01.24.22
by

New highlight video found of Temple’s Paul Palmer

Imagine, if you will, having done nothing with your life more substantive than arranging sports trips and living within shouting distance of Mondauk Common.

You can either look in the mirror and trim that beard of yours or run to the computer, flex keyboard muscles and create hundreds of fake email addresses and criticize fellow Temple grads who actually accomplished something like nearly win a Heisman Trophy or actually did win the top sportswriting award in the state of Pennsylvania. Being that bitter and small are hours and days in your life you can never get back, a complete waste of time much better spent with family.

Said person instead of spending quality time with the wife and kids recently impugned the integrity of Paul Palmer by writing he wasn’t humble enough for his taste.

Like everything he writes, it never saw the light of day on this blog but I’m sure he’s going to waste his time creating another fake email address and name to respond.

Sometimes you have to bring out the receipts.

Hell, you can pretend to hate the only Temple football sports blog of note but never miss a single post. What’s that about? If I hated a Youtube content provider site or a blog, I would never visit it again. I wouldn’t stalk the site but that’s me. I’m not mentally ill.

Small guys who need professional help but don’t know it would. Small isn’t even the word. Tiny and microscopic might be but we won’t talk about that guy today.

To me, Paul Palmer is not only the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) of Temple football but, arguably, the most humble. (Hell, it’s him or Joe Klecko but, considering that Paul is around for every Temple game and Joe isn’t, I will give the nod to Boo.) I’ve known Paul for almost 40 years and the most impressive thing about him is not is accomplishments on the field (many, check the record books) but his humility off of it. The numbers say Palmer should have won Heisman in 1986 but regional biases opened the door for Miami’s Vinny Testaverde to edge him instead. Finishing behind Palmer in the voting that year were Jim Harbaugh of Michigan and Brian Bosworth of Oklahoma.

Paul once told me about first meeting Geoff Collins, who extended his hand and said: “Hey, coach, what school are you from?” without even knowing he was speaking to the greatest running back in Temple history.

Paul just answered the question and walked away, leaving others to fill Collins in on the deal. That doesn’t sound like a conceited person to me.

The above somewhat new video found by Zamani Feelings (thanks, Zamani) is Paul kicking Alabama’s ass in a 24-14 loss. I have to laugh when people like the sports trip guy say the 2016 team was better than Palmer’s team or the 1979 team. Any Bama team would have beaten the 2016 Temple team (and Toledo actually did) much worse. Great video. Wish Temple had done a better job creating highlight videos of past teams, but you often have to find them through other schools.

Palmer once said publicly that “Mike Gibson is My guy” but, really, Paul should be every Temple fan’s guy. Paul still holds the Temple record for most all-purpose yardage and, except for a Herculean Day by Montel Harris at West Point, would also still hold the single-game rushing record (349 yards). Harris scored seven touchdowns and 351 yards that day in a 62-39 win over Army.

Two Temple goats, no matter what any travel agents might feel.

On Palmer’s special day, a 349-yard game at Veterans Stadium against East Carolina, I filed my story for Calkins Newspapers and was rushed to the hospital the next day. Three weeks later, I was out and Paul shaked my hand and welcomed me back. In between, Temple SID (and assistant AD) Al Shrier called while I was at the hospital, as did then current coach Bruce Arians and former coach Wayne Hardin. Their words meant a lot. (I suspect Mr. Shrier had a lot to do with those calls.)

I almost died before getting heart surgery.

Everything since then has been and will remain borrowed time.

Years later, I’ve gotten to know Paul better than I ever did as a reporter who kept objective distance when he was a player.

He’s a good man. Humble, especially considering all he’s done for his alma mater and always has time to talk to every Temple fan. He’s currently the radio color guy.

Maybe one day a Temple fan who criticizes him will win the best sports fan bus trip award in the state of Pennsylvania.

I doubt it. Until then, he should probably STFU.

Friday: Recruiting

01.21.22
by

Johnson’s biggest project yet to come?

Plenty of room to build a 10,000-seat North end zone plus getting rid of those few houses (quite a few currently boarded up) across 10th Street would give the Owls a 25,000-seat West Grandstand.

If only a Rod Carey football game plan had as many surprises as the introductory press conference of new Temple football coach Stan Drayton, the Owls might have won enough games to keep Mr. Boring in charge today.

One surprise struck me, though.

Johnson said this in front of the assembled media when asked about his involvement in picking Drayton: “I had a chance to get to know Stan while we worked together at the University of Texas. He is an outstanding football coach and an even better person. He knows what success looks like at the highest levels of football. He also knows what it takes to be successful in this city having spent six years of his career here and learned from two of the city’s legendary football coaches.”

The only way TU can convince Norris Street neighbors to build at 15th Street is to give them all new houses overlooking the new stadium like this and that might be cost prohibitive.

No more than minutes later, Johnson said this in a smaller post-conference gathering:

“I don’t think my being at Texas was a big part of Stan being hired here. I was involved in about $675 million dollars of building projects there so I only knew him superficially.”

Hmm.

We went from “get to know” to the connection “not being a big part.”

That wasn’t key thing, though, Johnson said as far as Temple football’s future.

“I was involved in about $675 million of building projects …”

Four months ago, Temple was looking for an AD and, of the four finalists, only one was involved in any significant building projects.

The Board of Trustees hired that guy.

This is the same board of trustees that voted nearly unanimously to submit a plan to the City of Philadelphia that closed a portion of 15th Street permanently to build a $250 million football stadium and only backed off when they were confronted by a small but angry group of community residents one memorable March night a few years ago.

Presumably, they still want to build it and must feel Johnson is the point guy to get this project done like he did so many in Austin, Texas.

Now, with President Jason Wingard in place along with Johnson and Drayton, the Owls have three high-profile African-American point men to convince a mostly African-American community that this is in the best interest of both the university and the community.

To me, getting this done requires some thinking outside the box in addition to the personalities involved.

Closing 15th Street–even between Norris and Montgomery–seems to be a non-starter so the administration should be looking for another place to build.

They got the community to come on board for a $22 million athletic facility at Broad and Master a few years ago that is used 87 times a year, not the six times Temple will use a new football stadium. Since a trade building was part of that deal, knocking it down to build a football stadium there (and moving the Olympic sports to 15th and Norris) probably also is a non-starter.

How about using the Edberg-Olson facility as the new stadium?

There’s already a regulation 100-yard field there, plus enough room for a 10,000-seat North End zone and a 25,000-seat West Side. The current E-O offices can be used for a small (maybe 1,000-seat Owl Club super box plus press box) area.

The only concessions the university would need from the city is to close 10th Street from Susquehanna to Diamond and that would seem easier to do than 15th from Norris to Montgomery. Tenth Street is not as viable a thoroughfare as 15th Street is and nowhere near the number of residents would be impacted on the Edberg Olson side of the campus.

For the time it takes to build the stadium, the football team can move its practices and offices to Geasey Field. If needed, another $10 million practice facility can be constructed at 15th and Norris. (That’s where the Owl football team practiced from 1974-2004.)

That’s the kind of thinking outside the box that Johnson did at UT.

If he can pull that game plan off at UT, he should be able to do it at TU. Hell, considering his resume, that’s what they might have hired him to do.

Monday: Humility Personified

01.16.22
by

The Temple coaching tie that binds

At least Texas State has a nice on-campus stadium

When things get particularly boring or depressing in the defensive coaching room at Edberg Olson Hall this fall, at least the new Temple defensive football coaching staff can talk about old war stories in San Marcos.

We’re not talking about the WW2 Italian campaign led by Fifth Army commander U.S. General Mark Clark.

We’re talking about going to war leading the football team at Texas State in San Marcos, Texas.

No less than five Temple staffers, mostly on defense, spent some time at Texas State and three of them (defensive line coach Antoine Smith. linebacker coach Chris Woods and cornerbacks coach Jules Montinar) coached for current Temple football Chief of Staff Everett Winters, the head coach there from 2016-2018.

The war there did not go as well for Winters and his troops as it did for Clark in the big one. Between 2016-18, the Bobcats finished 7-28 with a pair of 2-10 seasons.

Winters has his fingerprints all over these hires and, while he might be pleased with them, had new head coach Stan Drayton consulted NFL Hall of Famer Bill Parcells, he would have nixed those hires in the bud. Parcells was famous for this one line: “You are what your record says you are.”

Spoiler alert: It’s not good.

In the 2016 season, the Bobcats gave up 64 to Houston, 42 to Arkansas, 41 to Georgia State, 40 to Louisiana Monroe, 47 to Idaho, 50 to New Mexico State and 40 to Troy. That was the same year Temple held the then highest-scoring team in the nation, Navy, to just 10 points in winning the AAC championship.

The next year wasn’t much better: 44 to UTSA, 45 each to three teams (Monroe, Wyoming and New Mexico State) and 62 to Troy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to what is mostly the new defensive staff at Temple University.

Ugh.

New DC D.J. Eliot doesn’t get off free in this comparison. He also coached at Texas State, albeit in 2003 and 2004.

Presumably, he knows he knows the cuisine in San Marcos as well as the other guys.

If doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, these guys better remember what they did at Texas State and do the exact opposite here.

If not, somebody will be eating crow and that person could be former Texas (not state, though) Director of Football Operations Arthur Johnson, who opened the floodgates for all of these Texas guys to relocate to Philadelphia.

Friday: Building Blocks

01.14.22
by

The only recruiting model Temple really needs

Temple needs it to rain players and should raid for the transfer portal this season and high school players next.

Over the next few days, the dominant topic of discussion in the Philadelphia area will be of two weather models, the GFS and the EMRF.

For those acronym-challenged people, they refer to the Global Forecast System model and the European Mid-Range Forecast.

One, the GFS, is calling for a pretty big snowstorm in the city; the other, the EMRF, is saying only a little snow changing to rain.

Snow-haters like me are rooting for the EMRF to win out in this battle of the computer projections.

In this day and age of college football recruiting, there are two models, too.

Really, that’s the Transfer Portal System (of) Recruiting to take precedence over the High School method that has lasted for a few generations.

Temple fans should root for the TPSR over the traditional HSR model in a recruiting cycle that is set to end in a couple of weeks because there is a lot of talk of “being patient” with new head coach Stan Drayton and that “four wins would be considered progress.”

That notion needs to be disabused right now. Patience, smachience.

The green area the above graphic represents the spots that Temple should target getting every significant portal player inside that geographic circle. If so, the Owls can be a winning team as early as next year.

Only a few Temple fans seem to “get it” and one of them is a friend of mine who posts under the screen name of MH55 on OwlsDaily.com. This was a particularly brilliant post that cut to the heart of the work that Drayton needs to both do and get done over the next two weeks:

MH55’s immediate expectations for Stan Drayton should be the same for every Temple fan.

I used to sit in the general proximity of MH55 on the 50-yard-line lower level. We both attended the game where Temple scored 55 points on Eastern Michigan the day after Thanksgiving. That was my first purchase of Chickie and Pete’s crab fries and, after one or two hot bites, I handed the bucket to MH55, who had acquired a taste for them. I was pretty happy not to throw them in the trash.

What we saw that day was the beginning of a pretty remarkable transformation of Temple football from a 20-game losing streak to college football respectability.

There was no transfer portal that day, so Al Golden had to build Temple football the hard way, finding under-recruited players, slowly building their bodies in the weight room, and patiently waiting to win.

There’s a quick-fix system now, the portal, and there are way too many good Power 5 players in it for the available scholarships. Once these players realize it, Temple becomes a viable option. That’s how Georgia’s 2020 starting quarterback, Dwan Mathis, ended up at Temple.

If Temple wants to win right away, and it should, it will have to hit the portal hard this year and rely on more traditional methods in subsequent years. Temple needs guys ready to play now, not guys they need to build up in the weight room and wait three years for contributions.

It could be the same story Drayton writes by signing day if he’s smart. Temple needs to bring in as many as 15 Power 5 portal transfers, good ones, who will not be satisfied with playing on a team with “just” four wins. It certainly needs more than the six Rod Carey’s staff brought in last season.

Or it could go into the portal pool the same way Carey’s failed staff did, one toe at a time. That wasn’t good enough.

Drayton’s staff needs to be immersed in it and the talent Temple puts on the field will have to be significantly better than the last group Owl fans saw. Temple needs great players now, not three years from now, and the only way to get them is through the transfer portal. As much as I want it to rain instead of snow Monday, that’s how much I want February’s signing day to rain great players at Temple. They aren’t getting immediate impact players out of any high school who hold only offers from Buffalo and FAU.

MH55 gets it. In about two or three weeks, we will find out if Drayton does, too.

Monday: The Tie That Binds

Friday: Johnson’s Next Project

01.10.22
by

Now it’s more about the Jimmies and Joes

Even though Stan Drayton is the shortest guy in this photo, he stood tall for honoring Spencer Prescott’s Temple legacy last week.

Hard to believe it was more than 15 years ago, after attending a press conference that featured a Joe Klecko introduction, I dashed off a congratulatory email to a new Temple head coach.

It took only a couple of hours for Al Golden to respond.

“Thanks, Mike,” he said. “I’m going up to St. Peter’s today to recruit a guy who could be a game-changer. Wish me luck.”

One of Golden’s first recruits, the late Kee-Ayre Griffin, wasn’t a game-changer but he was a more than solid contributor to Temple’s turnaround. Griffin was holding offers from BC and Pitt, but something Golden said to him that day convinced him to attend Temple.

When I asked Al what he said a couple of weeks later at the signing day ceremony, Golden smiled and said, “that’s a professional secret” before telling me what his recruiting philosophy was. “We’ve got 46 percent of the nation’s population a five-hour drive from Temple. Not many schools can say that. We can’t get them all but we should be able to get enough really good players to turn this thing around.”

The rest was college football history.

In that first class, Golden recruited 18 team captains from either state or league championship high school teams.

The number on the helmet makes zero sense.

“They weren’t necessarily the most recruited guys in those teams,” he said, “but they were leaders of championship teams and I wanted to bring that mentality here. You bring five guys Power 5 schools want, mix in a bunch of leaders and guys you can develop and you can win.”

Drayton has put together the X’s and O’s part of the job. Now it’s time to get the Jimmies and Joes.

That’s pretty much the challenge Drayton faces now.

He’s not going to out-recruit Penn State or Maryland but, in the new AAC, he doesn’t have to. Get five guys holding P5 offers and 20 guys in the leader/development area and Temple can win that league. Really, all he has to do is out-recruit Memphis, UAB and USF and the Owls can challenge for the title every year.

Drayton might have the personality to do it.

Like Golden (and unlike Rod Carey), he’s already connected with Temple football alumni. Instead of sending a representative to former Owl coach Spencer Prescott’s funeral last week, Drayton showed up himself. Carey was pretty standoffish with Temple football alums by comparison. It was a super classy move by Drayton. Golden was also good at networking with Temple football alums, as was Matt Rhule. Golden brought back TEMPLE on the helmets, because it reminded him of the Temple TUFF teams he faced while at Penn State. Maybe Drayton will put his own imprint on the program by bringing back TEMPLE on one side of the helmet and keeping the T on the other side. Getting rid of the number (which is already on the jersey and was a Carey move) makes the most sense.

That’s cosmetic, though. The substantive change is getting back to the Temple TUFF culture re-established under Golden.

The template for Temple football success has been established. All Drayton has to do is follow it and success will follow.

Wish him luck.

Friday: Navigating the new paradigm

Monday: The Tie That Binds

01.07.22
by

Staff hires: Almost done, and a mixed bag

The first month of the Stan Drayton stewardship of the Temple University football program has gone according to plan.

It’s his plan, not the plan of many Temple football fans, and that’s his prerogative because he will ultimately bear the blame or the applause.

Still, an objective observer can still step back and judge.

Getting good vibes out of the strength hires, one of whom looks a little like former great Owl lineman Kevin Jones.

If that observer says it’s a mixed bag, it probably will be closer to the truth than otherwise.

While the Villanova defense under Ola Adams was a formidable one against the opponents it played, no one can say that any defense under the other defensive coordinator, D.J. Eliot, was ever formidable. Another guy with Texas in his past (an assistant at Texas State and Houston), Eliot was never a part of a defense that shut out anyone. (For comparison, former Temple DC Chuck Heater recorded consecutive shutouts in the 2011 season for the Owls.)

In fact, according to college football guru Pete Thamel, Eliot’s main claim to fame was “simulated pressures” when he was DC at both Colorado and Kansas. Simulated pressures are simply this: A lot of linebackers and safeties running up to the line at the point of attack, then backing off, and allowing the quarterback a good five to six seconds to survey the field and pick out an open receiver.

That’s not going to work with Temple fans, who were used to a more attacking style of defense in consecutive 10-win seasons under head coach Matt Rhule and DC Phil Snow. In those days, simulated pressures were actual pressures and the bad guy’s quarterback ended up on his ass more often than not.

That’s Temple football. That’s Temple TUFF.

Adams is more in sync with the Rhule/Snow way of doing things so it should be interesting to see what happens when he gets in the same room with complete stranger Eliot. Since the talented Adams is listed as a “co-DC” with the sole job going to the less accomplished Eliot, that could be a problem.

I’ve thought about it and I’m not Drayton.

Just imagine late August, 2022……

D.J. Eliot gave up 36 points a game as a DC at two Power 5 schools.

Eliot: “Luca Diamont is the Duke starting quarterback. Here’s how we’re going to attack him: Run a couple of safeties and linebackers at him and then back off at the last minute, putting everyone in coverage and trying to confuse him.”

Adams: “How about putting the m-fer on his ass by sending more players than they can block, knocking that thing out of his hand and having one of own guys taking it to the house?”

Eliot: “Too risky.”

Adams: “C’mon, man. Former Temple coach Bruce Arians said it best: No risky, no bisky.”

Eliot: “We never did that at Kansas and Colorado.”

Adams: “That’s why you guys never won shit.”

Eliot: “That’s why you were at Villanova and I was at Kansas and Colorado.”

Adams: “You want to go? Let’s go. You and me on 10th Street. If I win, we blitz the hell out of Duke. If you win, we sit back and play prevent.”

Eliot: “Stan, help me out here… “

Is that the kind of headache Drayton wants right away?

I don’t think so but I don’t know if he has thought this dynamic out. If the two start arguing in the coach’s room at the E-O, I hope Drayton puts his foot down.

Does Drayton have the gonads to get rid of Eliot if he brings that 36 ppg career average as a DC to Temple and give the job completely to Adams, whose Villanova defenses allowed 15.7 ppg? We will see.

That’s the part of the bag with holes in it.

Ola Adams was a key member of the Villanova defensive staff, holding Geoff Collins to 17 points.

Now to the more sturdy part of this mixed bag.

The additions of Chris Wiesehan (offensive line) and Adam Schier (special teams) certainly balance the bag. Wiesehan was credited with the development with two of the best centers in Temple history (Kyle Friend and Matt Hennessy) and a terrific versatile guard/center in Vince Picozzi. Schier made the Rutgers’ special teams the best of the Scarlet Knights’ three units and, if the Owls start blocking kicks and returning them to the house like they used to in the pre-Rod Carey days, it’s a home run hire. Vince wants to come back and let’s hope Chris brings him back.

On the plus side of this mixed bag also are the strength coaches, Chris Fenelon (Ohio State), Andrew Broocks and Bruce Johnson. Carey’s strength coach is still being investigated for mental and physical abuse of players by an internal Temple probe. Hopefully, these new guys earn the trust and love of the Temple players, who were completely pushed around in a 3-9 season.

If any FBS program needed a complete overall of its strength department, it was Temple.

So far, the support staff looks as Texas-centric as the Carey staff looked NIU-centric. On-field guys like Preston Brown and Wiesehan might be bones to throw to Temple fans, as Carey did when he initially kept Fran Brown, Gabe Infante, Ed Foley and Adam DiMichele. Everett Withers, who will be off the field, was a former head coach at Texas State. Another off-the-field employee, Tory Teykl, was at both Houston and Texas. Johnson was an assistant strength coach at Texas from 2001-2007. My guess is that there will be more hires with some experience in Texas, which is a vastly different experience than Temple.

When Carey got rid of the three Temple guys to keep the NIU guys, all doubt about Carey’s future here was removed.

Drayton needs to lean on the Temple guys to turn Temple around. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Monday: The Jimmies


 

01.03.22
by

The AAC: Temple should be the new Cincy

In any other season, AAC commissioner Mike Aresco should be thrilled.

Before Cincinnati lost to Alabama in the National semifinals, the league was 5-0 (two wins, three forfeits) and 2-0 in actual games against the vaunted SEC.

This year was a little different, though.

Owners of two of those wins, UCF and Houston, will be gone soon but probably hang around next season. So will Cincy.

Bragging about being a Power 6 conference is probably out of the question now.

Temple should not expect to compete for the title this year, but there is no reason the Owls should not expect or demand to be on top in the new AAC that begins next year. In other words, the administration should demand no less than being the new Cincinnati. Temple beat Cincy four-straight years before losing to the Bearcats the last couple of times.

Temple, like Cincy, is located in a big city and should be vying with another large city school, Memphis, the title every year. Even USTA and UAB are ahead of the Owls right now but, with judicious use of the transfer portal, the Owls should be able to overtake those schools.

Should be and will be are two different things.

The task for new head coach Stan Drayton is to right the ship this year. If he learns anything from the failures of Rod Carey, it’s that dipping into the portal for just six players when your roster is speed, depth and strength challenged is simply not enough.

The Owls have to get a dozen potential starters out of the portal to just be competitive right away, say, 6-6, and then take the next step toward contending for the title in 2023.

The portal has mostly taketh away from Temple in the Carey years but Temple needs to do some innovative things to benefit from it.

The Owls really need to get a quarterback who can challenge Dwan Mathis for the starting role. Justin Lynch and Mario Valenti were just not good enough.

They may need to dip into the FCS ranks and nab a quarterback. Look at how Western Kentucky quarterback Bailey Zappe put his team on the map after transferring from tiny Houston Baptist. The Owls need to find another Bailey Zappe. Watching the FCS playoffs, there are plenty of quarterbacks out there even better than Mathis and the competition might be good for Dwan, too.

Other than that, getting some of the lost Temple players back would help, too. Vince Picozzi was the second-best offensive lineman on the team for two-straight eight-win seasons and would solidify the line. Cornerback Linwood Crump has always been positive about Temple in his tweets and would be welcome back.

They are the kind of leaders the rest of the team both remembers and respects and would take no BS in the locker room and accept no less than maximum effort, something we did not see in either 2020 or 2021.

Drayton can set the tone by hiring a terrific staff and a strength coach the players relate to (David Feeley is available), but he needs more Jimmy and Joes than X’s and O’s and he needs them now.

Without Houston, UCF and Cincy, there is a void at the top of the AAC.

The Owls better have a plan to fill it.

01.01.22
by

Happy New Year From Temple Football Forever

May the Temple Owls figure out a way to win double-digit games in 2022

Since our picking season is over, this is what we wrote on Christmas Eve:

“Final college football picks of the year: Would love to pick Cincy getting the 13.5 against Bama but, like all G5 football fans, will watch that with a rooting interest only. Only three games jumped out to me:

EAST CAROLINA getting 3 against BC in the Military Bowl. ECU beat Temple, 45-3 and BC beat Temple, 28-3; MICHIGAN STATE laying the 2.5 against Pitt without former Temple commit Kenny Pickett (opting-out) in the Peach Bowl (hell, freaking WESTERN Michigan beat Pitt with Kenny); UTAH getting 6.5 against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Utah has been a completely different team since losing to BYU in the Holy War.

Record for the season: 28-25-1. Hopefully, we will hit the 30-win mark by the New Year.”

Final record for the season: Won on Utah covering and Michigan State laying the points and wish ECU would have had the chance to beat BC in the Military Bowl. Finished 30-25-2 (push in one game, cancellation in the other) for the season. So betting $50 on 30 wins=$1,500. Losing $55 on 25 losses=$1,375, ending with us $125 on the plus side.

12.31.21
by

Drayton hiring: Maybe logic doesn’t apply

Stan Drayton will always be a Texas guy hired by another Texas guy until he starts hiring TEMPLE guys.

There is no doubt that a significant portion of the Temple football fan base believes Temple made the right call by hiring Stan Drayton as a head coach but what he has done the first couple of weeks certainly has defied conventional wisdom.

First, he recruited a defensive lineman (no names, please, he’s just a kid) who had exactly one sack in his last full season as a high school player.

Then, he supposedly hired a co-defensive coordinator from Villanova without (officially, at least) hiring the other co-defensive coordinator.

That struck me as odd because the “other” rumored guy is someone who hemorrhaged points as a DC at various stops on the FBS level and might (err, probably doesn’t) even know or is sympatico with the philosophy of the Villanova guy. They might not butt heads once they get in the same room but what if they don’t get along?

That’s a headache Drayton doesn’t need.

No doubt in my mind Ed Foley would come back to fix Temple’s putrid special teams if Stan Drayton makes a phone call to Matt Rhule. That would put a lot of anxious Temple fans’ minds at ease.

You are allowed to question whether this guy knows what he’s doing, at least on the CEO level.

Put it this way: Drayton was a position coach all of his life and had limited responsibility. Now, he’s overseeing the entire operation and is a little like a guy fumbling around for the light to a room he first entered.

Excuse me for having the feeling that, say, Al Golden would have had this CEO part of the job locked down. If he liked the Villanova defensive guy, he would have named him sole DC and handed off the keys to that third of the team to him. He would have put the other third of the team, specials, on autopilot by adding old buddy and Temple lifer Ed Foley before tackling the final third.

Instead of a DL guy who had only one sack, Golden might have been able to recruit a Pennsylvania Big 33 sackmeister MVP like Adrian Robinson. Oh wait. He already did and Arob made a huge impact at Temple (rest in peace). Somewhere in that Al Golden binder of Mid-Atlantic recruits, I have to believe he already had the second coming of AR in mind and that kid might have produced double-digit sacks in a good high school league.

Golden would have known all the nooks and crannies of every room at the E-O without having to turn on a single light.

For now, at least in this space, Drayton will remain a Texas guy hired by a Texas guy until he starts hiring Temple guys and that hasn’t happened. Even Miami’s Manny Diaz hired four Temple guys right off the bat.

Maybe, though, that approach is wrong. Only time will tell.

Watching the Pitt-Michigan State game last night, I was able to give Drayton (and by extension President Jason Wingard and new athletic director Arthur Johnson) the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe the game has evolved (err, devolved) to the point that logic no longer matters.

Follow me here: Michigan State ONLY beat Pitt in the Peach Bowl because former Temple commit Kenny Pickett opted out. The teams that win league championships and bring home great bowl game trophies in the future might be coached by guys who get the PLAYERS to buy into his system and not the logic CEO guys. Drayton could overcome a lot of these early miscues by proving to be the player’s guy Rod Carey wasn’t. Because MSU coach Mel Tucker got his players to buy in and Pat Narducci didn’t get all of his players to do the same, the MSU fans came home happy and the Pitt fans were crying.

It’s a short straw, but it’s the only one I’ve got so far.

Fortunately, most of my fellow Temple fans are buying into the hire. For this shaky initial start, my body is in Pennsylvania but my mind has moved to Missouri.

Show me.

Unfortunately, those results won’t be in for another 11 months.

Winning the great majority of football games, getting AAC championships, AND not going 6-6, not chasing greatness, is the only barometer that really matters. You have to demand greatness and be great, not just chase it.

Just win. It’s that simple and that hard.

Monday: The AAC

Friday: The Quick Fix

12.26.21
by

Drayton seems to have won half the battle

Chuck Heater was so popular with Temple players he received this post-game Gatoraid shower after leading the Owls to their first bowl win in 30 years.

There are plenty of battles ahead for a team that finished 1-6 and 3-9 in consecutive shocking seasons, but new Temple football coach Stan Drayton seems to have won half the battle in just two short weeks.

He applied the tourniquet and seems to have stopped the transfer portal bleeding. No significant players have announced they are leaving and that’s something that couldn’t be said in this same two-week period a year ago.

That’s something that cannot be minimized because former head coach Rod Carey took a figurative knife to work every day and there was more bleeding at the E-O than in the movie Psycho.

The players didn’t like him, and their dislike for him never seemed to bother Carey. In the era of the transfer portal, that kind of indifference is a death sentence.

Not surprising that you needed a bucket to clean up all of the bleeding of the players who went out the door.

The other half of the battle is assembling a good staff. Without mentioning names, there is some discussion of bringing in a guy from Kansas and Colorado who allowed more than 30 ppgs in high-profile DC jobs.

Drayton promised at his opening-day press conference to attempt to bring in staff members with ties to Temple and Philadelphia but, so far, the new DL coach has a tie to Lafayette and a recent job at Colorado State. Bringing in Chuck Heater as DC would seem to me to be a no-brainer since Heater was the new CSU guy’s boss AND was the last DC at Temple to post back-to-back shutouts (2011). Math was never my best subject, but I’ll take a guy who allowed zero points in consecutive games AT TEMPLE over one who averaged 30ppg any day of the week and Heater is available, seemed to enjoy his time at Temple (biking to practice every day from Center City) and understands Temple TUFF as well as any outsider.

Chuck Heater went over to Marshall and had success after leaving Temple

The staff evaluation will have to wait until Drayton’s full Gang of 10 on-field assistants are assembled, but the early returns in that area are not good.

Most of the staff remains to be picked so, if Drayton has as good a second half this week as the Eagles had yesterday, everybody in “Temple Philadelphia” and not “Lafayette Philadelphia” will be happy.

Drayton’s first message to the team indicated a good sense of evaluating the film and this quote was particularly telling:

“The little bit of film that I did see, I saw some quit show up,” Drayton said.  “And we talked about what greatness is.  Greatness has no quit in it at all.  And that showed up.  And that bothers me.  However, if as a football team we can face that as a reality, accept it for what it is, then I know we can move forward.”

That’s something just about every Temple fan noticed post the Memphis game and even some players alluded to it.

It appears he will be moving forward with the bulk of this year’s roster buying in and the first step toward program health is stopping that bleeding and maybe as much as half the battle. Don’t know if choosing assistants can be called the other half, but it’s at least the first quarter.

Friday: Areas of Need