03.27.12
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2012 Schedule: Sugar for hiccups

The 2012 Temple Football schedule released today.

One of the favorite household remedies for a hiccup is spoonful of  sugar.
Temple University’s football team had a few hiccups last year (Toledo and Bowling Green come to mind) and, if the 2012 football schedule released today is any indication, the Owls got an intravenous injection of sugar today that could inoculate them against future similar spasms.
It’s a sweet schedule, with the only hint of bitterness that is is one game short.
As far as I know, the college football preseason magazines come out too late to include a classified section.
However, if Temple was to place an ad, it would look something like this:

HELP WANTED: Large urban university, close to major airport and within easy driving distance of 46 percent of the nation’s population, seeks football opponent for fall of 2012, but not necessarily for a home game. School has been bowl eligible for three straight seasons and has posted record-setting TV numbers for college football in the nation’s fourth-largest market. Have fan base, will travel. Fan base traveled 20,000 to D.C. for 2009 bowl and 6,000 to New Mexico for 2011 bowl. Open dates are Saturday, Sept. 15 or 29th or Saturday, Dec. 1. FCS foes need not apply. If interested, please contact Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw at bill.bradshaw@temple.edu.

The “official” word out of Temple is that the Owls are quite satisfied to play 11 games this season after the release of the schedule today.
The “unofficial” word out of Temple is that there is still time (albeit not much) to add another opponent.
The trick is finding someone with an open date on either Sept. 15, Sept. 29 or Dec. 1.
Not much luck there, but there are FBS and BCS schools out there who would like to drop an FCS foe for Temple, so there is some wiggle room involved. Selfishly, as a fan who plans my fall Saturdays around Temple football, I’d like to see another game added.
Realistically, though, going with 11 just for this year could turn out for the better.
Whether or not they can find another suitable game for an FCS school is the tricky problem.
That’s what Temple AD Bill Bradshaw will be working on today and into the weeks ahead.
Still, whether this is an 11-game or a 12-game schedule, it is undoubtedly the most exciting schedule of my lifetime.
Even in the Wayne Hardin and Bruce Arians years, when the Owls were playing the 10th-toughest schedule in the country, there was no league title on the line.
When the Owls did finally join a league, the Big East, they weren’t competitive.
Now they have the best of both worlds: Attractive foes week-in and week-out and a good chance to win every week.
They have six locked in home games and bring a competitive team to the Big East right away.
It could be the best Temple football season ever if the Owls focus every week like they did against Penn State and Maryland last year.
No time for hiccups this year.

03.23.12
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Matty Ice Rock

Matty Brown talks to Bill Evans about his 2012 role.

Smh.
I never knew what that meant until about two years ago when Muhammad Wilkerson found my Facebook page, sent me a “friend request” message and I was only too happy to accept.
Heck, when I know the name and respect the person, I usually accept.
That goes for Muhammad “Highly Praised” Wilkerson and anybody else.

Temple’s all-purpose yards leaders, 2011 season.

Well, after the 8-4 Temple team that beat the Big East champion UConn team was refused a bowl bid, I saw Wilkerson’s message on his Facebook page that fateful Sunday morning.
“Coach told us we’re done. Smh.”
“What’s smh mean?” I asked.
“Shakin’ my head, Mr. Gibson,” he said.
Now a lot of Big East fans think Temple is done because Bernard “The Franchise” Pierce is gone and I have a three-letter response.
Smh.
They don’t know Matty “Rock” Brown.
They soon will.
Brown, as a backup to Pierce, has posted nine 100-yard-plus games in his career.
Think about that.
It’s remarkable that a STARTING back posts nine 100-yard games. It’s unheard of that a backup accomplishes this.
In fact, there are a lot of fans sitting around me that think Brown is better than Pierce as a college back.
Not me.
“I know you are a Pierce guy,” my friend, Cyrus, turned to me and said during one game. “I’m a Brown guy.”
There were Brown guys and Pierce guys all over the stadium last year.
Now we’re all Brown guys.
He will be the rock upon which Temple’s formidable running game will be built in 2012.

03.22.12
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My invitation must have been lost in the mail

This is where Pitt is playing its spring game.

The Cherry and White scrimmage has been canceled.
Now that I’ve got your attention with that opening sentence, I want to clarify it.
The Cherry and White scrimmage has NOT been canceled officially.
In reality for many (most) of us, though, it has.
I received a letter in the mail yesterday from “Temple athletics” and eagerly ripped it open, hoping that it was my “few invited guests” invitation to this year’s Cherry and White game.
Instead, it was a form letter signed by Steve Addazio and Bill Bradshaw saying that “due to safety concerns and space limitations at our facility, it is necessary to limit the number of spectators at this year’s final scrimmage to recruits, families, and a few invited guests of the football program.”
I guess my invitation has been lost in the mail.

This is where Temple should play its spring game.

Which means I will probably miss my first Cherry and White game in 32 years as it stands now.
Really, this means that if you are a member of the Owl Club or a big booster, you are in the door.
If you are a “regular season ticket-holder” _ even a 30-year one like me _ tough luck.
Talk about class warfare in an election year. ….
Let me go on record as saying if I don’t get an invitation, that offer of $365 million dollars to Temple football is officially off the table. If you didn’t like me when I was poor, I don’t want you coming to me when I’m rich. Since the Mega Millions is $290 million this Friday night, that could be very soon.
It didn’t have to be this way.
Actually, it still doesn’t.
Temple tried to get Lincoln Financial Field, but Jeff Lurie made the price so high that it was cost prohibitive.
Temple’s Ambler Campus Field was determined unsafe (don’t know why because it was safe enough for Al Golden to take the team there five years ago).
High school fields were determined out of the question because of the “small-time” perception involved.
I’m not buying that last excuse.
Pitt is playing its spring game at North Hills High because, like the Linc, Heinz Field is unavailable or cost prohibitive on that date. Pitt wants its fans to have a full spring game experience and damned with what everybody else’s small-time perception is.
Temple should do the same for its fans.
North Hills seats 5,000 people and has a brand new sprint turf field.
Northeast High in Philadelphia, less than five miles from the Edberg-Olsen Complex, seats 9,000 people and has a brand new sprint turf field. Northeast is a great venue for both football and tailgating, with many Temple grads as teachers, and would welcome the Owls with open arms.
Pitt doesn’t give a damn about perception.
Neither should Temple.

03.20.12
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Big East quarterbacks: Coyer may be the best

Case Keenum and RGIII have nothing on Chris Coyer in this comparison.

Back in 1979, a tremendous athlete by the name of Brian Broomell led the nation in the then new category of passing efficiency while playing quarterback for Temple University.
Probably not coincidentally, Broomell led Temple to a 10-2 record, the most wins in the history of Temple football.
Since then, passing efficiency has been my most favorite statistic.
Where there is a quarterback who has a good passing efficiency rating, you’ll usually find a tremendous won/loss record in his favor as well.

Last year’s BE quarterback ratings.

Fortunately, the Owls will enter Big East play this fall with a big known in that area as another tremendous athlete, Chris Coyer, is not only the No. 1 returning in the nation in the terms of passing efficiency, he is also No. 1 in terms of a new category called “yards per play.”
A respected California blogger, football fan and math whiz came up with the statistical data and it is intriguing. In fact, yards per play might be a better indicator of a quarterback’s overall worth than passing efficiency.
Admittedly, Coyer provides a small sample but it is large enough in my mind to rate him the No. 1 returning quarterback in the Big East by a wide margin.
He has a passing efficiency rating of 177.4.
Compare that to returning South Florida quarterback B.J. Daniels (126.7), Louisville’s Terry Bridgewater (132.4), Rutgers’ Chris Dodds (118.5) and Gary Nova (116.6), Cincinnati’s Zach Collaros (131.6), Pitt’s Tino Sunseri (124.1) and Syracuse’s Ryan Nassib (129.9).
Even with a statistical allowance for strength of conference (and let’s face it, there wasn’t that much difference between the Big East and MAC last year), Coyer comes out pretty far ahead.

Coyer accepts New Mexico Bowl MVP Award.

Plus, he’s unbeaten as a Temple starter and put up 31 points as a relief pitcher to the woefully ineffective Chester Stewart in the Ohio game. Had Coyer started against Ohio, I believe the Owls would have won that one, too. Heck, had he started against Penn State I think the Owls would have won that also.
Those hypotheticals will be decided on the field this year, fortunately.
I’m a little concerned about Coyer’s backup and Matty Brown’s backup, but I’m not concerned at all with the starting offensive personnel.
With Coyer, Brown, Malcolm Eugene, C.J. Hammond, Deon Miller, Ryan Alderman, Alex Jackson, Cody Booth and company (not even mentioning the incoming freshmen), the Owls could turn the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard into an adding machine this fall.
And it all starts with the trigger man.
Just from the eye test, I think Coyer will be the best quarterback in the Big East this fall.
He throws a nice ball, makes great decisions (nine touchdown passes to zero interceptions), is elusive and has the “it” factor Temple has been looking for in a quarterback since Adam DiMichele sadly departed in 2007.
The two Rutgers’ kids, Dodds and Nova, can’t even carry his jock strap (nor would Chris want them to). I saw a few RU games and both those quarterbacks struggled.
If he’s as efficient as Broomell was some 30 years ago, the all-important stat of 10 wins might be in jeopardy as well.
That’s the only stat I really care about.
For the first time since 2007, I’m not going into a season worrying about the most important position on the field.
That’s both comforting and exciting.

03.17.12
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Villanova: Never forgive, never forget

With Temple in the BE, Villanova  basketball now becomes as irrelevant as DePaul.

The definition of  charade is an absurd pretense intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance.
I’ve never seen a more apt word describing the press conference to introduce Temple as the newest Big East member a couple of weeks ago.
Don’t let Villanova being at the table confuse you.
The part of the press conference (really, too much) that promoted Villanova’s involvement in this was a complete charade.
And Temple should never forget that.

Villanova resident Andy Reid will be rooting for the Owls.

Villanova fought tooth and nail to keep Temple out of the Big East in football, basketball and hop-scotch (if the BE offered hop-scotch).
In early October, the Owls were all set to be introduced as a new member but, as Lenn Robbins of the New York Post reported, the “conference call deteriorated into ‘Nova bashing Temple” and the Wildcats were able to form a voting block of Big East Catholic schools (St. John’s, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Providence, DePaul) that denied Temple a spot at the Big East table.
According to our sources, Seton Hall and St. John’s decided to break away from that block a little over a month ago and the writing was on the wall. Villanova no longer had the votes to block Temple.
Villanova already had taken a huge public relations’ hit in the Philadelphia area over the last five months for blocking Temple and decided to show up at the press conference and call this its own idea.
Liars.
Although BOT trustees’ member Lewis Katz was effusive in his praise of Villanova, you could see at times the look of utter amazement on his face at some of the things coming out of the mouth of Villanova president, the Rev. Peter Donahue.

If I was Monangai (No. 26) ,I’d keep my head on a swivel 8/31

I like being in the Big East, but I’m not buying the charade.
Nor should any Temple person. Villanova fans took great pride at coming over to Owlscoop.com and delighting in the demise of the Temple basketball Owls and taking swipes at Fran Dunphy, a guy I consider a great coach, man and representative of Temple University. I’ve met Dunph only once and that was for a brief period of five seconds or so in the concourse of Lincoln Financial Field, but there is no bigger fan of the man and the coach out there than I am. Temple is blessed to have Fran Dunphy and Steve Addazio as coaches of its two flagship sports programs.
The loss to South Florida was no more his fault than it was Al Golden’s (and I’m pretty sure Al Golden had nothing to do with it). Dunphy can’t make Ramone Moore take it to the basket when Moore seemed totally disinterested to beat an overmatched defender. He can’t make Juan Fernandez shoot. He had nothing to do with Khalif Wyatt  being called for an ill-timed technical foul.
But Villanova’s days of delight are a precious few now.
“I want you to come out to (Lincoln Financial Field) and see us kick Villanova’s butt again,” said Katz, who came out of that press conference as a star in my mind.
Daz, consider that an order, not a request. The only knees the Owls should take in that game should be the post-game prayer, thankful for an 88-0 win.
When it comes to Villanova, never forgive and never forget.

03.15.12
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Today: Greatest day of sports calendar

If you were in Times Square last Wednesday night, this is what you saw, courtesy of the Big East Conference.

By now, you can pretty much tell I’m a football fan first, everything else a distant second.
Yet I’ve been saying this for the last 30 years or so and I believe it today more strongly than ever:
THE THURSDAY THAT OPENS THE NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT IS THE GREATEST DAY ON THE SPORTS CALENDAR.
Yes, better than Super Bowl Sunday.
Better than the seventh game of the World Series.
Better than any game of the Stanley Cup.
Better than the NBA finals.

Temple football in the news today
UConn coach Paul Pasquoloni welcomes the Owls to Big East play
Mike Jensen talks about Peter Liacouras’ dream for Temple sports finally being realized

Better than the National Championship game in football (unless Temple is in it and then I reserve my right to change my mind).
Sports, to me, is about the fairness of competition and no sport provides that like the NCAA.
Sixty-eight teams start out and have to win their way to the next level.
Today is the day 64 of those teams have hope to win it all. No other day will match it.
Sixty-four teams have that hope and millions of fans fill out brackets on sites like Yahoo.com, Foxsports and ESPN hoping for a perfect bracket that would turn them from middle-class citizens into millionaires in less than one month.

All over America, offices are holding their own pools for some major coin. I won the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News major pool last year, beating out hundreds of employees in both the main building on North Broad Street and the new one in Conshohocken. It took me 15 years to win that pool. If I had only won it 15 years ago, I would have pocketed $2,000. Since then, though, with massive layoffs over that time period, I got roughly one-tenth of that last year.
Still, a source of great pride to know I came out on top despite my competition included those of the college basketball “experts” working both both newspapers.
If only NCAA football could build an interest vehicle like that for their fans, we’d have something. (They could easily do that. Have the three BCS bowl game winners play the best at-large team and you’d have a four-game, two week playoff after the bowl games. Have the top four bowl games rotate home sites. It’s a win-win for everyone.)
But NCAA football doesn’t, so NCAA basketball holds my attention for this month, something to hold me over until Cherry and White day.
My Final Four this year includes Syracuse (despite the Melo injury), Kentucky, Missouri and Georgetown. I don’t get the love for Michigan State. I think Missouri will knock off the Spartans in an Elite Eight game. The Hoyas are my sleeper team. I think they upset a disinterested Kansas team in St. Louis in the Elite Eight.
I also have North Carolina knocking off our beloved Owls in an Elite Eight game, but Temple can beat anyone on any given night if the Owls stay out of foul trouble, particularly along the interior.
Imagine, if you will, what a national championship in basketball would do for Temple as a whole and football specifically.
Plenty.
I’ll leave you with that thought for today and hope that remains a delicious possibility for at least a few more weeks.
Go Owls.

03.14.12
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Big picture looks good at practice

Steve Addazio talks about the new additions on the staff.

Much has changed about Temple football spring practice in one year.
That big ugly project in the background has been replaced by beautiful buildings on one side.
On the other side, a $10 million addition to a 12-year-old $7 million football facility is going up (and will be done by fall practice).
Not only is the scenery looking good, Al Golden’s “core value” of stockpiling talent at the redshirt level is kicking in for the good of the team.
Expect many of the “true freshmen” who Golden redshirted (16 of them) two years ago to make an immediate impact. We’ll talk about those redshirts in the coming days.
So while the scenery around the practice field improves, so will the talent level on the field, despite whatever losses to graduation and NFL the Owls experience in April and May.

03.11.12
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Selection Monday: TU practice begins

Despite what this looks like, Daz is not thinking basketball these days.

While many, including me, fill out their NCAA brackets this selection Sunday, Temple head football coach Steve Addazio is making a list and checking it twice, scratching out some ideas and coming up with other ones.
Spring practice begins on Monday and this is Addazio’s most intriguing one because, unlike last year, he’s fully aware of all the moving parts he has on the team.
Last year’s spring was a “get to know” process while this year’s spring is fitting the right round pegs into the round holes and the square ones firmly into the square receptacles.
The results on the field this fall should demonstrate that knowledge for the good of the Owls.
I won the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News “for amusement only” basketball pool last year, but Addazio’s pool is more fascinating to me because he’s bracketing the best athletes into the best slots to help the Owls win in a BCS conference.
And it’s way more important.
This spring’s priorities, in order, as I see it:

Two of these OL guys return to open holes for Matty Rock.

REBUILDING THE OFFENSIVE LINE _  Even though Temple returns only two starters (Sean Boyle and  Martin Wallace), this area is not  as  in bad a shape as some opposing fans think. If I read one more time “Temple loses its entire offensive line” I’m going to go crazy. Temple does NOT lose its entire offensive line. Boyle and Wallace, starters throughout last season, are back. An oft-time starting tight end from two years ago, Alex Jackson, returns. Adam Metz, a Big 33 player from two years ago, is ready to make an impact somewhere only the offensive line. Daz is an offensive line guy and Justin Frye proved himself as a top-notch offensive line coach last year. Still, it should be interesting who emerges in a tight fight for a couple of positions there. Whoever emerges as “Temple TUFF” will earn a starting spot. (On a side note, I’d check with Steve Caputo to see if his knee as improved to playing shape. Nobody was more Temple TUFF than that guy and he still has eligibility left.)

The last time Nate Smith was a feature back: 32 TDs, 2,734 yards
(in one senior year of high school )

GETTING A BACKUP FOR MATTY BROWN _ They don’t come any tougher and more elusive than Matty “Rock” (ice is already taken) Brown, who had over 1,000 combined rushing and receiving yards and six touchdowns last year in part-time duty. Let’s face it, though. He’s 5-5 and 150 pounds. I don’t like the current alternatives. Daz seems set on giving Kenny Harper a chance but he typically does not make a first defender miss and is, at best, a 2-3 ypc back. He was an out-and-out stud, though, as a safety in high school on the other side of the ball. I see Harper as a future NFL player and Jacquaiwn Jarrett clone on the defensive side of the ball.  Jalen Fitzpatrick, while being elusive, is a small “slot receiver” type. On other hand, Nate Smith (currently a fullback) has the entire package. Speed, size, elusiveness, a nose for the end zone. I hope Daz uses this spring to give him an extended look at tailback. If not, hope someone from the gang of three (Brandon Peoples, Jamie Gilmore or Khalif Herbin) transforms from a high school star to a BCS one when they get here in July. Hope is never a good plan, though.
REPLACING ADRIAN ROBINSON _ Arob was the chief pass-rusher, but the Owls should be in good shape there. Sean Daniels showed Arob-type playmaking ability when forced to play extensively in 2010.  Still, Arob had a motor like nobody’s business and installing  that motor in talented bodies like  Daniels’ becomes a priority. It would be nice to collapse the pocket with two guys meeting at the quarterback in every third-down passing situation.

Matt Falcone (15) sprung James Nixon with a great block for 6 on this
KO return in the 2009 season. Falcone is rehabbing his knee now.

REMAKING THE SPECIAL TEAMS _ Brandon McManus, in my mind, is the 2012 most valuable player. He’s the one player TU cannot afford to lose. Even though he was one of the best punters in the countryin 2011, it makes me nervous every time I see an NFL placekicking leg back in punt formation. The nervousness was unfounded last season but I still hope Daz finds a serviceable backup punter. The special teams has a new coach. I hope he does as well as Zack Smith did.
GETTING JUICE UP TO SPEED _ Now that Mike Gerardi is gone, I’d like to see Clinton “Juice” Granger brought up to speed as Chris Coyer’s backup. I’m hoping by the end of the day on April 14, we’ll be saying that Juice is significantly better than Gerardi and I thought Gerardi was serviceable. The best thing Kevin Newsome can do when he arrives is to volunteer to help out the team in any way he can and if that means defense, so be it. Nothing will demonstrate to Daz and the staff that Newsome is a team-first, me-second, guy than volunteering to play defense. If Coyer keeps the job, and I suspect he will, Newsome needs to get on the field in some capacity and he was an all-timer on the defensive side of the ball in high school.
Maybe he can take a few reps at QB each practice just in case Coyer goes down but he’s too good of an athlete to sit on the sideline wearing a headset and holding a clipboard for the 2012 season.
That’ll be determined, though, in July.
There will be enough work to do starting tomorrow.

03.09.12
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Temple TFF: New conference, new look

Temple Football Forever logos through the years.

Occasionally, like maybe once every tailgate, someone will ask me what possessed me to start Temple Football Forever.
Well, as a 30-year season-ticket-holder for Temple football games (there can’t be many of us, right?), along came a president who threatened the very existence of Temple football and, therefore, the way I spent my Saturdays however many years I have left on this earth.
The guy, David Adamany, handpicked a committee to “determine the future of Temple football” in December of 2004 and promised that the committee’s “complete report would be released” after the determination had been made.
That report was never released.
Never.

Our new look.

I’ve never found out why, but I think I have a pretty good idea.
The vote did not go the way Adamany, infamous for killing football at Wayne State, had planned. Nine people voted to continue Temple football. Eight voted against it.
I’d like to think I had a little something to do with that.
Months before the vote I found the addresses of each committee voting member and send them clippings of past Temple football successes on the field, with a cover letter basically stating a university cannot buy that kind of publicity.
I found an ally in the late, great Howard Gittis, who was not a football fan per se but who saw the value of football. He wrote me a nice response saying he would not allow football to die on his watch.
Gittis was Adamany’s boss and he kept his word.
I promised Gittis I’d do my best to drum up support in return.
Without Gittis, Temple does not play in the MAC or  Lincoln Financial Field or even have football today. (Adamany’s famous quote: “I can’t see why playing at Franklin Field isn’t good enough.” Ugh.)
Temple Football Forever was born the day the Owls joined the MAC on May 17, 2005.
I got up from my folding chair at the press conference, turned to my friend Sal the Owl, and we breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing full well the size of the bullet (really, rocket-propelled grenade) we dodged that day.
“Temple football now, Temple football forever,” I said.
So I went home and blogged my first post about that day and had my title.
Wednesday, the Owls made like the Jeffersons  and moved on up  to the (Big) East side and all signs point to them doing it right this time.
Thursday, I added a new logo for the occasion, thanks to my good friend, Owlified. I think it perfectly illustrates the future of a sea of folks wearing Cherry in a packed Lincoln Financial Field in a BCS conference along with how much fun it is to be an Owl football player and a winner in a great sports city like Philadelphia.