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
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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
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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.

02.05.16
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Wide Receivers Lost and Found

wrchart

Win some, lose some.

The Owls lost Darnell Salomon to USF and Dae’Lun Darien to Penn State, but gained Freddie Johnson, Randle Jones and Isaiah Wright.

Time will tell, but I like that trade for a couple of reasons.

keithgloster

Keith Gloster

Ideally, Temple rarely has the perfect combination of receivers on the field at the same time. It happened only a couple of times in my memory. Willie Marshall was a Robbie Anderson-type wide receiver in the Bruce Arians’ Era, made all the more dangerous by a 4.3 speedster named Keith Gloster lined up in the slot. Marshall was a 6-foot-3 guy with a 37-inch vertical leap, whose specialty was catching passes in the red zone and over the middle. Gloster opened the middle for Marshall by stretching the field and going deep. A similar situation also existed in the Wayne Hardin years with Rich Drayton and Gerald “Sweet Feet” Lucear and maybe to a lesser extent far later with Bruce Francis and Travis Sheldon under Al Golden.

In the past couple of seasons, though, Temple’s been top-heavy in the same type of receivers—tall guys who are effective in the red zone but rarely stretch the field.

By all accounts, Dae’Lun is the same type of player Romond Deloatch, Anderson, Ventell Bryant and Keith Kirkwood are today–guys who are fairly reliable, have good hands, make plays over the middle but won’t necessarily stretch the field.

In Isaiah Wright, though, the Owls have a “best of both worlds” player, a guy who can make the big catch over the middle and take it to the house and, if Johnson or Jones turns out to be on the other of the field, his presence even makes Wright more dangerous. Other recruits could fill that role,  or maybe someone on the current squad, like 4.3 sprinter Cortrelle Simpson.

Temple fans will probably be following the progress of Darien from afar and Salomon from a relatively closer spot, USF. The numbers say Salomon will have the best career, but he’s had discipline and character issues that make his future far from a slam dunk. So Wright, Jones and Johnson could be just what they needed all along.

Willie Marshall and Keith Gloster should be especially proud.

Tomorrow: Karamo Dioubate

02.04.16
by

5 Under-The-Radar Guys

Matt Rhule talks about big things ahead for Temple football.

The day started at 8 a.m. with a live two-and-a-half hour show from the Edberg-Olson facility and ended with a flat tire outside of Buffalo Wild Wings in Northeast Philadelphia. As Ice Cube says when he doesn’t have to use his AK, today was a good day. Karamo Dioubate got the flat tire and that had to deflate the crowd of over 200 who came to see him. Once the tire was inflated, Dioubate—a four-star defensive lineman from Prep Charter—pumped up the crowd by announcing he would come to Temple. Just a great recruiting day for Matt Rhule and Temple.

reading

Rivals’ updated recruiting rankings as of 10 a.m. Thursday morning.

Dioubate had offers, not just interest, from Penn State, South Carolina, Rutgers and Temple. Watching his film, it is pretty apparent that he can skip the redshirt year and go right into making plays all over the field. Dioubate, you know about. These five guys, you might not.

  1. Sam Franklin, DB, 6-3, 200

We haa a Benjamin and a Franklin now, both Sams. Franklin is coming and Benjamin is going as No. 10, Sam Benjamin, announced his was transferring to Rhode Island. Franklin is arriving from Inverness, Fla. He played at Citrus High and probably will play DB for the Owls.

radar

  1. Shaun Bradley, LB, 6-2, 220

Bradley, unlike the other “Shawn” Bradley who made it to Philadelphia, is not 7-foot-7. Unlike that Bradley, he is very coordinated. Bradley is a mid-year enrollee who played running back and defensive back at Rancocas Valley (N.J.) High. He brings big-time speed to the LB position, as evidenced by his RB numbers his senior year at RV: 1,467 yards and 22 touchdowns.

  1. Quincy Roche, DL, 6-4, 210

Played defensive line and tight end at New Town High in Owings Mills, Md. He broke the school record in sacks with 19 and was part of the state championship team in basketball. He has the kind of size, speed and athleticism to get to the quarterback and projects as a 2017 starter.  Will have to put on some weight to play the line, so could be a redshirt candidate.

  1. Chris Tucker, DE, 6-3, 245, Jackson

Played fullback and defensive end for head coach Blake Butler at Trinity Christian Academy in Jackson, Tenn. and, as a senior, racked up 79 total tackles, 52 solo, with 16 tackles for loss. Looking at his film, he seems to instinctively come off blocks which might account for the 16 tackles in the enemy’s backfield.

  1. Steve Petrick, TE, 6-5, 230, Norwin High

Anyone who looks at a photo of Steve and former Temple tight end Steve Manieri will do a double-take. They look like the same person. On the field, they look very much like the same player. Manieri came to Temple at 6-5, but he had to spend years in the weight room to bulk up to 230. Petrick is already there. Manieri made it to the NFL. With the same kind of work ethic, this Steve can, too.

Tomorrow: The WRs Lost and Found

0204161320-00

02.03.16
by

The 5 Best Things About This Signing Class

Isaiah Wright looks like Jerry Rice in this video.

National Signing Day is one of those days where all 126 FBS teams win and nobody fails. The kids on the tape all look like Jim Brown did before he entered Syracuse or Cam Newton did after he transferred from Blinn Junior College (Tx) to Auburn. The teams that finish in the top 10 in the recruiting rankings will point to those rankings; the teams, like Temple, who finish far outside the top 10 will tell you to trust the film. There is a lot of film to trust this year, though, and it looks like the Owls and head coach Matt Rhule will be rewarded for their tireless work ethic for at least these five reasons. As of press time, we know nothing about Karamo Dioubate, but fingers and toes are crossed.

SGRATZ05-A

Imhotep’s Tyliek Raynor 

  1. Speed Kills

With players like Linwood Crump (Sayerville, N.J.), Randall Jones (North Miami) and Tyliek Raynor, the Owls added the speed they seemed to lack in the Boca Raton Bowl. Depending on who holds the stopwatch, those guys have 4.3 or 4.4 speed. I don’t see No. 25 of Toledo or similar types being able to outrun these guys.

  1. Eighteen Redshirts

The Owls had the luxury of redshirting 18 players last year and it should pay off on the field this year and this class affords them the same kind of luxury. An example this coming year might be Cortrelle Simpson. The scout team MVP in 2015 (meaning only the players and coaches know how good he is), Simpson could be that 4.3 wide receiver type guy the Owls need. Think Keith Gloster in the Arians’ years or Travis Sheldon in the Golden years. In this class, the Owls could redshirt 18 or so more redshirts, including prized quarterback Anthony Russo. That theory also applies to the handful of linemen the Owls recruited, some who will be needed for starting positions in 2017.

bruton

Keyvone Bruton.

  1. Immediate Safety Help

The first recruit after the Penn State win was a safety out of Virginia named Keyvone Bruton and that name is important because he could be one of the few members of this class to earn a starting spot right out of the gate. He’s polished and comes from an area (Hampton Roads) that plays great high school football. Plus, Benny Walls (St. Joseph’s Prep) is good enough to play right away as well.

  1. Isaiah Wright Flips

Well, the Owls did not get top WR targets Dae’Lun Darien (who flipped to PSU) and Darnell Salomon (who teased them with a twitter profile pic that showed him in an Owl uniform before committing to USF), but they did get Isaiah Wright to flip from Rutgers to Temple. This is a position of need for the Owls, unless they do something daring and break Jahad Thomas out in the slot to allow Jager Gardner and Ryquell Armstead to lock in a winner-take-all struggle for the starting tailback slot. My feeling is this:  Without John Christopher, there is a need for a tough guy in the slot and Thomas is a proven tough guy who will make more explosive plays after catching the ball. The dropoff between him, Gardner, Armstead and David Hood is not so great as the one between Christopher and his potential replacements so breaking Thomas out will benefit the ball club. That leaves Wright a chance to become an immediate starter on a crowded other side that includes Ventell Bryant, Romond Deloatch and Adonis Jennings. This could work out. No truth to the rumor than Salomon decommitted after he learned the nickname “Sal The Owl” was already taken.

tony

Anthony Russo.

  1. Bullseye For Top Target

All along, for the last two years, Anthony Russo had been the No. 1 target for the Temple coaching staff. It’s very rare that a Temple coaching staff lands its No. 1 guy. Only two coaches I know ever did. Bruce Arians targeted a wide receiver from Moscow (Pa., not Russia) named Mike Palys. Penn State also wanted him badly. Palys asked Joe Paterno if he would be allowed to play baseball. Paterno said no. Arians said yes. Later, recruiter extraordinaire Ron Dickerson targeted a quarterback named Kevin Harvey from Paulsboro, N.J. Harvey was only the Parade first-team All-American quarterback. Having seen Russo live several times and on TV a few more, I’m extremely confident Russo needs only a redshirt year to pick up where P.J. Walker left off and I could not say that about anyone else two months ago.

02.02.16
by

Groundhog Day And Temple Stadium

ambit

Theobald might want to call Ambit Architecture and have something that looks like these two photos from the outside with a view of the city from one end  from the inside (small photo below)

theo

About 24 hours ago, Temple president Neil D. Theobald and athletic director Pat Kraft showed up at the Student Activities Center to talk about a stadium. They did not wear top hats or pull a rodent out of the cafeteria to tell if there would be six more years of stadium talk, but it certainly seemed that way.

owlet

Something like this with smaller decks built deep into the ground (entrance at the top of the first deck) and the seats on top of the field and some view of the city would be perfect.

In March of 2012, a member of Temple Board of Trustees told a long-time athletics supporter that a stadium was a “done deal.” That was at a basketball win over North Carolina State in the NCAA Tournament, but that was three years ago and nothing was done in this deal.

Mark that down as three wasted years.

accounts

Now, three years later, Theobald and Kraft marked the first time any Temple officials appeared before one or two reporters to talk about it and the guess here is that by next Groundhog Day, they will still be talking and not a single shovel will break the ground. Who knows how many years after that will we eventually see a stadium at Broad and Norris. My guess is well into the next decade, if at all.

 

Temple has several significant hurdles to jump over, the first being “the community”, the second the city and the third the unions.

What we will hear is a lot of what we heard yesterday—a lot of loud shouting and not much in the way of intelligent discourse.  By all accounts, there were about 200 students there and 180 wanted to hear what Theo and Kraft had to say. Because 20 or so did not, every answer was shouted down. That seems to be the way discussions go nowadays. The people who do not want something do not want to hear answers to questions, only to hear themselves.

misonceptions

That’s unfortunate because it doesn’t help their cause, however just it might be, going forward.

Temple will hire an architectural firm at Monday’s special BOT meeting (3:30 p.m., Sullivan Hall, Feinstein Lounge) and here are just a couple of words of advice, borrowed from someone we know but will just call him “Matt.” If you are going to build a stadium, do it the right way. That means any architectural firm will have to draw a stadium that includes seatbacks (no bleachers), 3D video screens, seats right on top of the action (not sloped back), and a mostly closed bowl to maximize the noise and make it a real home field advantage for the Owls.

If the architectural firm does not deliver those things for $100 million, either increase the budget or sign a 20-year renewal at the Linc. There are no other options.

Tomorrow: The 5 Best Things About This Signing Class