03.06.13
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Temple gets finalized football schedule

Date
Game
Time/TV
Saturday, Aug. 31
Temple at Notre Dame
TBA/NBC
Saturday, Sept. 7
Houston at Temple
TBA
Saturday, Sept. 14
Fordham at Temple
TBA
Saturday, Sept. 21
Bye
Saturday, Sept. 28
Temple at Idaho
TBA
Saturday, Oct. 5
Louisville at Temple
TBA
Friday, Oct. 11
Temple at Cincinnati
7 p.m., ESPN/ESPN2
Saturday, Oct. 19
Army at Temple
TBA/CBS Sports
Saturday, Oct. 26
Temple at SMU
TBA
Saturday, Nov. 2
Temple at Rutgers
TBA
Saturday, Nov. 9
Bye
Saturday, Nov. 16
UCF at Temple
TBA
Saturday, Nov. 23
UConn at Temple
TBA
Saturday, Nov. 30
Temple at Memphis
TBA

Instead of figuring out a couple of flight connections and picking up a rental car for another 50-mile trip, Temple football fans can fly out of Philadelphia directly and relatively cheaply to any road game this year.
That’s tangible progress in this shifting conference landscape.
The only difference is Moscow.
Idaho, not Russia.

Idaho listing Temple game as Homecoming where the Owls will have to 
face the best students that uni can find (below).

If the Owls were playing in Russia, they’d have a direct flight.
Temple fans who have been waiting for the last few months to book trips can start booking now.
Road trips to Ypsilanti, Oxford and Muncie _ venues all too familiar to Owl supporters in the not-so-distant past  _ will now be replaced by trips to Chicago (Notre Dame), Cincinnati, Moscow, Dallas, Piscataway and Memphis.
Still think leaving the MAC was a bad idea?
I don’t think many Owl fans will be making the trip to Moscow anyway. Cheap Flights.com will be able to get you in there Thursday, Sept. 26, for $587.89. It’s a six-hour, 59-minute flight to Boise with a stop in Chicago. You get a rental car in Boise and drive to Moscow. That’s 298 miles.
Probably the better way to go is fly from Philadelphia to Seattle, with a stop in Houston, and take an Alaskan Air Propeller plane from Seattle (after an overnight stay) to Pullman. From Pullman, it’s just a 10-mile drive to Moscow.
Good luck. I hope the game’s on TV.
Other than that, the trips look spectacular for the Temple one-percenters.
I’m not going to get into a game-by-game scenario here.
Those never work.

The official BE schedule release used LFF as the background.

Just ask the Temple basketball fans who put a W next to Duquesne, St. Bonaventure and Canisius and an L next to Syracuse.
Suffice it to say this is a much more manageable schedule than last year’s in football, with Maryland essentially replaced by Idaho and the high profile Penn State game being replaced by a higher profile Notre Dame game.
Villanova figured to be a much tougher D1AA (FCS) foe than Fordham, so maybe this is Phil Snow’s best opportunity to get a shutout as a DC since 1996.
SMU and Houston should be tough foes, but I don’t see those resumes being significantly more impressive than Temple’s has been over the last five years. Houston had the great year a couple of seasons ago, but Temple has been bowl eligible four of of the last five years. Matt Rhule was here in all of those four years and was away the non-bowl eligible season. Just sayin’.
If Temple can’t beat Memphis (losers to Tenn-Martin and Middle Tennessee last year) it probably should get out of the football business and I don’t think that’s happening any time soon. Even Bobby Wallace beat Middle Tennessee.
Idaho, thinking it scheduled the Temple of 2003, not 2013, has slotted Temple has its Homecoming Day game.
So did UConn last year and look how that turned out for the Huskies.
The days of other teams immediately putting HC next to the Temple game should be over very soon.

03.05.13
by

The final word on Steve Addazio

In about a year, only the fan bases from Florida, Temple and BC will understand this video.

In an effort to keep my blood pressure from elevating to dangerous levels, I’ve avoided the final word on Steve Addazio until now.
Before Matt Rhule takes over on the first day of spring practice (it’s now three weeks away), though, I think it’s a useful exercise to put the Steve Addazio Era to rest.
Although he wasn’t my first choice then (Bruce Arians was), I liked Steve Addazio when I got to know him at Temple.

I had a long talk with him in New York City and he gave me some good stuff and asked me not to use it and I kept both my mouth and laptop shut. In any meeting with Temple alumni, he had us all ready to strap on the pads. Vitamin A was that addictive. There was much to like.
He was 51, but had the vim and vigor of a 21-year-old.

Matt Rhule in today’s Morning Call
Keith Groller of The Morning Call wrote this great story on Matt Rhule that appeared in today’s paper. For this cool bumper sticker above and to support Temple Football Forever, anyone who contributes at least $20 via the pay pal donation option on the sidebar (in the Support TFF section) or $20 to the address (in the help TFF afford a pair of shoes section) gets it exactly as it appears above (3 inches high, 11 inches wide). Please allow two weeks for pay pal orders and one month for postal orders. Thanks.

He was “National Recruiter of the Year” not once but three times and I thought this was just the kind of guy Temple needed. I could easily envision a recruit putting down Penn State hat, an Alabama hat and putting on a Temple one on ESPNU under Addazio’s watch (if you don’t think that’s possible, the same thing happened for a New Mexico football recruit two years ago).
On the day Addazio was hired, a Florida fan emailed me the video above and warned me about Addazio. He told me the firesteveaddazio.com website was available if I wanted it.

I dismissed it as poppycock.
I’d like to apologize to that fan today.
Everything Hitler, err that Florida fan, said about Addazio’s one-dimensional, hare-brained, offensive scheme turned out to be true in 2012.
He turned an explosive, otherwise productive, quarterback in the 2011 season into a caretaker of a Woody Hayes’-type, run-first, scheme. Chris Coyer was limited to handing off on almost all first and second downs and that’s an offensive recipe for disaster.  After pounding his head against a brick wall for most of four quarters against UConn, Addazio was forced to unleash Coyer in a two-minute drill that won the game.
Did he learn a lesson that would carry over to the rest of the year?

Not surprisingly, confidence in Daz’s future waning.

No.
Truth is, Addazio is a stubborn former offensive lineman who always wants to run the ball. He was that way at Florida and (sans Scot Loeffler’s one year as OC) was that way at Temple and probably will be that way at BC.
After that UConn win, he went back to pounding his head against the wall and about 20,000 of my fellow Temple fans joined him.
Now we can get back to watching football.
There’s a lot we don’t know about Matt Rhule but he does believe in making defenses defend the whole field and, for that alone, we know he will do a better job that Daz did.
My blood pressure will be better off now that Daz is gone and hopefully that means my life expectancy has just been extended by a couple of years.

03.02.13
by

Conference shifting puts Temple in no Jeopardy

Temple was the answer to a Jeopardy question last night.

In honor of Temple being the answer to a trivia question yesterday on Jeopardy, we have a question:
“What does all of this conference shifting mean to Temple?”
“What is everything and nothing, Alex?”
Alex would have said that is correct.
First, yesterday’s question, which appeared under the category of “Texas Towns” and a contestant got right.
“1-95 goes through it; it’s a university in Pennsylvania or a synagogue?”
“What is Temple?”

Cliff: “Alex, I object, I-95 doesn’t technically run through Temple.”

Alex: “Correct.”
I would have pulled a Cliff Clavin since the I-95 part of the question threw me off.
Back to the conference shifting, though.
There’s so much landscape shifting out there that the average Temple fan’s head has to be spinning like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.
What does this really mean for Temple football?
Everything and nothing is the correct answer.
Everything because Thursday, March 7, is the one-year anniversary of the date the news broke that Temple was joining the Big East.
The conference Temple signed up for then certainly isn’t the one it signed up for now.
At the time, visions of a packed Liacouras Center for games against Georgetown, Pitt, Villanova and Rutgers had to dance through the heads of the Board of Trustees.
Those visions are now gone.

Temple fans have to get in the mindset of going to watch Temple, not the bad guys

Nothing because if Temple sports people keep doing their jobs and Temple fans do their jobs, Temple will end up in a better place.
Temple football certainly IS in a better place than the Purgatory that was the MAC, sentenced to years playing Tuesday and Wednesday night games against directional mid-western schools having little or nothing in common with Temple.
Now, at least, there is the familiarity of Cincinnati and UConn and, for a year, Rutgers.
There are exciting road trips ahead to be made to places like New Orleans, Tampa and Dallas ahead, a far cry from the puddle jumpers and buses needed to get to places like Yipsilanti and Oxford.
Temple has a nationally known basketball coach who is admired and respected by his peers, if not a small but vocal group of his team’s own fans, and who just posted his sixth-straight 20-win season.
Temple has an energetic young football coach who is following a successful business model established by Al Golden, his mentor.
Temple fans have to get in the mindset of going to watch Temple, not the bad guys. When Penn or Belmont come to Cameron Indoor Stadium, do Duke fans whine “get some decent opponents in here” or do they say thank God for another chance to see the Blue Devils?
Advertising to a Temple-centric audience certainly helps.
Today should be a good crowd because the last time we streamed an ad for Hooter’s Birthday across the top of this website, 9,323 fans attended an end-of-the-season game against Duquesne in 2011.
That’s what Temple fans have to do for the product these outstanding coaches provide.
If those guys keep doing work, and the fans start voting with their feet and season-ticket money, Temple will be a respected player on the national stage and there is always a nice role for an actor like that.
For final Jeopardy the category is NCAA business:
“Is the conference shifting done?
“What is no, Alex?”

02.27.13
by

The best running back nobody is talking about

My favorite photo of Montel Harris as a Temple Owl, sharing a moment
of respect with Army linebacker and captain Nate Coombs after going for
351 yards and seven touchdowns in a 63-32 win.

My favorite Montel Harris moment this year had nothing to do with what he did during a game, but it had a lot to do with what he did on the field.
After the Army game, both Montel  and Army linebacker Nate Coombs shared a few words after Temple’s 63-32 win at Michie Stadium.

Draft expert Matt Waldman was talking about Harris.

After it was over, Montel and Nate shook hands, laughed and walked off the field.
That’s what sports is all about. It was a great sportsmanship moment between a future NFL player and a guy who is going to put it all on the line for our country.
We can only imagine what Nate told Montel, but we can guess it went something like this:
“Man, I tried to tackle you, but it was like tackling air out there.”
After a fairly good performance in the recent NFL combine, draft expert Matt Waldman called Montel “the best running back nobody is talking about.”

The thing the combine can’t measure is start/stop ability and Harris is the best I’ve ever seen 

I think they will be talking about him on draft day.
Last year, I predicted Bernard Pierce would go in the third round. I think Harris goes in the sixth, no lower than the seventh.

How Harris and Pierce compared at the NFL combine:
40 time
Bench Reps
Vertical Jump
Montel Harris
4.68
19 (at 225 pounds)
32.5 inches
Bernard Pierce
4.49
17 (at 225 pounds)
36.5 inches

How Harris and Pierce did in best single season:
Carries
Yards
Longest Run
Montel Harris (2009)
308
1,457
72 yards
Bernard Pierce (2011)
273
1,481
69 yards

After watching Harris last year and Pierce the three years before that, the difference is simply this:
Pierce is faster and can do more damage on the outside but Harris is much better between tackles and starting and stopping to get out of trouble.
The only reason Harris drops three or so rounds below Pierce will be his knee injury history, but his knee held up pretty well at Temple despite the workload.
To me, the combine numbers are nowhere near as important as these numbers:
Career Carries
Career Yards
Average  (2012)
Career Long
Career
TDs
Montel Harris
973
4,379
5.7
72
39
Le’Veon Bell
671
3,346
4.7
69
31
Montee Ball
924
5,140
5.1
67
77
Ray Graham
595
3,271
4.1
78
32
Gio Bernard
423
2,481
6.7
68
25
Jawan Jamison
486
1,972
4.2
64
13

To me, what you do on the field is a lot more important than what you can do at the combine and Harris’ numbers stack up very well against some of the top running backs in the group above.
Remember, Harris never fumbles while Eagles’ seventh-round pick Bryce Brown fumbled a lot. You can gain all the yards in the world and have all the speed and the vertical leap and bench press, but if the ball ends up in the hands of the other team after the play is over you are worthless.

How cool would it be for Montel Harris to introduce himself on Sunday or Monday night football by saying, “Montel Harris, Temple Football Forever”

That’s another metric that can’t be measured at a combine.

How cool would it be for Montel Harris to introduce himself on Sunday or Monday night football by saying, “Montel Harris, Temple Football Forever.”
Heck, if Mo Wilkerson or Bernard Pierce beat him to the punch, that would be cool, too.

Whatever questions that some may have had about his character were answered with a season as a solid citizen and terrific teammate at Temple.
I wish him all the best.
My guess is that Army’s Nate Coombs does, too.

02.23.13
by

Frankford’s DiGiorgio a Diamond Tim

Love the way the Frankford announcer calls the first TD five yards into the pattern.

Little wonder why Tim DiGiorgio wants to become an accountant.

He should fit right in at Temple’s nationally ranked Fox Business School. He’s spent the last couple of years being very good with numbers.
Tim DiGiorgio gets ready to throw the ball.
The Frankford quarterback is headed to Temple as a “preferred walk-on” after breaking a few calculators putting some eye-popping stats together.
After throwing for 2,357 yards and 30 touchdowns as a junior for the Public League champion Pioneers, he added 1,704 yards and 14 more touchdowns as a senior.
He was the third player in the 97-year history of the Public League to pass for 3,000 yards and did it in only his 15th varsity game, the first to accomplish that feat.
My good friend, Donald Hunt, of the Philadelphia Tribune (he co-wrote the book “Winning is an Attitude” with John Chaney) asked Temple coach Matt Rhule a question at his first press conference about what he would do to keep the talent from the Philadelphia Public and Catholic League here and Rhule answered that recruiting would start from here and head on out.
In DiGiorgio’s case, Frankford High School is only 5.1 miles from 10th and Diamond.
DiGiorgio, a 6-foot-3, 185-pound lefty, is the very epitome of what Rhule was talking about when he said Temple was all about finding Diamonds in its own backyard, to borrow founder Russell Conwell’s theme.
He did so well when he attended a passing camp at Penn State that assistant coach Ron Vanderlinden told him they would offer him if highly rated recruit Christian Hackenburg backed out of his commitment. Surprisingly, Hackenburg remained true to Penn State and four years of playing behind suspect offensive lines and Temple could be the beneficiary.

Imagine this billboard on I-95 with a slightly different spelling and the
word “not” replaced by “a” and the pizza replaced by a throwing TU QB.

DiGiorgio had some feelers from other places, but wanted the chance to play Division I (known as FBS football now).

Temple should offer him that chance. The Owls are very thin at the quarterback position for the 2014 season.
So far, only incoming recruit P.J. Walker and DiGiorgio have significant playing time over the last couple of years. Connor Reilly, the starting holder on extra points and field goals, hasn’t thrown the ball in a real game since high school (although in 2011 he handed it off in a 42-0 win at Ball State). Those are your 2014 Owl quarterbacks.
For now at least.
If DiGiorgio can play, and all indications are that he can, he will be given every opportunity by Rhule, walk on or not.
Rhule played at Penn State.
As a walk-on.
And you don’t have to be a future accountant to know that adds up to a fair shot.
The Tim DiGiorgio File
Completions
Attempts
Yards
Touchdowns
2011
136
237
2,357
30
2012
107
215
1,704
14
02.20.13
by

Matty Brown’s replacement? How about Herbin?

“Jerry Jones’ Money, you a running back” comes up at the 2:12 time stamp. That’s song lyric perfectly describes Khalif Herbin in my book.

Matt Brown’s career took off after being switched to RB.

As the crow flies, where both Matty Brown and Khalif Herbin played their final years of high school ball is separated by only 50 miles of I95 and Garden State Parkway highway in New Jersey.
Brown played his final year at Peddie School in Highstown. Herbin played at Montclair.
To me, that’s really the only thing that separates the two players.
The highest compliment I can pay Herbin now is that, used properly _ the way Brown was _ he can be just as good and maybe even better.
I really believe that.
Going into this 2013 season, I am not worried about too many areas of Temple’s football team this upcoming season, but I was worried about finding the next Matty Brown.
Until the light bulb went on in my head yesterday.
The next Matty Brown is sitting right there in the Edberg-Olson Complex.
You know, that shifty, elusive guy everybody else underestimates until he’s putting up six points on a regular basis?
Instead of wearing No. 2 or 22, he’s wearing No. 27.

In 2009, Matty Brown started the seson as a slot receiver until a similar light bulb went off in Al Golden’s head and Al gave Brown a chance to carry the ball. It turned out to be a stroke of genius

Khalif Herbin is my choice. Heck, he’s got the talent to be better than Brown. He’s faster (4.39 to Brown’s 4.44). He’s even bigger (5-7, 170 to Brown’s 5-5, 150). There are a lot of intangibles about Brown that make him the toughest son-of-a-gun I’ve seen play for Temple in a long, long time (maybe ever) but I’d like to see what Herbin can bring to the table with the same opportunity.
Herbin was an unbelievable talent with the ball in his hands (check out the film above, just from his first five high school senior games).
He just didn’t get the ball in his hands enough last year. As a 5-7 slot receiver, it’s just not possible.
That was one of the many problems with Steve Addazio. He didn’t maximize the talent of his players. To me, one of the best athletes on the team should not be a third-team quarterback nor should a guy as elusive as Herbin be a slot receiver. A guy who both runs and throws the ball as well as Chris Coyer does should not be spending the first two downs of every series handing of to a running back.
In 2009, Matty Brown started the season as a slot receiver until a similar light bulb went off in Al Golden’s head and Al gave Brown a chance to carry the ball. It turned out to be a stroke of genius.
The position move led to a nice chapter in Temple football history.
Not that Brown is gone, Matt Rhule should consider doing the same for Herbin.
Temple found Brown while playing for Peddie School in Blairstown in 2009 and could find his replacement in a Montclair, N.J. product.
The Owls need a game-breaker like Brown and Herbin could be all that and more. It’s definitely worth a shot.

The Khalif Herbin File

2011
Carries
Yards
Touchdowns
139
1,940
43
2010
176
1,488
15
2011 Punt Returns*
12
245
3
2010 Punt Returns**
4
133
1

*Also returned 7 kickoffs for 243 yards and 2 TDs
**Also returned 9 kickoffs for 385 and 2 TDs
02.18.13
by

One fan’s take on how the season will go

The Big East’s original color-coded schedule.

Any day now the Big East will release the schedule for the upcoming football season.
A guess on how Temple will do at this point is just that.
Too soon for me. Last year, I didn’t post my prediction until August and I’ll probably wait until that same time this year.
Too many things can happen between now and then.
That doesn’t mean I discourage other fans from playing a preliminary numbers’ game.
One of those fans, Steve Sipe, actually gave a pretty optimistic rundown below:

Steve Sipe’s early game-by-game analysis. I’ll sign for that now. Unfortunately, Charlie Strong is still at Louisville.

He only has the Owls down for two losses, one by a touchdown to national runner-up Notre Dame, the other at Tommy Tuberville’s Cincinnati.
When it comes to Temple football, I always hope for 12-0 and settle for winning seasons.
While many might view Steve as being a little overly optimistic, I’ll sign for it now.
Maybe that view is tempered by the fact that I had Steve Addazio going a base 6-6 (with a bowl win) or as optimistic as 8-3 in 2012. No way did I ever dream that he would come up with a hare-brained one-dimensional offensive scheme that would add up to 4-7.
Right now, though, I feel better about  Matt Rhule’s offensive acumen but I’m waiting on how the defense shapes up.

Cherry and White Day Special
From Feb. 16 through Cherry and White Day, get this cool Temple Football Forever bumper sticker.
Anyone who contributes at least $20 via the pay pal donation option on the sidebar (in the Support TFF section) or $20 to the P.O. Box address (in the help TFF afford a pair of shoes section) gets this cool bumper sticker exactly as it appears above (3 inches high, 11 inches wide). Please allow two weeks for pay pal orders and one month for postal orders. Thanks.

I feel confident about the kicking game (Paul Layton, Jim Cooper Jr., Nick Visco) and I’m a big Chris Coyer  guy so I feel good about those areas. I would like to see Zaire Williams on the field  but that’s not going to happen until August. I hope Jamie Gilmore has a big spring. He’s the only legitimate tailback on the roster now.  Heck, even fullback Wyatt Benson, the best blocker I’ve seen at Temple since Shelley Poole, might even get a few carries.
If Phil Snow is as good a defensive coordinator as Matt Rhule advertises him to be, maybe 10-2 is a good prediction. I’d love to see Kevin Newsome or Nate L. Smith  roam the middle of the field as a free safety and Kenny Parker moved to strong safety and the Owls go to a 3-4 defense to take advantage of their nose tackle depth (Averee Robinson, Hershey Walton and Levi Brown) and terrific linebacker speed. Sean Daniels is going to have to become the push-rusher I know he can be at one DE and the Owls are going to have to find another speedy pass-rusher on the other side. If all those personnel moves pan out, the Owls could cause enough turnovers to become an efficient, maybe dangerous, Big East defensive team. Right now, without knowing, I have the Owls losing to ND, Central Florida (a better team than Steve might think), Rutgers, Cincy and Louisville for a 7-5 record.
Praying for 12-0, would sign for 10-2 right now and grudgingly accept 7-5 at this point.
Anything less would be disappointing.
Spring practice starts March 22.

02.15.13
by

Magnificent Seven present and accounted for …

 Matt Rhule assures concerned fans that the first two plays on every series won’t be runs this season.

Less than a couple of weeks ago, head coach Matt Rhule talked about the incoming group of football players at Temple University.
Usually he’s taking about kids who typically come on campus the week after the July 4th holiday.
Usually, but not always.

Cherry and White Day Special
From Feb. 16 through Cherry and White Day, get this cool Temple Football Forever bumper sticker.
Anyone who contributes at least $20 via the pay pal donation option on the sidebar (in the Support TFF section) or $20 to the P.O. Box address (in the help TFF afford a pair of shoes section) gets this cool bumper sticker exactly as it appears above (3 inches high, 11 inches wide). Please allow two weeks for pay pal orders and one month for postal orders. Thanks.

There’s an interesting group of seven players already enrolled on campus.
In the “Magnificent Seven” are two three-time Pennsylvania state wrestling champions in John Rizzo of Johnstown and Averee Robinson of Harrisburg.
Paul Layton is a punter to keep an eye out for in spring practice.
I think two of them have really good shots to start.
If I had to handicap now, I think Layton is a lock to start and Robinson, whose game reminds me of Joe Klecko’s, is right behind him.
Layton is particularly intriguing to me because, for the last three years, I’ve had nightmares of Brandon McManus drawing a roughing-the-kicker penalty and not getting up. That’s a helluva way of losing an NFL-caliber placekicker. I told his dad as much a few times. He assured me it would not happen.
Fortunately, he was right and my nightmares were wrong.
Now that Temple has a dedicated punter, I hope they never use him. (Sorry, Paul, but I’ll take touchdowns and Jim Cooper Jr. field goals over your punts any day of the week.) Still, if Temple uses him, he looks like a good one.
Since he’s a grad student, like Montel Harris was, I’ll call Layton “The Montel Harris of Punting.”
If he has the same positive impact on the program that Montel does, he’ll be more than worth the scholarship.
Robinson, like Joe Klecko, has tremendous gap leverage and three Pennsylvania state heavyweight championships to demonstrate the ability. His game is more like Joe Klecko’s than Dan Klecko’s in that he would be the perfect nose guard in a 3-4 defense. Dan Klecko was more of a natural 4-3 tackle. Robinson is very hard to block, like both Joe and Dan were. If anyone can be trusted for gap control it’s a Joe Klecko or an Averee Robinson.
It’s not going to be easy beating out guys like Hersey Walton and Levi Brown, but Robinson certainly has the ability to do it.
When practice gets underway on March 22, we’ll get to see these players.

Dion Dawkins OL Fr. 6-5 330 Rahway, N.J Rahway Hargrave Military Academy
Paul Layton P Sr. 6-1 215 Burnt Hills, N.Y. Ballston Lake Albany
Jihaad Pretlow DB Fr. 5-11 185 Elizabeth, N.J. Blair Academy
John Rizzo FB Fr. 6-1 221 Johnstown, Pa. Richland
Averee Robinson DL Fr. 6-1 285 Harrisburg, Pa. Susquehanna Township Milford Academy
Adrian Sullivan OL Fr. 6-5 270 Babylon, N.Y. Babylon Worchester Academy
Kiser Terry DL Fr. 6-3 260 Feasterville, Pa. Neshaminy Milford Academy
02.13.13
by

Reports of the Big East demise premature

Big East football has secured a network deal, according to reports.

When folks ask me about the Big East and Temple University football, I pretty much have one answer:
“Would would rather make road trips to Oxford, Ohio, Ypsilanti, Mich., Muncie, Ind. or Dallas, New Orleans and Tampa?”
I rest my case.

“Would would rather make road trips to Oxford, Ohio, Ypsilanti, Mich., Muncie, Ind. or Dallas, New Orleans and Tampa?”

Temple football had two choices and two choices only:
Stay in the MAC and continue to take those trips to the directional midwestern schools, play Tuesday night games at home before 11,000 fans in a 70,000 seat stadium, and die a slow long death or go to real cities to play real teams and play college football almost exclusively on the day God created it for:
Saturdays.
That’s above and beyond what talks loudest in college sports yesterday, today and tomorrow:
Money.
According to a report today on Yahoo Sports, the Big East is about to sign a football and basketball deal with the NBC Sports Network that will pay each team $2 million per season.
Considering that Temple was making pretty close to zero dollars (it made money only in the bowl season) with the MAC, it was a no-brainer that the Owls make the move to the Big East last year do everything they can to make it work now.
From all accounts, SMU, Tulane and South Florida are happy to be in the Big East. Cincinnati and UConn have one eye on the door, but no other suitors. If anybody leaves, there’s a group of  schools wanting to come in that approximates the New York Giants’ season-ticket waiting list.

Temple is sitting on a talent gold mine playing in a $521-million stadium, another potential gold mine

I’d love to see former Temple football “rival” Buffalo, a big city within shouting distance, given first dibs.
Selfishly, I think the Owls are in a much better position to compete and win in this league than they were last year and that position should even be improved going forward now that the offense has transformed from 1912 cloud-of-dust style to a 2013 spread in just a couple of months.
If you put the pin in the protractor at 10th and Diamond and created just a small semi-circle that includes the states of Pa., Md., NJ, NY, Conn., Mass., Del. and Virginia, there is 46 percent of the nation’s population inside the circle. There is only one Big East school, Temple, in the middle of that circle.
Temple is sitting on a talent gold mine playing in a $521-million stadium, another potential gold mine.
There’s nothing about Tulane or SMU football that scares me. Heck, Temple beat a Navy team that hammered SMU only a couple of years ago.
Temple football is on solid footing now and it behooves the Owls and Cincinnati and UConn to make it work.
Any reports of the Big East’s collapse are premature and should be put to rest by this impending deal.

02.10.13
by

Helmet change now would be Golden Rhule

The new Western Michigan helmet. I don’t remember what the old one looked like.

Temple helmet records:
T (one year each of Wallace and Golden): 1-22
T (during Berndt and Dickerson): 19-80;
T (during Addazio): 13-11;
Cartoon Owl (seven years under Wallace): 19-60
TEMPLE (final four years of Golden): 26-23
TEMPLE (all of Hardin and Arians): 107-91-3
Total: TEMPLE=133 wins, 114 losses, 3 ties
T=33 wins, 113 losses

Thought it kind of odd that, in the middle of recruiting season, new Western Michigan coach P.J. Fleck introduced a new helmet.
I thought new coaches were in a full-out sprint to firm up and add to recruiting classes and didn’t have time to address a pursuit as trivial (by comparison) as helmets.
Now they do.
I hope Matt Rhule does.
An established tradition at Temple is that a new helmet is solely the call of a new head coach.
Wayne Hardin changed the helmet from the stupid Owl to TEMPLE and the Owls won like never before. Bruce Arians wisely kept the TEMPLE and had the Owls go 6-5 (twice) against a Top 10 national schedule. Try picturing current-day Temple going 6-5 twice against a SEC schedule. That’s pretty much what Arians did.
Jerry Berndt changed the TEMPLE helmet to the T and the Owls promptly went 1-10. Bad Karma.

“The 2007 helmet brings us back to the most successful TEAM period in the history of Temple football.”
_Al Golden

The T took TEMPLE through some awful Ron Dickerson and Bobby Wallace years. Heck, Wallace even changed the helmet to the comedic (joke on us) cartoon Owl for awhile, before ending his tenure with the T.
Al Golden changed all that with some good coaching … and good Karma.
The winning Temple teams that Al Golden remembered had the word TEMPLE on the helmet and he mentioned branding as the reason he changed back to the TEMPLE helmet after his first season.
“There are several reasons for the change,” Golden said. “The first is for our current team to discover our tradition. The 2007 helmet brings us back to the most successful TEAM period in the history of Temple Football; a time that produced a 10-game winner and a final Top 20 ranking in both polls. The second reason is quite simply branding. When I was growing up in New Jersey, Temple’s helmets were unique. It was the most recognizable helmet in the East, let alone the country. Somewhere along the way that got lost, so I wanted to bring it back. The last reason has to do with our overall football operation. Our goal is to be first in every endeavor that we believe impacts our football team. We now feel like we have the best uniform, not only in the MAC, but on the East Coast. We have our brand back and it is here to stay.”

The greatest helmet in the history of college football, IMHO.

The move was universally applauded, especially by ex-Temple players.
I thought that was great and made TEMPLE stand out from other Ts on other helmets, like Tennessee and Tulane.
We all know and love our Temple ‘][‘ but, really, how many non-Temple people located in Idaho or Montana or Washington or even Tennessee can tell that’s a Temple ‘][‘ right away?
Not many, I’d venture to say.
In the grand scheme of things, a helmet change is not all that important but, considering the amount of winning TEMPLE did under the TEMPLE brand and losing under the T brand, I think it’s called for now.
The attitude inside the helmet is much more important than the lettering on the outside, but I’m proud of being from TEMPLE and I think both the T and the TEMPLE branding should be a consideration when designing the new helmet.

There is a King Solomon-like solution here and I hope that Rhule has the wisdom to see it:

Split the baby in half.
Put TEMPLE on one side and the ‘][‘ on the other.
That way you have the branding concerns by marketing taken care of and you salute the greatest helmet era in TEMPLE history by putting it on the other half of the helmet. Heck, having TEMPLE on the other side of the helmet enhances and not detracts, from the ‘][‘ brand because of the constant reminder of what the ‘][‘ stands for on every tackle, interception or touchdown.
You leave no doubt as to what school the T stands for and you have the most unique and best helmet in college football.
Then keep it that way for a long, long time.

Temple Helmet Records

Temple T
Cartoon Owl
TEMPLE
One year Golden=1-11
7 years Wallace=19-60
Hardin (13 years)=80-52-3
One year Wallace=0-11
Arians (5 years)=27-39
Berndt and Dickerson=19-80
Golden=26-23
Two years Addazio=13-11
Total=33 wins, 113 losses
Total=19 wins, 60 losses
Total=107 wins, 91 losses, 3 ties