Notice there is no ‘][‘ on the helmets… could that mean TEMPLE makes its return tomorrow? We can only hope. Great job by Kevin Newsome in this video.

Except for the one year I was sports editor at the Norwich (N.Y.) Evening Sun, I don’t think I’ve missed a Cherry and White game in the past 35 years.
So I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the subject.
Coaches come and go, players come and go, parents come and go, even school presidents come and go, but I’m always here.

Complete Cherry and White rosters:
TFF has installed the White squad as 3 1/2-point favorites (we have our reasons).
Click over the red type for the squads as complete rosters are here:

Or there.
Me and Al Shrier and Doc and a few precious others.
Despite how out of control our society is getting these days, I always will be.
You have to live your life, not a life the bad guys dictate you live.
I’m going and, as always, I’m planning on having fun.
The game itself is secondary.
Make that tertiary.

My Al Golden sweatshirt on the day he allegedly wore it.

On the field, it’s the good guys vs. the good guys and I don’t get a whole lot of satisfaction out of that.
I need a protagonist and an antagonist in my stories.
I will get that starting Aug. 31, not before.
Any other Temple game day, the game is the thing and all the rest is a distant second.
People ask me what the best thing about Cherry and White day is and I always answer one word:
Stuff.
Yeah, stuff.
You can get the best Temple stuff (by that I mean shirts, sweatshirts, even helmets) on Cherry and White Day than any other day of the year anyplace in the world.
I get frustrated when I walk into a PHILADELPHIA Wal-Mart’s and Kohl’s and see Virginia Tech and Boston College stuff, but no Temple stuff.
Some day that will change but, for now, the best place to get Temple stuff is 10th and Diamond on Cherry and White Day.
I got a sweet No. 69 game worn Temple jersey on Cherry and White Day for $20.
I purchased some great Temple football hats. I had my eye on an old-time Temple football helmet, but it was a little above my pay scale.
I got a “Papreps” custom-made black “Cherry Crusade” T-Shirt delivered to me on Cherry and White Day.
I rock Temple stuff in the gym or at the mall 365 days a year and, out of those 365, I’d say 353 days are stuff I’ve purchased at Cherry and White Day. (The other dozen or so days I wear my Al Golden sweatshirt that I purchased for $55 from Patti on the fourth floor at Vivacqua Hall a few years ago. She said Al actually wore it during the 2007 Penn State game, but I have my doubts.)
At the gym, I invariably get people (mostly guys, unfortunately) coming up to me and saying, “Cool Temple shirt, where did you get that?”
“Cherry and White Day,” I say.
“How much did you pay?”
“Twenty bucks.”
“No way! Man, I can’t find Temple stuff anywhere.”
“Come down to Cherry and White Day, then.”
That’s how those conversations usually go.
You can’t get Temple stuff in Wal-Mart, K-Mart or Sears but you can get plenty of good Temple stuff on Cherry and White Day.
So stuff is the primary reason to get out to Cherry and White Day, with tailgating and seeing old Temple football friends secondary and the game tertiary.
After watching Ventres Stevenson and Myron Myles look like O.J. Simpson on a couple of Cherry and White Days, I’m not taking much home from the game itself.
Since the temperatures are going to dip into the 60s, I think I’ll wear my Al Golden sweatshirt.

Good video on how Connor Reilly budgets his limited time (ignore Ryan Day’s appearance).

Excuse me for bringing up a sore subject, but one of the promises Steve Addazio made all last spring and last summer in alumni gatherings from New York City to Los Angeles was “explosive plays downfield in the passing game.”
We all know how that turned out.
The explosive plays downfield in the passing game were made AGAINST the Owls, not for the Owls a season ago.

I attended last year’s Cherry and White game, heard the comment after seeing zero explosive plays downfield and had my doubts about Daz delivering on the said plays in the fall. The Cherry and White game featured what seemed like 34 carries by Spencer Reid for what seemed like minus 17 yards.
The offensive season itself wasn’t that bad, but was bad enough.
Unfortunately, when it came to Daz and empty promises, I was right.
Now we’re hearing that from a number of football alumni who attended Alumni Day that several explosive plays were made downfield at Saturday’s all-out scrimmage.

Poland checking in (thanks, Poland).

That scrimmage was the most important one of the season, even more important than Saturday’s Cherry and White game (1 p.m. kickoff) because new coach Matt Rhule is not likely to tip his hand to any Notre Dame scouts in attendance.
First-team quarterback Connor Reilly, poised and confident, delivered both the deep and intermediate ball effectively to a variety of receivers who made defenders miss. Reilly looked off defenders to deliver the ball. We all know that both Khalif Herbin and Jalen Fitzpatrick have the ability to make that first tackler miss and gain numerous yards after catch.
Hopefully, Notre Dame (see countdown count to the right) finds that out the hard way on August 31.
There are two ways to look at this:
The defensive backs who gave the Owls so much trouble last year are still on the field or that a commitment to the passing game also makes it harder for a defense to find out where the ball is going.
I hope it’s the latter.
After all, when you run all the time on first and second down like the Owls did last year (75.1 percent), defending the pass on third down is easy.
When you offer the THREAT to throw the ball on first and second down, defending the pass (and the run) is not so easy.
That, in a nutshell, is how the Matt Rhule offensive philosophy differs from the Steve Addazio one.
I don’t expect him to promise “explosive plays downfield in the passing game” after Saturday’s Cherry and White game.
Just delivering them in the fall would suffice.

Temple University owes a debt of gratitude to players who put the uni on the  map and made the name “Temple University” standard.

Saturday is Football Alumni Day at Temple University.
Matt Rhule and the staff are reaching out to all former players and inviting them to be part of the program, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the $17 million Edberg-Olson Complex. (Ex-players only and Friday is the last day to RSVP with secretary Nadia Harvin.)
I think that’s a great gesture.
(If Matt wants a standing ovation, he’d use the occasion to announce that the Owls are going back to the TEMPLE helmets, at least on one side.)
A lot of the guys who will be in attendance were responsible for putting Temple University on the national football map.
Back then, you had respected Pittsburgh-area journalists like Andy Nuzzo (he was at the time, believe me) opening his pre-game story with “The University of Temple.”
Ugh.

Sweet Feet greatest nickname of all-time

Nobody does that anymore in Temple football stories.
I don’t know who will be there, but the guys who played football during the Wayne Hardin and Bruce Arians Eras had some colorful nicknames. Those were winning years for Temple football and, despite Arians’ losing record, pulling two six-win seasons out of a hat against a top 10 schedule was a trick worthy of Houdini.
The Temple program that was “no match for Pitt” was more than a match for Pitt during the Arians’ Era, winning three of five games.
On to the nicknames, though.

Sweet Feet made the All-East 1st team.

I had to smile when I read a story on a girl football player, Sam Gordon, who they call “Sweet Feet.”
In my mind, there’s only one Sweet Feet and that’s Gerald “Sweet Feet” Lucear, who played wide receiver for coach Wayne Hardin’s 10-2 team in 1979.
To me, Lucear holds the patent on Sweet Feet.
Sweet Feet could fly and was one of the few Temple guys who could beat any cornerback on sheer speed alone on a fly pattern. The other two I remember were Keith Gloster (Arians) and Travis Sheldon (Al Golden).
So, for its descriptive purposes, Sweet Feet is my choice for best Temple nickname of all time.
I asked some Temple alumni for other great nicknames and got a lot of nicknames like the one I was called (Gibby) as a youngster. I had to throw those out. Some of those were Brett “Stein” Hartenstein, Matt “Matty” Baker and Lance “Stone” Johnstone.
Strong players, but weak nicknames.
Sorry, those were too easy.
Henry “Dynamo Hyno” Hynoski works even though it is a derivative of the last name because of the Dynamo  part. Hyno was a fullback’s fullback, a guy who refused to go down and often knocked back the first guy who tried to tackle him. The nickname was given to him by former Temple play-by-play guy Ron Menchine, who would often say “there goes Dynamo Hyno. He looks like Bronco Nagurski out there.” As a kid, I didn’t know who Bronco Nagurski was but if he ran like Dynamo Hyno I knew he must have been pretty good.
For most of the other names, I was looking for something else entirely, something that set that person apart and was not a derivative of the last or first name. Plus, the player had to be an impact guy who fans in the stands heard about and the name had to be printable.
Paul “Boo Boo” Palmer was another good one.
Derek “Bonecrusher” Dennis was a great one, as was John “Rhino” Rienstra.
Christopher “Cap” Poklemba also fit (but Christopher “Pok” Poklemba would not have).
Other great submissions:
Brian “Shark” Erwin, Ryan “Goo” Wallace, Jon “House” Clark, Phil “Pugsy” Prohaska, Keith “Pooeyhead” Kerrin, Ray “Big Cat” Haynes, Marcus “Gumby” Gibbs, Larry “Jelly Roll” Chester, Roger “Pup” Chanoine.
Still more: James “Big Daddy” Harris and Wiley “Pancake” Pitts. Both great players as well as great nicknames.
Or, if you really wanted to go old school, Frank “Bucko” Kilroy or Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub. (Sorry, Fizz, know you are not as old school as Bucko.)
All good to great players whose contributions helped people stop calling the school “The University of Temple.”
If you see Goo, Boo Boo, Bonecrusher, Shark, Pooeyhead, Jelly Roll, Gumby or Pup on Saturday, say hello.
And thank them.

I would ditch the Owl logo for a Temple ‘][‘

When I heard the old league Temple was going to participate in was getting a new name, I was disappointed.
Temple joined the Big East.
Villanova and the Catholic schools left the Big East.
For the schools with Temple to give up that name was/is a big mistake.
If Temple, Cincinnati, UConn and USF left to form a new league, I would be all for a new name.
Simple logic.

This map suggests schools could have kept Big East name.

So much for simple logic.
Damn.
The new name is the American Athletic Conference. The powers-that-be decided you’ve got to crawl before you can walk.
Literally.
That is, a position first on the ESPN crawl was worth more than a specific or even more spify name. Since ESPN places its scores based on alphabet, you’ll see the AAC scores first, then the ACC and so-on and so-forth.
That’s really the only good thing about the new name.
It’s going to take awhile for this new brand to build. For however the Big East was slammed, it was a known brand.
Temple, Cincinnati, UConn and USF sold its Big East soul for 30 pieces of silver or, in this case, a reported $8 million to the first school and $22 million to the other three with the balance going to the newer schools.
Big-time athletics is all about the Benjamins these days.
Now about the new name.
My thought, also based on logic, was that the name of the new conference be called “Metro America” as an acknowledgement to the large markets almost all of the schools have locked up.
To me, that’s part of the genius of this new conference. Since the conference is in large markets, it is bound to get good TV ratings. Temple football, even in the MAC, got great TV ratings. The Owls vs.  UCLA remains the second-highest-rated bowl game ever on ESPN in the coveted Philadelphia market (second only to Penn State’s 2007 appearance in the Alamo Bowl).
People didn’t tune in to watch UCLA.
There is a latent interest out there in Temple football. The challenge for CEO Matt Rhule and the people who  are charged with moving Temple football forward is getting those fannies off their couches and away from their potato chips and interested enough in the Owls to get on a car or a subway to a game.
Winning will do that.
Not regular winning, but championship-level winning.
Fortunately, with this group of schools, the road to a championship is wider than a six-lane highway.

Tomorrow: The Open Quarterback Competition

This is the fake front page I rejected as too gaudy.

A good April’s Fool’s Joke is like a good cake.
You have to have a lot of the right ingredients.
Last year, I did not find the right ingredients so I bagged our annual April Fool’s post.
It was back yesterday.

Err, one person fell for it, hook, line and stinker.

Mix a little basketball in with a little football, some science sport stuff I’ve been wondering about for years, Matt Rhule’s penchant for secrecy and a great Fran Dunphy quote post-game Indiana and I had my cake.
If it wasn’t for Dunphy, who I hold in the highest regard, I would not have my idea. To me, Fran Dunphy is every bit the equal of the Temple coaching Holy Trinity of Wayne Hardin, John Chaney and Skip Wilson.
I have that much respect for the man.
I watched Dunph post-game come up with one of the greatest quotes I ever saw any coach say:
“We’re all about giving our student-athletes a terrific college experience and these are the kind of experiences they will always remember.”
Wow. Great quote, Fran, and thanks.

Fran Dunphy’s outstanding post-game remarks were inspiring.

That was the final icing on the cake.
I thought about how Deon Miller, at 6-foot-5, blocked three critical field goals last year for Temple’s football team and wondered  if I could borrow Dunphy’s tallest player, 6-foot-11 Devonte Watson, and project him into that Miller role. Would six extra inches make him twice as effective as Miller blocking field goals? Ten times? A hundred times?
So I went for the fake story.
In the past, we’ve sold SOME of the public on Steve Addazio hiring Urban Meyer to be his first assistant coach at Temple and had Temple accepting an invitation to the Big 10 conference.
Because so many ingredients were ripe for this one, though, it might have been our best.
I thought about going the British tabloid route (see above) but then I thought that front page was too gaudy and a dead giveaway. So I gave The Temple Times credit and created a fake Temple Times page.
I could just picture Dunphy saying the same thing about Watson if somehow he went out for the football team and started blocking field goals like Bernie Parent blocked shots in goal for the Flyers.
If one person fell for it, and at least one did, it was worth doing.

Tomorrow: Watson decides story was a good idea and does indeed go out for the team (just kidding)

Devonte Watson’s unannounced arrival at the E-O is the biggest sensation of camp so far.

For the rest of his football coaching life, new Temple University football head coach Matt Rhule will probably do a lot of the same things old Temple coach Al Golden did.
Why not?
Look where it got both Temple and Al.

Devonte Watson’s Temple ‘][‘ gloves had to be specially ordered and reinforced with extra padding so that he doesn’t sustain a hand injury from blocking so many field goals.

So I was only amused and not surprised when I heard that Rhule is making folks visiting the Edberg-Olson Football Complex to sign a sheet asking “not to report anything football-related” they see at practice.
Golden used to do the same thing.

“What’s he doing there, enriching uranium?” I asked when someone told me that Rhule adopted the Golden Rhule regarding secrecy.
Enriching uranium  at football facilities is not a new thing.
Enrico Fermi did the same at the University of Chicago in the early days of World War II.
Well, it turns out that Rhule is enriching uranium (in a football-science way) and the result could be of nuclear proportions in the college football world this fall.
At least in the science of sport according to a report in this morning’s Temple Times.
About 150 years ago, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell created a sensation in science with these few words:
“Watson, come here, I need you!”
Thomas Watson was his assistant and Bell had just spilled acid while inventing the phone.
The moment changed the science of communication forever.
Another Watson, this one named Devonte, may have helped change the science of football last week at Temple University’s football practice.

This morning’s Temple Times broke the news.

A freshman on a basketball scholarship, Watson showed up unannounced at Edberg-Olson Hall, the school’s football practice complex, the day after the basketball Owls were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by top-seeded Indiana.
“All I could see was this tall guy ducking under the door,” Rhule told The Times. “He shook my hand and said, ‘Coach, I’m Devonte Watson, I want to come out for the football team.’
“I mean, he’s 6-foot-11, I thought he was a basketball player and I asked him flat out: Are you on a basketball scholarship?’ He said he got permission from coach (Fran) Dunphy. So we got him in the biggest uniform we could and told him to get out there.”
First off, Rhule said, they tried him at wide receiver.
“He was OK there,” Rhule said. “You see he could catch the ball but he wasn’t comfortable running routes. He’s 6-11, got a wingspan of 97 inches, and we figured we could use him on red zone offense but then some of our other coaches had other ideas.”

Special teams coach Allen Mogridge had the best suggestion, Rhule said.
“Allen asked Devonte what he was known for best as a high school player,” Rhule said. “Devonte said, “Blocking field goals.’
“That’s it, Allen said. Allen suggested that we put Devonte on the special teams, blocking field goals.”
For the better part of all last week, that’s what Watson did.
Block field goals.
Boy, did he ever.
When one of the Temple kickers launched a field goal attempt, the freshman with a vertical leap of 39 inches stuck his big paw out and blocked it almost every time. Kick thud, followed by block thud.
“He’s amazing,” Rhule said. “Nothing gets by him. He’s not only 6-11 but he’s got these incredible instincts to block field goals. He just stands there behind the nose guard and jumps up and the kicker has got no chance. Think about it. In basketball, all of these great athletes are driving in a full speed and he still blocks their shots. In football, all he’s got to do is stand behind the nose guard and time a kick. It’s easy by comparison.
“We tried all three of our kickers and he must have blocked 10, 11, 12 field goals in a row. He’s like Bernie Parent was with the Flyers. Nothing gets by this guy. I don’t want to jinx him, but it’s really going to be hard to kick field goals against Temple this season.”
When asked about Watson going out for the football team, Temple basketball coach Fran Dunphy told the Temple Times he gave his OK.
“We’re all about giving youngsters college experiences they’ll never forget and Devonte won’t forget this,” Dunphy said. “Look, I didn’t bring him here with the intention of blocking field goals for our football team but that’s where his road led. He obviously has a gift. All I asked Matt was not to get him hurt and Matt said he’d do his best. Matt won’t let him catch passes. He won’t allow him on the kickoff return or receiving teams. He just wants Devonte to block field goals. That’s good enough for me.”
Err, one more thing.
Happy April Fool’s Day everyone.

Some notable Homecoming Games for Temple:

Except for the annoying voice at the opening, this looks like fun.

Life would be a whole lot easier if things always are as they seem to be.
They aren’t and today’s Exhibit A is the Temple University football depth chart.
The chart was updated two weeks ago and it hasn’t been since yet we all know that the starting tight end on that chart, Cody Booth, is now a left tackle.
I’m not too excited about that since I thought Booth is more valuable as a tight end than he is as a tackle.
Put it this way: Not too many guys could catch the ball last year but Booth was a reliable pass receiver.
I don’t like to subtract from an area of weakness.
Hopefully, guys like Chris Parthemore and Alex Jackson have shown enough to give new head coach Matt Rhule confidence to try Booth as a tackle.

The Owls were off today but they are back at it tomorrow.

While there are some head-scratching moves (Nate D. Smith a third-team linebacker, really?) and Wyatt Benson from best blocking fullback in Temple history to starting linebacker (without really hitting anybody), what really intrigues me is to see guys appearing on the chart who I really don’t know all that much about.
Who are these guys?
NATHAN HAIRSTON, WR _ A 6-foot, 176-pound freshman, Hairston is listed as the second-team X wide receiver to Deon Miller and ahead of more heralded recruits like Romond Deloatch, James Whitfield and Tyron Harris. This is how anonymous Hairston is: I could not find a single story online about   any of his football exploits at Governor Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick, Md. and found hundreds of stories on Deloatch, Whitfield and Harris. That doesn’t mean he’s not any good, it just means he didn’t get any ink. Maybe that makes him hungrier.
THOMAS RUMER, QB _ Listed as the “sixth-team” quarterback (I’ve never seen a Temple QB depth chart that went lower than four), Rumer had some success as a championship quarterback at Malvern Prep.
JOHN RIZZO, FB _ Rizzo is a pretty well-known recruit who comes into Temple with strong credentials. What is interesting, though, is that he currently is the ONLY fullback on the depth chart. Last year’s second-team fullback, Kenny Harper, is listed as No. 1 on the tailback depth chart and you already know about Benson. I expect one or both back at fullback once the season starts. I really like Rizzo, though, because he’s a bruising runner, a great blocker and a two-time state champion in wrestling.
JAIMEN NEWMAN _ A former part-time starter on the offensive line, Newman is back in his comfort zone as a pass-rushing defensive end. He’s 6-4, 290. As a senior in high school, he had 14 sacks. Temple needs some sacks out of its defensive ends this year and Newman is now at the top of the DE depth chart along with Sean Daniels on the other side.

Bret Niederreiter

BRET NIEDERREITER _ The redshirt freshman has moved ahead of last year’s pre-season All Big East nose tackle, Levi Brown, on the depth chart. Niederreiter is 6-3, 265. Brown is 6-2, 300. Got to think part of that is designed to light a fire under the talented Brown.
STEPHAUN MARSHALL _ Shot himself right up the free safety depth chart behind first-teamer Abdul Smith, a former Rutgers’ recruit and backup cornerback. Interesting that Nate L. Smith, probably the most heralded recruit of the 2012 signing class and a former first-team all-state safety at Archbishop Wood, is fourth string. Marshall is a former teammate of Khalif Herbin at Montclair (N.J.).

HASSAN DIXON _ Listed as the SIXTH team tailback. As a senior in high school at Germantown (Md.), he had 1,019 yards and 19 touchdowns.
Fourth-team tailback is Spencer Reid out of Harriton. Dixon’s dad is former all-time Temple running back great Zach Dixon. His brother is former Owl great tight end and defensive end Raheem Brock. Reid’s dad is former BYU great offensive lineman Andy Reid.  Sorry, Andy, I like Hassan’s bloodlines better.