TU Football 2020: Tragicomedy

A play containing both elements of tragedy and comedy is called a tragicomedy and, after six games, that’s is probably the best word to describe Temple’s 2020 football season.

Tragedy, because an inordinate number of players have gotten either sick or injured and an undermanned team going into the season just cannot afford that.

This is the guy who turned Temple’s special teams from No. 1 in the nation to No. 130, but he’s a friend of Rod Carey, so that’s got to count for something.

Comedy, because we already knew Temple’s special teams were the Keystone Cops last year and nothing that has happened this year has changed that. The program says Brett Diersen is both the “outside linebackers coach/special teams coordinator” but he might as well be Charlie Chaplin. Special teams are not supposed to made your opponent laugh, but that’s what Temple’s have done for nearly two years under CEO Rod Carey. Outside linebackers aren’t much better, but this is the guy Carey jettisoned Temple legendary ST coach Ed Foley for and he had that aspect of the team on auto pilot for nearly a decade.

You can’t have both tragedy and comedy in both areas and be a successful football team and the Owls proved that for the fifth time this season in a 38-13 loss at Central Florida on Saturday night.

What is Rod Carey football when it comes to special teams?

Rod Carey football is having a slow white guy return punts and I can say that because I’m a slow white guy. The difference being that I’m a boomer and Carey has slow white guys in their 20s returning punts. In a school with athletes out the wazoo like Temple, there should be at least 10 in the football program who can both catch a punt and make the first guy miss, let alone the rest of the student body of nearly 40,000 full-time students.

Carey is obviously satisfied with just catching the ball and getting the offense started. That would be understandable if the Temple offense could do anything, but it can’t. You’ve got to make the punt return a dangerous offensive play, just like it used to be at Temple when guys like Matty Brown, Delano Green and even Isaiah Wright (the Wright of Geoff Collins, not Carey) were the returners.

What is Rod Carey football?

Rod Carey football is not even going after the punt when the UCF punter has to kick with his foot near the back of the end zone. Every other recent Temple coach would have had a jailbreak punt block on in that situation.

Not Rod Carey. Why make the punter uncomfortable when you can just let him get off a 50-yard punt?

Rod Carey football is kicking a field goal down 38-10 for window dressing when he could have rolled his quarterback out on a run/pass option for a touchdown with eight minutes left.

Rod Carey football is not challenging a call when his freshman wide receiver makes a spectacular catch with his foot inbounds with four minutes left.

If there’s one constant about Carey’s approach to the game is that he plays it way too passive and his team has adopted the personality of their head coach.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

Temple-UCF: Inside the War Room

Gotta wonder what happens when all the Temple coaches get together to game plan the next opponent on the schedule.

Since what happens in the Coaches Conference Room at the E-O is not televised, we can only imagine.

Full disclosure: After watching the first few Temple games, I’m convinced they don’t even game plan for an opponent.

Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt that they were so embarrassed they lost 62-21 to UCF at home last year and they don’t want that history to repeat itself before a national TV audience (ESPN-U, 7:30 p.m.) on Saturday night.

Rod Carey: “Fellas, we’re feeling a little heat here. Temple fans are used to winning and my plan to use this fall as an extension of spring practice probably isn’t working. I got hammered by an anonymous fan on Temple Football Forever Thursday. I want to win. You want to win. Anyone have any ideas how we extend the game to the fourth quarter Saturday night and steal it then?”

Mike Uremovich: “Rod, you know what we did at Northern. We played the RPO every game and accepted the results.”

Rod: “Gabe, any ideas?”

Gabe Infante: “We are playing into their hands that way. If we run the RPO, they don’t respect the quarterback’s ability to run the ball, and they are going to come after Anthony on the next two downs. He will probably either get sacked or throw incompletions. Not Anthony’s fault at all, but asking him to run is not his forte and probably will result in giving Dillon Gabriel about a zillion more possessions than he needs to have.”

Rod: “What do we do to avoid that?”

Gabe: “When I was the head coach at (St. Joseph’s) Prep, we played a lot of nationally ranked Florida teams with much more speed than us but we always beat them.”

Rod: “How?”

Gabe Infante after beating Florida’s top-ranked high school team.

Gabe: “Put two tight ends on the field, put a fullback on the field, line up in run formations on first down. They’ve seen our film. They expect the run on first down. Fake them out by throwing short passes, run on second down, keep the sticks and clock moving. Take a chance every now and then with a fake to our tailback, followed by a deep ball. Keep the defense off balance. Those high-octane offenses never saw the ball. We had eight-minute drives each quarter. We’d get seven points one quarter, three points the next, seven at the beginning of the third and, before you know it, we had a 17-0 lead and they were playing catch up. We’re from Philly, 17th and Thompson, and that’s only five blocks west and five blocks south from this room we’re in now. We used our toughness to our advantage.”

Rod: “Sounds good but we run the RPO. That’s what we do.”

Gabe: “That’s precisely the point. That’s what they do. They are more comfortable with us doing what they do, throwing passes, stopping the clock, giving them more possessions. I’d say let’s make them uncomfortable and keep our defense off the field. I’m the running backs coach but I’m all for helping our defense any way I can.”

Rod: “Mike, what do you think?”

Mike: “We didn’t do that at NIU, Rod. I’m not comfortable with a fullback and two tight ends.”

Rod: “That settles it. We’re going to do what we do and let the chips fall where they may.”

Gabe: “But, Rod, the chips haven’t fallen our way so far, let’s try other chips.”

Rod: “Gabe, I love you, man, but this is what got me to 52-30 at NIU and I’m sticking with the plan Saturday night. Meeting adjourned.”

(Coaches get up leaving the room while Adam DiMichele can heard mumbling under his breath: “That’s also what got us beat 62-21 last year.”)

Rod: “Adam, did you say anything?”

Adam: “No, nothing, Rod.”

Rod: “OK, let’s do this. Let’s beat them at their game.”

Picks this week: Went 1-2 opening week against the spread and skipped last week, but like a few games on the docket this weekend. First, Friday night the Florida Atlantic Owls covering the 8.5 spread at nearby FIU. On Saturday, taking Wisconsin to cover the 3.5 at Michigan and Penn State the same number at Nebraska. For the final game, going for Louisiana Tech to cover the 1.5 against the visiting Rice Owls. All favorites this week, no underdogs.

Update: Evened the season record at 3-3 by going 2-1 against the spread. FAU easily covered the 8.5 as did Wisconsin the 3.5. Only loss was Nebraska beating PSU. LT and Rice postponed due to COVID. Record this week: 2-1. Overall: 3-3.

Saturday Night: Game Analysis

An Anonymous Fan has chimed in on the state of the program

Unlike the Trump anonymous op-ed guy, the below is written by a passionate fan, not an insider.

Editor’s Note: It’s very rare that we get an email with this much thought, no insults, and this on-point about the Temple football program. Since I agree with 99 percent of what this young man says, I will print it unedited in its entirely. (The only part I don’t agree is giving over the keys of the program to untested Fran Brown but that’s his opinion so I left it in. He did not want to use his name so I’m going to keep it out.) The “young lady” he refers to below is Morgyn Siegfield, who now works for the University of Kansas.

By Anonymous

I really haven’t felt a need in a long time to express my dismay about
the Temple football program.  But as my sucko-meter has gone off
multiple times this year, I have some things I need to get off my chest.

Look, I wasn’t crazy about Geoff Collins; I always had the sense that he was
learning on the job. But one thing he did well was relate to his
players and the public.  I just never realized how important it was
and is until I saw Rod Carey.

Let’s recap the many ways he has sucked so far, shall we:

1) In an early interview with Owl Sports (with a young lady whose name
I forget), he was asked about “Temple Tuff.”   It was a softball
question that the interviewer threw at him to let him affirm Temple’s
brand. His answer: something to the effect of, “Where I come from, you
don’t say you’re tough, you just are.”  That was the first indication
to me that
this guy was a schmuck.

He had previously said publicly how excited he was to be the new coach
of the Temple football team, going as far as saying that Kraft could
make his buyout sum as much as he wanted.  He was expressing his
gratitude and suggesting, ostensibly, that he was going to be here for
a long time.  And what does this douchenozzle say in his interview
with Owl Sports?  At the first chance he gets to affirm the Temple
brand, a phrase the legendary John Chaney invented, he basically says,
“meh, whatever.”

2) He fires Ed Foley.  WTF????  Everyone likes Ed Foley.  If anyone is
Temple, it’s Ed Foley.  He was here from nearly the beginning with Al
Golden, I think.  Did he have a little bit of Matt Foley in him?
Sure. But he was a really good coach.   Our special teams under him
were special!!!

So what does Carey do?  He fires Foley, which must have been handled
poorly as Foley felt a need to express his disgust via social media,
and then decides they don’t need a special teams coach.  Only problem
is they ended up really sucking on special teams!!  Then, the
following season, Captain Mayonnaise assigns one of his lackey’s to be
the new special team coach.  As if we didn’t notice!

My sense of the matter is that he was probably just jealous and felt
threatened by the relationships Foley had cultivated with the team and
university.  A confident man uses that to his advantage, he doesn’t
fire the guy.  My guess is it probably impacted player morale and
trust, too.

3) He not only gets rid of Foley, but he gets rid of the “Wildboys”
nickname that had been a holdover from past defensive lines dating
back to the Matt Rhule era.  Collins had the smarts to keep it.  He
probably realized the players on the defensive line liked it.  So here
comes Carey saying, “There’s a new sheriff in town, and we’re getting
rid of that tradition.”

“Hey, look, if you grant an interview, I want to be in the room just to make sure you don’t say anything to make me look bad.

Right move:  Getting rid of signs and charts on the sideline

Wrong move:  Getting rid of a tradition that was started in the Matt Rhule era

4)  He gets into a public spat (at least on social media) with the
Imhotep coach.  I think it started with his mishandling of a Tyreek
Rainer situation, and things blew up from there.  Hey good luck
recruiting Imhotep after that!  This has traditionally been a hard
school to pull a recruit from so maybe you could argue that the damage
was minimal.

 But he just strikes me as a yokel with zero ability to politic.

5) Good players start transferring out.  Kenny Yeboah, Quincy
Roche and, now, Ray Davis.  All three of these guys are very good
players with potential NFL chops.  I’m almost certain Roche will be a
second or third rounder, (even with a low sack total this year.)
Losing these guys can’t be a good look for your program.  I don’t
recall Temple coaching staffs from the past losing a high caliber
player like Roche. That’s just irresponsible.  And guess what?  Don’t
be surprised if Ifenyi Maijeh is next!  In his last interview, he
mentioned that he has options after this season.  He didn’t specify,
but he also seemed a little bothered.  This is a subjective
interpretation, but that’s how I saw it.

6) He seems to be very rigid in his protocol for player interviews.
If you go to the Temple website to look at football related videos,
you’ll see that the player interviews are chaperoned, if you will, by
the coaches.  In other words, a journalist asks a question, and then
the coach connects the player to the question.  My conclusion:  It
looks and feels like the coaching staff is paranoid that these kids
are going to say something wrong or bad about them.  Again, I don’t
recall this ever being done in the past.  Who knows, maybe his
rigidity and paranoia is symptomatic of the reason some of these kids
are transferring out?

7) And look at the product we see today.  This team is a shell of
themselves.  Yes, injuries and covid cases have impacted them.  But
it’s also impacted the teams they’re playing.  And the loss of these
three transfers is totally on Carey.  The defense is just crap; they
can’t stop anyone.  And that’s on Carey, too.

His QB, Russo, who was recruited by Matt Rhule, has looked good.  He’s
been able to score the football.  And I give Carey a little credit for
his offensive line maneuvers (utilizing lighter players / zone), but
that’s it.  This team is blah. They’re just not very good. They
reflect the personality of their coach.

They’re semi-good.  They’re quasi-good. They’re the margarine of good.
They’re the Diet Coke of good, just one calorie, not good enough.

Mike, Carey is just not a good fit.  I get it; Kraft was under a lot
of pressure to hire someone.  And Carey was available.  But I tell ya,
I really liked Fran Brown.  In my opinion, people made too much of him
not being ready because he hadn’t been a coordinator.  Well, you know
what, there was another guy who hadn’t been a coordinator before he
got the job at the University of Minnesota, and his name is PJ Fleck.
How’d that work out for them?

And Fran Brown can recruit!  We’d have all of these NJ recruits right
now if Kraft would have made the bold decision to hire Fran Brown.
And I suspect none of those guys would have transferred out with Fran
as the coach. Fran’s strength is his people skills.  He was the
perfect choice.  He’s young.  He’s charismatic.  He’s local. This is
his recruiting footprint.  It is absolute nonsense, if not racist to
suggest he was too young or needed more seasoning as a coordinator.

Another guy to consider for the job is Kurt Sirocco.  He went to
Temple (didn’t play because of injury), got both of his degrees here,
and got his coaching start here.  He’s now doing quite well at U of
Minnesota as their Offensive Coordinator.  I suspect his name will be
tossed around for head coach openings in the near future.

But going forward, I suspect that Fran Dunphy, being the gentleman
that he is, will give Carey every chance to right the ship.  So we
could be stuck with this guy for another two years, at least.  Ugh.

Friday: UCF Preview

Fizzy: Once again, TU comes up short

This is when there was a lot of hitting in practice and pride six days a week leading up to game day where it was shown on the field and it was Temple handing out the 47-23 beatings.

Editor’s Note: Former Temple football player Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub brings the perspective not only of a player but a lifetime of coaching football, teaching and writing. He breaks down the SMU game here.

 

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Once again, the collapse began at the last possession before the half. The ball was at the 40, and Temple faced a first and 25, with about 1:43 left on the clock. There was plenty of time to throw a few passes downfield and attempt to score. Maybe you’d get a penalty or a big gain. Inexplicably, Temple tried to run out the clock (they failed) and gave momentum over to SMU.

      Once again, a team destroyed Temple in the second half. It’s the seventh time since the arrival of coach Rod Carey that Temple collapsed after intermission. It seems the only thing the Temple coaches adjust at half-time is their shorts.

     Once again, Temple had a first and goal, and a chance to gain the lead. This time it was in the third quarter. They ran on first down. They ran on second down. They ran on third down and had to kick a field goal. Not even Woody Hayes at Ohio State would have run three times. The coaches still haven’t learned that first down is when you innovate. 

     You’ll notice each of the above paragraphs began with, “once again.” I’m so tired of making the same comments over and over. 

Somewhere the sun is shining,

somewhere the skies are blue

But not with the Temple football group,

because our team is knee-deep in poop

Friday: UCF

Temple: No incentive to win

After the first play, it was all downhill for Temple.

There are 127 FBS teams who opted into playing this season despite a global pandemic.

Just about every coaching staff is taking this season seriously.

Then there’s Temple.

“I know your right shoulder is hurt but can you throw with your left hand?.

In a 47-23 loss to SMU on Saturday, the latest in a growing number of embarrassments for a once-proud football program, we saw this:

  • A quarterback (Trad Beatty) who arguably slid past the yard marker (you could make a case either way) for a first down in the first half, was ruled short, and Temple did nothing to challenge. The ESPN+ announcers said it was worth a challenge and it probably was.
  • A shotgun formation on fourth and 1 yard and a predictable loss with the ball snapped so deep. (Every fifth grade Geometry student can tell you the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.)
  • A kicking game that hasn’t even been addressed (missing an extra point and getting two more kickoffs hit out of bounds) despite it being an ongoing problem;
  • No quarterback holding on any kicks, eliminating even the chance of a fake.
  • Punts on fourth down late in the fourth quarter with the game out of reach when those could have been used as a teaching down for the offense.
  • Quarterback auditions during a game for the second straight week that should have been done during practice.

What does all of the above prove?

Temple is playing this entire 2020 season like it’s an extension of spring practice and not a meaningful business enterprise which, when you boil it down to basics, college football is a business and the business is winning.

Like many businesses that serve the public this terrible year, Temple is about to go bankrupt with that approach.

The Owls had more time to prepare for a triple option than both BYU and Air Force did and crapped the bed in that game. They could have invited the best minds in college football known for stopping triple options (say, the Air Force and BYU coaching staffs) but decided, “well, we can stop them doing things our way.”

Err, no. BYU and Air Force held Navy to 3 and 7 points, respectively. It would have been nice to at least review the film of those games and apply the same approach. Instead, Temple did the opposite of those schools and “held” Navy to 31.

Very little of this is attributable to COVID, the City of Philadelphia or injuries. Most of it has to do with the incompetence of the coaching staff and, frankly, a lackadaisical attitude. When you are making $2 million a year for three more years with a $10 million buyout, there is a decreased sense of urgency and that’s what we’re seeing now.

Schools that don’t produce as many NFL players as Temple does have the same problems with COVID but have found a way to succeed. Forget about the teams Temple is looking up at in its own conference (err, everyone). Liberty is 7-0. Coastal Carolina is 6-0. Marshall is 6-0. Hell, even Nevada and San Jose State are 3-0.

Can we get one of those coaching staffs?

The business of college football is flourishing everywhere but Philadelphia largely because winning is no longer a priority here. It’s a sad thing to see.

If it reminds you of a bygone time of nearly 20 years ago, it should. I don’t want to go back to it. Neither should you and, more importantly, the powers-that-be at Temple who were around then.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

SMU hit the jackpot with Dykes

A competent coach would have given this guy a lead blocking fullback and designed a play-action passing game off fakes to him after establishing the run. But no, Rod Carey wants to do the same RPO stuff at Temple he did at NIU. It’s not working, Rod.

While the jury is still out on Rod Carey’s tenure at Temple (although the deliberation room is hostile), they’ve reached a verdict about SMU’s Sonny Dykes in Dallas.

Innocent of any charges he cannot coach after mixed reviews at a brief stint of head coach at California of the PAC-12.

Carey, on the other hand, is not facing a friendly jury after turning an eight-win Temple team into a likely 1-7 squad this season.

When Temple wanted to rebuild its program, it went with an up-and-coming coordinator, Al Golden, who was a top recruiter at Boston College, Penn State and Virginia. When it wanted stability after Steve Addazio, it went with a Golden disciple in Matt Rhule. It went somewhat back to the prior model with Geoff Collins, the difference being his recruiting chops were in the South. With Carey, the Owls went for a G5 head coach.

SMU did it differently, grabbing a Power 5 head coach who had some success at a higher level than the AAC and what Dykes has done at SMU is certainly more impressive than what Carey has done here.

The two coaching styles compare and contrast this Saturday (noon, ESPN+) at Lincoln Financial Field before a “capacity” crowd of 7,500 fans. (Capacity in that the City of Philadelphia will only allow that many Temple fans to enter the stadium due to COVID protocols.)

Dykes has a 21-12 record at SMU (including 6-1 this season and ranked No. 18 in the USA Today Coaches poll) and that includes getting his feet wet with a 5-7 opening season. Dykes has done it a little differently from Carey, turning last year into a 10-2 record season by grabbing 15 starters, mostly high-level Power 5 recruits, out of the transfer portal.

Dykes did it by offering guys an immediate chance to play and no one benefited from that more than starting quarterback Shane Buechele. While at Texas, he led the Longhorns to a win over Iowa State but lost his job to current starter Sam Ehlinger and transferred to SMU.

Dykes is a players’ coach who is able to keep his star players happy.

This is a Ray Davis’ retweet from Halloween

Contrast this to the gruff style of Carey, who is hemorrhaging good players at a level Temple fans have never seen. Last year, the Owls lost quarterback Toddy Centeio in the portal to Colorado State, as well as AAC Defensive Player of the Year Quincy Roche (Miami) and tight end Kenny Yeboah (Ole Miss). No one knows where Ray Davis is headed but losing a player who gained over 900 yards from scrimmage as the Owls’ best running back is a continuation of the bleeding.

Compare that to the places Carey was able to attract players from: Wake Forest (Manny Walker), NIU (C.J. Perez) and Dayton (Michael Niese.)

Usually, opposing coaches gush over Temple prior to the game but not this time. When asked about Temple, this is the only thing he had to say about the Owls: “We just have to worry about ourselves more than we have to worry about Temple.”

No one can blame him because he has a happy group of players and evidence points to that we cannot same the same about Carey’s Temple group right now.

The jury has reached a favorable verdict about Dykes and, while the foreman hasn’t announced anything yet, it’s hard to find anyone giving Carey a thumbs up right now.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

Temple defense: The unspoken truth

It’s real bad when South Alabama gives Tulane a better game than Temple does.

How bad is it?

It’s bad.

Really bad.

Even when Anthony Russo gets back to fix the offense, and sadly that’s not this week, the unspoken truth about Temple football is that the defense cannot be fixed.

It’s this bad:

Temple’s defense gave up 37 points to South Florida, a team that scored only 27 on The Citadel, 13 against Tulsa and 24 against East Carolina.

Temple’s defense gave up 38 points to a Tulane team that could score only 27 on South Alabama and 24 on Navy. South Alabama? That noted power which lost to UAB, 42-10?

Yep.

Temple’s defense gave up 31 points to a Navy team that could only score three against BYU and 7 against Air Force.

If Rod Carey falters, looming in the shadows behind him is Gabe Infante

And very little of the above had to do with COVID, because much of the evidence had been there before head coach Rod Carey could pull that excuse.

What did Quincy Roche know and when did he know it?

It would be nice if the AAC Defensive Player of the Year had stayed at Temple to bolster a virtually non-existent pass rush, but he did not and Temple did not get an adequate replacement for him. Did Roche have a problem with Rod Carey? Or Jeff Knowles? Or Walter Stewart?

Carey went into the season shrugging off the personnel departures like Roche, quarterback Toddy Centeio and tight end Kenny Yeboah, saying “we want to go with the guys who want to be here.”

Think about that point and extrapolate it for a second. If the entire starting offense and defense wanted to leave but the scout teams on both sides of the ball want to stay, do you really want to go with the guys who want to be here?

Why do only the good guys want to leave?

Do you think the Owls would have done better than three points if Toddy was still here?

I do.

The evidence is that the offense is an AAC high-quality one when Russo is in the game, scoring 29 against both Navy and Memphis and 32 (one was a defensive score) against USF. That’s on the high end of opponents against those teams.

Three points with two backup quarterbacks against a poor defense like Tulane is inexcusable, but it matters little if the defense cannot keep people off the scoreboard and nothing we’ve seen thus far provides any evidence that will change.

That’s the unspoken truth about this season.

Until maybe now.

Friday: SMU preview

Loss leaves Fizzy speechless

The difference between Midwestern nice and Philly fans is this NIU fan apologizes.

Editor’s Note: Like many of us, a 38-3 loss to a Tulane team that barely beat South Alabama left a lot of Temple fans speechless and Fizzy was one of them. He could understandably muster up only a few words in the form of this poem

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

I watched the game in disbelief,

as our football program crashed on a reef

Yes, there were injuries and infections galore,

but I couldn’t help shuddering at the final score

We couldn’t tally on the air or ground,

and somewhere an offense needs to be found

A freshman quarterback killed us with passes,

our coverages and strategies stuck in molasses.

I’ve watched Temple football for over sixty years,

and this downward spiral has me literally in tears

The many excuses simply won’t float,

All I can say is make sure you vote.

Tuesday: How bad is it?

Friday: SMU

How Did Temple Get This Bad This Fast?

In any other year, Rod Carey would be on the hot seat at Temple University after a 1-3 start.

As we’ve all found out since about mid-March, this is not just any other year.

In the year of Covid, probably two or three years of it, really, no one is getting fired at any university because the revenue streams coming in are so unpredictable. The Owls are allowed almost no fans this year and next year is up in the air as well.

The university is in the hole for $10 million of a five-year contract to Carey and there is no Lew Katz around willing to eat it.

How did Temple go. in just two short weeks, from the No. 1 team in conference wins (since championship play began in 2015) to a likely 1-7 season?

In a word, Pride. In other, stubbornness.

As King Solomon, a pretty wise guy himself, said: “Pride Goeth Before the Fall.”

In Carey’s case, he had a nice “square peg” offense at Northern Illinois in the RPO and players suited enough for him there to post a 52-30 record as a FBS head coach. When he came to Temple, he found himself with “round hole” players who were more suited to a pro-set offense, and a quarterback who could never sell a defense on a RPO but is damn good at flinging it down the field after the run is established off play action.

Those of us who thought Carey might have been a good hire did so thinking a good coach adjusts his schemes to his available personnel and not try to force an ill-fitting system onto some great players from another system.

I did not see that coming. I thought a professional head coach would be able to improvise and adjust. Carey has not been.

What we learned in Temple’s 38-3 loss to Tulane–a loss that broke an 86-year (five games since the 1934 Sugar Bowl loss) winning streak–was that Anthony Russo is only about 10x a better quarterback than his two backups and that might be a conservative estimate.

Get well soon, Anthony.

Even more than that, though, is that Temple should have been 3-0 coming into the game had the Owls approached the red zone with some simple shit like throwing the fade to Branden Mack on first down instead of dicking around with runs on the first two downs. You’ve got a 6-6 wide receiver and a quarterback more than capable of throwing a fade like this and you piss away two wins by throwing a dump pass short of the goal (Navy) and running straight up the gut followed by a quarterback draw (Memphis)?

This is what Carey should have done for the 2-point conversion at Navy (30-second mark)

If Temple is paying Carey $2 million a year for that, the administration should demand its money back for those two losses alone.

Temple needed a running back and a pass rusher in the offseason but passed up on chances to get running back Ricky Slade from Penn State (who went to Old Dominion) and defensive end Scott Patchan (Miami, who went to Colorado State). Both were arguably better than any player they had here at both positions. Those are administrative errors, but Carey’s coaching errors cost the Owls two precious wins prior to the Tulane fiasco.

Due to missing 13 players (covid) and Russo (shoulder) it is hard to blame Carey for the loss to Tulane but, in the history of college football, rotating quarterbacks has resulted in about zero wins in 1 million games.. That’s why, if Russo is injured, you’ve got about three days to settle on one guy and not use a game as an audition.

This ain’t Hamilton where you audition guys to play the role of Aaron Burr during the play itself.

The Owls have tried two methods of hiring head coaches, one bringing in up-and-coming assistants, and one bringing in a proven FBS winning head coach. They haven’t tried the Greg Schiano Method (hiring a guy who proved he could do the same exact job at a high level), but Al Golden is available. Maybe even a better option is grabbing a local head coaching legend like Gabe Infante, who has been proven to be a great gameday coach.

So far, the prior two methods have been problematic. If Temple goes back to the old way, do you trust Fran Dunphy to identify the next Matt Rhule?

I don’t. Fran is more likely to bring a guy like Bob Diaco than he is a Jeff Hadley.

One led to a revolving door that ended finally after an 18-day turnaround. Another brought in a guy who wanted to do it his way when he was delivered a blueprint for winning at Temple long before he got here.

He ignored it and now we’re stuck with him for three more years. Saturday was ugly, but it’s about to becoming uglier and, unless one of us hits the lottery and are willing to buy him out, we can’t do a damn thing about it.

Brace for impact. To paraphrase King Solomon (and Barry McGuire), we’re on the eve of destruction.

Monday: Fizzy