There’s about a 100 percent chance of TU getting no respect tonight.

Just finished watching the “Local on the Eights” on The Weather Channel and they say there’s a 30 percent chance of rain tomorrow in Philadelphia.
Then I paged down the remote listings and noticed there’s a special on ESPNU tonight (7:30) on American Athletic Conference (AAU) football.
I think I’ll pass.
I’m no forecaster, but I will go out on a limb as saying there’s 100 percent chance that Temple football gets no respect on that show.
In fact, that really should be the football team’s theme this year:
No respect.
The Dallas Cowboys might be America’s Team, but this year at least The Temple Owls are Rodney Dangerfield’s team.

This is where Temple used to be grouped on a regular basis. Those days are over. Click on photo to read story.

Coming home from the Maryland game in 2011, the movie on the fan bus was an appropriate one: Dangerfield’s Caddyshack.
In between gasps from some of the older women sitting behind me at the topless girls in the movie (“this is a Bill Bradshaw-approved video” Gerard McMahon announced), I thought that was a perfect way to end the day.
Temple got no respect going into the Maryland game –  heck the Owls even got razzed by the Maryland players in the pre-game warmup – and plenty of respect coming out. It is both my sincere hope and belief that the Owls will get the same kind of respect by November of this season they earned in a 38-7 win at Maryland that wonderful afternoon two years ago.

The same goes for all of the “prognosticators” this year, from Athlon Sports to Phil Steele to ESPNU.

Can’t blame them entirely. All THEY know is that Temple has a new coach, a new quarterback and a new running back and went 4-7 last season. WE know that all are significant upgrades, with the POSSIBLE exception of the RB position (even  though I think Zaire Williams in the second coming of Bernard Pierce).
People on the outside of the program don’t know as much as we do, but I like the way the pieces are falling together for this team,  especially the position changes, the upgrades in the passing game, the pass rush and the defensive and offensive line and secondaries. One guy just did a Temple preview for SI and predicted the Owls would win one in the conference and three overall. Wish I could find him and take some of that action right now.
Sure, I’d like to see them give Temple some good props tonight but they really don’t know.
They will by November, though.
Beat Notre Dame and they will in less than 10 days.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll watch TWC between 7:30-8 tonight instead.

The most impressive thing about this video is Kenny Harper’s speed  to the ball and tackling ability.

Matt Rhule’s position changes have been nothing short of genius so far.
Alex Jackson looks like he’s going to work out better as a DE than a TE, a move I suggested in this post way back on March 20th.
Chris Coyer looks like a triple-threat guy at H-Back.
Cody Booth, always one of the team’s best blockers as a tight end, looks like a real plus at OT and and an added threat for the tackle eligible pass in the goal-line package.

Kenny Harper

Romond Deloatch looks like a downfield threat at TE and a situational pass rusher at DE.
Wayne Benson looks like a playmaker at LB and a dynamic fullback option for the goal-line offense.

Still would like to see Khalif Herbin move from the slot to backup tailback, like Matty Brown did as a freshman, but someone explained that Herbin did not build up enough upper-body muscle to make that move. Still, I think Herbin is a natural-born running back who can stop, start, find holes and be the kind of home-run hitter Temple needs. Plus, the Owls have a Herbin-like slot guy in Jalen Fitzpatrick.

Now that Zaire Williams appears to have won the starting tailback job, as we hoped two weeks ago, the one glaring position upgrade need is over on the defense at safety and Temple has one superb safety on the team.
Kenny Harper, who Williams beat out for the starting tailback job, would be the perfect solution to the Owls’ safety problem on the defensive side of the ball.
Harper (see graph below) was one of the top-rated safeties in talent-rich Florida and the leading tackler for two straight years for the Gainesville Buchholz football team.
What did Temple lack last season?
Good tacklers at the free- and strong-safety positions. Harper is a hitting machine with the speed to play either position and rush the quarterback as a blitzer.
Not very many positions need an upgrade by now, but playing safety is like riding a bike. If you’ve won the Tour De France before, like Harper has done at the safety position, it won’t take more than 10 days to get rolling down that road again.
Plus, Rhule is all about getting the team’s best 22 players on the field and, in my humble opinion, if Kenny Harper isn’t playing at running back, he’s still one of the team’s best 22 players.

2011 Florida Pre-Spring Top 25 Safeties

The Orlando Sentinel’s top safeties in Florida two years ago.

Tommy Rees never sees Sean Daniels coming at him from behind.

After having a rather detailed dream of the upcoming Rutgers’ game this season, I’ve wondered why I have not dreamed at all about the Notre Dame game.  Not once. Not since the contract signing over a year ago. Not ever.

Until last night, that is.

It was a weird dream for a lot of reasons but the first of which is  I’m watching the game with my brother and he passed away in 2007. (I hope this doesn’t mean I won’t make the first tailgate vs. Houston this year.)

The game starts pretty good, with the Owls moving the ball to the ND 40 and Paul Layton gets off a coffin corner punt (they still do those, don’t they?) that lands on the ND 1-yard line. After two short runs, Sean Daniels chases down Tommy Rees from behind and grabs his ankles and Rees goes down. This punting back and forth continues to the end of a scoreless first quarter.

The second quarter starts and Channel  10 interrupts the telecast for “breaking news” of a house collapse in South Philly.

“This is the third structure collapse in Philadelphia in the past two months and there have been no reports of an Earthquake in any of them,”  Nicole Brewer reports from the scene. Then, for the next half hour, Brewer asks residents what happened and they all say the house collapsed.

Nicole Brewer reports about another house collapsing.

(Don’t ask me how Brewer got from Channel 3 to Channel 10, but she was there.)

Meanwhile, I scramble for my old transistor radio.

Harry Donahue doesn’t give me a score during the second quarter, but he gives me a lot of “third and two and Kenny Harper runs for about four yards” followed by “looks like that was 1 1/2 yards and Temple will now have to punt.” Harry also gives me a lot of “Rees throws the ball and he’s intercepted by Tavon Young … wait, they say he dropped it” and “Notre Dame fumbles the ball and Temple recovers …. no, they are now saying Notre Dame recovers.” Plus, one “Juice finds Deon Miller in the back of the end zone for a touchdown … no, they say he juggled the ball and it’s incomplete.”

Still, Harry gives me no score.

I finally get the score on the ESPN crawl  and it looks like 27-13, ND, but I put my face up to the screen and it says 41-13, ND.

Then Channel 10 returns to the game from the house collapse story and the Notre Dame band is on the field and the score is indeed confirmed as 41-13.

Then I wake up.

The Rutgers’ dream?

Temple wins, 56-13,  and, ala the win at Maryland two years ago, puts the game away early and the Rutgers’ fans empty the stadium at halftime. Temple finishes off the game in front of about 5,000 delighted Owl fans. Chris Coyer becomes the first player in NCAA history to run for 100 yards, pass for 100 yards and receive for 100 yards in the same game.

After leading the team in singing “T for Temple U” Coyer dons the headset and is interviewed by Lou Holtz on ESPN Game Day.

“I don’t even have to think about it, Chris, you get my helmet sticker right now,” he said.

“Thanks, Mr. Holtz,” Chris said.

I like one dream better than the other but, unfortunately, you don’t get to pick which dream comes true.

The only thing good about the “bad dream” was that Nicole Brewer made a surprise appearance.

Zaire Williams, while at Cherokee (N.J.), rushed for 389 yards and six touchdowns in one game … as a junior.

Today’s Throwback Thursday moment that relates to what it happening today involves what Temple players were saying at the 2009 Fan Fest.
One of the Temple video guys asked a question to several of the veteran players, the “old heads” as the kids call them.
Five seniors were asked which freshman impressed them the most.
“I’d have to say Bernard (Pierce),” one of them said.
Then the interviewer would walk about 100 yards to the next guy (who did not hear what the first guy said), and he’d say:
“I’ve got to say Pierce,” he said.
And so it went.

Please click on photo for my story on Steve Addazio on Rantsports.com. Any tweets of this story or shares on Facebook would be appreciated.

Now fast forward to today and talk to the older players about some of the freshmen and they pretty much are saying the same thing about Zaire Williams that the players said about Bernard Pierce five years ago.
“I would say Zaire,” one of the guys told me.
“My son said Williams looks real good,” a parent wrote in an email.
That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
While Kenny Harper appears to be a clear leader at tailback, there’s somebody coming on the outside railing who might have something to say about it and it’s Williams.
If Harper pushes Williams and Williams pushes Harper, that makes Temple a better team.
Pierce didn’t start the first game of his career against Villanova, but he showed enough flashes to get his chance in Game No. 2. He had 44 yards on six carries against Villanova.
The next game, Pierce was in the lineup to stay for three more years.
Kids know.

Post-practice interview sessions in August are a little like prospecting for Gold in 1849.

Put the pan in, do some swishing, move some dirt and look for the kernels of knowledge.

Owlscoop.com’s John DiCarlo is a good guy and a fine journalist, but he’s a master of the 35-second question, trying to frame the answer.

Fortunately, Temple head coach Matt Rhule gives the answers he wants to give.

Here’s what we learned:

• Romond Deloatch overslept and was late for practice so he got switched from tight end to defensive line. He had seven or eight sacks, or so Rhule says. (Hey, the kid is  a great athlete, so it’s believable.)
• Rhule still has the New York Giants’ playbook. (If one is missing, coach Coughlin, now you know where it is.) Hey, I know a Temple fan who has a UConn playbook but I’m not saying who he or she is.
• Pete White is playing great at right guard for the Owls and Rhule wants to “trade” him to the NFL at the end of the season.
• P.J. Walker is progressing at about the same rate as Teddy Bridgewater did before his freshman year at Louisville and that’s a very good thing. I hope the Owls can keep him away from the memorabilia guys.
• Connor Reilly has a slight ankle sprain.
• Juice Granger is throwing the ball better than ever.
• One of the goals of the team is getting back its sack mojo (40-45 a year during the Golden/Rhule Era).

Good stuff, but I can’t wait until 8/31/13. The countdown continues:

Matt Rhule talks to the Inquirer’s John Mitchell (left) and assorted media types.

Those of you who’ve read this site for the last eight years know I’m not a big guy on practice.
The one “practice” I pay a lot of attention to every year is the Cherry and White game and since that’s always the good guys against the good guys, I don’t get much satisfaction out of that either.
Wake me up when the real games begin.

To me, any good story has to have a protagonist and an antagonist.
The story of Temple football so far has been a protagonist and a protagonist.
The antagonist shows up in this story on Aug. 31, not before.
Still, I recognize that practice is a necessary forward in this great football book.
So the good news for me out of Saturday’s first scrimmage was that the pass rush is back and disrupting things.
Let’s hope that’s because of the pass rush and not the offensive line, but that’s a different chapter for another day.
To me, the key to winning in football is ball security.
You take care of your responsibility and hold onto the ball and then force the bad guy, the antagonist, to give it up.
The best way to force the other guy to give it up is a good blindside pass rush that forces fumbles in the backfield or a quicker-than-timed release that results in interceptions.
Temple had that pass rush yesterday. Let’s hope the Owls keep it up for the next six months or so.