12.28.15
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Lambert Trophy Another Casualty of 3-4 Finish

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Army accepts Lambert Trophy in 1953.

Ever feel like you have a train schedule for a pretty neat destination and just kept putting off getting on the train until you are standing on the platform not knowing if the last train left?

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Nov. Lambert poll with current records.

That’s the feeling I have as a Temple fan today, watching  some other team pick up a trophy the Owls had wrapped up most of the fall. I really think that this year might have been the Owls’ best chance at getting that elusive Lambert Trophy, emblematic of football supremacy in the East. They’ve been giving this trophy out since 1936 and Temple has not won it once. Chalk up another casualty to the head-scratching 3-4 finish.

There is a possibility another train arrives next year and the Owls better hop on it because the station closes after that. Penn State’s Top 10 recruiting classes will start to make an impact no later than two years down the line, and, after that, the rest of the P5 recruiting will separate other Eastern schools from Temple. I really believe Temple can win this thing next year with another 10-2 record or better, but the Owls will have to beat Penn State again. I think they can. After that, PSU is off the schedule and probably not coming back.

The Owls will be watching the Military Bowl today (2:30, ESPN) and the winner of that game gets the Lambert Trophy. It will be a reminder of how college football should be and not how it is.

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Since Navy was No. 1 and Pitt was No. 2 in the last poll released in mid-November, the winner will get this trophy. The leader in the September and October polls, Temple, was ranked No. 3 in the November poll and lost its bowl game.

The Lambert Trophy comes from a different time when there were no conferences but football was played at a high level in the East. Joe Paterno of Penn State was the coach with the most trophies (28). The Nittany Lions added another trophy with coach Bill O’Brien in 2013.  Pitt has won it six times and Navy four. Had Temple not lost three of its last four games, it would have surely won its first Lambert Trophy ever this year.

The Lambert Trophy is a reminder of how a regional conference of the large, mostly public, institutions makes a lot more sense than having Eastern teams like West Virginia (Big 12), Syracuse,  Pitt and Boston College (ACC) and Navy and Temple (AAC) scattered all over the map.

How great would it be for a conference of the top seven teams in the latest poll? Those were, in order, Navy, Pitt, Temple, West Virginia, Penn State, Connecticut and Virginia Tech.  Throw in Boston College, Maryland, Syracuse and Rutgers and that conference just makes too much sense.

That’s why it will never happen, but the Lambert Trophy people should be applauded for keeping a nice thought alive. If college presidents had any sense, that’s the conference the Eastern schools should be playing in today. Those schools would save millions on travel and add millions of visiting fans in ticket revenue due to short driving distances.

That train has left the station, too.

12.27.15
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The Chinatown Syndrome

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“Proposed Stadium Site” should be renamed “The Promised Land.”

When I hear the plans surrounding the proposed stadium at Broad and Norris, all I can think of are the words of the great Martin Luther King Jr.

“I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.”

If this thing ever gets built,  I can pretty much say I will not get there with you and, while you never know about these things, I don’t plan going anywhere for the next 20 years.

You can blame it all on Chinatown.

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The city of Philadelphia had its heart set on a center city baseball stadium at 12th and Callowhill and Chinatown not only held up the project, but tabled it. That stadium later became Citizens Bank Park. Pittsburgh got the stadium with the great center city view, PNB Park, while Phillies fans get a similar view of the skyline only now through binoculars.

I have no doubt Temple’s administration is committed to building this. I do have serious doubts that the Indiana imports running Temple know what they are up against. Once the unions, city council and the community put up their dukes, I don’t think they have the stomach for this fight. What gets built easily in Bloomington, is built in Philadelphia only after extreme extortion–all legal, of course.

Philadelphia is the ultimate Provincial town—the only place where “not in my neighborhood” means not in any neighborhood. Ever wonder why every stadium is built in South Philadelphia? The reason is that there is an artificial barrier between the South Philadelphia neighborhood and the stadium called I-76. No such barrier exists in Center City or North Philadelphia.

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Knowing Philadelphia as I do, the so-called community will hold up this project just like it held up the Liacouras Center project. It should have taken no longer than two years to build the LC—then called The Apollo of Temple—but it was held up for a dozen years by the two Mayors, mostly John Street, the City Council, and the community.

Temple has a recent history of backing down from blowback from “the community” and the example that comes to mind is ads in the Temple subway stop. All the ads said “Temple” and, when the community demanded the ads be taken down, the university relented and took the signs down. They have been since replaced with “Draft Kings” ads. So far, no demonstrations demanding the Draft Kings ads be taken down. Don’t expect any.

The community’s disdain for Temple runs deep, and the blowback on this stadium will make an Oklahoma F5 Tornado look like a gentle breeze. Even the folks in Chinatown figure to be impressed.

That’s why I won’t get to this mountaintop with you. Maybe only the very youngest of our readers ever will.

Related:

5 Worst FBS Coaching Hires of 2015

Temple Football Looks to Be Even Better in 2016

 

12.26.15
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AAC Reputation Taking Hit in Bowls

These Sun Belt officials should be ashamed. 

It’s a good thing bowl games are being played for nothing other than pride, because any pride credits the AAC built up in an impressive regular season are being used up in the postseason.

A couple of years ago, MLB put a tangible reward in the outcome of another meaningless sports endeavor, the all-star game, with home advantage in the World Series going to the league that won. Fortunately, the BCS is too pre-occupied with creating artificial advantages for its Power 5 teams to care about how Group of 5 teams do in bowl games. Otherwise, we might see something tangible go to a less-deserving conference like the Mid-American.

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Frustrating night for next year’s leaders.

The AAC has lost three games so far but, really, only one team, Temple, entered its Boca Raton Bowl game favored and that was just by one point. The other two AAC teams which have lost, Cincinnati and South Florida, were underdogs and rightly so. In the Temple game, the Owls drew to within 25-17 with 2:50 left and replays showed they recovered an onsides’ kick that was awarded to Toledo, but, as North Carolina found out in the ACC title game against Clemson, onsides’ kicks are not reviewable.

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Pretty good when you get a retweet from both the Philly and Pa player of the year.

South Florida, the second-place team in the AAC East, lost to the Conference USA champion, Western Kentucky, while the Mountain West Conference champion, San Diego State, pummeled the third-place finisher from the AAC East in Cincinnati.

Toledo was a curious underdog because the 10-2 Rockets were coming off a regular season that saw them win all their road games, including those at Iowa State and Arkansas. Iowa State was so impressed by Toledo that it went out and hired its head coach, Matt Campbell, after the season.

Now, the really meaningful games for the reputation of the conference are the Military Bowl and the Peach Bowl and the AAC looks to be in good shape in both.

Houston is a touchdown underdog to Florida State in the Peach Bowl, and Navy is a slight favorite against Pittsburgh in the Military Bowl. A pair of wins against established Power 5 teams could give the AAC the good news it so desperately needs now.

12.24.15
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What’s Next? A New Slogan

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First of a great series of photos by Coach and Player Magazine’s Zamani Feelings. The Steve Harvey reaction Meme is mine. 🙂

Everyone will always talk about “The Call” in the 32-17 loss to Toledo, but there was also “the call” and that was a tipped interception that Tyler Matakevich appeared to control earlier in the game. You could see Tyler frantically waving his wrist for the Temple sideline to throw a challenge flag, but the challenge never came. I just watched the DVR, hit rewind three times and it showed Matakevich controlling the ball before it hit the ground.

Had those two plays gone the other way, who knows what would have happened? The Owls scored to make it 25-17, and Tyler Mayes recovered an onsides’ kick, but the Sun Belt officials blew that one and here is the visual evidence, courtesy of Coach and Player Magazine photographer Zamani Feelings, who looked like he was close enough to it to fall on the ball himself.

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These two photos show Mayes on top of the ball and the ball on the ground and, at that point, the whistle should have blown and the ball should have been called dead.  Who knows what would have happened after that? Sure, the Owls played like crap for most of the game but it still would have been fun if Mayes was rewarded for his great play.  People say the Owls had trouble scoring, but maybe momentum would have allowed them to tie it at 25-25 in the last two minutes. People also say that since Kareem Hunt scored, he would have scored again. I don’t buy that either, because the Owls were going for the ball and not the tackle at that point.

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We will never know.

What we do know is that the team will need a new slogan.  Leave No Doubt was a great slogan, but it was all because the 6-6 Owls were bowl eligible a year ago and the “leave no doubt” referred to getting a bowl bid, not winning one.

Matakevich himself suggested one in an emotional post-game interview where he said he mentioned to the juniors: “Don’t Let This Happen Again.” It might be tough to fit on a Tifo.

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This year’s Tifo.

Until someone comes up with a more concise version, I like it because we play to win championships or at least hoist bowl trophies at Temple and, because of a 3-4 finish, neither one of those things happened.

So “don’t let this happen again” will stand until a better 2016 slogan comes along.

12.23.15
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The Real Reason for the Loss

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If you want to read a feel-good piece about what a great season this was and how we should all be happy about winning 10 games, please head somewhere else.

There is plenty of singing Kumbaya on social media and elsewhere. If you want to read the brutal truth, please proceed.

The brutal truth is that Tuesday night’s embarrassing loss to a MAC team—and it was an embarrassing loss—was not Matt Rhule’s fault, P.J. Walker’s fault or any of the kids’ faults. The fault squarely rests with the Temple administration, which should have never accepted this invitation in the first place.

Of course, we’ve been beating this drum since we heard the announcement (see yesterday’s post and two other posts linked below). My whole post yesterday was that Temple was walking into an ambush and, unfortunately, I was right.

There was no way Temple could match the emotional pitch Toledo was going to have coming into this one. No matter how much Temple could pretend Toledo was Auburn pretending is one thing and reality is another. Auburn is Auburn and Toledo is Toledo and never the twain shall meet, despite 6-6 and 9-2. Toledo had a coaching staff anxious to prove to its administration it made the right call. Temple’s coaching staff needed to prove nothing to its administration.

To Toledo’s players, Temple was Auburn and a step up. To Temple’s players, Toledo was just another MAC school, a directional equivalent of Western Michigan or Central Michigan or Northern Illinois. No matter how much you pretend, those facts cannot be changed.

That’s why Temple should have accepted the invitation that was on the table for Birmingham. There is no doubt on my mind that the Owls would have finished the season by beating Auburn in Birmingham. As you’ve read in this space the past week, there was plenty of doubt in my mind that they could beat Toledo.

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It wasn’t because Toledo was better, it wasn’t, but it was because of all the intangible edges Toledo had going into the game that was outlined in Tuesday’s post. Maybe next year, the Owls will do some homework on an opponent—if they earn the right to pick one—and do a little less snorkeling, beach volleyball or bowling. Invest that time in other pursuits, like better play calls in third-down situations.

A lot of Temple fans dropped a lot of coin going to Florida for this one. We hope that the good time they had made it all worthwhile. For me, I would have gone down there for one thing and one thing only—a win.

This should have been treated more like a business trip and less like a reward and, for that, you can lay all of the blame on Neil Theobald and Pat Kraft.

Related Posts:

Survey Says: Boca Raton

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12.22.15
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Boca Raton Bowl: The Final Game Day

You won’t see much two-minute drill practice here.

Now we have arrived at the final “Leave No Doubt” Game Day and the kids who will be playing in it are safely tucked away in their beds, I have a confession to make: I do not have a good feeling about this game and I usually have a good feeling about every Temple football game.

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No predictions, but this has all of the makings of an ambush. Without a doubt, I feel Temple is the better team in this matchup with Toledo (7 p.m., ESPN) but we all know that the better team doesn’t always win. Just ask Alabama after its loss to Mississippi.

There are other factors, like psychological ones, that have to go into the equation. To me, Toledo sees Temple as a team from a better conference that it could make its season with a win against. I don’t think the feeling is reciprocal from Temple’s end. A lot of things have already made Temple’s season, like tying a school record for wins (10), an extended run in the national top 25, a win over a Power 5 in-state rival (Penn State) and an appearance in a league championship game. Toss in Game Day showing up,  the top TV-rated game of  the Saturday night season, which featured a close loss to a NY6 iconic team, Notre Dame, and you’ve crammed 134 years of Temple accomplishments into three months.

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Temple fans might not be biting their fingernails over this matchup, but some appear to be biting their lips.

Toledo had a short stay in the top 25, no parallel win over an in-state Power 5 rival (beating Ohio State would have been the Rockets equivalent), no school record for wins and no appearance in a league championship game.  No national  TV and no Lee Corso, either. To Toledo, Temple is big, bad Temple and, to Temple, Toledo is just a team from a conference the Owls used to play in before being “promoted.”

New Toledo coach Jason Candle will want to prove to his administration that their confidence in hiring an unproven assistant was well-founded. Temple coach Matt Rhule has nothing to prove to the Temple administration, which already has full confidence in him.

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Today’s Metro has caught Temple fever, something LaSalle grads and Philly.com writers Mike Sielski and David Murphy never will.

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Stir in the Temple season motto “Leave No Doubt” and there is some added doubt. That motto was born in a post-season meeting when the Owls were told they would not be awarded a bowl appearance despite being bowl eligible. Kenny Harper told his teammates to leave no doubt about a bowl invitation next year by their play on the field during the regular season. Harper forgot to make up a slogan for the team when it got to the bowl.

You have to wonder, at least subliminally, if the team is just satisfied by appearing in a bowl. One way to artificially change the mindset would be by, say, a surprise onsides’ kick on the opening kickoff that would say, “Hey, we’re here to win this.” That might get everybody pumped up. Passing out pickle juice in the heat might also help.

I just hope I’m being a worry wart and I’m as wrong as Donald Trump ends up being after his “facts” are checked.  Yeah, that might be it. We should find out long before the clock strikes midnight on this Cinderella season.

Tomorrow: Game Analysis

12.21.15
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A Final Tribute to The Seniors

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Geez, how much stuff did these guys pack?

When you strip the game of football to its basics, the most important thing is making plays.

That is what I will remember of this senior group. We will remember the great plays of linebacker Tyler Matakevich for the next 30 or so years. When he is in his 50s and I am the age of James Woodside now, 97, I hope he will visit me in my assistant living center and talk to me about them. We covered Tyler yesterday.

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Nate Smith: Maestro of T for Temple U.

Today is for the other guys, who I will all miss deeply, and who will all play their final games for my beloved Temple tomorrow (7 p.m., ESPN).

The plays, those are the things I will remember most.

For defensive tackle Matt Ioannidis (No. 9), I will remember him absolutely plastering a Penn State running back on  a screen out of the backfield. That play said we are Temple and we are not going to take it anymore more than any other in that game. It was also featured in an outstanding photo in Sports Illustrated. For his line mate, Nate D. Smith, the three-man sack in the same game.

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Matt Ioannidis: Iconic photo.

For Brandon Chudoff, a fellow Northeast Philadelphia homeboy, I will never forget him falling on two fumbles in the Connecticut game in 2012. Without Chudoff being at the right place at the right time, Temple never wins that game. Brandon was placed in a tough spot. He was recruited as a linebacker, then moved to the line, where he had to bulk up.  He took one for the team and that’s the definition of Temple Tuff.

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Genius catch.

Robby Anderson, I will remember for making me sound like an expert. In a crucial moment of the Notre Dame game, I had to excuse myself from my seat because I was so nervous. I was the lone Temple fan in the concourse with about 20 Notre Dame fans watching on TV. Temple decided to go for it on fourth and 4. The Notre Dame fan turned to me and said, “That’s a big gamble, going for it on 4th and 4?” I didn’t hesitate: “Not when you have No. 19 on your team.” Seconds later, P.J. Walker lofted the ball over a VERY tight window and Anderson caught it with one hand and made me look like a genius. Great catch by No. 19. Anderson returning to Temple made me very happy, and I think it did him, too. Notre Dame fans thought I knew all the plays, which I did not.

Notre Dame Temple Football

Brandon Shippen: Not denied.

Kyle Friend, I will remember from the same game, for spraining his knee and limping to the line of scrimmage on every play.  He finished out the entire fourth quarter with the same injury where he would miss the next five games. That’s Temple TUFF right there.

Brandon Shippen, again the Notre Dame game, hit at the 2 and pirouetted for the touchdown and the best Temple athlete from Norristown since Khalif Wyatt, but not as good as the next one, Kip Patton.

John Christopher, I will remember for saving the season at UMass, catching a sideline pattern despite being completely obscured until the last second by a Minuteman defensive back. The guy was a human vacuum cleaner for four years.

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John Christopher: Human Vacuum

Hershey Walton has been here seemingly forever but he’s been dependable for that long, too. Will Hayes will be remember for the two-point conversion and Alex Wells for coming here in mid-career to fill a need and Tavon Young for that 96-yard interception return at UConn and the even more important hit to set the tone against Memphis.

There are others, too, like offensive linemen Eric Lofton and Shahbez Ahmed who did their part to Leave No Doubt and assure that what’s next was usually always better than what happened before. Sal Major paid his way through Temple and caught a key TD pass against Memphis. Tyler Mayes promised me there would be another surprise onsides’ kick and I hope he makes it the opening kickoff  tomorrow.

They all set the tone for the greatest Temple season ever and a season next year that I think will be even better, but the juniors have to prove me right about that. They could not have had better guys to follow.

Tomorrow: The Final Leave No Doubt Game Day

12.20.15
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Matakevich Deserves to Go Out With One Last Record

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Herschel Walker was head over heels for Steve Conjar’s record, but even Herschel’s records fell before Steve’s.

Going into his final college football season, it appeared that Temple’s Tyler Matakevich was poised to do a lot of special things, but one thing appeared out of his reach and that was the school record for tackles held by Steve Conjar.

Before the opening game with Penn State, he needed 138 tackles to break the record 492 held by Conjar, a linebacker who played between 1978 and 81, and even the most optimistic number-crunchers could see that averaging over 10 tackles a game might have been a bit much to ask.

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A dozen tackles for record.

Thanks to a season that saw him win the two top awards for national defensive player of the year (the Bronko Nagurski and Chuck Bednarik Awards), Matakevich has now put himself in a position to break the record.  He is sitting on 481 tackles and needs “only” 11 in Tuesday’s Boca Raton Bowl against Toledo to tie and a dozen to win.

It’s going to be tough, but everything Matakevich has done in his Temple career has epitomized toughness and getting this record will be a fitting last hurrah. There is no bigger fan of Matakevich than Conjar and the two linebackers swap notes in the Lincoln Financial Field parking lot after home games.  Now Matakevich will have a chance to do something Conjar did and that was to bring a school a bowl win. Conjar was a major player in a 28-17 Garden State Bowl win over California in 1979.

Matakevich also did a lot of things Conjar never did, like playing in a league championship game—the Owls fell short to Houston—and becoming a consensus first-team All-American, the first at the school since offensive lineman John Rienstra in 1987.  He is the centerpiece of a senior class that has injected Temple football with a sense of legitimacy in the national eye after years of being known as a doormat.

All the while, Matakevich has had to overcome some hurdles placed in front of him, like playing in three conferences (Mid-American, Big East and American Athletic) in his four years. He also had to sit in a room in 2012 and be told his head coach at the time, Steve Addazio, was leaving to take the same job at Boston College.

After all of that, a dozen tackles remains his last individual goal in a team game. If he doesn’t get it and the Owls win, he will walk out with a big smile on his face. That’s why he deserves both.

Tomorrow: A Tribute to the Other Seniors

Tuesday: Game Day

Wednesday: Post-Game Analysis

Thursday: What’s Next?

Friday: The Boca Raton Photo Gallery

Saturday: Putting AAC Bowl Struggles in Perspective

Sunday: The Chinatown Syndrome

12.19.15
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Survey Says: Boca Raton

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About a month ago, season ticket-holders, myself included, received an email from Temple athletics.

The main question asked the fans where they would like to go for the Owls upcoming bowl game. Listed were D.C., NYC, Florida and other locations.

Nowhere in there was a question regarding possible opponents.

That was my first question. As early as the day after the Notre Dame game, the main goal was to be in the NY6 game. Failing that, I thought the best reward for the Owls was to find a Power 5 opponent in a bowl game and go beat them.

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One  post on a Toledo board speculated 20,000 Temple fans will attend. We can only hope. My guess is anywhere between 3,000-10,000.

That’s not going to happen and the reason is the survey, which hopefully will be better-worded next year. The overwhelming number of people picked Florida (duh?) for its nice weather and beaches.  There was no checkmark asking if Florida would be the pick if the Owls had to play a MAC team.

As the editor of Pravda likes to say, it is what it is.

The mindset changes from going out with a signature win to “better not lose” and that’s a tough mindset to take against a quality opponent.  Even though the hardcore college football fan knows Toledo is good and beat Arkansas and Iowa State, the facts are the Temple brand is better advanced by beating a 6-6 Auburn than a 9-2 Toledo. One of the reasons the Owls did not go to the Birmingham Bowl, with a payout of $1.2 million, is the money is evenly distributed among all AAC bowl teams. It didn’t matter that the Boca Raton Bowl payout was only $400,000. AAC has very interesting rules regarding bowl payouts. All bowl money is evenly distributed among all 8 league bowl participants, meaning Temple gets EXACTLY the same share of Houston’s $6.9 million Peach Bowl payout as Houston does. Independence Bowl gets a $1.2 million payout, and the AAC rep will be the 6-6 Tulsa.  Bernie Sanders would be proud of the way the AAC redistributes wealth.

So the Temple administration didn’t need to follow the money, just where it thought the most Owl fans will go. The Owls had a choice of Shreveport, Birmingham and Boca and went with Boca.

To those unable to attend, it’s all in the perception and the masses who watch these bowl games are not hardcore college football fans. They watch usually because it is the only thing on ESPN in the bar or at home on a Tuesday night. If they see Temple lose to Toledo, the Temple brand, built on wins over PSU and Memphis and a close to Notre Dame, takes a huge hit. On the other  hand, if the Owls were to lose to 6-6 Auburn, the casual fan would say, “Hey, wow, Temple is playing Auburn on TV. That’s great.”

The Owls have to take care of business because a win is really the only way these terrific seniors deserve to go out and because 11 wins will be a school record, but that’s a good team on the other side of the ball that will also have at least half a say in the outcome.

To them, beating a team that—at least in their minds—said it was too good for the MAC is a powerful incentive. Just like beating Auburn would have been for Temple. So it will be interesting to see how the Owls react. Hopefully, they will play like they did against Penn State and Memphis and the mindset will be academic.

At least that’s the theory.