09.27.13
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For Idaho, no place like Dome

Idaho is a completely different team indoors than outdoors.

Idaho is a completely different team indoors than outdoors.

The old Wizard of Oz line was that there was “no place like home.”
For Idaho’s football team, that’s especially true because, for the Vandals, there is no place like dome.

The last time Temple played in a small indoor arena (Carrier Dome doesn't count).

The last time Temple played in a small indoor arena (Carrier Dome doesn’t count).

The Vandals look like a Division II team outside of the Kibbie Dome. Inside the building, they play like a pretty good FBS team most of the time.
Whether it’s the familiarity with an unusual setting or the altitude, that’s something Temple’s football team will have to be aware of for tomorrow’s 5 p.m. (Philadelphia time) start (97.5 FM,  DirecTV via Altitude TV on DirecTV 681 and Dish Network 410-HDTV). The game is also available on the internet via a link to VandalsXtra here.
An Idaho team that loses, 42-0, on the road to Washington State, put 35 points up on Northern Illinois in a 45-35 loss earlier this season.

This chart  below shows that Idaho performs SIGNIFICANTLY better in home games than on the road:

Dome Sweet Home

Idaho Home This Year Idaho Away This Season
Northern Illinois 45, Idaho 35 (2013) North Texas 40, Idaho 6 (2013)
2012 Home Games: Wyoming 40, Idaho 17 (2013)
Eastern Washington 20, Idaho 3 2012 Away:
Wyoming 40, Idaho 37 Bowling Green 21, Idaho 12; LSU 63, Idaho 14
Idaho 26, New Mexico State 18 North Carolina 66, Idaho 0
Texas San Antonio 34, Idaho  27 Texas State 38, Idaho 7

Meanwhile, the Owls have problems of their own, especially with defense and the kicking game. Temple defensive coordinator Phil Snow had Eastern Michigan ranked 120 out of 125 defenses in FBS football last year, giving up  478.9 yards per game in 12 games last season. His Temple defense is ranked No. 119 currently, giving up 529 yards a game.

This is the same personnel Chuck Heater had when he shut out UConn in the second half a season ago; yes, the same UConn team that beat Louisville so talent does not appear to be an issue here. Hopefully, the changes made on defense with Nate D. Smith moving to one end and Matt Ioannidis moving to one tackle will help put pressure on the quarterback and take pressure off the defensive backs.

At least that’s the theory.

Snow has not recorded a shutout against an FBS opponent since 1996 — five years before he met a 25-year-old grad assistant at UCLA named Matt Rhule. Given the fact that the Vandals scored 35 points on a pretty good Northern Illinois’ team, he’s probably not likely to get one here. The feeling is the Owls will have to win a shootout, high-20s, high-30s, type game.

Temple opened as a 10-point favorite and the line dropped to 7 1/2 in just three days. There is not a lot of national confidence out there in Temple despite the strong words this week coming from the Edberg-Olsen Complex.

For Temple, this is where the talk about winning has to stop and the winning itself has to start.

Tomorrow: Late Saturday night game analysis

09.25.13
by

Another way to look at Fordham

Temple has not won crap with white helmets, dating back through Bobby Wallace, so I hope the Cherry ones come back soon but I like when Zaire Williams gets the ball, whatever helmet he wears.

Temple has not won crap with white helmets, dating back through Bobby Wallace, so I hope the Cherry ones come back soon.

Napoleon had his Waterloo.
Hitler had his Stalingrad.
Rhule had his Fordham.
Actually, Hitler and Napoleon had some victories first.
Matt Rhule losing to Fordham was like leaving Paris and Berlin with an Army and getting beaten in the suburbs by a Militia.
That’s pretty much the way I’ve been thinking about the Fordham game for the past 10 days.
On today, the 11th day, maybe the 11th hour, I had an Epiphany.
Fordham might not be a Waterloo or Stalingrad after all.
Fordham actually is a pretty good FCS team.

  Degrees of Fordham Separation
Fordham 30, Temple 29;
Fordham 27, Villanova 24;
Villanova 35, Stony Brook 6;
Buffalo 26, Stony Brook 23 (five overtimes, five missed SB field goals)
Ohio State 40, Buffalo 20
Fordham 51, Rhode Island 26
William and Mary 20, Rhode Island 0;
  West Virginia 24, William and Mary 17

I know the warnings about Transitive Property. Just because Team A beat Team B and Team B beat Team C doesn’t mean Team A will beat Team C.
There is, though, a lot of evidence based on the first three or four games of the season that Fordham is the real deal and Temple had the misfortune of scheduling Fordham instead of Lafayette or Monmouth this year.
Fordham went from not ranked in the FCS to No. 16 in the country and the Rams are moving up with a bullet.
The Rams have a top-level FBS quarterback in Michael Nebrich and a top-level FBS tailback in Carlton Koonce, who probably are more polished than the two players Temple had at those positions starting the game, Juice Granger and Kenny Harper. I think Zaire Williams is every bit as good as Koonce, maybe better, but maybe Rhule believes Williams had to wait his turn.
Well, that turn has come and, like Napoleon and Hitler, Rhule has reached Moscow in a defining moment.


That said, IF Paul Hornung Award leader
Chris Coyer gets fed the ball at least
10 or more times in a variety of ways
against Idaho, Matt Rhule will prove
to be smarter than Hitler or Napoleon
and have a lot easier time
in Moscow than those two did

Moscow, Russia for the first two; Moscow, Idaho for Rhule.
Still, no excuse for not pounding the ball against Fordham’s 247-pound defensive line but that mistake has to be chalked up to the inexperience of a young Field General in Matt Rhule.
Fordham, though, is pretty good. The Rams not only beat Temple, but they beat Villanova and last week Villanova beat Stony Brook like a drum (35-6).
If you don’t think that’s impressive, just check out what Stony Brook did the week before: It extended old Temple rival Buffalo to five overtimes before losing, 26-23. In a pang of pain Temple fans felt during the Houston game, two Stony Brook kickers missed five field goals during that game. Stony Brook should have beaten Buffalo, no doubt about it. Buffalo hung with Ohio State before losing, 40-20. Ohio State is about as good as it gets in college football these days.
Should have, could have and did are different things but you get the drift.
With a third-string quarterback, Temple could not get it done against one of the best FCS teams out there.
It happens.
Ask Iowa State, which lost to Northern Iowa, 28-20, and Kansas State, which lost to North Dakota State, 27-24. Kansas State was a top 10 BCS team all last season. Or Oregon State, which lost to Eastern Washington. Or UConn, which lost to Towson.
Something tells me at least one or two teams among Iowa State, Kansas State, UConn and Oregon State will survive and go to a bowl game.
Temple can, too, if it can get the ball in the hands of its explosive playmakers like Chris Coyer and Zaire Williams on a more regular basis. If is the same word as could and should and the hope is that Rhule spent the last 10 days figuring out how to change if and should to did and done.

That said, IF Paul Hornung Award leader Chris Coyer gets fed the ball at least 10 or more times in a variety of ways against Idaho, Matt Rhule will prove to be smarter than Hitler or Napoleon and have a lot easier time in Moscow than those two did. If he doesn’t, it will be another cold and nasty retreat.

09.24.13
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Good news: Media Matters

John Mitchell was “late” to this Matt Rhule teleconference.

When it comes to Temple football losses, the old adage about a tree falling in the forest seems to apply.
You know the one:  If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Well, if Temple football loses to Fordham and no one is around to report it properly, does it sting as much?
When it comes to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s John Mitchell’s reporting about Temple after that game, no news certainly is good news.


The loss coincides with a
“perfect media storm” for Temple.
The first part of the storm
is a writer, John Mitchell,
who obviously doesn’t give a crap
about the beat he’s covering;
listen to him apologizing
to Matt Rhule above for “being late”
 12 minutes into a teleconference
and having Matt repeat
all of the position changes
he gave earlier.
I mean, how can you be late
for a teleconference? It’s not like you
have to fight traffic
on the Schuylkill Expressway

To me and you it does, but not to the general “Joe Philadelphia” public and that’s one of the small consolations we can take from what happened 10 days ago.
The loss coincides with a “perfect media storm” for Temple. The first part of the storm is a writer, John Mitchell, who obviously doesn’t give a crap about the beat he’s covering; listen to him apologizing to Matt Rhule above for “being late”  12 minutes into a teleconference and having Matt repeat all of the position changes he gave earlier. I mean, how can you be late for a teleconference? It’s not like you have to fight traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway.
The other part of the “Perfect Storm” was it coincided with Andy Reid’s Return. I listen to Philadelphia sports radio in between the commercials on 100.3 and Lady B, and Temple’s loss to Fordham wasn’t mentioned once on 97.5 The Fanatic on 94.1 WIP.
Thank Heaven for small blessings.
I guarantee you if that loss came on an Eagles’ bye week Mike Missanelli would have mentioned it and dug the knife further into the back of every die-hard Temple fan. Now it’s just about forgotten. Time to put it further in the rear-view mirror by winning at Idaho.
In reality, all Temple got in the local media was a bland game story and sidebar from Mitchell–what I call  the Kevin Tatum Treatment–going through the motions and skating by all week by not filing another Temple story. Tatum was famous for staying in the press box and waiting until the typed post-game coaching quotes came from the Sports Information Department and using typed quotes in his one story on the game. One story, one coaching quote, plus a lot of play-by-play. Pulitzer stuff it wasn’t.
Looks like Mitchell went to the Kevin Tatum School of Journalism.
Good.The less Temple stories after that fiasco, the better.

Click over the fans to get five upsets this weekend.

Click over the fans to get five upsets this weekend.

The Inky’s Mike Jensen wrote one column later in the week, saying it’s too early to “Rule on Temple’s Matt Rhule” and that was it. Sort of my 15 minutes of fame in that he mentioned me in the lede without using my name, saying we both had better candidates for the Temple job than Matt Rhule, naming Colorado’s Mike MacIntrye and Bowling Green’s Dave Clawson. That falls under the “duh” department. Pretty routine stuff, although he forgot to mention Ball State’s Pete Lembo might have been available.
That’s it, though.
Whew.
Dodged a huge media bullet there.
Now that Matt Rhule is here, all we can do is back him and hope he does a better job of getting the ball in the hands of Temple’s explosive playmakers (i.e., Chris Coyer and Zaire Williams) and that Jalen Fitzpatrick can snap out of a three-game funk and add some dynamite.
Maybe Rhule spent the 10 days asking defensive coordinator Phil Snow why the DBs play 15 yards off the ball, instead of challenging the receiver for it.
We can only hope that time will heal this Fordham wound.
Meanwhile, we can be thankful to one lazy beat reporter and one former Temple football dad (Andy Reid) that almost nobody else in Philadelphia knows about it.

Tomorrow: More Good News

09.19.13
by

Throwback Thursday: Temple 28, Virginia Tech 24

Click on headline for complete story

Click on headline for complete story

In an effort to lift myself out of a deep depression caused by losing two winnable games in consecutive weeks, this week’s Throwback Thursday is an effort to recall that all things are possible.

Interesting that there is no video of this game anywhere on the internet, but you can get a lot of video on Virginia Tech 62, Temple 7 and Virginia Tech 35, Temple 13 and Virginia Tech 20, Temple 10. Frank Beamer must have confiscated all film and had it destroyed.

Hopefully, the Owls can get their act together by Idaho and put a good season together. Gosh, I’d just like to see one DB step in FRONT of a pass and intercept it, rather than let the receiver catch it. That’s a concept I haven’t seen (seemingly) since the days of Anthony Young, Bob Mizia, Marc Baxter, Todd Bowles, Eddie Parker, Terry Wright and Kevin Ross. I think all but one of those guys was coached by Nick Rapone.

09.17.13
by

Einstein’s theory of Owl-tivity

Albert Einstein talks Temple football.

Albert Einstein talks Temple football.

Got to wonder what the smartest man in the history of the world would be thinking right now about Temple football.

Since the 30-minute conversation I had with Wayne Hardin on Saturday was pre-game and not post-game and I lost coach Hardin’s number, I can only move on to the second-smartest man, Albert Einstein.

I think our conversation would have gone something like this:

TFF: Mr. Einstein, you saw the Fordham game, how would you fix this Temple team?

AE:  Simple mathematics, my friend. Ten plus 5+5+5 + 20/12 and 20/23=6, maybe 7.

TFF: Huh?

AE: Look, your No. 10 can catch, throw and run, right? You only have him catching once or twice now. That’s just not maximizing his output.  Have him come around — what do you call it?

TFF: The end?

AE: Yes, the end, and have your No. 12 pitch the ball backward to No. 10  five times and then have No. 10 throw the ball. That’s the first part of the five equation.

I guess only Einstein knows Coyer can run, catch and throw.

I guess only Einstein knows Coyer can run, catch and throw.

TFF: What’s the second?

AE: Keep him at, what do you call it, tight end and throw him the ball five times.

TFF: What’s the third?

AE: Have him come around the end and toss it to him like he’s going to throw the ball, but make it a running play behind that  big guy who blocks well — what do you call it?

TFF: A pulling guard?

AE: Yes, a pulling guard. That No. 63, what’s his name?

TFF: Pete White.

AE: Yes,  have No. 10 follow Pete White and take off through the secondary. There you have it: Five throws, five catches and five runs. The defense won’t know what No. 10 is going to do when he’s got the ball in his hands. It’s called deception. Works a lot in all kinds of endeavors. Mix it up. Run these 15 plays alternately with your normal regular plays. What do you call them?

TFF: The Tennessee-Chattanooga plays.

AE: Yes, the Tennessee-Chattanooga plays.

TFF: What’s the 20/12 mean?

AE: Twelve, the man who throws the ball, is your  what?

Khalif Herbin meets the media on Tuesday and talks about his time in witness protection.

This could be Khalif Herbin meeting the media on Tuesday and talking about his time in witness protection. It’s been so long since we’ve seen his dynamic skills on the field we forget what he looks like. He’s 100 percent healthy, thank God.

TFF: Quarterback.

AE: Yes,  quarterback. He throws the ball 20 times. He’s pretty good at it. Have him do that about 20 times a game.

TFF: What does the 20/23 mean?

AE:  That number 23 is fast and he’s got some nifty moves. When 12 isn’t throwing the ball, give it to him about the same number of times 12 passes it. Also might help to have 12 drop back, draw the rush to him and then dump it off to 23. What do you call that?

TFF: A screen pass.

AE: Yes, a screen pass. Get No. 23 in space … and I don’t mean intergalactic space — just in the space behind the defenders and watch him go.

TFF: What’s the six, maybe seven, part mean?

AE:  Six wins, maybe seven. But listen. It all starts with getting No. 10 five carries, five passes, five catches. Nothing else works without that baseline formula. That way, you control the ball, create deception, score a lot of points. Let me ask you a question.

TFF: Shoot.

AE: You know about E=MC2, right?

TFF: Yes. It’s your Theory of Relativity.

AE: Yes. Do you have anyone on your team who matches the C part of the equation, someone with the speed of light?

TFF: Nobody that fast, but Khalif Herbin is the closest thing we have and he’s been on the bench.

AE: Well, get him on the field then and isolate him in situations where he can best use that speed, like quick passes and reverse. If he’s having trouble catching the ball, hand it off to him as a change-up running back.

TFF: Got it. Gee, thanks, Mr. Einstein. I’ll get this off to Matt Rhule and Marcus Satterfield as fast as I can. One more question.

AE: Anything.

TFF: What do you do to fix the other side of the ball, what we call the defense?

AE: Tough question. Who do you think I am, Einstein? That’s a joke.

TFF: Yeah, I figured that.

Thursday: Throwback Thursday

09.14.13
by

The Blackest of Black Saturdays

Don’t look, OK look. This should have been more than one guy putting pressure on QB.

Many of you are too young to remember Black Friday.
Phillies fans of a certain age remember it too well.
Phillies up, 5-3, two outs, two strikes on Davey Lopes in a key NLCS game on a Friday. Larry Bowa picks up a  ball and throws out Lopes. Game over.

guys

No, the Lopes is called safe (he was out), Phils lose game and series and the day will forever be known as Black Friday in Phillies history.
For a Temple football program that has had a lot of Black Saturdays, this was unquestionably the worst.
Call it the Blackest of Black Saturdays.
You can’t lose to Fordham after coming back from a 19-7 deficit to take a 29-24 lead.
You just can’t.
Walking out of the stadium –heck, even at halftime – I told my friend, Matt, “This is what happens when you let the players and parents hire the coach.”

Those kids and parents will be gone soon, but I and the thousands of long-suffering Temple fans will remain and have to, as Emperor Hirohito put it post two nukes,  endure the unendurable.

I think I’d rather be nuked than go through another Bobby Wallace/Ron Dickerson/Jerry Berndt Error.
I was for Matt Rhule to get the NEXT head coaching job at Temple, not this one. My reasoning was simple as well as brutally logical. Have him go somewhere like Kent State and prove he can win (like Darrell Hazel did) and THEN he could come to Temple. Why did no other school consider Matt Rhule?  I wanted Mike MacIntrye (now at Colorado) to be head coach or Dave Clawson (now at Bowling Green). The Owls could not have outbid Colorado for MacIntyre, a former Temple assistant, but they sure as hell could have gotten Clawson.

clawson

Helluva nice guy, Matt Rhule, but you know what Leo Durocher said about nice guys.

Jensen was right ... both times. ...

Jensen was right … both times. …

The coaching these first three games has been beyond underwhelming:

  • How come Chris Coyer has yet to throw a pass off a fake?
  • How come Coyer, who has Bernard Pierce-like instincts running the ball in the open field, has yet to get a carry? Mystifying.
  • Why hasn’t Nick Visco kicked earlier, when the kid never missed an extra point in high school? A strong argument can be made that had Visco kicked from the jump, Temple would be 2-1 now instead of 0-3.
  • How come 6-foot-6 Deon Miller doesn’t get a fade EVERY time the Owls get into the red zone (he got his first fade Saturday and it resulted in a pass interference).
  •  How come only one screen pass ALL YEAR to Zaire Williams, when it’s obvious no one can stop that play?

Crazy, stupid, stuff.

Memo to Marcus Satterfield: If you want to have a winning season, mix 20 Zaire Williams runs and 20 Connor Reilly passes with these six plays on a continuous loop. If you want to go 0-12, keep running your Tennessee-Chattanooga bullbleep plays.

snowsnip3

TFF, Jan. 18, 2013

When the Owls got a first down deep in the Fordham red zone late in the game, I was screaming at the TV in the concourse (I couldn’t bear to watch it live), “GIVE THE BALL TO KENNY HARPER FOUR TIMES!” Instead, they throw it to Chris Coyer and get the touchdown right away.

The gentleman who was standing next to me will vouch for what I said.

Hey, I like Temple touchdowns as much as the next guy, but giving it to Harper to kill some more clock was the right call. There’s no doubt in my mind Harper would have scored, maybe a play or two later, but he would have scored. When it comes to keeping the ball away from a Phil Snow-coached defense, that’s the only call.
The day Rhule hired Snow to be his defensive coordinator, I noted the only reason I could think of was because he was Rhule’s old buddy at UCLA. This is what a I wrote that day: “I’m all for hiring old buddies, but not old buddies who give up 38 points a game.”
That was against FBS competition.
Now he’s given up 30 points against FCS competition.
That’s worse.

Heck, we all know Rhule is a nice guy but he may be too nice a guy and the hiring of Snow is a perfect example of that. Another example is sticking with Cooper after two missed FGs and an extra point against ND. Visco should have gotten the start against Houston, period, end of story.

Back to Snow:

snowsnip1

TFF, Jan. 18, 2013

snowsnip2

If you guessed I’m not a fan of Phil Snow, you’ve guessed right.
Heck, you look at the entire Rhule staff and the only qualifications they have are they are all Rhule’s buddies.
This is why businesses, when they are looking for professionals to fill a key management position,  go through a grueling selection and interview process and pick the best guy for the job.
The new boss doesn’t say, “Gee, a guy who helped me when I was 21 needs this job, I’ll go hire him.”
That’s what happened at Temple.
We already had a guy who WAS a great defensive coordinator at Temple, Nick Rapone, who was interested in the job and had the best recommendations from the people who should matter most (former Temple players) and he was given a brush off. Now Rapone is the DBs coach of the Arizona Cardinals, but he would have stayed at Temple had he been offered the job by Rhule because his daughter is a Temple student.  Arizona head coach Bruce Arians loves him and called him the best DC in the country when Rapone was a 30-year-old DC at TU.  Arians put his money where his mouth was by hiring Rapone. Rhule could have handed over the keys to the Temple defense to Rapone and would not have had to worry one minute of one day. Now Rhule has to take the keys back from Snow and do something and fix a vehicle that has been totaled and can only be used for scrap metal now.
Ugh.
I guarantee you the Temple defense would be 10x better off with Rapone as DC than Snow.  Guarantee. So do these guys:

formerowlsrapone

Related:

http://articles.philly.com/1996-10-06/sports/25664940_1_owls-coach-ron-dickerson-football-coach

http://articles.philly.com/2012-12-06/sports/35650038_1_matt-rhule-steve-addazio-scot-loefler

http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/09/12/3495093/buffaloes-embrace-spartan-ethicex.html

http://temple.scout.com/2/1326496.html

09.13.13
by

Respect everyone, fear nobody

"I think I might have been adopted." Photo by Howard Smith

“I think I might have been adopted.”

When it comes to Saturday afternoons, the mindset I’ve always hoped Temple football would adopt is this:
Respect everyone, fear no one.
I hope this team respects Fordham and plays up to their ability for once. Fordham has a very good team. Temple has very good players but has not played like a good team yet.

Click on the photo of Juice for a preview of the Fordham game.

Click on the photo of Juice for a preview of the Fordham game.

I don’t think this team has played up to their ability in the first two weeks.
I thought there was a little too much “satisfaction” following the 28-6 opening-game loss to Notre Dame.
I was not happy or even encouraged by that performance.
A major college football team has got to make extra points and chip-shot field goals. A major college football defense should know to how to play a deep zone and keep everything in front of them with 1 minute, 14 seconds left in the first half. A major college football team should be able to complete touchdown passes.
I haven’t seen any of that in the first two weeks.
There should be no “coddling” of players who don’t perform. Next one in should be the standard.


There should be no “coddling”
of players who don’t perform.
Next one in should be the standard.

Did I expect Temple to win at Notre Dame? No, but I didn’t expect 28-6. Why do schools like Tulsa, UConn, Navy and USF go into Notre Dame SINCE 2009 and come away with wins and Temple gets blown out?
Not acceptable. It’s just not.
When does it get to be Temple’s turn to win one of these marquee games?
It all starts with playing well against some of the “lesser” opponents and building momentum from there. For Temple this year, it will all have to start on Saturday against Fordham and hopefully lead up to better things like an upset of Louisville on Oct. 5.
When Bruce Arians played defending national champion BYU at the Vet, his teams slugged it out toe-to-toe with the best in college football. Temple lost to BYU, but it was 26-24, not 28-6. The Arians’ teams played with a swagger. Did they care that was BYU? No.
Struggling to score against a Houston team that gave up 72 points to SMU last year and 30 points to Texas State (not Texas A&M, Texas Tech or even Texas-El Paso) is also unacceptable.
There are a lot of points left on the field because the players have not been put into a good position to score (see the six plays in the post immediately below that we have not seen this season for an example).
If there’s one thing Temple fans want to see this week, it’s getting the ball in the hands of the playmakers and those playmakers making plays.
Is it too much to ask? God, I hope not.

Tomorrow: Tailgate checklist (early) and game analysis (late)