05.17.13
by

$600 million, World Hunger or Temple football?

I am playing responsibly … spending only four bucks.

World Hunger loses.
I know I’ll take heat from the press and other do-gooders for this, but I have big enough shoulders.
(Plus, the Somalis haven’t exactly shown a large amount of gratitude for the last food run Bill Clinton made for that country some 20 years ago.)
So I’m bringing back this “oldie but goodie” post for a day.
Not going to give the numbers I’m playing for the $600 million, but one line has significance for past Temple greats and another line plays to the strength of the current Temple team.
If I find the right needle in the right haystack and the right grain of sand on the Wildwood Beach, half of the $600 million goes to Temple FOOTBALL (not athletics) to benefit the Temple FOOTBALL program long after I’m gone.
Decisions to use that could be a stadium, could be an extended lease with signage rights to LFF.
Or maybe an eight-story practice bubble with an underground parking garage for athletes and coaches attached to the E-O.
It’s all up to Temple.

05.15.13
by

Two Owls who give a Hoot

Chris Coyer at last year’s Big East media day.

There have been times when no one wanted to see them leave the field, Chris Coyer and Kevin Newsome.
Coyer, upon accepting his MVP award at the New Mexico Bowl, and Newsome as arguably the nation’s top player coming out of high school.

Makes the move to tailback.

Now both are among the Temple Owls who swallowed their pride and accepting position changes this fall and, because of that, they exponentially increased their chances of getting onto the field.
Coyer will become an H-Back, more of a tight end than a fullback, ala Evan Rodriguez in his final year at Temple.
Newsome will take his considerable talents to the halfback position.
I root for anybody who puts on a Temple uniform, but I know two guys I’m rooting for more than anyone else this fall.
Chris Coyer and Kevin Newsome.
Because, in a team sport, they did it for the team.
The team.
That’s the most important thing.
Coyer showed that it’s going to work just fine in the spring game, catching a pair of touchdown passes.
Newsome did not get the chance in the spring because of a shoulder injury, but, just from the 44-yard run in the Louisville game last year, he showed top-level tailback instincts.
And if the Owls showed a need in the spring game, it’s for a top-level tailback. Maybe it is Zaire Williams coming into the school in the fall, maybe it’s Newsome, but it’s nice to have options.
When Kevin Newsome first reported to the Edberg-Olson facility last year, he proudly stated: “I’m a Temple Owl for life.”
When Matt Rhule approached Coyer about making the switch to H-back in the final week of spring ball, Coyer simply said: “I’m a Temple guy.”
How can you not root for guys like that?

At the 1:11 time stamp, a song written and performed by the multi-talented Kevin Newsome kicks in ...

05.12.13
by

Karma, Komen and Temple football

Temple football takes an active role this year at today’s Race for the Cure.

If Karma translates into support from the City of Philadelphia, season tickets might be moving at a brisk pace between now and August.
If you were at the Susan G. Komen Race for the cure this morning, you saw Temple football take an active role in the race.

For those of you who
want to donate to Nadia,
there is still time

I was there because my late mom was a survivor (she succumbed to another disease subsequently) and I don’t want to see any other woman go through what she did.
Some Owls were there because they had similar personal experiences, others were there because they are just good people.
We as fans are lucky them on OUR team.
Not that the Owls weren’t at past Komen races, they were, but this was just a little bit different.
This time the Owls were racing and walking for the cure for a disease that affects so many women and their families. Last year, they were “just” handing out water.
It’s all part of Temple being Philadelphia’s team.
The Owls have given the City of Philadelphia much in the past eight years.
In the past, the Owls have bowled for Big Brothers’/Big Sisters, visited the Children’s’ Hospital, handed out free turkeys for Thanksgiving and kept Diamond Street clean with regular sweeps from 10th all the way through 15th. This is not just a one-time deal. This happens every year.
The Owls do it not because they have to, but because they care.
I really did not see it at this level until Al Golden arrived in 2005 and it’s just evolved in a positive way every year since.
If Philadelphia gave back to them what they give to Philadelphia, Lincoln Financial Field would be packed every Saturday afternoon.
It hasn’t translated so far, but the Owls are winning hearts one person at a time.
Let’s hope Karma kicks in one day.


Football

Bernard Pierce & Darryl Pringle

Blast from the past: Bernard Pierce helps Darryl Pringle clean up.

05.10.13
by

Next up for Hall: Paul Woodrow Palmer

Vinny Testaverde smiles while Paul Palmer and Brian Bosworth applaud at the 1986 Heisman announcement.
Paul Palmer gets introduced by the late,
great Bob Hope on Bob’s All-American Show.

Someone, maybe one of the first math professors in the Stone Age, said it best:
“Numbers don’t lie.”
If so, expect Paul Woodrow Palmer to follow Temple’s Wayne Hardin into the Hall of Fame soon, maybe as soon as next year.
By the numbers, Palmer compares favorably with this year’s two running back inductees, Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne and North Carolina State’s Ted Brown.
Here they are:

Name
Career Rushing Yards/Highest Season
100-yard games
Highest single game-rushing Yards
Paul Palmer
4,895/1,886
21
349
Ted Brown
4,602/1,350
27
251
Ron Dayne
6,397/2,034
29
339

That’s not even counting the most important numbers:
All-purpose.
In just his Heisman Trophy runner-up season of 1986, Palmer posted 2,633 all-purpose yards, ahead of Dayne’s best year (2,422, 1999) and Brown’s best year (1,672).
When it comes to moving the sticks, yards any way you can get them count just as much as a handoff from the line of scrimmage.
Also interesting was the fact that Palmer tossed not one, but two touchdown passes, one in his sophomore year and one in his senior years.
More than the numbers, though, were his durability and versatility.
Palmer could run between the tackles, outside the tackles, was an outstanding receiver and, was 3 for 7 throwing the ball during his senior season _ very good numbers for a non-quarterback.
He was fast, shifty and had great moves in the open field as well.
Bernard Pierce was a great back but, in my view, having seen all of the games both Paul and Bernard played, there was only one thing Pierce did better than Palmer and that was straight-line speed in the open field. Still, Palmer was fast enough with the ball in his hands and never injured (or seemingly never injured).
The fact that Palmer played his entire career against a Top 10 schedule while playing for Temple and finished No. 2 in the Heisman balloting in 1986 adds to his impressive Hall of Fame resume.
I can’t think of anyone on next year’s list as deserving.

05.07.13
by

Coach voted into Hall of Fame

There are more good  TU plays called in these 10 minutes than 2 years of Dazball.

For all of my life, I’ve simply known him as Coach.
That’s what I called him when I first met him as a sports writer for The Temple News back in the 1970s and that’s what I called him when I saw him last year.
Now I’ll just call him a Hall of Famer.
This morning news comes from Atlanta that  coach Wayne Hardin has been voted into the Hall of Fame.
Probably the best compliment coach ever gave me was last year.
“Mike, I read your blog and it is first-class,” coach said.
First-class.

Coach was the man behind greatest helmets in Temple history, although I have seen better Temple hats.

(Doc Chodoff also told me the same thing a couple of years ago and I was just as flattered.)
I like that hyphenated word because that’s the way I’ve always described coach Hardin.
He was a first-class coach and, for the years he was Temple’s head coach, the Owls had the best head coach in the country.
Period, end of story.
To me the definition of a great head coach is someone who gets the most out of the talent available to him.
Nobody got more out of his talent than Wayne Hardin.

Wayne Hardin storieson TFF through the years

“We get kidded about our short, fat, kids, but we don’t time them in the 40,” Hardin once said. “They might not be too fast over 40 yards but, from here to there, they are not too bad and that’s all we ask of them.”
Meanwhile, he made a nice living out of outsmarting coaches with better players.
Hardin never beat Penn State, but it wasn’t out of a lack of wits against Joe Paterno.
“Hardin’s outcoaching Joe again,” Allentown Morning Call columnist Joe Kunda said out loud in the Beaver Stadium press box as the Owls took a halftime lead at Penn State.
Everybody laughed.

Ukraine checking in for a 3-minute read of TFF.

Everybody knew Kunda was right.
Think about it.
The highest Temple was ever ranked came in 1979, when the Owls rose to No. 17 in both the AP and UPI polls.
The highest Navy was ever ranked (at least in the modern era) was No. 2 in the nation in 1962.
The head coach in both cases?
Wayne Hardin.
No one has ever been more deserving of the Hall of Fame.
Congrats, coach.

05.02.13
by

Bradshaw’s retiring a sad day for Temple football

“Now, Steve, you aren’t going to leave me after a couple of years, are you?”

The Catholic Church requires three documented Miracles in order for to qualify for Sainthood.
By those standards, Bill Bradshaw is a Temple football Saint.

TFF and Bradshaw through the years:
A compilation of stories on Temple Football Forever mentioning Bill Bradshaw through the years.

That’s why the news of Bradshaw retiring today (effective June 30) is truly a sad day for the program.
When the 2005 Temple president, David Adamany, formed a committee to “determine the future of Temple football” it was with one goal in mind:
To kill the program.
In December of that year, Adamany put the committee together and said “once their report is completed, it will be made public.”

Bill puts the myth
of Temple making up
attendance figures to rest.

That report was never made public because the outcome was not the one Adamany wanted or expected.
The Board of Trustees, led by then Chairman Howard Gittis, voted to keep football and strengthen it.
Behind the scene, Bradshaw worked the room for the “pro-football” people.
By the time the vote was in, he was exhausted.
“I didn’t know what the outcome would be, but football was saved by one vote,” Bradshaw said.
Miracle No. 1?
Check.
Then football was saved again by one trip Bradshaw made to talk to Virginia defensive coordinator Al Golden.
Bradshaw brought with him a yellow legal pad.
When he got out of the meeting, he had four words written on the notepad:
“This is our guy.”
Even though the university went through the motions of forming a “football selection committee” Bradshaw steered the committee toward Golden, who was just what Temple needed at the time. A young, energetic football surgeon who would spend 80 hours a week, sleeping at 10th and Diamond if necessary, to resuscitate a dying patient.
“I’m going to build a house of brick, not straw,” said Golden, and he did.
Miracle No. 2?
Check.
Getting Temple into the MAC for football was no miracle because the Owls were also being courted by Conference USA at the time, but getting the Owls out certainly qualifies.
When no power conference wanted Temple, Bradshaw pulled the Big East rabbit out of his hat by working the phones and commissioners on TU’s behalf. The signature moment that forced the Big East’s hand might have been a Sunday trip Bradshaw and  then president Ann Weaver Hart made to the Conference USA convention in Dallas.
Thinking Temple might take the largest available football market to CUSA, the Big East moved fast to lock up the Owls within a week after that reported meeting.

Interesting tweet from Florida’s Sharrif Floyd, a No. 1 draft choice.

Sometimes you’ve got to force the other guy’s hand and Bradshaw, a good poker player, knew how to do that.
What happened to the Big East after Temple signed up was beyond Bradshaw’s control.
Miracle No. 3?
Check.
When Steve Addazio left after two short years after saying Temple was “my dream job” and that “I could see myself staying here the rest of my career” the program faced another crisis.
Hire another name from a big-time program and risk losing him after a year or right a ship that faced the possibility of losing a head coach every year.
Bradshaw thought about it, listened to the players and parents and decided that stability was needed above all at this point and hired Golden disciple Matt Rhule.
Miracle No. 4?
Only if Rhule is able to produce on-field results like Golden was and the early indications are all positive.
There’s still time before the Canonization but, in my mind, Bill Bradshaw is a Saint and, thankfully, a living one.

Bill Bradshaw and Temple football 

Year
Action
Result
2005
Negotiated move into MAC
Gave TU opportunity to compete for automatic bowl bids
2006
Hired Al Golden
First bowl appearance by Owls in 30 years, MAC East co-champs (2009), bowl eligible 3 straight years
2011
Hired Steve Addazio
First bowl win in over 30 years
2012
Move to Big East, expanded football facility with $10 million addition
Gave Temple an upgrade in number and quality of possible bowl bids, solidified future recruiting
2012
Hired Matt Rhule
Stabilized a program hemorrhaging head coaches
04.28.13
by

The curious case of Montel Harris

Somebody (Fran Duffy?) please send these Matt Brown highlights to Chip Kelly. (No truth to the rumor that Steve Addazio wrote these rap lyrics.)

Four Temple Owls signed NFL free agent contracts yesterday.
I thought two (Brandon McManus and Montel Harris) would be drafted.
I’m still surprised that Matty Brown is out there. I hope the Eagles pick him up as a kickoff returner.
(Heck, they had freaking Colt Anderson return a couple of kickoffs last year.)
Late Sunday night news: Matt Brown accepted an invite to work out with the Tampa Bay Bucs.
Still, the case of Montel Harris is the most curious to me.
He came back for his senior year, performed well on the field, put some great film numbers up and also did relatively well at the pro days and combines.
I think, given a chance, he has a chance to be a great pro.
At least I’m not alone in this thought.
Martin Freedman also felt the same way in this excellent treatise posted on Thursday.
It’s worth a read. (I read it online yesterday and now only the first graph appears. If you have $1, it’s worth a read.)
Basically, he says that in all of the “metrics”  Harris rates higher than Montee Ball and seven other “drafted” running backs and that for the value a NFL team cannot get a better back than Harris.
McManus is going to the Colts, where all he has to do is win either the punter or kicker jobs (not both).
John Youboty is going to Denver.
Harris is going to Tampa Bay (where I often wish I’m going) and Martin Wallace is going to Cleveland (where I hope I never have to go).
Good luck to all the Owls.

04.25.13
by

NFL draft day for Temple is Saturday this year

Liz Sim with the report from pro day. Great quote from Matt Brown.

The first round of the NFL draft is today.
The second and third are tomorrow.
For Temple, though, the draft starts at noon on Saturday.
I don’t expect any of the Owls to go in the fourth and fifth rounds, but I do expect kicker Brandon McManus to go in the sixth to the Green Bay Packers.
I told him that Saturday.
I hope it comes true.
Montel Harris should be drafted as well.
Based on his 351-yard, seven-touchdown, game against Army, I do expect him to get drafted.
We’ll call it the seventh round.
The scouts always say that film and game production is more important than pro days or combines so we’ll see if they are telling the truth.
Harris’ film was outstanding.
So was Matt Brown’s.
Brown said something in the above video from Temple’s pro day that I agree with:
“I’m the hardest-working player in the country,” Brown said.
That said, I don’t think Matt will be drafted on Saturday but he will catch on with someone as an undrafted free agent (UDA).
Once he gets in a camp, I think he will do there what he did for Temple the last four years and that will be enough to get on an NFL roster as a kick returner.

04.23.13
by

Highlights from the Cherry and White game 2013

Liz Sim sent over this video by email that she did for Owls Update. Great job by Temple-made Liz, a journalism major.


Sorry to see that a guy named Justin Klugh lists “Temple University” as the only school on his resume.
Klugh is a sports producer at Philly.com and, according to his LinkedIn file is responsible for “organizing content on Philly.com Sports. Making editorial decisions about the placement of stories.” 
Make that “non-stories.”

Great ESPN story on Connor Reilly:
Here’s an example of the kind of stories worth publishing. While ESPN is the worldwide leader in sports,  Justin Klugh and Philly.com are way at the back of that line.

 Today on Philly.com might have been one of the biggest “non-stories” in the history of journalism, the “fact” that Matt Rhule is listed in the low-90s among head coaches in the FBS football.
 Klugh, linking a Sporting News.com story, makes the Grand Canyon-sized leap in logic by saying Temple coaching is in a downward spiral, writing that Al Golden is No. 32 and Steve Addazio is No. 85.
 Duh?
 Nowhere does he point out that Golden might have been 120 when he was hired by Temple.
How did Golden rise up the ranks?
Largely by his work AT Temple.
I’m kind of shocked that Lewis Katz, the Temple-made CEO at Philly.com, hasn’t fired this guy by now.
 Matt Rhule is a huge upgrade on Steve Addazio. Ask any of Rhule’s players and they will tell you that.
I fully expect Rhule to flip Addazio’s 4-7 record into something similar on the other side, say 7-5 or better.
When it is, I’d like to see Justin Klugh post a story on Philly.com about the upward trend in coaching hires at Temple.
 I won’t hold my breath.
Don’t feel sorry for Klugh, though. He can always go back to making coffee at the Barista Cafe in Lancaster, his last job.

04.21.13
by

Observations from the Cherry and White game

Matt Rhule’s observations after the Cherry and White game.

Long day in the sun at the Cherry and White game.

I left the sunblock home and got sunburned.
When I left for the E-O, it was chilly and cloudy.
Who would have figured?
Live and learn.

These passing stats would not have been possible in Daz’s offense.

I was talking to a couple of good friends in the second row of the end zone stands and mentioned that we have no placekickers.
Then I said we are going to go from zero placekickers to two real quick.

This is what Nick Visco looked like to me before yesterday.

“Jim Cooper Jr. is coming in July but, watch out, this Nick Visco kid is really good,” I said.
Just then, a kid sitting in front of me turns around and says, “I’m Nick Visco” and shakes my hand and says thanks.
His mom and dad were sitting to his right and left.
Unreal.
“Geez, I’m now glad I didn’t say Nick Visco sucks,” I said.
Now I didn’t know what Nick Visco looks like, but I saw Nick Visco kick for Archbishop Wood in his full uniform and he’s got a big-time leg.
Now I know what Nick Visco looks like.
Also saw the two Jim Coopers (father and son), but I knew what they looked like beforehand.
Other observations:
  •  Matt Rhule went around Lot 10 and glad handed everyone. He’s very genuine and not at all a phony. If he’s as good a coach as he is a person, Temple has a shot against Notre Dame.
  •  Paul Layton is a great punter, the Montel Harris of punting. That said, I hope we don’t have to use him.
  • Connor Reilly is the real deal. He reminds me of the Cincinnati quarterback who was so accurate against Temple last year. 
  •  Zaire Williams better get on the field. Don’t think any of the current running backs are on the talent level of Harris/Brown/Pierce. Williams might be.
  •  I had the White as a 3 1/2-point favorite and they covered easily, 34-28. Not impressed with Phil Snow’s defense. He held the White to 34 points, four below his average last year with Eastern Michigan. It STILL scares me to have him as DC. I hope he proves me wrong. Make that, I PRAY he proves me wrong. Signs that could happen: An improved pass rush.
  • Seemed odd watching the best blocking fullback in Temple history, Wyatt Benson, starting at middle linebacker. Maybe he can be Temple’s first two-way player since the 1950s. If Owls run a sweep on goal-line offense, I hope he’s in there leading the way.
  • The Chris Coyer fullback experiment is going to work. He’s in a spot where it is conceivable  he gets 5-10 carries a game and throws 5-10 passes a game and catches 5-10 passes a game, but three of each would suffice. I smell a Jalen Fitzpatrick reverse, a throw across the field to Coyer and a Coyer pass for six to Ryan Alderman or Khalif Herbin. I hope for at least one to two trick plays a game. Heck, Toledo made Chuck Heater look silly in 2011 by hitting on three trick plays against an over pursuing defense. 
  • Averee Robinson had four sacks and helped control the Cherry running game from his defensive tackle position. He’s only a freshman. He’s probably better suited as a nose guard in a 5-2.
  • Speaking of Herbin, I really feel he’d help Temple more at running back than as a slot receiver. He’s got to get the ball more than the five times a slot receiver gets it during the game. At the very least, I’d use him as a Matty Brown-type third-down back in addition to his first- and second-down slot responsibilities. If he works as a third-down back, use him as an RB on other downs as well. Herbin is just as fast as Sweet Feet Lucear, Keith Gloster and Travis Sheldon and that’s some pretty fast company plus he’s got stop and start instincts at the line of scrimmage those guys never had. Think a slightly taller, slightly faster and slightly heavier Matt Brown describes Herbin’s game perfectly.