The latest edition of Temple TUFF.

Nothing perturbed me more at the beginning of the season than the notion “Temple is going to take a step back without Al Golden.”
If I read that once, it seemed like I read it 100 times.
That logic might have computed to those on the outside, but made no sense at all to those of us who follow the program closely.
Logically, Golden gave new coach Steve Addazio his best group of players to date (save for the quarterback position) and Addazio was bringing in a battle-tested SEC staff to “coach them up.”

Temple-Miami common scores
Bowling Green 13, Temple 10
Miami 37, Bowling Green 23
Miami 41, Buffalo 13
Temple 34, Buffalo 0
Toledo 49, Miami 28
Toledo 36, Temple 13

An improvement upon last year’s 8-4 record was expected.
I still expect an improvement.
But Addazio’s margin of error now is zero.
The Owls must win three straight games and at least appear in a bowl game this year for any reasonable person to see an improvement upon last year’s 8-4 season.

Temple TUFF will be put to the test more than ever, starting tomorrow night (8 p.m.) at Lincoln Financial Field against a good-but-not-great Miami (Ohio) team.
Does Temple TUFF have any meaning or is it just an empty phrase?

He nearly got Bernard “The Franchise” Pierce killed with an ill-advised third-and-five draw at Ohio. Hopefully, Bernard will play and they will find ways to get him the ball in space (i.e., pitchouts and screen passes). If not, Matty Brown will do a fine job with similar plays.


Temple could not have ordered bettter weather.



It boggles my mind that a team which shut out Ball State (42-0) and Buffalo (34-0) can lose to a team that lost to both of those teams. The defense played with a purpose and a ferocity in those two games they did not show at Ohio.
Temple should (will) be favored in all three of its games, but there is significant reason for concern.
Miami (Ohio) beat Army and Army beat Northwestern and Northwestern beat Nebraska, so these teams have talent. Kent State pummeled Bowling Green. These are no slouch teams Temple is playing.
Still, Temple has more talent and the time to show it is now.
Remember, Temple beat a Maryland team which beat the real Miami which beat the real Ohio (State). That’s why a loss to the fake Ohio and the fake Miami will be harder to take. Temple was two minutes away from beating a Penn State team which is unbeaten in Big 10 play.
Two weeks ago, bowl scenarios were talking about Temple playing Ohio State in Detroit or the real Miami in D.C. After losing to Ohio, nobody is talking about that anymore.
It’s time to polish the Temple brand and finish strong and make the Owls an attractive national name again.
To do that, Temple will have to do no more or less they play the way it played most of the time on the way to a 5-2 record.
Temple TUFF is needed now more than ever.

“Listen, if it looks like Temple is going to take this next kickoff to the house, throw the flag.”

Every time I mention that Temple should get out of the Mid-American Conference, I’ll always have one or two Temple fans (out of about 30) say something like: “Let’s win the MAC first.”
I try to explain that should be immaterial to things like school size, TV ratings, size of the market, etc.
I should have added officiating.

The impossible dream
The ONLY scenario Temple can win the MAC:
Temple wins over Mia and Kent
Ohio loses @ CMU, @ BGSU and Mia
BGSU loses to NIU and Buffalo but beats Ohio
Mia beats Ohio
Temple wins MAC title game in Detroit
source: emh55

If Temple has any chance to win a big MAC game, you can bet on officiating playing a factor against it.
Bet is the key word since the line opened and 5 1/2 points and quickly went down to three by game time.
You think maybe some of the Vegas people might have seen that Temple was penalized 12 times to Bowling Green’s two last week and that might have set off some MAC officiating alarms behind the betting window?
Just sayin’.
For Exhibit A, I give you tonight’s 35-31 loss in Athens to Ohio.
Both ESPN announcers said that one of the Ohio touchdowns should have been taken off the scoreboard due to the new launching yourself into the end zone rule, commonly known as the “excessive celebration” penalty.
“These points are coming off the board,” play-by-play guy Mark Neely said after watching the replay. “That’s the new rule.”
“Yeah, Mark,” color guy Ray Bentley said.

The official saw the celebration (how could he not, it was right in front of him) threw the flag, but then put it in his back pocket, then announced they would enforce a sideline penalty instead. You cannot launch yourself into the end zone while ahead of the field of play. It’s a rule in the books that has been enforced all year but not against any MAC team playing Temple.
I don’t expect it ever will.
Have Matty Brown do it next week on national TV against Miami and I’m sure the flag would be thrown, points taken off the board and the call would stand without hesitation. I would bet $100,000 that would be the case.
Once a “supposed” catch that preceded a touchdown, the replays clearly … clearly …  showed the ball was never in possession of the receiver yet the replay official refused to overturn it.
Shades of UConn.
Not only did the ESPN announcers say the ball appeared to come out, but Mike Tirico said so on Sportscenter.
When a sports center anchor not named Kevin Neghandi implies Temple is hosed, Temple is hosed.
I read lips pretty good and Steve Addazio told the official: “He never had control AND he was out of bounds.”
Addazio was right.
Ryan Alderman catches a ball right at the sticks and the officials move it a yard farther back.
Adrian Robinson gets horsecollared to the ground on Ohio’s last long pass play and the officials keep the flag in their pocket.
Etc., etc., etc.
Something smells rotten in Hicksville, Ohio.
I feel sorry for the Temple fans who made the trip and for players like Chris Coyer, who had a breakout game in his first real action as an Owl. He was put in an unfair position of having to win a game his team already won twice before.
Look, the MAC is a fine conference and it is hard enough to win these games on merit.
It’s impossible to do so when the field is tilted so heavily in the direction of the old-line MAC teams against the newcomer.
I don’t care if it’s the Big East or Conference USA, the time to get out of this hick conference is now.

One of the great things about Facebook is catching up with old friends, like Joe.
Joe is a terrific college football play-by-play guy who went to Temple.
We both worked in Doylestown in our 20s, me as a writer for the Doylestown Intelligencer, him doing Central Bucks West football play-by-play for WBUX-AM.
I don’t get Joe, though. He’s like a lot of Temple people I know.

Every time I post something positive about Temple football on Facebook, he says nothing. Didn’t say a word after the 38-7 win at Maryland, the back-to-back shutouts of Ball State and Buffalo (two teams better than most people credit) or the gut-wrenching lost to Big 10 leader Penn State.
Yet lose to Toledo or Bowling Green and Joe is the first guy to post.
“Toledo?” was his one-word post after the Toledo loss.
“Bowling Green?” was his one-word post after the Bowling Green loss.
I asked him:
“Why do you hate Temple so much? You seem to revel in the failure, yet never comment on the success.”
“Don’t hate,” he replied. “Just don’t want to make them out to be anything more than what they are.”
Well, that got me to thinking.
What are we?
We’ll find out on Wednesday night at Ohio (8 p.m., ESPN).
Really, the whole world will.
On every TV in every bar in the United States (and some across the world), Temple football will be the only thing on in the background. A lot of assumptions of what Temple is will be made that night.
It’s time to put up or shut up.
Here’s what I think “we” are: A championship-caliber MAC team that is also good enough to win the Big East. Last year’s Temple team beat the BE champion by two touchdowns. This year’s Temple team is better than that one.
I think most Temple fans, maybe not Joe, would agree.
I think a team that won, 42-0, at Ball State and a team that beat Buffalo, 34-0, should be able to handle this Ohio team. Heck, both Ball State and Buffalo did.
However, I think the team that went three-and-out with maddening consistency at Bowling Green due primarily to subpar (and that’s a kind word) quarterback play will struggle at Ohio. That’s why, unless a change is made at quarterback, I don’t have a feeling one way or the other. This team cannot win with two hobbled running backs when the QB is unable to make a positive play on his own. This team has too much receiving talent to not make explosive plays in the passing game. Seeing that talent go to waste irks me to no end. They just haven’t found the right guy to light the fuse.
I’m not seeing any indication that a change will be made at quarterback so I’m thinking it will be a four-point game either way.

This week’s blogger roundtable questions come from Let’s Go Rockets:
1. As we enter the final month of the regular season for most teams, what piece has been missing from your respective team? Can adjustments be made in the remaining schedule to fix it?

TFF: Quarterback. Temple can win a championship with Mike Gerardi. I’m not sure about Chris Coyer because I’ve never seen him throw the ball. All he does is score 80-yard touchdowns. I don’t think Temple is a championship team with Chester Stewart at quarterback. Sorry, I just don’t feel that way.

2. How do you feel about the new uniforms in college football this season? Seems like teams are rolling out throwbacks and unveiling special uniforms for certain games. Should the MAC hop on board with this trend?
TFF: No. I hate new uniforms. I even hate the T on the Temple helmet. I think a team should stick with the uniforms it had during its most successful era. For Temple, that was TEMPLE on the helmets and Liberty Bell stripes down the side of the pants.
3. If you were creating an ideal MAC team using the offensive, defensive, special teams, and coaching portions of current MAC teams, list the components of your powerhouse combination.
TFF: I’ll pass on that one.

4. What one player on your team has the best chance of making an NFL roster?
TFF: Bernard Pierce is a second-round pick if he comes out now. If he comes out next year, he’s a first-round pick with big bucks.
5. Rank ‘em
Toledo

Temple

Western Michigan

Ohio

Northern Illinois

Eastern Michigan

Bowling Green

Ball State
Central Michigan

Miami

Buffalo

Kent State

Akron

Why do 100,000 Owl fans see one and two head coaches see another?

Every time I watch Chester Stewart drop back to pass, and I’ve been doing a lot of that over the last four years, I think of the 2001 movie Shallow Hal.
In it, Jack Black can look at a 500-pound woman (played by a guy in a fat suit, presumably) and see only Gweneth Paltrow.
So far, we’ve had two coaching staffs fall in love with Chester.
One, led by Al Golden, was hit over the head during the first quarter of last year’s Bowling Green game after a pick six and pulled Chester in favor of Mike Gerardi.
Stewart never saw the field again in 2010.

The second, led by Steve Addazio, has yet to pull the plug. Maybe if Chester had tossed that pick 6 in the first quarter, the Owls might have recovered to be 4-1 in the MAC East, instead of 3-2.
Bowling Green 13, Temple 10.
What am I missing here?
I’m sure he’s a nice kid with a great personality and might look like a combination of Brett Favre, Randall Cunningham and Tom Brady at the Edberg-Olson Complex for six days of the week, but I feel like Jason Alexander.
I’m not seeing the beauty on game day. I have not for four years.
Alexander played the friend of Jack Black, who spent most of the two hours shrugging his shoulder and trying to knock some sense into him.
When I watch Chester, I see poor mechanics, terrible reads on the option, a penchant for holding onto the ball way too long, no touch on deep throws, blinders for field vision and not a whole lot of mobility. Any quarterback worth his Lee Saltz has to know whether or not he’s behind or in front of the sticks.
Other than that, he’s beautiful.
Now Chester wasn’t the ONLY reason Temple lost on Saturday.
Twelve penalties (to Bowling Green’s two) certainly did not help.
(I thought A LOT of those penalties on Temple were questionable and my suspicions were only re-inforced when Bernard Pierce landed what seemed like five yards into the end zone via the air on his touchdown and the refs placed the ball at the one. Hmm. Wishful officiating, perhaps?)
Still, despite all of that, one cannot underestimate the psychological impact to the defense when the offense constantly goes three and out. That was the 10th-best defense in this year’s MAC they were playing, not the 1985 Chicago Bears.
Moving the sticks on the field is on the quarterback, like it or not.
Fixing the problem and making the hard (or easy) decision off the field in this case is on the head coach.
Otherwise, we could all be seeing ugly.

Last year, I went on a wild goose chase in search of a Temple game that was listed on ESPN Game Plan, Direct TV (Channel 790).
I called a well-known sports, err, TV establishment and they said, “Sure, we have it. C’mon down.”
So I made the 45-minute trip downtown and one of the kids got up on a chair, fiddled with a TV for 15 minutes and said, “Sorry, we don’t have that channel.”
Fox and Hound Center City assures me they will have that channel today.
A guy named Jason Paxson, the managing general partner, emailed me that confirmation yesterday.
For those of you who don’t want to make the trip and are at home, the TV fates of Ole Miss and Temple are interwined today.
If you can get Arkansas and Ole Miss at noon (Direct TV, Channel 790), you will also be able to get Temple at Bowling Green at 3:30. Otherwise, you are stuck watching on computer (ESPN3). I hate watching on computer.