08.28.23
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Game Week: Know your opponent (Akron)

This is what happened the last time Temple played Akron.
Got to love the great Temple single digits of the past watching this ceremony on the screen via Zoom.

For how Week One of the college football season goes, there were plenty of clues left by what happened in Week Zero.

Vegas pretty much got every game right with only Notre Dame significantly exceeding expectations from a line perspective (although it should have known that Navy getting rid of a great coach like Ken Niumatalolo would have a deleterious effect on that program).

What does that mean for Temple’s opening game against Akron (2 p.m., Lincoln Financial Field)?

Give or take just a few points, the Owls SHOULD win by about 10.

Should and that’s only if both teams play up to their potential.

The only question is what kind of 10-point win: 17-7, 24-14, 35-25 or 45-35.

Take the over.

What do we know about Akron?

Joe Moorhead’s team went out with a bang last year, winning at Northern Illinois, 44-12, and losing by a point at a good Buffalo team, 23-22. Akron quarterback D.J. Irons was an All-MAC player, joined on that team by his No. 1 target, receiver Alex Adams.

Moorhead’s teams usually score a lot of points and Everett Withers’ defenses usually give up a lot of points, so that’s certainly has to be Temple’s biggest concern going into the game.

The good news for the Owls is that they have a quarterback with the “it” factor in E.J. Warner. The “it” factor is simply this: He has total command of the offense, abundant talent and a knack for getting the ball in the right spots at the right times. In Amad Anderson and Dante Wright, he has explosive perimeter receivers. In tight ends Jordan Smith and David Martin-Robinson, two dependable receivers although one is more of a reliable stick-mover and the other is a threat to take it to the house.

They complement each other well.

The running game has improved so much that its No. 1 protagonist, Edward Saydee, earned a single digit. We’ll believe it when we see it. (Not the single digit, but the improvement.)

The Owls have nine returning starters on defense and if Withers is able to put that kind of talent in the right places at the right times, tackles for losses could ensue.

This opener is no Wagner or Bucknell for the Owls, a gimmie tuneup. There is a real threat the Owls could lose this game and that should have them on their toes.

Yet this is the kind of team Temple must beat if it has any designs on a bowl game because all but one of the teams on the Owls’ schedule is better than Akron.

Still, Akron must be respected or the Owls will lose.

Consider this: The Northern Illinois team that Akron beat, 44-12, was the same NIU team that lost at Tulsa, 38-35. Tulsa turned around two weeks later and beat Temple in Philadelphia, 29-16.

If that’s not a sobering enough fact, Moorhead already took a less talented team into Philly and won a decade ago.

In Temple’s defense, the ECU and Houston teams the Owls should have finished off at the end of last season were much better than anyone Akron played all of last year.

Maybe Vegas didn’t input all of the available data. Maybe it did. Let’s hope they nail the TU outcome the way they nailed most of their picks over Week Zero.

Friday: Game Preview

Sunday: Game Analysis

08.25.23
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Bulletin Board Material for Everett Withers?

The website Wager Talk places any blame for TU failures this year on Everett Withers.

Don’t know what motivates new Temple football defensive coordinator Everett Withers but do know one thing:

He was a competitive enough guy to have made it all the way to the NFL as a player so when someone tells him he can’t do something or they are not confident in him doing something, the competitive juices usually flow the other way.

Withers trying to answer the question what kind of offense Joe Moorhead runs.

That was Withers the player, though.

If Withers, 59, the coach is the same way, Temple should be in good shape.

The website Wager Talk is not a big fan of Withers. Nor am I.

My concerns about him are well-documented in this space and have been since he was hired by Stan Drayton to take charge of 1/3d of the team in March.

One, in his last sole role as defensive coordinator–not all that long ago in 2021 for FIU–his defense hemorrhaged points like a motorcycle rider does blood falling off his bike at 60 mph without a helmet.

Two, he was sole DC at Austin Peay (1989), Louisville (1995-97), Minnesota (2007), North Carolina (2008-10), and FIU (2021) and doesn’t have a great record in any of those places.

With UNC in 2008, his teams gave up double-digit points in every single game with the exception of a 28-7 win over Georgia Tech. In 2009, the Tar Heels’ best defensive effort was a 19-6 win over Duke (every other FBS game giving up double digits) and in 2010 they did not hold a single team to 10 points or less.

In fact, you have to go back all the way to 1995 when Withers shut out an FBS team.

College football offenses have changed a lot since 1995.

Just as an example, Chuck Heater–who is without a job right now–shut out FBS teams in consecutive weeks for the 2011 Temple team. That was 16 years after Withers shut anyone out and more than a decade ago.

To say it’s a concern for this Temple fan is an understatement. However, it’s not a concern for head football coach Stan Drayton so if the Owls give up 30 or more against Akron, it should be on the CEO, not the DC, to step in and fix things. Withers is Drayton’s buddy and evidently Drayton’s comfort factor with Withers outweighed any thought about hiring a DC with a better track record.

Akron head coach Joe Moorhead has proven he can put points on the board with lesser talent than Temple before (Fordham, 31 points, 2013) so that should set off all kinds of alarms inside the Edberg-Olson Football Complex.

Withers would have to be living in a bubble right now if he’s not aware of criticism over his record stopping modern college football offenses.

If I’m him, I’m in the E-O until midnight studying every single damn play Akron ran in scoring 28, 44 and 22 points in its last three games of 2022 and devising a plan to stop the 10 most successful ones. I’d be hitting that rewind button a million times and taking notes and delivering them to Jordan Magee and Layton Jordan and company next week. In practice, I’m making sure those guys know what’s coming and are ready for it. I’d make sure they are in the right spots and, if they are not, I’ll be asking the scout team to rerun the play until the defense gets it right.

Somebody saying you can’t do something should be a motivating factor to prove them wrong. We will find out if that applies to Everett Withers in a week and a day.

Monday: Game Week

08.21.23
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Drayton deserves credit for one statement

If, and this is a big if, Temple posts a winning season this year, a lot of the “credit where credit is due” can be traced to this statement Temple football head coach Stan Drayton made at his Aug. 18, 2023 presser.

Talking about schemes Drayton hit the nail right on the head when he said this:

“We have to play to the strength of our players. That’s a daily deal. The strength of our players, not the strength of the scheme. That’s what we have to do. We have to be somewhat multiple. … we put our best 11 out there. Certain players come out there, the strength of our team might change.”

Hopefully, Stan is explaining the 3-5-3 defense or double tight end offense to the team here.

At least this year.

It’s pretty clear to anyone that five of the best 11 defensive players on the team are linebackers so the challenge is to keep those five guys on the field at all times. They are the best pass rushers and, in many cases, the best run-stoppers so the Owls should be at least be considering the 3-5-3 as their base defense. Two DE’s, a nose guard, five linebackers, one safety and two corners. It’s not the same 4-3 or 5-2 everybody else plays but Temple isn’t everybody else.

Of course, all coaches SAY they want to play to the strength of their players. Even the last guy, Rod Carey, said as much about the offensive side of the football yet he went out and did the exact opposite by running a read/option offense with a classic dropback passer in Anthony Russo.

As a result, he almost got Russo killed and did the offense no favors. Temple should have run an NFL offense with Russo at quarterback, not a college one.

Successful coaches follow up on what they say by doing it. Carey got cold feet and went with what worked for him at Northern Illinois.

If you look at some of the great Temple teams in the past, they had coaches who were willing to adapt the scheme–even change it–to fit the personnel.

After trying the spread offense for this first two years, Matt Rhule went to a running game with a blocking fullback (Nick Sharga) and that led to consecutive 10-win seasons. It was the same offense Rhule ran under Al Golden, who benefited from fullback Wyatt Benson’s blocking in front of tailback extraordinaire Bernard Pierce. Steve Addazio adopted that approach the next season and won Temple’s first bowl game in over 30 years.

This year, the Owls’ strength on defense is their linebackers and on offense is their tight ends.

It’s up to CEO Drayton to put his words into deeds to accentuate those positives. In less than two weeks, we will know if he means what he says.

08.18.23
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Two weeks and five stats to look for

Nice to see an OL guy get a single digit but don’t think Victor Stoffel will be wearing No. 4 this year.

Tomorrow marks two weeks until Temple kicks off the season at home against Akron.

Those two weeks are important in the micro sense because I really believe that the key to winning the opener is new defensive coordinator Everett Withers charting and having his guys ready for every possible play that Akron ran during last season.

When guys like Jordan Magee and Layton Jordan recognize what’s coming and start pointing to who might have the ball on pre-snap reads and tackle the guy you know Withers will have done the requisite film room study.

What I don’t want to hear is the things we’ve heard before Temple opening day losses to teams like Duke and Army in the past.

“We’re not concerned about what anyone else does. We’re concerned about what Temple does.”

All that gets you is a big fat L.

The Zips aren’t a mystery. They are on film and it’s Temple’s job to know what’s coming.

That’s the micro picture.

The macro one is five stats we think are the difference between Temple going 6-6 and 8-4 this year.

1-E.J. Warner _ Not too much to ask Warner to up his touchdown passes from 18 to 30 this year. The guy is a film room freak and he will not suffer a sophomore slump. But if he only improves from 18 to 23 or 25 touchdown passes, the Owls will only improve 1-2-3 wins and that’s not enough in my mind.

2- Edward Saydee _ Somewhat shocked to hear that Saydee–who only gained 629 yards last year–has looked good enough to earn a single digit. If he hits the magical 1,000-yard mark, the Owls are in business. Saydee gained 257 yards in a 54-28 win over USF but did not gain more than 70 yards in any other game. We would gladly trade that one 200-plus game for six 100-plus games and, if he gets that, the sky’s the limit for this team.

3-Double Tight Ends _ If the Owls employ double tight ends (and by that we mean Jordan Smith and David Martin-Robinson), watch out. Those two are as good as any pair of tight ends that ever played at Temple and having both in the game at the same time poses double trouble for any defense. One, it gives the running game at extra blocker and, two, playmakers at positions where playmakers don’t usually line up. If DMR and Smith combine for 10 TDs, and we think they will, the Owls are in good shape. When the Owls went to double TEs at Maryland (2018) and put one in motion as essentially a blocking fullback, they came away with a 35-14 win over a Big 10 team.

4- Tackles for losses _ Layton Jordan had 13 TFLs, including a strip and falling on the ball in the end zone at Navy. If he and Jordan Magee combine for 20TFLs, the Owls will have a winning season.

5- Jalen McMurray interceptions _ McMurray, who had the most pass breakups on the team last year, had only one INT. He’s quick enough and confident enough as a sophomore to pick off a few of those passes. We’re only asking for five and we think he can do that.

Micro, lock everything down from on the defensive end in Game One.

Macro, improved stats for the key players.

Those are the ingredients for success once the Owls come out of the tunnel in a couple of weeks.

Monday: Credit Where It’s Due

08.14.23
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Motivation: Getting back to the old days

Would love to see this headline appear on the regular for Temple football again.

Clicked through a list of available videos free to Amazon Prime members and landed on a surprisingly good film about the invasion of Iwo Jima on Friday night.

In it, the money quote was from a soldier who said they didn’t try to win the battle for their country but for their fellow soldiers. They didn’t want to let the guy down in their foxhole or the next foxhole.

That, to me, is the No. 1 motivational factor for the Temple football players this fall. A rising tide (Temple wins) lifts all boats (players’ NFL futures) and that would seem to me to be the motivation for the kids, not to win it for dear Old Temple. So they are playing for each other and that’s OK, too.

Whatever floats your boat works for me.

This was the company Temple kept between 2015-18

For fans like me, though (and I assume you) it’s been a tough three years.

Temple was 1-6, 3-9, 3-9.

That’s not the Temple football I knew and loved through my school years or the one I got used to from roughly 2007-2018.

So, for me, the motivation is getting back to the old days.

Not winning for Dear Old Temple but getting back to that level of respect Temple had.

While looking for a particular story in the New York Times archives researching Joe Klecko, I came across the gem at the top of this post. Temple was the lead story in the national pre-game preview in the New York Times. Headline: “Temple Picked to Win Again.”

At least two “money quotes” in those few paragraphs.

Here’s one: “They have arrived. They have made great strides toward being No. 1 in the East, definitely think they are on a par with Penn State.” _ Holy Cross head coach Ed Doherty.

The very next quote is from NYT writer Gordon S. White: “Penn State, the long-time power in Eastern football, has been trailing Temple in the weekly vote for the Lambert Trophy this season.”

We might never see a year where Temple leads Penn State for several weeks as the top team in the East again, but it’s certainly possible that the Owls return to the AAC championship game like they did in consecutive seasons less than a decade ago.

In fact, one college football magazine picked the Owls to win the title the same year after they appeared in the championship game. The Owls lost to Houston in 2015 but came back to hammer No. 22-ranked Navy the next, proving that prediction right.

Something like that 2015 year this year and the 2016 the next would be perfect but the overall goal should be at the minimum to return to a bowl.

Regardless of the motivation that gets them there.

Friday: 5 Individual Stats We’d Like to See

Monday: Credit Where Credit is Due

08.11.23
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Temple 2024 recruiting: Flying too low to ground

Kee-Ayre Griffin was Al Golden’s first recruit whose offer sheet included only other P5 schools. RIP.

Without mentioning any names, there is a big announcement today when a lineman from Delaware is going to announce his college decision.

It’s a big deal for Temple football because that is one of his two remaining schools.

The other is Old Dominion.

Yikes. Nice school, but it is no Temple.

Nice player, hope he commits to the Owls but this refrain is becoming too familiar.

Adrian Robinson (43) went from Big 33 MVP to turning down a Pitt offer, playing for Temple and then the Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos. RIP

We’re about a quarter of the way through the 2024 signing class and the schools Temple is keeping company recruiting-wise certainly don’t match the reputation of the university on the football landscape over the last 15 or so years.

Maybe the last three but not the last 15.

There was an old World War II trick pilots used when radar was first introduced: Fly low to the ground to avoid detection, complete the mission, and fly just over those same treetops to get home safely.

That works pretty well in wartime and not so much if your goal is to win Group of Five championships.

Temple needs to pick it up.

Let’s look at some of the commitments so far:

Adrian Lang, CB- Temple beat out Central Michigan, Akron, Boston College and Bryant for his services.

Dan Evert, TE-Temple beat out Akron and USF.

Bryson Goodwin, WR-Temple beat out Bowling Green, Jacksonville State and Middle Tennessee.

Denzel Chavis, CB-He chose the Owls over Army, Bucknell, Columbia and Cornell.

Chris Dietrich, QB-After throwing 12 interceptions against only 11 TDs for his New Jersey High school team last season, Dietrich received interest from Bucknell, Monmouth and Duke. He picked Temple.

Tyler Stewart, WR-His commitment list included Eastern Kentucky, Austin Peay, and MTSU.

Geez. I’m sure these are nice kids and I KNOW they made the right choices, but Temple football has come a long way since the days when it recruited two MVPs from the Big 33 game (Adrian Robinson, who the Al Golden stole from Pitt) and Jalen Fitzpatrick, who the Owls convinced to come to 10th and Diamond against the arguably more beautiful Maryland campus in College Park. Al Golden’s first major recruit was running back Kee-Ayre Griffin from St. Peter’s in New Jersey, who turned down solid offers from Pitt, Rutgers and BC to take his shot at Temple.

When Golden was hired, I dashed off an email to him congratulating him for getting the job. He took only about 20 minutes to respond: “Thanks, Mike, wish me luck. Today we’re about to steal a guy from BC and Rutgers who is really good. We got involved and it turns out he loves Temple.”

That guy was Griffin.

The apologists for the Owls recruiting under-the-radar will always point to Tyler Matakevich getting no offers and Haason Reddick being a walk-on but what they forget is that the championship-level teams those guys were part of also included guys who Power 5 teams recruited.

You need a mix of both and those teams successfully recruited their fair share of guys more highly paid staffs evaluated and wanted too. It’s pretty much the same reason the top 25 recruiting rankings mirror the same top 25 teams you see in the AP poll every year.

For every Reddick and Matakevich you hit on, there are about eight misses. Conversely, for every Robinson, Griffin and Fitzpatrick recruited, you miss on only about two. There is a reason why P5 coaches look at the same film you look at and like the same guys.

Welcome to Temple for the guys who have picked this place.

Going forward, the message to the coaching staff should be to aspire to get those guys teams they want to beat also want. Certainly of the 18 or so scholarships left, there are 18 great players within a 400-mile radius of Philadelphia who would rather spend the next four years in a vibrant city with a great sports culture vs. a cow pasture where boredom easily causes homesickness. Find those guys who are energized by that dynamic. That was the Golden Rhule selling point and it needs to be revised now.

Do better.

Flying too low to the ground to avoid radar risks crashing and burning and, with Oklahoma and Penn State on the schedule in a very short time, they have to fly higher.

Monday: Motivation

Friday: 5 Top Things We Want to See in 2023

08.06.23
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Justice finally arrives for Joe Klecko, Temple

Somewhere up there, Norman J. Kaner is smiling.

Norman? We just called him Norm.

Kaner was without a doubt the funniest professor who taught the best course I ever had at Temple University, Sports in America.

Little did he know sitting by the 13th Street window would be a future Maxwell Award-winner as college football’s national player of the year sitting in one seat and over in the next row a Pro Football Hall of Famer.

I observed all of this seated behind Steve Joachim, the Maxwell-winner for college player of the year, and next to now Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Klecko. Joachim beat out Ohio State’s Archie Griffin for the honor back in 1974. Klecko beat out every Temple player who ever played in the NFL for the first spot in the Hall of Fame.

Two Temple Pro Football Hall of Famers who played football at St. James High in Chester, Ray Didinger, and Joe Klecko. Ray is in the writer’s wing of the hall and Joe becomes Temple’s first Pro Football Hall of Fame player. Let’s hope first of many.

What a class in that one room at Temple taught by “probably Temple’s best-loved teacher. . . He touched everybody, and he kept in touch with his students over the years – students who went on to become doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals.” That, according to Ambler professor and colleague Lee Schreiber.

Not surprisingly, in those days Temple had the longest FBS winning streak in the nation with 14 wins over two years. More consecutive wins than Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio State and Penn State over a two-year period.

Kaner moved from the main campus to Ambler for the last seven years of his life before he died in March of 1993 but one of his pet peeves even back then was that his student, Klecko, wasn’t in the Hall of Fame. He wasn’t the only one. There was a website created by Jets’ fans called “Joe Klecko Deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.”

Years came and went and the list of players on the ballot was released and Klecko wasn’t on them. Until last year.

Justice was finally served on Saturday when Klecko was inducted in Canton. There was a healthy Temple representation, including 1979 captain Steve Conjar and teammates Mark Bresani and Mike Curcio, among others.

Klecko nodded to that group in the back saying: “I would like to recognize my teammates from Temple that are here today: Go Owls!”

Klecko could have said a lot more about Temple but this was the pro football Hall of Fame and he kept his remarks pretty much limited to that aspect of football. He did give props to former Temple head coach Wayne Hardin and Temple equipment manager John DiGregorio for “discovering” him and said it took Hardin one quarter of watching him play to offer him a scholarship.

If Dan Klecko had given the introduction, instead of Marty Lyons, chances are Dan would have brought up that both he and his father played pretty much the same position at Temple. Instead, Joe’s reference to Dan was his three Super Bowl rings and how Joe’s Hall of Fame bust topped Dan’s rings.

Fortunately, Dan and Joe and the rest of us lived to see this day. Justice for the living at least.

Kaner was one of those who didn’t but, if there is any justice for the departed, he, DiGregorio and Hardin were among those up there smiling.

Friday: Flying Low

07.31.23
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Temple’s saving grace: AAC parity

If Temple gets back to playing downhill defense with pressure on the QB, the Owls will be successful

From a ticked-off Charlotte coach wondering why he was picked for last to a Memphis coach saying he respects every AAC program, one theme emerged as probably the saving grace for a team like Temple:

There is no one dominant team in the league. That much was apparent at AAC Media Day last week.

In order to not let these guys down, Stan Drayton will have to demand accountability from HIS guys.

Temple can finish first and, although I doubt it can finish last, it could finish near the bottom.

Don’t worry about who is picked to finish first at this point because Cincinnati was picked to finish first last year and Tulane seventh and the seventh pick finished first. If that holds true again, then North Texas will probably will it all.

The team that develops a winning culture probably has the best chance.

Temple’s culture under Drayton is 1,000 percent better than under the former guy but it can’t be considered a winning culture yet when your most impressive games were last-minute losses against bowl teams Houston and ECU.

Winning has to be the only thing this year.

Memphis is picked to be one of the top four teams in the league but Temple took a 3-0 deficit into the fourth quarter of that game last year before things fell apart.

Sean Hennigan might be one of the top quarterbacks in the AAC but is he really better than E. J. Warner?

Warner’s last two games were significantly more impressive than Hennigan’s final two and this is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league.

If Warner explodes and Hennigan flatlines, Temple can surge past Memphis.

While it only seems like the college football world that includes the transfer portal and the NIL may have passed Temple by, there is also some solace that it has passed nearly every other G5 team by and that includes all 14 teams in the still best G5 league.

To me, it all comes down to Stan Drayton because it comes down to Everett Withers. If the defense Withers puts on the field, err, withers like the last five college defenses he led, then Drayton must have a Plan B in his back pocket.

The hire made zero sense initially except for the Drayton/Withers comfort factor. Does Drayton respect Withers so much that he refuses to pull the trigger to replace him if the Owls hemorrhage points the first two games? Or has he identified a rising star defensive staffer who can rally the team going forward?

Giving up 30 points to Akron in the opener should raise all kinds of red flags for Drayton. Or Withers can see the handwriting on the wall and do what’s necessary now to make sure his defense is ready for anything. Playing downhill and attacking the quarterback is what Temple defenses have been all about for all but the last couple of years and the Owls need to get back to real pressures and not simulated ones.

It’s up to Withers.

Or it’s up to Drayton to put his foot down. When it comes to old friends, that can be a tricky proposition.

Friday: The Boss of Bosses

07.28.23
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Thoughts from Temple’s AAC Media Day

Talk to any football expert not named Kurt Warner and the evaluation about Temple quarterback E.J. Warner is something like this:

“He’s going to be a great college quarterback but he’s probably not going to make it in the league (NFL) because he’s only about 6-foot.”

That’s the one thing that stood out (or up) about E.J. to me watching him at the recent AAC Media Day.

He’s not 6-0 anymore.

Counting his hair, he’s at least 6-3, maybe 6-4.

Try getting that hair in a helmet.

Seriously, though, as Warner goes so go the Owls this season.

Let’s compare first years between the last significant true freshman starter at Temple, P.J. Walker, and Warner.

Walker, who was only 5-11, had 20 touchdown passes, and eight interceptions in his first year as the Owls went 2-10. Then he slumped to 13 TDs and 15 INTs the next.

Is it just me or was the word “win” noticeably absent from this evaluation by Stan Drayton?

That is what is known as a sophomore slump but still the Owls improved to a six-win season the next year before Walker was setting all kinds of records as a junior and senior in consecutive 10-win seasons.

No one is more aware of that than the younger Warner, who is putting in the time in the film room to make sure he avoids the sophomore slump this season. Bump those numbers up to, say, 30TDs and no more than 11 INTs and the Owls are in business.

Just from his on- and off-field coaching, I think he will.

Walker played in nine games his true freshman year and Warner played in 11, throwing for 18 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Yet his yardage (3,028) set a Temple freshman record and was better than any of the first three seasons of Walker.

Supposedly, according to OwlsDaily.com, Warner improved his weightlifting numbers and has grown from 190 to 200 pounds to that will help him better absorb hits. That site also noted that Warner improved his speed by about two miles an hour, although we’re not sure what that translates to in the all-important metric of 40-yard dash speed.

The idea is that the mere threat of Warner being able to run–something he did not do last year–will make him a more effective downfield passer.

That’s the theory.

The practice is that a good running game will probably benefit him more.

I no more want Warner out there keeping the ball on read-options than I want new Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper diving into camera wells next to dugouts to make great catches on foul balls.

Like Harper is to the Phils, Warner is to the Owls.

They are The Franchise. At least this season.

Keeping them healthy and productive is the best indicator of future success for their teams.

At least in Warner’s case, AAC Media Day confirmed he was a hair above the rest of the Owls.

Maybe even more than one hair.

Monday: Other Takeaways

07.24.23
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2023 Temple Owls: Not a perfect 10 (yet)

There’s a post on social media circulating about a daytime talk show host named Ana Navarro and people are falling into a couple of separate camps.

Evidently she dropped a few pounds recently and almost all of the comments from the women are: “She looks fabulous” or “gorgeous” or “stunning” or “beautiful.”

That’s one team. Team Women.

Team Men are not seeing it. Almost all of the comments from the guys are a little more objective.

Lost a few pounds, yes. Gorgeous, no. Nothing mean, just calling balls and strikes and she is high and outside the box.

Ironically, there are women on that same daytime show who could be objectively considered fabulous, stunning, gorgeous and beautiful and Sunny Hostin, Sarah Haines and Alyssa Farrah-Griffin would certainly fall into that category. Definitely strikes as in striking.

Closer to 10 than six.

Navarro most definitely not.

Closer to a four than a 10.

Depends on which team you support, I guess.

There are certain Temple fans who look at this 2023 version of the Owls through Cherry-colored glasses and see the Owls as a 10.

You could count me in that group after the end of last season when I saw real momentum and thought if the Owls just added a big-time running back via the portal they could be beautiful this year.

They did not and, if they struggle in the running game like they did a year ago, it has a trickle-down effect on the rest of the team. Clock isn’t eaten. The defense stays on the field more than it should. Wins are harder to come by.

That’s why stepping back and taking off the Cherry-and-White colored glasses is important when breaking down the coming season game-by-game.

I think the Owls are closer to a six than a 10.

Here is my game-by-game prediction for the Owls. My fervent hope is that Temple wins every game I pick them to win and adds at least a couple more.

Temple 33, Akron 29 _ Like a lot of these games you will see below, Temple can just as easily lose this game as it can win it. Joe Moorhead has beaten Temple before and he can again. His offense will give Everett Withers fits but Akron had one of the worst defenses in the FBS and the edge in this game goes to Temple’s far superior quarterback, E.J. Warner, and some Power 5 level receivers in Amad Anderson (Purdue transfer), Dante Wright (FBS freshman of the year in 2019), Zae Baines, and true freshman Richard Dandridge. Plus, don’t sleep on Temple’s real strength this season, the TE combo of Jordan Smith and David Martin-Robinson.

The Temple part of media day will air on ESPN+ Tuesday at 10:15 a.m.

Temple 21, Rutgers 17 _ Going with the upset in this one simply because as explosive as Temple’s offense looked in the last six games of the season, someone diffused the RU offense that finished with a 37-0 loss at Maryland (a team Temple beat in consecutive seasons as recently as 2019).

Temple 44, Norfolk State 14 _ Norfolk State lost to Marshall 55-3 last season. Temple won’t duplicate that but it will be a thrashing nonetheless.

Miami 35, Temple 21 _ If Miami plays the way it did in a 44-27 home loss to Middle Tennessee, Temple can win this game but if the Hurricanes play the way they played in their five wins, this could get away from Temple really quick.

Temple 29, Tulsa 27 _ One of the more disappointing losses of the Temple season from my point of view was last year’s 29-16 one at the Linc to Tulsa. The Owls were able to take Navy into overtime and that was the same Navy team that hammered Tulsa, 59-27. Owls get revenge on the road this season. Gotta think games against Washington and Oklahoma will take a physical toll on Tulsa, who are under a first-year head coach (former Indiana HC Kevin Wilson).

USTA 35, Temple 33 _ Temple’s biggest game of the season will be Homecoming. Last year, the Owls sent a large crowd home heartbroken with a 16-14 loss to Rutgers. This one is shaping up as the same way. Don’t like the matchup between future NFL quarterback Frank Walker and Everett Withers’ defense.

North Texas 34, Temple 31 _ Probably asking Temple to win this game on the road is a stretch but if the Owls fall to, say, RU, they need to make up for it with a later win and this qualifies.

SMU 41, Temple 35 _ SMU has been ahead of the Owls since Rod Carey stepped on campus and Drayton has made strides but probably not enough.

Temple 17, Navy 14 _ Navy fired one of the best coaches in college football, Ken Niumatalolo, and will pay for it with a one- or two-win season. The Owls won’t be one of those wins.

Temple 31, USF 30 _ Temple beat this team 54-28 last season. It will be a lot closer under a new coach.

UAB 32, Temple 24 _ UAB has been one of the best stories in college football, dropping the sport in 2014 only to come back and win three championships. New coach Trent Dilfer hit the portal hard.

Memphis 36, Temple 35 _ Temple has won the last two games in Philadelphia but don’t trust the Owls’ defense in this one.

It’s not a perfect 10, but it’s not the ugly three we’ve seen for the last couple of years so there is some beauty in that.

Friday: Thoughts On Media Day