opinion and they are all valid. (Except only mine is correct.).” Having been to all those places, too, I can vouch his opinion is correct. The LC is a wonderful state-of-the-art facility that Temple got right.

Temple must get this football one right or it will risk building a half-assed facility like Tulane’s, which is a Bingo Hall. If the Owls build something like Houston’s, they will have done it right.

Then, in 2026, Jones can write something like this: “The chairs, with Cherry seatbacks, are roomy and comfortable and the school was really ahead of the technology curve by installing two large 3-D video screens beyond both end zones. Those screens are the envy of Eagles’ fans, whose mere HDTV screens look like a 1950s black-and-white TV in comparison. The view of Center City through the open south end zone is breathtaking. Putting the 15,000 students opposite the 15,000 alumni from enhances the home field advantage and the nearly fully enclosed stadium captures the sound as much as it escapes from the Linc. Often, opposing quarterbacks have to use hand signals because the noise is so loud. The best place to watch a football game in Pennsylvania.”

There you have it. Temple spent $1 million for a feasibility study but the advice in the above paragraph comes for free and should be forwarded to the architect as an outline. If the Owls build a stadium Davey Jones can be proud of, they will build one which we can all be. They might have to spend a little more than $126 million but it will be worth it.

Anything less, and they can use it for Friday night bingo.

 

02.19.16
by

An Early Selection Wednesday For Temple

crowd

Temple’s crowd Wednesday was its biggest football recruiting tool.

Selection Sunday is 3 ½ weeks away, but the first Selection Wednesday in a long time for Temple football was just concluded and, by all optics, the 20 or so recruits had to be impressed by what they saw.

If any of those recruits were going to make their decision to attend Temple based on the Owls beating the No. 1 team in the country, then Matt Rhule is out of luck. Fortunately, these kids are smart enough to realize that Matt does not control what happens on the basketball court.

amy

Brandon McManus gets some TU love.

The recruits included, but were not limited to, guys like Donald Glenn, Tayon Fleet-Davis, Kenny Pickett, Tommy DeVito, Devin Miller, Mike Tverdov and Brandon Outlaw. DeVito and Outlaw are interesting names. DeVito is the quarterback at Don Bosco Prep, the same place where current backup Frank Nutile went to school. (The Owls also had a quarterback named Mac DeVito in the Pre-Al Golden Era, but we have not been able to establish a relationship between the two. Logically, there might be because Mac DeVito was, like Golden, from nearby Colts Neck, N.J.)  Outlaw is one of the fastest high school sprinters on the East Coast (100- and 200-meters, who plays football in Moorestown, N.J. He has played both running back and wide receiver.He has good bloodlines, as his father, Bufus “Bucky” Outlaw, was a great running back for Southern (better known as South Philly) High in 1977 . Bucky, a Howard University grad, is now a Center City CEO. Fleet-Davis, besides having the greatest last name for any running back in history, is from the same town as former Temple running back Sheldon Morris (Oxon Hill, Md.) and went to the rival high school as THE greatest running back in Temple history, Paul Palmer. Fleet-Davis attends Potomac High, while Palmer went to Winston Churchill High, also in Potomac.

All of these guys saw the campus, if not the basketball team, at its best on Wednesday night.

My guess is the total university experience is much more important for Temple football recruits and, on all of those accounts, the Owls came out on top. The place was packed, the students were vibrant, the place was electric. A Temple football player who won a Super Bowl earlier this month, Brandon McManus, got a prolonged standing ovation from a packed house. The recruits got a taste of the same type of love that could be coming their way in five years.

Everything electric about this game was there and, from one important standpoint, it was a better night for the Owls than Notre Dame in football because the fans were all Temple. The only things bad about ND was the loss and the that the Owls had 100 recruits there that night and no commitments the next day. Maybe had they won, they would have had a handful but we will never know.

Had the Owls capped the night off with a win and, say, closed down Broad Street, the recruits could have gotten even more fresh made juice from the experience. Hopefully, the taste of concentrated juice they had was sweet enough.

02.17.16
by

Experience Best Teacher

coaches

When you follow Temple football as much as I do, you inevitably interact with Temple football coaches on rare occasions.

Every signing day during Al Golden’s tenure, he was always gracious enough to take the time to talk to me about a question or two I might have had or share to me his general philosophy about the program.

I liked Al very much, but that did not stop me from criticizing some of his gameday coaching.

When I ran into Steve Addazio at a New York City alumni meeting (I was in NYC that day to audition for the Who Wants to  Be a Millionaire Show), he went into a long story about why he was about to kick Matty Brown off the team because “I’ve had about enough of his shit.” The former Temple players who were standing and talking to Daz with me, Russ and Tom, then explained to Daz that I was the “Temple Football Forever” guy and then Daz begged me to keep that story quiet.

I did, because it was off the record.

promotions

TU promotions: Interesting there is an assistant and an associate HC.

Matty never did get kicked off the team, had a great senior season, and I had another great Temple football coaching story that could be told beyond the statue of limitations.

When another Matt, Rhule, got the Temple head coaching job, I dashed off an email that day wishing him luck. Much to my surprise, he then called me and we had a wonderful 35-minute discussion about everything from future assistants to helmets. I liked Matt Rhule just as much as Al Golden, but that like did not stop me from criticizing some of his gameday coaching. (If  he coached as brilliantly as Wayne Hardin did during a 13-year career, he would have been above criticism but he  did not and was not.) At the time, I casually mentioned to Matt that I had Bruce Arians‘ cell phone number, Matt asked me for it, I gave it to him, and it gives me great satisfaction that those two Temple coaches keep in touch from time to time. At the UConn post-game in 2012, I found myself standing next to another great guy and great Temple coach,  Chuck Heater, by the team bus. “You are a genius, Chuck,” I told him for shutting out the Huskies in the second half. “It’s the boys, Mike,” Chuck said.

Yeah, the boys and the best kicker in the country, Brandon McManus.

That brings us to today’s coaching promotions and I feel this is a very good day for Matt Rhule and Temple football because George DeLeone got a position of importance (OL coach, run game coordinator).

I’ve always felt the more grizzled guys a young coach has, the better the staff. Phil Snow has proved that on the defensive end and I think George will be the same kind of guy on the offensive end.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a George story to tell. At the UConn game in 2012, the UConn team was leaving a pre-game meeting at the UConn hotel (where my fellow Owl fan and friend Phil and I were staying) and we saw George , then the Huskies’ OC, on the way out. He recognized us (we think from signing days), nodded, and we went into the meeting room and came away with a UConn offensive playbook that was left behind. It was beautiful, blue, in a binder, and filled with every UConn play.

I won’t say what happened to the playbook, but Temple shut out UConn in the second half on the way to a 17-14 OT win.

Moral of the story is keep a closer eye on those Temple playbooks this season but otherwise to thank goodness George DeLeone is on our side again.

02.15.16
by

Dr. Kraft Talks Football On 97.5

smsc

Somewhere between 1 and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Temple athletic director Dr. Pat Kraft made the walk across the street to join a radio program that was being broadcast live from inside the Liacouras Center with hosts Etyan Shander and Geoff Mosher.
There were probably only a handful of people inside the arena to listen and only marginally more driving in their cars, but anytime Kraft speaks it is worth a listen. Too bad the station has not made a podcast of it (probably because he did not mention the Philadelphia Eagles) or we would link it here, but we were taking notes.

    • Here are some bullet points:

On Changing Conference Scenarios: Without specifically addressing the question, Kraft quoted, of all people, Steve Martin. “It’s like Steve Martin says: Be so good that people can’t help but notice you. We were so good in football this past year that people couldn’t help but notice us. Look at our women’s basketball game today. We were playing the No. 1 team in the country (UConn) and giving them all they can handle. We were eight points down when I left (he did not say if it was 8-0). In men’s basketball, I was telling people to take a deep breath and wait this season out and we would be good and that’s turned out to be the case. People are noticing us there, too. The other things take care of themselves.”

    • On the Stadium: “Yeah, it’s something that I think we need. My biggest point is that soon we will be having around 15,000 students on campus and those 15,000 students should be able to have the same experience students at other schools have and not have to be bused to home games.”
    • On the protests to the stadium: When Mosher said he was surprised at some of the protests, Kraft said: “I wasn’t. Look, this is a long process and we’re going to work with the community over their concerns. When they express concerns about any other specific issue related to the stadium, we’re going to ask them what they want us to do to address these specific issues. It’s going to be a give-and-take and we’re going to do our best clear all those issues up before we proceed.”
    • On the immediate future of football: “Guys, we really haven’t reached our peak. We’re not done yet. Matt (Rhule) has brought in a tremendous recruiting class and we’re just going to get better next year and the year after that.”

Unfortunately, Shander and Mosher did not ask Kraft if there was any progress on getting out of the Stony Brook contract so the Owls can lay a spanking on a FBS foe instead but, to be fair, Shander and Mosher probably do not even know Stony Brook is on the schedule.

02.14.16
by

Temple Better Be Paying Attention

Cincinnati Enquirer blows cover off Bearcats' Big 12 bid.

Cincinnati Enquirer blows cover off Bearcats’ Big 12 bid.

Since it was too cold to go outside on Saturday, time is never wasted watching ESPN 30 for 30 episodes of the award-winning series. The Saturday one featuring the Big East particularly pertained to Temple.

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino hit the nail on the head when he said: “In all of those Big East meetings, everybody was swearing unity and allegiance to the Big East and the minute they were over, all of the athletic directors were on the phone trying to make deals with another conference.”

It is with that backdrop that Temple should be concerned with the Cincinnati Enquirer’s report today that the President of that university was in active talks with the Big 12 to get his team out of the American Athletic Conference (AAC).

Temple should be paying attention because, if it was not obvious before, it is every man (school) for himself and without Cincy and UConn, Temple could one day wake up and find itself in nothing more prestigious than Conference USA.

The Oklahoma President says that it is all about TV and, if so, Temple—not Cincy—holds the ace in this deck of cards and that’s something Neil D. Theobald and Pat Kraft should be hammering home. Temple should be looking out for Temple, period.

From the Enquirer’s report, it is clear that Cincy is taking that approach.

02.12.16
by

Another Stadium Misconception

tailgates

The four lots that will no doubt be open for tailgating on game days.

 

talegate

On the list of important issues surrounding the proposed on-campus Temple Stadium, tailgating is about ninth down the list.

Above it are other gauntlet runs like Philadelphia City Council, The Mayor, “The Community” (who knows who represents them, really), the media (an anti-stadium column by Stu Bykofsky appeared recently and Temple haters like David Murphy, Mike Sielski and  Angelo Cataldi, among others, have yet to recently check in) and the unions.

Other than that, it’s smooth sailing to a 2019 opener.



My guess if this
thing is ever built,
it will open closer
to 2021 than 2019,
but the administrators
from Indiana who now
run Temple and never
faced any Philly-like
blowback in Bloomington
will be shocked
soon enough

My guess if this thing is ever built, it will open closer to 2021 than 2019, but the administrators from Indiana who now run Temple and never faced any Philly-like blowback in Bloomington will be shocked soon enough. It will then be up to them to throw in the towel or grind away.

Meanwhile, onto the ninth more pressing issue but one that can be debunked here and now:

“There won’t be any place to tailgate.”

I can personally debunk that because I’ve taken the SEPTA regional rail from Fox Chase to games over the last few years. Since the regional rail doesn’t go from Fox Chase (or anywhere else, really) to Lincoln Financial Field, I’ve made it a point to get off at the Temple University stop and cut through several parking lots and the Bell Tower before making it to the Broad and Columbia (OK, community, Cecil B. Moore) subway station and the 15-minute ride to LFF.

SEPTA_Regional_Rail_map

SEPTA Regional Rail funnels over 100,000 people into Center City every day and has a stop right on the Temple campus.

I can report that all four of those lots (above graphic) were empty or near empty on every single gameday Saturday. That’s where the tailgates will be held.

Lot 1, the McGonigle Hall lot, probably will go to Owl Club members or highest bidders. The other four will probably be first-come, first-serve lots.

The students, who take a large part of Lot K now, will move their tailgates to the Bell Tower and the two walks, named after two guys best known for where the basketball arena is, Peter Liacouras and Dan Polett. Liacouras, because it is named after him, and Polett, whose Wilke-Buick dealership was where the LC stands today.

So the tailgating situation comes under the category of no worries.

The other stuff, I have my doubts.

02.10.16
by

AAC Needs To Step Up Its Game

aaceast

Every night a certain political commentary program ends its night with a Tip of The Day. Forget the fact that the “tip” isn’t really a tip but a closing thought by the anchor, but, after getting a good look at the AAC composite schedule (above) a tip is in order:

The AAC, if it is going to be a serious conference, needs to step up its game. It is not going to happen this year and, because of the way schedules are made years in advance, it may not even happen next year. But it needs to happen.

The South Carolina States, Tennessee-Martins, Towsons and, yes, even Stony Brooks have to be removed from the schedules, the sooner the better. It’s not like the AAC is a Power 5 conference and the in-conference games are not sooooo tough that the league’s members need to bake cupcakes for the early portion of their schedules.

The AAC needs to do what it did last year—play the ACC seven times and beat them four times in the regular season. That’s the way a conference builds a strong reputation, not beating up on the Tennessee-Martins of the world. Yet that’s the team Cincinnati opens with on Sept. 3.

Other head-scratching games opening week include South Carolina State at UCF, Maine at UConn, West Carolina at East Carolina and South Florida hosting Towson. Those could have been scheduled against P5 teams and the AAC needs to schedule those games and win them. (Yet, UConn deserves a lot of credit for scheduling three ACC opponents.)

Temple could set an example in the process by dumping the Stony Brook game (9/9). It would take some work by Dr. Pat Kraft, but it would be worth it. Have Stony Brook play Howard that day, then offer to go on the road to Rutgers, which is scheduled to play Howard that day. Rutgers is just arrogant enough to think it could beat Temple and, from Temple’s perspective, the game offers P.J. Walker and Jahad Thomas—among others—a final chance to win there. It would also wipe out the bad taste of 2013 and give the Owls a chance for consecutive wins over Big 10 teams. It’s worth picking up a phone, making calls to Stony Brook, Howard and Rutgers and making this happen.

That’s the way a G5 conference builds a reputation, not by playing cupcakes but by seeking out the power schools and beating them. That’s how John Chaney built Temple into a national basketball power and lifted up the A10 in the process. Temple football can do the same for the G5.

02.09.16
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Ignorance And The Stadium

owland

Because Temple is an educational institution, I do not expect President Neil D. Theobald or Temple University to give up educating some very misinformed individuals on the subject of a proposed new on-campus football stadium.

I do, however, understand how difficult this must be for men of their intelligence.  Now I have serious doubts that this will ever get built because of Temple’s history of having been through this with the on-campus basketball facility. Peter J. Liacouras did not get that built until he threatened to move the entire campus to Ambler, but I don’t think Theobald has the chops or permissions to make a similar threat. The extortion demands from the city and community for this are going to make that robbery look like a simple pickpocket.

That holdup aside, it seems, to me, that there are two important issues here.

One is represented by Anna in this video.

This very naïve person needs a simple economics lesson: “Temple is telling us they can’t afford $15 an hour and now all of a sudden they have $100 million for a stadium.” The $100 million is from moving the LFF money and private donations. Try going to a big donor and saying, “Err, doc, change of plans. No stadium, but can we use your $3 million contribution to raise Temple workers to $15 an hour?” Somewhat surprised Doug Shimell lets these statements to unchallenged. Maybe Jesse Watters of The O’Reilly Factor should be doing these interviews, not a local freelance hack like Shimell.

memory.JPG

The second issue is a similar one, but slightly different. I read about 85 comments after the proposed stadium story and I cannot believe how dense people can be.

Many of them write Temple can spend the $100 million earmarked for the stadium on academics. The only reason that anywhere close to $100 million will be raised (as well at the current LFF rent) is for football. These are donors who can do whatever they please with their hard-earned money. They are galvanized by the thought of a stadium on campus. They don’t want to give to build another chemistry lab. It’s either $100 mil for a stadium or 0 for anything else.

These small-minded individuals who are doing the protesting now can get jobs for Temple asking the same people to give to academics and they will get the same response, probably a hangup click.

When will they get it through their enormously thick skulls that this money isn’t for a stadium OR academics, but it’s for a stadium or nothing? If their skulls are that thick, Temple must redo the entrance examination and weed out this stupidity before they get to the registration desk. Being able to pass Logic 101 should be the base requirement before admission to Temple University.

That’s the reality.

02.07.16
by

Fizzy’s Evaluation On Mark

weinraub

Fizzy’s magnetic personality carried the day in Boca Raton.

One of the great things about being a Temple football fan back in the day is that you met literally every other Temple fan.

Every. Single. One.

In the parking lot of the Fake Miami (Ohio) game in 2005, I counted five fans about an hour before the game in Lot K. Five, the number after four and before six. This was the hour before the kickoff and it was including me. I’m sure there were more who made it in the stadium, but not many.



“As I sat totally
drenched in Boca
and watched the
horror unfold, I
saw the most
unimaginative major
college offense I’ve
ever seen. In the
whole first half,
we gained 65 yards,
and only 5 yards in
the second quarter.
As usual, the play
selection was abysmal.”
_ Former Owl player
Fizzy Weinraub

Things have changed for the better, thanks to people like Matt Rhule and Al Golden.

One of those fans is an unforgettable character named David Weinraub, except nobody calls him David and everybody calls him Fizzy. I have been honored to call him friend for at least a decade. He was a player under George Makris. As a young sportswriter, I covered another player under Makris, Bill Juzwiak, who was literally the funniest coach I ever covered. Juz was Fizz’s teammate, and after I shared a couple of stories with Fizz about him, we became fast tailgate friends.

Juzwiak coached William Tennent to a championship in the old Suburban One League and, if you know anything about William Tennent football, that’s a remarkable achievement.



” … the design of
Temple’s offense …
usually runs in
one direction,
straight ahead,
and there’s no
balance. There
are few reverses,
counters, traps,
misdirections,
bootlegs and
end-arounds.”
_ Former Owl player
Fizzy Weinraub

Juzwiak was just as funny after losses, maybe more, than he was after wins. At Norristown, the Panthers led, 7-6, at halftime and lost the game, 20-7. While a group of reporters were wrapping up with Juz, from the other side of the field the guy covering the game for the Norristown Times-Herald came running over to Juzwiak and said, out of the breath, the kid said, “Coach, coach, coach .. you led, 7-6, at halftime and fumbled seven times in the second half. What did you tell the team at halftime?”

Juzwiak looked the kid up and down and paused before saying: “I certainly didn’t tell them to fumble.”

Today’s take of the Temple season is from Juzwiak’s teammate, Fizzy, easily as funny and unforgettable as Juzwiak but someone who has a serious take on the season that every Temple fan and coach should take to heart.

I would change the name of his blog to something with pizazz that incorporates the name Fizzy (Fizzy’s Pizzis?), but his serious take of the season is right here and it is worth a read.

02.06.16
by

The Impact of Karamo Dioubate

Matt Rhule gets the phone call from Karamo at the 2:15 mark.

 

According to a name origin website, Karamo denotes an extravagant, ambitious nature with the desire for financial prominence.

If those qualities come through at Temple for the next three years, Karamo Dioubate will use a lot of the former to get to the goal of the latter and we will all be richer for it.  One day Temple recruiting will reach the level where there will be no under-the-radar guys and a lot of ICBMs coming in with nuclear-tipped warheads every signing day.

Until then, Temple will have to settle for rolling out an occasional Atom Bomb to drop on the bad guys.

dioubate

Karamo at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Temple got a couple of those weapons and, for purposes of this story, we will concentrate on the Hydrogen Bomb called Dioubate. This is just the kind of weapon along the defensive front line that the Owls need to unleash on Penn State as soon as possible and that could be as early as the second game.

He’s that good.

It’s one thing to “trust the film” but it’s quite another when the film is trusted not only by the staff at Temple, but the more highly-paid ones at Alabama, Penn State,  Michigan State and South Carolina. When it comes to Dioubate, they see what you see, a pretty polished and unstoppable lineman far advanced beyond his years. Now Dioubate will have to cram a lot of learning into a short summer camp, but he certainly has the physical tools to do it.



Imagine using Sharif
Finch and Michael
Dogbe—forced to play
out of position
last year as a
tackle—at the ends,
using the gap
leverage skills
of two-time
Pennsylvania state
heavyweight wrestling
champion Averee
Robinson as nose
guard and flanking
Arob with Greg Webb
and Dioubate at tackle

They say great coaches are the guys who build a scheme around their talent and Phil Snow is a smart enough guy to know that he’s got the physical talent to run a 5-2 scheme as opposed to last year’s 4-3.

Imagine using Sharif Finch and Michael Dogbe—forced to play out of position last year as a tackle—at the ends, using the gap leverage skills of two-time Pennsylvania state heavyweight wrestling champion Averee Robinson as nose guard and flanking Arob with Greg Webb and Dioubate at tackle. That’s a defensive line that is not only going to stop the run, but make quite a few visits to the quarterback, and make plays in the flat, ala Finch against Penn State last year. That’s not even mentioning other potential DL starters like Haason Reddick, Freddie Booth-Lloyd, Josiah Bronson and Jacob Martin (who was one of the 39,000 Temple students who had a sack against Christian Hackenberg last year).

With that accomplished, the Owls could return two starters at linebacker, Avery Williams and Stephaun Marshall, and have another LB starter, Jared Alwan, to rotate in for plays. Williams and Marshall are so tough they earned single-digit numbers and probably will do so again.  I like having two proven single-digit guys playing both linebacker positions in a 5-2.

The safeties could be a couple of guys, Delvon Randall and Nate L. Smith, who saw plenty of playing time a year ago and the corners will be Sean Chandler—the only player in the nation to return two pick 6’’s last year—and Kareem Ali Jr. (Or Artrel Foster or Nate Hairston.)

With that line making things relatively easy for the six guys behind them, it is not a huge stretch to conclude that this could be a record-setting defense next season. Every year, there are true freshmen who step onto the field and make big-time plays all over the place. Those true freshmen usually are in the SEC.

Now, with Dioubate, Temple finally has one and it opens up an extravagant, ambitious world with a rich future and a whole lot of post-game tailgates where the beer will taste like champagne.

Love to see the PSU analysts drool over a Temple recruit and the arrogance they had at the time that none of their players would decommit.