07.02.19
by

Best of TFF: The Rod Carey Hire

niu

Rod Carey celebrates the 2018 MAC title win over Buffalo one month ago.

Editor’s Note: Bill Maher takes off the entire month of July. We’re only taking off the first week. In this space, we are filling it with a “best of” TFF. (Not our picks, but readers choice by page views of from 2018 and 2019 posts capped with our most-viewed post of all time on Friday.) This appeared after Rod Carey was hired.

One of my tailgate friends, a former Temple lineman named Ray “Big Cat” Haynes, had this selfie reaction shaking his head after watching his beloved Owls lose to Villanova a few months ago:

“What did I just see?”

Followed quickly by another selfie with this remark:

“I’ve seen the sizzle. I want the steak.”

done

Sizzle was all the accompanying window dressing Haynes saw during the game–like Money Down signs–steak was a win over a crosstown foe Temple needed so desperately to have that afternoon. The Owls were embarrassingly outcoached by Villanova and not a single Temple fan was happy that night.

With Temple hiring Rod Carey, the Owls get steak after a couple years of sizzle. He wasn’t my first choice (Chris Creighton of Eastern Michigan) or my second (Lance Leipold of Buffalo) but he definitely is a less-risky pick than any Power 5 coordinator out there. Even the guy who might have finished second, former Maryland head coach Matt Canada, got killed by Geoff Collins and Temple and that would have been a harder sell than Leipold, who actually did beat Collins and Temple.

happily

There were a lot of balls in the air that made this a difficult hire for Dr. Pat Kraft, the Temple AD. The disastrous hire of Manny Diaz left Kraft with three contracts to honor, then interim head coach Ed Foley, current interim HC Fran Brown and one of LB coach Gabe Infante. It might have been he could only get his fellow Indiana alumnus, Carey, to bail him out and agree to take those three onto the staff. We may never know but we do know those spots are guaranteed.

niuchamp

Hmm. Carey does something the great Geoff Collins was unable to, beat Buffalo

What we do know is the Owls are getting a ready-made FBS winning head coach for the first time since hiring Wayne Hardin in 1970 and that worked out pretty well (80-50-2). We also know that Temple is now Indiana East with 2000 grad Kraft and HC Carey (Class of 2003). Temple Chief Financial Officer Kevin Clark also served at Indiana in the same office of former Temple President Neal Theobald, who was CFO in Bloomington before taking the job as President of Temple University.

Carey is the most successful, in terms of winning percentage, head coach to be hired by Temple since the legendary Pop Warner in 1933. Temple followed the same formula by hiring Wayne Hardin in 1970 but abandoned it until now.

College football is a little different now than it was then, and Hardin’s Navy record (38-22-2) was more impressive than Rod Carey’s 52-30 mark because it came against a higher level of competition. Hardin won a major bowl game and had Navy ranked as high as No. 2 once. That’s like present-day Temple hiring a current Power 5 coach who had his team ranked No. 2. Even though the Owls got a $6.5 million buyout windfall recently, the landscape of college football is not going to allow for a school like Temple to hire a Nick Saban or a Dabo Sweeney.

Temple now has the money to do what Power 5 schools almost exclusively do, though, hire successful FBS head coaches.

It says a lot about how far the Owls have come in that they are able to get an accomplished head coach rather than roll the dice on another unproven assistant. Mostly, they’ve been lucky enough to keep their heads above water since following the Al Golden model in 2005.

 

redacted

Golden did a superb job reviving the patient with CPR and left after nine- and eight-win seasons. The university then handed over the reins to Florida OC Steve Addazio, who used the Golden talent to go 9-4 with a bowl win. Temple dodged a bullet, though, when Boston College took Daz off Temple’s hands after a 4-7 season.

Then came Matt Rhule and a two-win learning curve season (with arguably six-win talent) and sizzle-more-than-steak Geoff Collins (15-10 a lot of learning curve losses and a subpar mostly FCS-level staff).

Now comes the steak of Carey and a more FBS-level staff. Only time will tell if it’s well-done but at least the chef has cooked something that tasted pretty good before.

Wednesday: Sockless Geoff Collins

 

07.01.19
by

Best of TFF: Comical, if not so sad

Editor’s Note: Bill Maher takes off the entire month of July. We’re only taking off the first week. In this space, we are filling it with a “best of” TFF. (Not our picks, but readers choice by page views of from 2018 and 2019 posts capped with our most-viewed post of all time on Friday.) This appeared the day after Manny Diaz quit.

leipold

Lance Leipold is probably the best available head coach out there, but does Kraft know that?

Mulligans are usually associated with the game of golf, but Temple athletic director  Pat Kraft now has a chance to have that kind of do-over in football coaching searches.

He missed this most recent two-foot putt by a mile but this is a chance to correct his mistake.

worstthing

This is what we wrote 20 days ago and Kraft did exactly the worst thing–bring in another team’s coordinator.

The $6.5 million question now is whether he admits his hiring model was a flawed one or does he take this as an opportunity to create a new model?

Manny Diaz lasted all of 17 days as Temple football’s head coach and, frankly, I’m glad he’s gone. He was never a fit for Temple. The guy never coached North of Jacksonville, had no recruiting ties to the area and probably doesn’t even own an overcoat. Temple was going to train him to be Mark Richt’s successor for one year and he would move on to his “dream” job, Miami. He would make all the mistakes first-year head coaches make–all the ones that Matt Rhule made in a 2-10 season and Collins did in a 7-6 one–and the Temple fans and players would be the ones paying for it.

interstate

A busy day ahead for the Interstate sign company

Now Kraft will have to juggle several balls in the air with the $6.5 million buyout money ($2.5 million for Geoff Collins and $4 million for Diaz) and hope he can catch them all:

    • No more carpetbaggers. Kraft, in his message to the players last night, finally used the word “stability.”  That word has never appeared in his vocabulary before and it is a concession to the fact that this revolving door is getting comical if it wasn’t so sad. Is there someone out there who has not lost to Duke and Wake Forest by a combined score of 101-53 who feels that TEMPLE is his dream job? Surely that man exists.
    • Keep contractual obligations. Another ball that is difficult to catch. Temple has the names of Fran Brown and Gabe Infante (and probably Ed Foley) signed on the dotted line and the university has a moral duty to keep them onboard and find a next guy who can work with both. Moral duty may mean nothing to Diaz, but it should mean something to Temple.
    • Forget coordinators.  Both Foley, who lost to Wake and Duke by the above-mentioned 101-53, and Fran Brown are good men who may consider Temple their “dream job” but neither has won a single game as an FBS head coach and probably are not ready for prime time. Nonetheless, we don’t want to learn the hard way.

It is time for Temple to finally bring in an established head coach and not another coordinator to have to learn on the job, someone who will bring some stability to the program and has loyalty to Temple.

stability

Al Golden said on national TV Temple TUFF is spelled T-U-F-F (and it is)

That would probably rule out a terrific head coach like FIU’s Butch Davis, who will probably spend his entire year here looking out the window. Buffalo’s Lance Leipold parlayed a 108-6 record at Wisconsin-Whitewater and six national championships (real ones, not fake ones like they have in FBS) into a 10-4 record with the Bulls and is ridiculously underpaid at $325K. Can he be talked into keeping Foley, Brown and Infante, guys who he never met? Waving a couple of million at a guy like that can be convincing. Nothing would scare the shit out of Geoff Collins more than facing the guy who kicked his ass last September at Lincoln Financial Field this September at LFF. He’s a perfect geographical fit for Temple in that Buffalo is a major Northeastern city like Philadelphia. He probably owns several overcoats.

disclosure

… and this is what we wrote 18 days ago

Al Golden is a guy who knows Temple and loves Temple and HAS PROVEN HE CAN WIN AS A HEAD COACH AT TEMPLE and would get along with Foley, Brown, and Infante and deserves a hard pursuit by Kraft. He gave Temple five terrific years, is still young and probably knows more than anyone else that the grass is not greener on the other side of the 10th and Diamond fence.

Todd Bowles would be a good co-defensive coordinator for Fran Brown to learn from but I’m told his lack of a Temple (or any other) college degree ruled him out of the coaching search in 2010.

The worst thing, though, would be for Kraft to go back and churn the coordinator pile of guys like Mike Elko and Don Brown and come up with a guy whose dream job is elsewhere.

Other people’s dreams are Temple’s nightmares.

Tuesday: Rod Carey Hire: More Steak Than Sizzle

06.29.19
by

Latest hit piece: Keep Temple’s name out of your mouth

Screenshot 2019-06-28 at 4.14.41 PM

No big fan of Donovan McNabb here, but his take on a controversy with Terrell Owens in 2005 applies to David Jones’ latest hit piece on Temple football almost 15 years later.

“Keep my name out of your mouth.”

Instead of “my” substitute “Temple’s” and it becomes a perfect retort.

Screenshot 2019-06-28 at 4.25.27 PM

Jones, who writes for Penn Live, had a strange take on UConn’s exit to the Big East (and apparent de-emphasis of football). He lumped UConn and Temple together, saying Temple should also de-emphasize football and insinuated that it should rejoin the A-10 at the expense of a football affiliation with the AAC.

That is a weak take on so many levels we’ll just concentrate on some here:

  • One, UConn is coming off a decade of failure in football while Temple has enjoyed a decade of sustained success.
  • Two, Temple is not trying to get into the P5. Sure, it would love a P5 invite but I think even the most optimistic Temple fans are not expecting one in the next decade. G5 football is a significant upgrade over FCS, though, and a proven spot where Temple can thrive. If Dave is saying the entire G5 should give up and drop to FCS, that’s one thing but I don’t think he’s saying that.
  • Three, Temple earned in addition to the millions off its AAC football contract, $6 million with the Manny Diaz buyout and $2.6 million with the Geoff Collins’ buyout. Rod Carey’s buyout is $10 million. Owls are not going to leave that money on the table by dropping to FCS.
  • Four, the AAC as currently constituted, is a better basketball conference than the A10 as currently constituted.

Why would Temple, which enjoys terrific football TV ratings and a steady uptick in football attendance, jeopardize any part of its football franchise to ostensibly prop up its basketball one?

I don’t know what his point was. Should Temple drop out of the G5 and the AAC even though it has the most regular-season league football wins since 2015? (More than UCF, Houston, Memphis and USF). That’s a little like the Dems asking Joe Biden to drop out before the first debate (although maybe he should drop out now after it). G5 is not big-time football but it’s certainly better for Temple than an A10 basketball/FCS football combo. (Good luck drawing flies in FCS football to the Linc.)

Plus, there is absolutely no assurance that investing in basketball at the expense of football would improve that product. Why not pursue excellence in the two marquee sports?

In college athletics, you can both walk and chew gum at the same time.

Temple can and should do both and ignore the haters who keep putting the Owls’ name in their mouths.

Monday: Our one week of vacation a year (and five best-of-TFF columns M-F)

July 8: A partnership that works

July 11: Roll call

 

 

06.25.19
by

UConn: Bye, Felicia!

bye

My reaction over the weekend when it was leaked that the University of Connecticut would be leaving the AAC for the Big East was not unlike that Ice Cube gif (left).

Bye, Felicia!

Because no matter how much UConn huffed and puffed and tried to resuscitate its failing football program, the patient died as a result of some pretty bad administrative decisions. (Hiring a hot assistant doesn’t always work as Bob Diaco the assistant coach of the year for Notre Dame turned into a nightmare as a head coach for UConn.)

Really, what was the difference between what happened to Temple in 2003 and UConn now? The Big East then kicked Temple out for what it perceived to be (their words) “non-competitiveness” when, in reality, Temple was regularly beating some teams that the Big East decided to keep.

UConn was beating really nobody last year in football and its once dynamite men’s basketball program was in the middle of the league’s pack. (Hell, it’s now hard to pick out Geoff Collins’ worst loss: 2018 Villanova or 2017 UConn. Both times he played arguably the second-best quarterback on the team so it might be a toss-up.)

The AAC probably didn’t have the stones to kick out UConn like the Big East did to Temple back then so, in effect, what the UConn leaders did this week a favor to the AAC. There is no chance the league allows UConn to take out both of its good programs (men’s and women’s basketball) and leave its one crappy program (football).

Good riddance.

Temple, in my mind, belongs in the Power 5 but that doesn’t appear on the horizon soon and, failing that, we have to accept where we are now and UConn leaving the league improves our lot at least a little bit.

Now the American can add a team like BYU (not likely) or Buffalo/Army (more likely). They would have to figure out a way to flip the Army/Navy week and the league championship weeks and that might be an insurmountable hurdle. If so, then the league turns to Buffalo, which more fits the AAC profile of larger TV markets and has a program that is immediately ready to compete in the two highest-profile sports. AAC would have the top G5 market (Philadelphia, 4) plus Dallas-Ft. Worth (5), Washington D.C. (Navy, 9th), Tampa-St. Pete (USF, 13th), Orlando (UCF, 19th), Cincinnati (34th), Memphis (48th) and Buffalo (51) and New Orleans (Tulane, 53). That’s a lot of eyeballs.

Buffalo would be the logical choice, about the same distance away as UConn for Temple fans, and a current upgrade in both sports.

That should and will probably be the successful Northeast school that replaces the unsuccessful departed one.

Saturday: The Latest Hit Piece on Temple football

Monday: A Week of Best of TFFs

 

 

06.22.19
by

Magazine Season: Follow The Money

athlon

Sadly, not a single Owl in sight

About this time every year (maybe for the last 40 or so), the routine is simple.

Go shopping, pick up milk, bread, some cheap suburban soda and check out the magazine aisle before leaving.

This is the time of year where the college football magazines come out and the sports fantasy has always been to see the Temple Owls if not prominently featured on the cover at least in one of those flaps in the corner.

Maybe one day, but that day wasn’t last week.

It never happens because money talks loudly in cases like this.

Penn State could have the worst team in history coming back and Temple could be favored to win the AAC and it will be PSU on the cover and not our beloved TU. That’s because the magazine editors see the 100,000 average fans the Nittany Lions pull in and contrast that with last season’s 28,167 Temple average and figure out who gets the press.

Journalistic integrity?

Preseason magazines clueless about Owls

That went out the window a long time ago.

Still, it’s worth mentioning here how Athlon–considered by some the leader in college sports magazines–rates the Owls. Temple is ranked as No. 78 overall and, in a landscape that has the top 80 teams going bowling, that translates to a 6-6 record.

If so, I’m headed out to Parx Casino to put money on the over.

Interestingly enough, UCF is No. 22 nationally, Cincinnati No. 39 and Memphis No. 49.  Houston comes in at No. 53 but at least the Owls have ranked ahead of No. 80 Tulane and No. 102 Navy. (Houston is a team the Owls scored 59 points on in a road game last year.)

Both P5 Temple opponents have ranked ahead of the Owls as Maryland comes in at 65 and Georgia Tech at 75.

Other than the financial incentive of ranking these teams, the other factor is research. There’s so little interest in Temple from the editorial standpoint of these publications that they don’t put enough weight on factors that include Temple hiring a complete FBS professional staff, while Georgia Tech and Maryland enter the season with staffs that have largely underachieved elsewhere. Mix in both of them are home games for Temple and it is more than reasonable to assume the Owls will be able to duplicate their win over Maryland and beat an “easier” foe in Georgia Tech.

We might know that but they certainly don’t or don’t even care. Gotta think that they have those down as two losses for the Owls and why Temple is a 6-6 team from their perspective.

If Vegas agrees, then a trip to the local gambling establishment would be following the money from another angle.

There is nothing more satisfying than proving these magazines wrong and I that’s just what this Owls’ team is primed to do.

Tuesday: Bye, Felicia (UConn)

Saturday: A Stadium Partnership That Worked

Sunday (June 30): Our One-Week Annual Vacation=5 Straight Days of Best of TFF

 

06.19.19
by

Help is on the way

Screenshot 2019-06-16 at 8.29.39 PM

Back in a 2004 Presidential campaign one of the candidates had a signature line in his convention acceptance speech:

“Help is on the way.”

That turned out to be an unfulfilled promise because the guy lost.

First-year Temple head coach Rod Carey never uttered the phrase, but he’s delivering on some immediate help along the defensive line.

Kevin Robertson, a 6-2, 240-pound defensive end, committed to the Owls on June 7. That’s important because Robertson will arrive later this summer and be available to play immediately since he is a JUCO transfer from Fullerton (Calif.) College. It’s going to be hard for him to break a defensive end rotation that includes Dana Levine, Zack Mesday, Quincy Roche and Nikolaus Madurie, but he seems to provide depth there and an extra year of eligibility will give him a more prominent role in the 2020 season. He turned down an offer from Buffalo to come to Temple.

Fullerton is about as high-level a JUCO team as there is, winning the national title in 2017 and taking a 26-game winning streak into the 2018 season.

In the “helping hand” department, Baylor transfer Harrison Hand revealed on his Twitter account that he was all cleared to play this season. That’s huge because that gives the Owls two defensive backs with significant Power 5 experience as recently as last year when you add Penn State’s Ayron Monroe. Harrison was originally a Temple recruit who Matt Rhule poached when he left for Waco. DB was already an area of strength as Temple is the only FBS school in the nation to have two cornerbacks who returned interceptions for touchdowns (Christian Braswell and Ty Mason in the UConn and Tulsa games, respectively). Safeties Benny Walls and Keyvone Burton also have plenty of experience under their belts.

Carey and his staff seem focused on building some line depth for the future as this month they seem to be very excited about the addition of Chicago high school defensive lineman Demerick Morris (6-3, 284) who turned down Air Force and Toledo, among others, to make an early commitment to Temple. He had 15 sacks as a junior a year ago. The Owls will have to wait until 2020 for Morris to arrive, though.

The Owls also dipped into Europe to get an offensive lineman Liridon Mujezinovic (6-8, 290) from Holland. They already have one starting offensive lineman from Europe, Isaac Moore, and this is their third recruit from that continent in as many years.

If there’s one area of the Owls that seems to be a concern, it’s the current depth on both lines and the recruiting focus is just another sign that this staff gets it.

Saturday: Magazine Season

06.15.19
by

A Place for Owl fans to reminisce

A complete Al Golden Show is one of the things you can find on Zamani’s site.

So you are a fan of, say, Alabama and Penn State looking for some footage of Joe Namath throwing a touchdown pass or Al Golden catching one.

No problem.

Screenshot 2019-06-14 at 2.44.24 PM

All you have to do is go to YouTube, type in a couple of search words, and up pops the video.

Not so much for Temple Owl football fans who have a hard time finding any great historical footage before this current century.

Thanks to Zamani Feelings, that’s all about to change. Zamani and I have been instant messaging lamenting the lack of past films and he’s done something about it.

He is in the process of creating a YouTube site just for the purpose of archiving some past Temple football film and adding to it. For now, though, you can navigate to this new YouTube site in the link inside this paragraph to see what he’s putting together.

Now, Feelings–who does an outstanding job shooting still photos for the current football team–cannot create videos that do not exist but he sure can accept any and all that are out there and put them in one spot for all Temple fans to access any time they want. I’ve contacted current Father Judge head coach Frank McArdle and he has a treasure trove of game film from the Bruce Arians’ Era that will be forwarded to Zamani sometime later this summer.

The hope is that any Temple fan who has something (a DVD, a VHS tape or even a BETA one) can get that off to him or contact him via the YouTube site so that there is a one-stop spot to see all available past Temple film.

It’s a terrific project and deserves all of the support he can get.

We may not be able to see Joe Namath, but Joe Klecko hunting down quarterbacks in Cherry and White would be even nicer.

Wednesday: Help Is On The Way

06.12.19
by

Anthony Russo: Let’s Go to the tape

Covering high school football for two Philadelphia newspapers for nearly 39 years, I got to see a lot of good quarterbacks.

Rich Gannon (St. Joseph’s Prep) and Matt Ryan (Penn Charter) later became NFL MVPs.

Yet, the night Anthony Russo won a state championship with Archbishop Wood, I made this bold statement to a group of writers I was with at HersheyPark Stadium: “He’s the best Philadelphia high school league quarterback I’ve ever seen and that includes Rich Gannon and Matt Ryan.”

beatty

Temple is set at QB with these 3

Not surprisingly, two or three nodded their heads in agreement.

That’s not to say that Russo will be an NFL MVP like those two were–geez, I hope, so, though–but his high school career in terms of stats and wins and sheer ability to throw the football surpassed those two.

At the time, Russo was a Rutgers’ commit and, as a Temple fan, he fit the profile of the one guy I wanted to have as my quarterback: A Philadelphia star who would be the Pied Piper of Philadelphia stars and make Temple a destination school. That came about when Matt Rhule pursued him and he de-committed from Rutgers and, after a brief one-afternoon flirtation with LSU and Les Miles, reaffirmed his commitment to Temple.

This is what I wrote on Twitter back in October of 2017:

Screenshot 2019-06-10 at 10.00.53 PM

Fortunately, the Steinmetzes agreed with me way back then.

He has gotten onto the field and he has not lost the job and I don’t think he will. That’s not to say Toddy “Touchdown” Centeio will not be nipping at his heels because he will and that’s good for Temple. Trad Beatty is also in line and I don’t think the Owls have had this much depth at the quarterback position since Maxwell Award winner Steve Joachim was backed up by future CFL star Marty Ginestra.

That’s a good thing, not a bad one.

For his first year after shaking off two years of rust, Russo had a terrific season. That’s not to say he was perfect. Fourteen touchdown passes and 14 interceptions is not a good ratio but, say, 25 touchdown passes and 11 interceptions is and that’s a pretty realistic goal to shoot for in terms of stats. Getting away from offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude is probably the best thing that ever happened to AR’s career.

To me, though, about a dozen wins would be even more impressive and, if that’s the end result of the 2019 season, I think Anthony Russo would take that and another 14/14 ratio again.

That’s what made him such a great quarterback in high school and it’s what makes him a great quarterback now.

Temple is lucky to have and, fortunately, it is only 80 or so days until we see him on the field again wearing Cherry and White.

Saturday: Archiving Temple’s Past

 

 

06.08.19
by

Measuring Up to Penn State by Remote

Matakevich_Tyler_20150905_JLabolito_43

Look at all the Cherry in the stands

Here’s one way to look at the 2019 season: It’s a chance for Temple football to measure up against Penn State. No, not on the field. At least not yet. That doesn’t come again until 2026 when, hopefully, Rod Carey has recruited enough talent to win his fifth game in seven tries against Big 10 teams (if the Owls don’t face one before that).

The measuring this year stick is in a very important area of TV ratings.

Very rarely has Temple gone up against Penn State at the same exact time on local TV, but that’s going to happen twice this season when it matters.

Screenshot 2019-06-08 at 12.15.29 AM

Forget about the Bucknell opener because the Owls’ starting time is 3 p.m. (and Penn State is 3:30) on August 31. That’s not a fair fight because the Owls are on ESPN+, which is just a step above the old MAC dial-up internet days and Penn State vs. Idaho is on the Big 10 network.

A fairer (but not “fairest”) comparison comes on Sept. 14 when the Owls host Maryland at noon on the CBS Sports Network while, at the same time, Penn State hosts Pitt on Philadelphia powerhouse No. 1 station 6abc.

Not all of the times have been announced, but there are other opportunities the two programs are on Philadelphia TV at the same time so we shall see. (Interestingly enough, the Owls and Nits have common opponents in Maryland and Buffalo this season.)

Temple has done very well against Penn State in the past, though, when the teams are on more equal footing. Temple’s 2015 home game against Notre Dame was an ABC national game and drew an 18.1 rating, which was the No. 1 rating in the history of a Philadelphia game on ABC. Temple was ranked No. 21 in the country at the time and ND ranked No. 9. By comparison, the 2007 ABC game between No. 5 PSU and No. 13 ND pulled in only an 11.5 in the Philadelphia market, also at the same 8 p.m. slot. One can only reach a conclusion that “Temple” was the X-factor in this equation on Philadelphia TV ratings since Notre Dame and Penn State have been on Philadelphia TV hundreds of times and not brought in those kinds of numbers.

In 1985, Temple played at Boston College on KYW-TV 3 at noon while Penn State traveled to Maryland on Sept. 7 on WPVI-TV 6. Despite 6’s status then, as now, as the No. 1 station in the market, the Temple-BC game (a 27-25 Owl loss) drew an 11.3 to PSU’s 20-18 win over Maryland (6.9).

There can be no question Temple is the No. 1 TV school in the Philadelphia market, pretty much by a longshot, but if the Owls can beat the Nittany Lions on an obscure channel like CBS Sports, that would open a lot of Power 5 conference eyes.

Wednesday: Let’s Go to the Tape

Saturday: Archiving Temple’s Past

Wednesday (6/19): Bulking Up The Lines

Saturday: (6/22): Magazine Season

Wednesday (6/29): A partnership that worked

 

06.05.19
by

The case for the defense

Almost a year ago, Geoff Collins got up at the season ticket holder’s party and praised his “dark side” defense, saying that it would be one of the best defensive units in the country.

Like a lot of things that came out of Collins’ mouth, it was promised hype that never materialized.

Not because of talent, because the talent was there but because the talent was often lined up out of position in the hopes of creating pressures that would cause fumbles and interceptions. What it did cause more often than not were gashes in the defense that allowed runners huge chunks of yardage and points on the scoreboard. The pass defense was OK, but the run defense was not.

Temple was rated 47th in total defense, one behind Georgia Tech and one ahead of North Texas. That’s the definition of mediocre. Worse, it gave up 45 points to Boston College, 52 to UCF and 57 to Duke.

 

Screenshot 2019-06-04 at 11.59.15 PM

About 20 former Temple players of Bruce Arians traveled to Tampa to renew a 30-plus year friendship with their former coach earlier this week. That’s GOAT Paul Palmer (bottom left) with Keith Jones and Mike Hinnant behind him with Bruce.

That’s not the kind of gang-tackling defense Temple fans got used to seeing under Matt Rhule and Al Golden and it probably won’t be the kind of defense they will be seeing going forward.

For the Owls to have a championship season in 2019, they must do better and there is every indication they will.

It all starts up front as defensive end starters Dana Levine, Quincy Roche, and Zack Mesday return and Karamo Dioubate and Dan Archibong provide a solid duo in the middle. The linebackers are both good and deep with Shaun Bradley and Chapelle Russell joined by William Kwenkew, Sam Franklin and Isaiah Graham-Mobley. In fact, the linebacker room is so crowded that Franklin–who has experience both at DE and safety–might have to be moved to strong safety to better utilize his exceptional talent.

Corners are solid with Linwood Crump Sr., Christian Braswell, and Ty Mason and the safety core that already included Benny Walls and Keyvone Bruton was bolstered by the addition of Penn State portal transfer Ayron Monroe, who played in all 12 regular-season games for the Nittany Lions last year.

This is a lock-down group coached by a staff that believes in lock-down defensive principles. NIU traveled to BYU and won, 7-6, last season (see video at the top of this post). That was the same BYU team that won at Wisconsin.  While the Huskies had talent and finished seven spots ahead of Temple in overall defense, new coach Rod Carey and his defensive staff have a lot more talent to work with here than there.  Carey believes in sound base defense. It puts a premium on being in position over getting turnovers.

The days of those gouging runs against the Temple defense that we saw for the last two years may be over.

Instead, get ready for the gang-tackling Temple defense we all know and love.

Saturday: Measuring Up