11.12.14
by

Temple-Penn State: When A Game is More Than a Game

We often hear, especially in times like last week after a tough loss, that “it is, after all, only a game.”

That’s easy to say for every week other than Penn State Week for Temple people. For  people who say “it’s only a game; it’s’ not life-and-death” … it is life and death for us who have waited for a win over Penn State all of our lives and desperately want to see one before we go to the other side.

lewis

Mr. Katz

Thinking about all of the great Temple fans that I had the pleasure of talking to in the concourses at the Vet, Franklin Field, Temple Stadium and Lincoln Financial Field, like Steve Bumm (see No. 4 in this story), NJ Schmitty, Shane Artim and Dan Glammer, among others, who never got to see this and, of course, Mr. Katz.  They are all gone and none forgotten and never had a chance to see Temple beat Penn State before going to the other side. How many more of us will pass this year with no chance to see a win next year?

This win is much more than for a chance to participate in a bowl game. It is for the respect of an entire city and state. Philadelphia has been force-fed PSU football coverage for 50-plus years when they already had a hometown team. The day Temple beats Penn State will be the day you stop seeing Temple students wearing PSU sweatshirts on campus. It is the day you will finally hear Temple football talked about on the radio and television stations.

owlsrevival22-L

Dan

So, for all those reasons, it is life and death. The Penn State game is much more than a game for Temple people and it has been for 73 years and it will be until the day Temple beats Penn State and hopefully that day is just a few hours away.

I think it is and I don’t think I’m looking through Cherry-and-White-colored glasses this time.

For all of the mismanagement on offense, Temple’s defense—particularly its defensive line—will win this game. Temple has an athletic and quick defensive line and Penn State has largely an inexperienced group of offensive linemen (and thanks to the Penn State fan who sent us that information). These guys are not walk-ons, but they’ve struggled. If Temple’s defensive line does what it did against Vanderbilt—with four SEC starters  returning from a team that went 9-4 in the best conference in America—the Owls should win this game. We are not asking the Temple defensive line to do something it is not capable of doing or has not done before.

shane

Shane

On offense, what the Owls have  is a lot of really good players with unique skills who are not being put in the best position to win. Temple should not be struggling to score 13 points against the likes of Houston, UCF and Memphis.  Temple has two potentially great blocking fullbacks in Kenny Harper and Marc Tyson and it rarely uses them that way. Temple has a potentially great tailback in Jahad Thomas and it rarely uses a fullback block at the point of attack to spring him for big gains. Temple has a potentially great tight end in Colin Thompson and rarely throws him the ball. Temple has at least two offensive linemen who will be playing on Sundays—Dion Dawkins and Kyle Friend—and rarely use those two with Thompson and Tyson running interference on toss sweeps to Thomas that could open up that entire offensive arsenal.

Speaking of that arsenal, Temple has a change-of-pace tailback who runs the ball well in space—Jamie Gilmore—and rarely uses him that way but fans jump all over him when he drops a catchable bomb when they should be jumping all over the coaches instead.  Keith Kirkwood (his OC called him Kirkland on a radio interview), John Christopher and Romond Deloatch—guys with magnets for hands and stick-em rubbed all over those magnets—are rarely thrown but instead target too many guys who do drop balls. The Owls have an extremely talented rollout quarterback, P.J. Walker, who they try to make a dropback passer far too much.



Owl Conundrum:
Temple gets no WR separation
or QB protection in those
formations but stubbornly
roll those formations out
week after week and wonder
why it struggles to score

This offense is a cluster-bleep of trying to fit good square pegs into horrible round holes.

What Temple has on offense is an OC from Tennessee-Chattanooga who is in love with a three- and four-wide formations that this personnel is not suited for and a head coach who is too nice a guy to over, err, rule his good friend. Temple gets no WR separation or QB protection in those formations but stubbornly roll those formations out week after week and wonder why it struggles to score.  With this talent and a more traditional two-back and I-formations with plenty of play-action, Temple is as formidable on offense as it has been on defense this year.

Maybe moreso.

For all that messing around on that side of the ball, I think Temple still wins this one in a game closer than it should be, say 13-10.

11.08.14
by

Running The Football Was a Forgotten Promise

Amnesia is a terrible thing to have once, let alone twice in the same week.

Evidently, though, that is just what happened to Temple head football coach Matt Rhule after the glorious 20-10 win over East Carolina, fueled by this promise:

“Last week, we were a little bit shell-shocked on the plane coming home from the loss to Central Florida. As a staff, we made a decision … so, this week we wanted to get back to who and what Temple is: play good defense and special teams and run the football.”

Rhule remembered the good defense part. He forgot the run-the-football part and the special teams part.

Since Matt cannot control what a punter does or does not do, let’s just concentrate on what he can control—the run-the-football part.

Just to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, I got up early this morning to chart all of the Temple offensive plays. Temple ran 71 offensive plays and lined up in three wide receivers on 68 of those. Temple ran the ball 32 times and passed it 39 times. By any definition, that doesn’t jive with “play good defense and special teams and run the football.”

Kenny Harper scores

Kenny Harper scores

Against East Carolina, Temple ran 56 offensive plays, lined up in three wides 22 times and ran the ball on 37 of those offensive plays. Of the 37 running plays, Temple lined up with a fullback, Marc Tyson, 20 times. Both Temple offensive touchdowns were a result of a Marc Tyson block off a two-back formation. Tyson, like so many uniquely talented Temple players the last two seasons, joined federal witness protection last night.

You can blame the loss on the drops all you want, but that’s something the coaching staff cannot control. The coaching staff CAN control the commitment to the running game. Not only did the Owls coaching staff forget about it in game-planning this week, it forgot to stick to the running game after Kenny Harper ripped off a 75-yard touchdown run.

Amnesia twice in one week.

Before the game, we wrote this:

“If you decide to pray for anything, please pray that the Owls don’t fall back into their three-wides, no-blocking-back for P.J. Walker approach they had against Houston and UCF. In that scheme, Walker had no time–none–to throw and receivers could get zero separation. So happy to see the Owls get away from that last Saturday.”

Well, with the help of some selective amnesia, they got back to it Friday night and, not surprisingly, they lost. Hopefully, on the bus ride home from LFF, Matt Rhule remembers what he said on the plane ride home from UCF–and, this time, never forgets.

11.06.14
by

Jeez(y), This Temple Team Deserves a Big Crowd Friday Night

Another slick, short and sweet video by Temple Athletics pumping up the fans for Temple’s Friday Night Lights’ game and there’s plenty to like about it.

The audio part, though, could use a little work. Imagine Dragons?

You’ve got to be kidding me … Young Jeezy must have some more appropriate lyrics for Temple’s epic showdown with visiting Memphis on Friday night. After all, YJ pumped up the team with a pre-game talk that helped the Owls double up East Carolina, 20-10, last week. Jeez is more than an honorary Temple football fan. He’s a real one. A Jeez phone call might close the deal on a five-star someday. Let that thought marinate for a minute. I prefer Mumford and Sons and the Foo Fighters, but I’m not a five-star so I yield to Jeez. Chances are Jeez’s playlist is on most five-star’s headphones.

Looks like Matt Ioannidis has his game-face on, but Tavon Young and Kenny Harper were politely asking for the students to get on the 4:30 buses that leave the main campus for the “free tailgate.” Having been a Temple student once, I was so broke I knew the word “free” back then evoked a Pavlovian response, like “I’m there.” If some on the main campus cannot make the 4:30 buses, there’s a dedicated subway line right in front of the Liacouras Center that takes all of 10 minutes to get to the game.

Time for the alumni to put away the remote, put on a coat, get in a car, bus or train to the Linc and wear out the vocal chords.

Time for the alumni to put away the remote, get off the couch, put on a coat, get in a car, bus or train to the Linc and wear out the vocal chords. I will be there. Will you?

For all of the bitching and moaning of not having an on-campus stadium, it’s hard to imagine a following without an on-campus stadium having easier transportation options than Temple fans have. Heck, Uconn has its own stadium but it’s 27 miles from the main campus.

More importantly, there’s an epic game to be played and how can a student or alumnus miss it? National TV, winner-take-all for a bowl game and the winner gets a bowl, loser gets to bite their fingernails for one or two more weeks or maybe even the rest of the season.

If those stakes don’t cause the fans to stay standing in their seats and yell “Let’s Go Temple” and “DEE-fense, DEE-fense” (both while the Owls are on defense, of course), nothing will. Make no mistake about it. This will be a tough game. Memphis went toe-to-toe with UCLA and destroyed a good Cincinnati team. For Temple, a win here could be just the momentum-generator the Owls need to make a program-changing win over Penn State next week.

There are 12,500 students who live on campus now and 27,000 additional full-time students who commute home. There are 291,000 living alumni, about 180,000 of them live within an hour’s drive of the stadium. There are 6,000 full-time Temple employees. Even if you get half of the 12.5K and 6K and one-quarter of the 180,000, you have pretty close to a full stadium.

A lot of yelling and cheering for these guys could not hurt and no doubt would help. You can just tell by looking at their faces they would appreciate it. They deserve your support and, for the students especially, it costs nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other and walking two more feet to a bus or a subway. They are, after all, representing you and the Linc is our “Hood.”

11.05.14
by

Two-Way Football (Sort of) Returns to TU

If you needed any insight into why Memphis is coming into Lincoln Financial Field a 7-point favorite against a Temple team that just beat No. 23 East Carolina, all you have to do is go straight to the training table at Edberg-Olson Hall. Head coach Matt Rhule calls it the “M*A*S*H unit.”

At least that’s what I got out of watching the latest version of Matt Rhule Weekly. Two-way football, missing since the days of Bill Juzwiak and Bill Cosby, has returned to Temple. (Juzwiak, a former William Tennent coach, used to remind me he played 60 minutes starting for Temple on both the offensive and defensive lines. One of the best high school coaches and funniest guys I’ve ever known when I first started covering high school sports.) Cosby played both fullback and defensive back for Temple in the same games. Juzwiak was just as funny as Cos, just didn’t make any money out of it.

Inquirer's John Mitchell and "Chip K." discuss Temple's new 2-back offense in this morning's chat. I think Chip meant Walker, not Harper.

Inquirer’s John Mitchell and “Chip K.” discuss Temple’s new 2-back offense in this morning’s chat. I think Chip meant Walker, not Harper.

Brian Carter, a starter at defensive tackle—and in the preseason a lot of starters at DT were in the preseason mix and Carter was not one of them—against UCF, will be a starter on the offensive line against Memphis.

Ouch.

Double ouch since Shabazz Ahmed—last year’s starter at DE—was forced to the offensive side of the ball before the season. He now appears out.

Also, playing in that Temple game last year were stars like Robbie Anderson and Chris Coyer and some under-rated lunch pail guys like Cody Booth and Evan Regas and they are no longer here.

I guess the loss of Anderson, who scored three touchdowns in that 41-21 Temple win, and Coyer, who scored one, is the reason why Temple has gone from a 20-point winner to a 7-point loser against this same Memphis team. Still, I think Temple has improved the entire team is so many other areas that this one should go down to the wire. Another interesting point: Temple beat Vandy by about the same score ole miss did and ole miss hammered Memphis, 24-3. Best case scenario is Temple wins by the same score. Worse case is Memphis covers the seven. Good reason for all 250,000 TU alumni and 39K full-time TU students to cram into every nook and cranny of LFF Friday night.

But pleading and hoping and praying for Temple fans to make a difference has worked rarely in the past (Eagle Bank Bowl being a notable exception) so this is going to have to be on the players and coaches. If you decide to pray for anything, please pray that the Owls don’t fall back into their three-wides, no-blocking-back for P.J. Walker approach they had against Houston and UCF. In that scheme, Walker had no time–none–to throw and receivers could get zero separation. So happy to see the Owls get away from that last Saturday.

If the Owls can continue with what they did on offense against ECU—using a fullback and play-action passing to buy time for P.J. Walker and spring Jahad Thomas and Kenny Harper at the point of attack—they can run enough minutes off the clock and make enough plays to keep Memphis’ offense off the field.

At least that should be the plan.

Watch coach Fran Dunphy’s message here (so proud that this great man is representing our school):

11.01.14
by

The Perfect Owl Storm

People of a certain age will remember a commercial by Julius Erving after the Sixers imploded and lost a playoff series they were favored in and, in an attempt to win fans back the next season,  Erving said: “We Owe You One.”

Well, for those of us who have sit in many Gosh-awful storms—and one documented Hurricane–to watch the Temple University’s football team lose heartbreakers, another storm, this time unnamed, came through with big-time payback on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field.

Watching looks of happiness on the faces of long-time great Owls like Steve Conjar and Mark Bresani made this win even more worthwhile.

Pure post-game happiness by the Mulvihills surrounding two of the greatest ex-Owls, Mark Bresani and Steve Conjar, who is putting up the No. 1.

Pure post-game happiness by the Mulvihills surrounding two of the greatest ex-Owls, Mark Bresani and Steve Conjar, who is putting up the No. 1. I think Steve is saying he’s got the No. 1 tailgate in Lot K.

I don’t think the Owls win this game without the storm, but who cares? They won and that’s the bottom line. Nobody cared when Uconn got several calls at the end of regulation and OT that won a 12-6 game during Hurricane Hanna and years down the line no one will care that East Carolina was a team built for a fast track and a dry ball this year.

What’s important now is that the Owls take this ball and run with it–with the emphasis on the key word “run.”



“We made a decision to get back
to who and what Temple is.
We tried to play good defense
and special teams and
run the football.”
_ Matt Rhule

They know they can beat Memphis on Friday night to become bowl-eligible. Heck, they beat Memphis last year by 20 points with essentially the same offensive players, sans Robbie Anderson and Chris Coyer. Colin Thompson has shown he can become a Coyer; someone is going to have to step up and become a Robbie Anderson. Maybe Keith Kirkwood can. Memphis is better than it was last year, but so, too, is Temple. I don’t think Memphis has improved more than Temple, but that’s something Temple must prove on Friday night.

The Temple defense is light years ahead of last year and, if there is a better linebacker in the country than Tyler Matakevich, I have not seen him. This was Matakevich’s best game yet. We need a nickname for him. Maybe Pac-Man because of the way he eats up ballcarriers but I’m sure someone can come up with something better.



Temple Fun Fact:
Owls held ECU
to 60 fewer points
than North Carolina
did–despite having
to go to class
during the week

The Owls won because they did a better job taking care of the ball and a better job at committing to the run. It was heartening to see the post-game comments by head coach Matt Rhule that Temple had to get back to being Temple—which is running the football. Seeing Marc Tyson back there as a blocking fullback in a two-back set was a big step forward for the Temple run game and, hopefully, Kenny Harper can get some fullback time in, too. Harper’s spin move on one touchdown was a thing of beauty, as was his hesitation to pick up Dion Dawkins’ block on another TD. He’s both smart and tough, though he doesn’t possess high-end tailback speed.

The defense is playing at a big-time level and it’s high time the offense played up to their capabilities. If that happens, this could be the start of a long winning streak. If not, it will be a struggle to get to six. Maybe the renewed commitment to the run will help jump-start the play-action passing game.

Let’s hope so. They owe the defense one.

11.01.14
by

Good Day for Some Old-Fashioned TU Plays

Feet on the floor and butts out of bed. It's game day.

Feet on the floor and butts out of bed. It’s game day.

Sometimes I wonder if these spread offense guys ever plan for a rainy, windy, muddy day.

We shall find out today. In any endeavor, there should be a Plan A and a Plan B and this is one of those days to go with the Plan B.

Time to get out those old Temple football movies and put some current actors in those roles.

huge

A good organization, like the Diamond Marching Band, has a Plan B. Photo taken this morning.

This would be a good time for some smash-mouth, old-time, Temple plays from way back, say, earlier this decade. Bernard Pierce (played by Jahad Thomas) behind Wyatt Benson (played by Kenny Harper) behind Steve Manieri (played by Colin Thompson).

Grind out those 3, 4, 6-yard runs and put a premium on protecting the football and killing as much of the clock as possible to keep the ball out of the hands of the high-octane East Carolina offense.

Another great ex-Temple play that could work today is the short rollout by Chester Stewart (played by P.J. Walker)  where he throws no more than a 5-yard pass to Evan Rodriguez (played by Thompson) and he turns it into a big gain. That play helped even a historically inaccurate quarterback like Stewart go 9 for 9 in a 38-7 win at Maryland in 2011 and could help jump-start the confidence of the way-more-talented Walker today.

In a few hours, we will find out if this Temple coaching staff is capable of improvising and adjusting.

10.30.14
by

Shaken, But Hopefully Not Stirred

A long time ago a former Temple football father started a music craze with these three simple words:

Shake, rattle and roll.

Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” is widely credited with getting the rock and roll genre started in the 1950s and his son, Scott Haley, was an outstanding tight end for the Owls when the Owls used to throw to tight ends way back in the football stone age of the 1980s.

Scott Haley's dad. He rarely tailgated.

Scott Haley’s dad. He rarely tailgated.

Now at least a derivative of  those three words have entered the Temple football dictionary again as Matt Rhule mentioned his team appeared “shaken” in practice this week.  A report in the Philadelphia Daily News about this press conference (above) noted Rhule used the word “fast” three times but his use of shaken has got me rattled and rolled.

Under Al Golden, even when Temple was playing very good BCS-level teams (Uconn, Navy and UCLA come to mind immediately), the Owls always played with a “Temple TUFF” swagger. Golden even noted that coming off the field at halftime in the UCLA game before a national TV audience: “We always play Temple tough,” Golden said, adding, “that’s spelled T-U-F-F.”

Shaken never entered the Temple football vocabulary back then.

It has now. Sure, the Houston and UCF teams the Owls played the last couple of weeks were very good but they were no better than Uconn, Navy and UCLA back then and back then Temple was playing with MAC-level recruits.

High winds: Hopefully, the Owls can move out of the spread and go 2 backs and power football. Failing that, maybe some of those Shane Carden passes will blow into the waiting arms of Tavon Young.

High winds: Hopefully, the Owls can move out of the spread and go 2 backs and power football. Failing that, maybe some of those Shane Carden passes will blow into the waiting arms of Tavon Young.

Got to wonder if at least a little part of the shakes has to do with a loss of confidence in the leadership above the captain’s level and reaching to the very  top of the program. At least Golden had the good sense to use his breakaway 5-5, 150-pound back  from New Jersey, Matty Brown, as a change-of-pace running back and not a slot receiver. At least  Golden had the good sense to know if he found a tailback with Jahad Thomas’ elusiveness and explosiveness, he would use him like he used Bernard Pierce, behind a great blocking fullback,  to maximize his skills and not as a decoy in a spread offense. Golden never had a five-star tight end recruit transfer in from Florida but my guess is that he would have down something radical  like THROWN HIM THE BALL. Just a hunch. Then again Golden never hired an offensive coordinator from Tennessee-Chattanooga.  Probably because Golden never had any friends from Tennessee-Chattanooga.

Rhule’s right about one thing: The Owls appear shaken. What he could be wrong about are the reasons for the shakes.