12.13.15
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Critical Thinking and the Media

Zach Gelb was the only reporter at the Temple-Houston game who called it like it was in the first minute of this video.

When will we know Temple football has arrived in Philadelphia?

It certainly won’t be after beating Penn State or playing Notre Dame tough or even winning an AAC East title.

You will know Temple football has arrived when someone picks up a phone, dials one of the two all-talk Philadelphia sports radio stations and discusses what Zach Gelb talks about in the opening part of the above video for Temple’s student-run TV station. It should not be surprising that Gelb called out the Elephant on the Field, because breaking down sports runs in his blood. Gelb is the son of Mike and the Mad Dog Producer Bobby Gelb, who was the brains behind the greatest sports talk show in the history of radio. Now, due mostly to greed, that great pair has split up. It was like breaking up Laurel and Hardy because one without the other is no good.  When Mike said something outrageous, Chris was there to put him in line and vice versa.

Here’s a little snippet of what made Mike Francesa and Christopher Russo great.

I, for one, would have loved to hear Mike and the Mad Dog go off about Temple’s atrocious clock management the fourth quarter of the Houston game. Or wish Philly had a Mike and Mad Dog equivalent who cared enough to vent.

Temple had a problem in Houston, but you would not know it from the way the media reported the game. You didn’t read about it in the Inquirer or Daily News or Pravda (Owlscoop.com) or even Owlsdaily.com.

All except for Zach Gelb, who broke down the reason for the loss in a few words in the beginning of the post-game report that appears above. That’s the way it should have been broken down in Philadelphia and the way it should have been addressed on sports talk radio or in the next day’s newspapers. Gelb said he asked about it but that none of the team members felt it was a problem. That, in and of itself, is another problem.

For reasons only known to those who cover the team, TV, radio and newspapers never even addressed the problem. All they talked about was what a great season it was, not the snafus that could have made it a greater season.

Temple lost to Houston in the title game with a two-minute offense that was an abomination of Epic Fail proportions and the only reaction from Temple afterward were innocuous  “it was a great season” and “I’m proud of my team “quotes.

Yeah, but what about those 20 seconds wasted on virtually every play of the fourth quarter? Can we have one comment about that?

You can certainly bet if the Philadelphia Eagles wasted the last large chunks of any final quarter in the manner that Temple did, eliminating any chance of winning a game that had a slight chance to be won, it would have been hashed and rehashed on sports talk radio for the next five days.

We still have not found out why Temple wasted precious seconds in the final quarter of its most important football game and, because we have not, the Owls still have a long way to go in this great sports town.

12.12.15
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5 Other AAC Bowl Matchups Worth Watching

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Where is the T, M and P?

 

Just four months ago, the AAC was lumped as just another Group of 5 football conference trying to make its way in a Power 5 world. Then the AAC won some big games, with Temple beating Penn State and Memphis beating Mississippi, finished 4-3 against a P5 conference (the ACC) and separated itself from the pack. Now it can enhance its image by winning these five bowl games.

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  1. Miami Beach: USF vs. Western Kentucky

The big storyline in this game (2:30 p.m., EDT, Dec. 21, ESPN), is Willie Taggart’s old recruits, the ones who play for 11-2 WKU, going up against his newer 8-4 South Florida recruits. Despite the game being played in South Florida, the Hilltoppers are slight favorites and a lot of that has to do with the motivation on one side against an less-motivated group on the other. Plus, WKU’s Jeff Brohm probably is a better game day coach than Taggart.

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  1. Birmingham: Memphis vs. Auburn

The fact that the 9-3 Memphis Tigers are a slight underdog against the 6-6 Auburn Tigers is a product of this being a home game for Auburn. In reality, Memphis is a team that beat Mississippi by 13 points and should have no problem handling an overvalued Auburn team that has an edge in SEC name recognition and little else. The game is Dec. 30th on ESPN at noon.

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  1. Hawaii: Cincinnati vs. San Diego St.

The Bearcats have one of the best quarterbacks in the country in Gunner Kiel, who has played significantly better in the second half of the season since coming off a concussion. The 7-5 Bearcats’ most impressive showing was a 33-30 loss at champion Houston. SDSU, which is 10-3, is a slight underdog in this game (Dec. 24, 8 p.m., ESPN).

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  1. Military Bowl: Pitt vs. Navy

In what is a home game for 9-2 Navy, played at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium, this game serves as a showcase for someone who should have won the Heisman Award, Navy Midshipmen quarterback Keenan Reynolds, against a successful Power 5 team in 8-4 Pitt. This is probably too tough a spot for the four-point underdog Panthers.

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  1. Peach Bowl: Houston vs. Florida State

The one takeaway from Houston’s 24-13 win over Temple in the title game was two takeaways, an interception and a fumble, which were really the difference between Temple being there and Houston taking the spot. The fact that the Owls had to play a perfect game to beat the Cougars probably bodes well for the touchdown underdog in the Dec. 31 game (noon, ESPN). The AAC can make its ultimate statement winning this game.

12.11.15
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Bednarik, Nagurski Awards for Tyler Damages Butkus’ Credibility

When members of the Dick Butkus Award committee watched as Temple’s Tyler Matakevich took home another impressive piece of college football hardware on ESPN Thursday, it was dinner, not breakfast, time, but they surely had to have egg on their faces.

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This is just huge for Tyler, TU and recruiting.

Left off the list of finalists for the Butkus Award given to the nation’s best linebacker, Matakevich won the Chuck Bednarik Award as the nation’s best overall player, which had to be embarrassing for the Butkus people.  An uproar of epic proportions followed  release of the Butkus finalist list with committee members peppered with emails and letters from Temple and AAC football fans who were wondering what the criteria was. Many of those same fans posted on social media that the committee claimed they had nothing to do with the selection of the finalists.

Matakevich not only took home the Bednarik Award, but it was his second such award as the nation’s best defensive player. Earlier this week, Matakevich won the Charlotte Touchdown Club’s Bronko Nagurski Award. That begs this question: If Matakevich, a linebacker, is named the top defensive player by two historically more prestigious groups than the Butkus one, just why was he left off the list of 10 finalists as the nation’s top linebacker?

The answer has to be that the Butkus “committee,” or whoever is in charge of pairing the list down to 10, did a sloppy job without a whole lot of homework done. Matakevich is one of seven players in the history of the FBS to have at least 100 tackles in four-straight seasons. With one game left in a soon-to-be 14-game season for Temple this year, Matakevich has 126 tackles and that is 13 more tackles than Butkus winner Jaylon Smith of Notre Dame. In a head-to-head matchup on Halloween Night, Matakevich was the clearly the best linebacker on the field as he had 13 tackles and an interception in a 24-20 loss, while Smith had 10 tackles. Matakevich had five more interceptions than Smith, who had none, and five more interceptions than anyone competing for the Butkus, Bednarik and Nagurski Awards.

The latter two groups took their jobs seriously, while it now apparent that the Butkus people shirked their responsibility. That is a hit on the credibility of their award from which it could be very hard to recover.

12.10.15
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Throwback Thursday: When Temple-Toledo Sold Out

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Owls’ first “bowl game” with Toledo in 1984.

There has been much speculation over the last few days about Temple fans traveling for a bowl game with Toledo and I’ve seen figures ranging from 3,000 all the way to 10,000.

There was once a time when Temple played in a bowl game away from home with Toledo and sold the place out with almost all Temple fans. The year was 1984 and, for the Centennial Celebration of Temple University, the team played a regular-season home game, called it the Boardwalk Bowl, and played it at the Atlantic City Convention Center. The school sold all 7,000 tickets to the game, but “only” just fewer than 6,000 Temple fans made the trip.

boardwalk

Still, it was a memorable game because Toledo came into the Nov. 30th game as the Mid-American Conference champions with an 8-1-1 record. That thing about Al Golden never beating a winning MAC team did not apply to Bruce Arians, who was 5-0 against winning MAC teams.

Arians’ 1984 team pummeled Toledo, 35-6, on the way to a 6-5 record against the then 10th-toughest schedule in the country. (By comparison, Temple’s current scheduled is rated No. 71.)  One of the interesting things about that game was that Toledo’s defense was the No. 4 scoring defense in the country and gave up only 9.9 points per game. It allowed no more than 17 points in a single game before that, but Temple doubled up that figure.

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Temple had a lot of exciting players on the 1984 team, one of which was a sophomore running back named Paul Palmer, who had a then career-high 148 yards. He would later top that in several more memorable games, including 349 in a 45-28 win over East Carolina in 1986.

Another was wide receiver Keith Gloster, who arguably is the fastest man ever to play for Temple. (We say arguably because you will get some arguments from Devin Hester’s cousin, Travis Sheldon, and James Nixon, who took a kickoff back for 103 yards against Navy in 2009.) Gloster caught a 74-yard bomb from Lee Saltz that appeared seriously overthrown when it left Saltz’s  hand, but he was able to run under it.

As good as the offense was, the “no-name” defense was even better with too many good players to single out one or two.

In 1987, Temple visited the Glass Bowl and Toledo coach Dan Simrell called the Owls the best team to ever come into that stadium. The Owls rotated future NFL running back Todd McNair, then a junior, with sophomore Ventres Stevenson, and grinded out a 13-12 win.

No one knows how many Owl fans will be able to make the trip to Boca, but you can be certain most of Arians’ players from  that 1984 team will be there as will a large group of Arians’ players from other years. That group has been tight as a fist and, while a trip to Florida will be a reward for the current Owls, it will be another chance for them to get together.

12.08.15
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But the Big Story on Action News Is ….

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The first time I ever heard the name Bronko Nagurski was holding the transistor radio close to my ear as a kid and listening to the great play-by-play guy, Ron Menchine, do a Temple game at Pitt.

“There’s Dynamo Hyno with the ball getting, 10, 15 yards and he’s running like Bronko Nagurski,” Menchine said.  “The Pitt defenders just cannot bring him down.”

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Tyler cleans up good. (Photo courtesy Charlotte Observer)

I didn’t know who Nagurski was, but I knew who Dynamo Hyno was—Temple fullback Henry Hynoski—and I knew this Nagurski guy must have been pretty good if he was being compared to Hynoski.

Now I can say the same for Nagurski and Tyler Matakevich. This Nagurski guy must have been pretty good if they are giving an award named after him to the great Temple linebacker, who I know is pretty good.

Great, really.

Years from now, the alumni from this team will gather around the post-game tailgates and talk about Tyler Matakevich with alumni from other eras. They will have plenty to talk about because the big story on Action News tonight is that Matakevich became the first Temple player to bring home a major award in 41 years when he was named the Bronko Nagurski Trophy Winner as the nation’s best  defensive player.

It is an award well-deserved.

I had a long conversation with Tyler in Lot K the week before the UCF game and I told him the greatest thing about the Leave No Doubt motto was that UCF was a championship game, like the week before that one and the week after.

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Ron Menchine

“Absolutely,” Tyler said. “We know that’s the only way we can have success.”

Then he explained the what’s the #what’snext hashtag. It was a fascinating conversation and he could not have been more gracious with his time. We talked about other things, like his visit to 97-year-old former Temple end James Woodside, but his take on turning a couple of slogans into a meaningful foundation for this season was illuminating.

I had an inkling Matakevich might win it when a story I wrote for Rant Sports.com ranking the five finalists for the Nagurski Award and putting Matakevich as No. 1 was not only liked by the official twitter account of the Charlotte Touchdown Club, but retweeted to each and every one of the voters.

liked

 

I followed that up with the following chart and it was a pretty stark black and white (well, cherry and white in this case) difference between Matakevich and the competition.

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The last Temple player to earn a major award was Steve Joachim, who won the Maxwell Award was the nation’s best college player. Matakevich is also up for an award from that same club called the Chuck Bednarik Award, also as the nation’s top defensive player.

I have a feeling that he’s also going to bring home that trophy as well. It could not happen to a nicer guy or a better player. Dynamo Hyno should be, and Bronko himself, who has long since left us, would have been, proud.

Related:

http://www.rantsports.com/ncaa-football/2015/11/24/ranking-the-5-bronko-nagurski-award-finalists-for-nations-top-defensive-player/

http://www.rantsports.com/ncaa-football/2015/11/04/dick-butkus-award-will-be-a-complete-farce-without-including-temples-tyler-matakevich/

Tomorrow: Temple vs. Houston Photo Gallery

12.07.15
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Finishing Near Bottom of Bowl Lotto

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As someone who occasionally dabbles in the lottery, the selection of Temple vs. Toledo in the Boca Raton Bowl today reminded me very much of a Super 7 lotto ticket I purchased around 21 years ago.

The Super 7 no longer exists and I think I know why.

My selection of 1-3-6-13-19-20-21 was just one number off the jackpot of $2 million. If I had 26 instead of one of the above, I would have won $2 million.

super

The second-place prize was $90. No, that’s not a misprint. That’s the way the old Super 7 was set up. When I explained the situation to my father, who was living at the time, he simply said: “Shouldn’t the second-place prize be halfway between $90 and $2 million?”

No, dad, it’s a bleep-up game.

I thought about that bleeped-up game today when I heard the opponent for my beloved Temple Owls in the Boca Raton Bowl would be Toledo. My first thought that the bowl selection game is just as bleeped up when the second-place team in a good conference like the AAC gets short-shrifted in comparison to several teams it beat, some in its own conference.

No offense to Toledo, who I really believe is better than most of the Power 5 teams the Owls would have faced in the other bowls, but beating Toledo does absolutely nothing to advance the Temple brand. Before that Super 7 pick, I won at least $90 before in another lotto game (Cash 5), but I was in this thing for the big payout.

A 10-win Temple team should get a better payout than this, both literal and figurative.

Toledo? Been there, done that, too.

Beating Auburn, who the Owls could have faced in another bowl, would have. So would have beating Georgia, who is facing Penn State.

In fact, Penn State, Cincinnati and Memphis are getting to play in better bowls than the Owls are and that’s the reward the Owls get for beating all three.

Being in the Boca Raton Bowl is nice, but it’s a little like winning $90 when there was $2 million on the table. The payoff should have been much more.

Tomorrow: The Big Story on Action News

12.06.15
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Two Ways to Look at This

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Look how far off the boundary corner is. One 3d and 3, Anderson had the same cushion on the other side  later in the game. Take it, and Owls have a new set of downs with 7:18 left and a possible 24-21 deficit.

 

There are two ways to look at Temple’s 24-13 loss to Houston on Saturday.

There is the Kumbaya view and the real world view. The Kumbaya view seems to have carried the day in the post-game Matt Rhule press conference and on much of social media. You know, “I’m proud of the kids” and “this is one of the greatest days in Temple football history” and “we’ve gone from point D to point A.”

real

That’s born out of T-ball mentality. You know, there are no losers and everybody gets a trophy for participation. Little Johnny goes home with a pat on his head. The coaches are great. The kids are great. We’re all just so darn proud of everybody.

Kumbaya.

Ugh.

Then there is the real world view. You know, the “what the hell is going on out here?” view.

The last quarter was a cluster, err, bleep that made you wonder what goes on at the $17 million Edberg-Olson Complex the other six days of the week. In the last seven minutes, Temple showed itself either unwilling or incapable of running a functional two-minute drill that every high school, college and pro team seems to run efficiently.  (If you don’t believe it, take a look at the way St. Joseph’s Prep runs it. The offensive line sprints to the ball. Plays are called at the line, not looking over to the sidelines, with the emphasis on a short passing game to get out of bounds and stop the clock. Prep coach Gabe Infante is only seven blocks away. Invite him over this week.)

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That was a blown opportunity to win a championship due to a number of brain cramps by the coaching staff.  There is no guarantee that the Owls will be back in the title game next year and, if they aren’t, the coaches have no one but themselves to blame for a number of perplexing offensive miscues.  With four minutes left, they seemed incapable of running a true two-minute offense, taking precious seconds off the clock on every play by having the kids stare over to the sidelines for plays. Those 20, 30 seconds a play add up and, before you know it, the game is over.

That wasn’t the worst. This is the worst.

After closing the gap to 24-13 with 7:18 to go in the game, the Owls had a 3d and 3 at the Houston 38 but inexplicably attempted a long pass into the end zone. The call was made even more confounding because Houston was playing 10 yards off Temple wide receiver Robby Anderson on the play.  A simple pitch and catch would have moved the sticks.

Moving the sticks then would have cured a lot of earlier self-imposed ills. Early on, the players had just as much to do with it as the coaches did but after fighting back they deserved a coaching staff that was more focused. The Owls have been a team all year whose motto was to not beat themselves by turning the ball over, but on their first drive of the game, quarterback P.J. Walker threw an interception. That resulted in a 7-0 lead. The Owls were driving for a tying touchdown when Anderson—who caught 12 passes for 150 yards—was fighting for yardage and fumbled the ball on the Houston 5-yard-line. That led to a 10-0 lead.

Had the Owls moved the sticks on 3d and 3, instead of taking the shot into the end zone, they might have scored to make it 24-21 and that would have left seven minutes to bleep around with the dog stare offense. Instead, they followed that botched call with a clinic in mismanaging the clock and never had a chance to find out what would have happened.

While the physical errors by the unpaid amateurs could be forgiven, the mental ones by the well-paid professionals cannot.

Tomorrow:  Thoughts on the Bowl Lotto

Tuesday: …. But the Big Story on Action News Is …

Wednesday: Houston Photo Gallery

Thursday: One Wacky Throwback

Friday: Matakevich’s Special Moment on ESPN

Saturday: A Look at the Other AAC Bowls

Sunday: Welcome Criticism

Monday (12/12): 5 Things the Owls Have to Clean Up

Tuesday: The Fallacy of the Fall Off

Wednesday: The Problem With Watch Parties

Thursday: The Pitt-Navy Monkey Wrench

12.05.15
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Game Day: The Robby Anderson Effect

Tulane v Temple

TU will find a guy who can make catches like this occasionally, but it will be hard to find a guy who makes these catches as routinely as  Robby Anderson does. 

Hard to believe today will the penultimate game to one of the most exciting receivers who has come to Temple since the great Van Johnson and we are talking, of course, about Robby Anderson.

Anderson, you might know about. Johnson, you might not.

Yes, Van Johnson, the late 1990s Temple receiver, not to be confused with Van Johnson, the 1940s actor. The actor was shot seven times in his movies, the wide receiver once when growing up in D.C. When he played for Temple, he got off the line of scrimmage like he was shot out of a cannon. He was to the great Henry Burris what Anderson is to P.J. Walker.

Yeah, I know Temple’s had a lot of great receivers since then, from Phil Goodman to Charlie (err, Zamir) Cobb, and Bruce Francis and Rod Streater, but there’s a little “it” factor that has set Johnson apart from his successors and Anderson from his predecessors. Johnson’s 1996 season was very similar to Anderson’s 2013 season. In that year, in 11 games, Johnson had 50 catches and eight touchdowns and 902 yards. In 2013, in nine games Anderson had 44 receptions for 791 yards and nine touchdowns.  This year, he has 52 receptions for 723 yards and six touchdowns in 12 games. Both guys could go up and get the ball and make explosive plays after they caught it.

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Van Johnson, TU player

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Van Johnson, 1940s actor

In a game like today, at Houston (noon, ABC) for the championship, while everybody will be focused on Jahad Thomas, Greg Ward and Tyler Matakevich, it’s often another guy who grabs the spotlight and Anderson certainly is capable of being THAT guy. He has not had to be that guy this because Temple can spread the rock around, but he is a prime time player. He is only four receptions away from 100 for his career and I believe he will get them. If a couple of them are for touchdowns, the Owls will win. If he catches just three balls, he will pass Steve Watson into the sixth spot on the all-time list.

Speaking of lists, most of the bowl projections by the so-called experts have Houston beating Temple and earning the AAC’s slot in a NY6 bowl.

ESPN analyst Lee Corso might give his stock answer to that assumption, “not so fast, my friend” by closely observing the evidence at hand. Two or three games into a 12-game season, comparative scores hardly seem like a good way at picking a winner but that equation all changes 12 games into a season.  Those appear to point to Temple as the winner over host Cougars.

Both teams played Memphis and UConn recently and Temple performed significantly better against similar opposition in two games than Houston. The Cougars lost at UConn, 20-17, two weeks ago while Temple beat UConn, 27-3, last week. A lot of that could be attributed to the Cougars being without  Ward Jr., but the 27-point difference points to more than just one player.

Another example is Memphis, as the Tigers led, 34-14, with seven minutes left at Houston before blowing the lead and losing, 35-34. A week later, the Tigers were not even in the game at Temple, where the Owls won, 31-12.

Those are a couple of compelling examples, but there have been others as Cincinnati had the lead for much of a game at Houston before falling, 33-30. Its game against visiting Temple played out far differently earlier in the season as the Owls took a 34-12 lead into the fourth quarter before holding on to win, 34-26.  Temple’s top two non-conference foes, Penn State and Notre Dame, was certainly tougher than Houston’s top two, Vanderbilt and Louisville, so the evidence suggests that Temple has been steeled for these types of games.

Of course, there is other data to consider, but there is a lot of empirical evidence out to suggest that Temple will come out on top but part of the fun of football is discovering if the clues lead to the right conclusion.

Call it a hunch, call it men’s intuition, but I have a strong feeling that Robby Anderson will factor rather largely into this game.

12.04.15
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Is It Saturday Yet?

 

We’re from Philadelphia and we fight, or something like that.

While we do not know which team will win on Saturday, fans of both Houston and Temple have confidence in their favorite players and rightly so.

Is it Saturday yet?

A lot of things make the Saturday matchup even more compelling than it being the first-ever G5 title game that results in a NY6 Bowl reward, but it starts with the unstoppable force (Houston quarterback Greg Ward Jr.) meeting the immovable object (Temple linebacker Tyler Matakevich).  In games like this, it’s often the unknown guy who makes a big play or becomes the big player. File that thought away in the memory bank.

Right now, the known is Ward and Matakevich.

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Official watch party at Piazza. Crowd will probably not be this large. Hopefully, the sound will be up.

Matakevich was named the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year and, in a 27-3 win over Connecticut to clinch the AAC East title, he widened the gap between his top competition for both the Chuck Bednarik Award and the Bronko Nagurski Award.

After the final game of the regular season for all of the schools, Matakevich is the clear leader from all of the available empirical evidence. One of his top competitors, Penn State end Carl Nassib, has missed the last two games with an injury.  Matakevich is up for the Bednark with Nassib and Shaq Lawson, while he is up for the Nagurski with both of those guys and two others. This is the complete list with updated stats:

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Clemson DE Shaq Lawson: The 6-foot-3, 275-pound junior has 48 tackles in 12 games, 19.5 for losses with 8.5 sacks and no fumble recoveries and no interceptions. He is the best player on one of the best defenses in the nation, but doesn’t produce in the all-important turnover area.

Carl Nassib, Penn State (DE):  The walk-on from Malvern Prep in the suburbs of Philadelphia has had a superb season for the Nittany Lions. In 10 games, Nassib has 46 tackles, 19.5 for losses, including 15.5 sacks. He also has one interception and returned it for 10 yards and forced six fumbles. He played only the first three snaps on Saturday against Michigan before being removed with an undisclosed injury.

Reggie Ragland, Alabama (LB):  In 12 games, the 6-2, 252-pound Ragland has 90 tackles, 6.5 for losses with 2.5 sacks, no interceptions and two forced fumbles. He almost has no impact, though, on the opponent’s passing game as he has no interceptions this season.

Jeremy Cash, Duke (SS):  The 6-2, 210-pound is projected as a strong safety on the next level, but has played both strong and free safety for the Blue Devils. This year, in 12 games, he has 100 tackles, 18 for losses with 2.5 sacks. After recording two interceptions a year ago, he has none this season.

Tyler Matakevich, Temple (LB):  No one seems to be nearly as qualified for the Nagurski hardware as does the 6-1, 232-pound Matakevich, who is only the sixth player in FBS history to record fourth-straight 100-tackle seasons. He is also the only player in college football this season to lead his team in tackles in every game. He has 118 tackles, 14.5 for losses, 4.5 sacks and five interceptions.