Tag Archives: AAC football

06.29.20
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Running out of time to set a date for football

Mike Aresco, AAC commissioner,

Mike Aresco seems confident the AAC will be playing football.

It looks like there are at least three possible outcomes for the resumption of college football this season:

  • One, the powers-that-be will confirm all football will start on time.
  • Two, the powers-that-be will announce a postponement, cancellation, or shortened season maybe even without fans.
  • Three, no date will be set at all and the season will resume as scheduled.

Whatever happens, it appears to be that we are running out of time to set a date but AAC commissioner Mike Aresco doesn’t seem concerned.

aresco

That’s important because, if there are going to be fans, they have to know whether to renew season tickets or not. There’s too much uncertainty out there and fragile fan bases–like most of the ones currently in the G5–are not going to make plans to renew if there is no announcement made.

That said, my money is now on No. 3.

First, Temple is already having voluntary workouts and most of the team will join for full workouts starting July 13. Second, the school already announced that it will have a combination of in-person and online classes this fall. The in-person element means that football can be played. It’s hard to justify college football if there are no students on campus.

Now onto the “powers-that-be.” In college football, that certainly is not the NCAA. Football is controlled by the Power 5 conferences who basically tell the NCAA what to do.

If the Power 5 decides to play, and all indications are that it will, the G5 will fall in line.

So while it would be nice to know a summertime date where something is written that all systems are go, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the season will happen as scheduled and without significant comment.

Right now, those “powers” are hoping that the virus doesn’t spiral out of control between now and September so making a formal announcement now probably won’t happen. Plan to attend the games, but don’t be surprised if they aren’t there.

Saturday: Is Temple really No. 6?

Monday: That’s what I’m talking about

Saturday (7/11): You can’t really go home again

06.26.20
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Tulane has the right approach

Tulane v Temple

Temple goes on the road to play Tulane, which has two road P5 games.

Even though Temple beat a very good Tulane team last year, there is no denying the Green Wave is on the rise.

This year, if there is this year, they are poised to take advantage.

Tulane’s non-conference schedule has been ranked No. 1 by college football expert Tom Fornelli in the AAC and that’s probably the model Temple should pursue in the not-too-distant future.

Cincinnati v Tulane

Consider this: Tulane returns 14 of 22 starters from a bowl team and runs a unique zone bluff option type offense that is easier to pass off than, say, Army and Navy. It’s an offense few teams run and makes Tulane a tough team to prepare for in a one-week situation. Most P5 teams go up against a read-option and facing a different style makes it a tough team to prepare against.

Temple used to be that way as the Owls ran power football with a fullback for most of the Matt Rhule and Al Golden years. Since P5 teams didn’t see that style, the Owls had a fair share of success against more talented foes.

This is my favorite Rhule quote about Temple football from a Paul Myerberg piece in USA Today:

“”HOW DO WE DIFFERENTIATE OURSELVES? HOW DO WE MAKE OURSELVES HARD TO PREPARE FOR? PUT TWO BACKS ON THE FIELD. PUT TWO TIGHT ENDS ON THE FIELD. THIS IS WHAT YOUR ROOTS ARE. THESE KIDS HAVE MADE THEMSELVES REALLY TOUGH. AND THAT’S THE ONLY WAY WE’LL EVER WIN. BY BEING A REALLY, REALLY TOUGH FOOTBALL TEAM.”” _ MATT RHULE

Now it appears Tulane has adopted its own way to make it a difficult-to-prepare-for opponent.

Tulane goes on the road against Northwestern and Mississippi State and I like that scheduling. Both are P5 teams but both are beatable and winning those games would be a boost to the entire conference and not just Tulane.

Temple plays a home game against P5 bottom-feeder Rutgers and a road game against much-improved (at least from a personnel standpoint) Miami. However, if the Owls bring that read-option style to Miami with a classic pocket passer in Anthony Russo, they are going to get hammered by outside pass rushers Quincy Roche and Gregory Rousseau, who could both go in the first round of the NFL draft. Establish an inside running game to avoid those two ends and then throwing off play-fakes would probably mitigate the rush. Does Rod Carey go outside of his comfort zone to attack the weakness of his opponent?

We didn’t see much evidence of last in his last game.

Hopefully, his next game plan is the polar opposite of that one.

Monday: Drop dead date

 

05.08.20
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Smoking Out the AAC winner: Cincy

Cincinnati v Tulane

In the run-up to the college football season, we’ve seen some hope among the generally accepted gloom and doom.

South Korea’s baseball season already has resumed with games on ESPN, albeit in empty stadiums. South Korea’s first case of the virus came on the same day as the United States’ first case.

So, yes, they are doing better than us but that doesn’t mean we won’t get to where they are. Also, New Zealand has declared it has had no new cases for the past two weeks. If college football can play its entire season in New Zealand, no problem.

That won’t happen.

The larger point is that there is hope for a college football season in the United States, even this year.

For the purposes of this post, though, we’ll assume there will be a season either this fall or next spring and it doesn’t look good from a Temple football perspective.

The Vegas Over/Under for the Owls is 5.5 wins.

be272-aac

Five. Point. Five.

I’ll take the over only when I’m sure there will be a season, but the line is telling me something.

Vegas was spooked by the Owls’ bowl result and the losing way they ended the season and is putting their money where their heads are.

So who is going to win the AAC?

Memphis won last year, but lost its head coach and that always has a negative impact on the next season.

UCF looks strong again but my money is on Cincinnati finally taking home the crown. Luke Fickell turned down the West Virginia job to remain at Cincinnati two years ago and it almost paid off but the Bearcats lost their final two league games to Memphis (regular season and championship). He turned down Michigan State in February to remain at Cincinnati.

I just wish one Temple coach would turn down one Power 5 job let alone two.

Two years ago, Cincy came to Philadelphia with 35 freshmen (including red shirts and true) on the traveling squad and those youngsters extended Temple into overtime before losing.

This year, based on coaching, experience and four-straight years of having the No. 1 recruiting class in the conference (either Scout.com or Rivals.com ratings.), the Bearcats should take home the league crown.

At least that’s my pick here on May 8. Next season should be over by May 8 and we will find out for sure by then.

We’ll go with an AAC East finish of Cincy, UCF, Temple in that order and fervently hope it’s flipped the other way.

Friday (5/15): Advantages of a shortened season

Monday (5/18): Recruiting Patterns

Friday (5/22): Suspending Campaigns

01.06.20
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Turning it Around: Reseeding AAC bowls

Mike Aresco, AAC commissioner,

Mike Aresco, AAC commissioner, probably is going to seed the bowls differently next year.

Somewhere in the Rhode Island office of the league this morning after a long vacation,  AAC commissioner Mike Aresco is kicking himself.

The AAC started out 1-3 in the bowls but finished 4-3. That’s better than two Power 5 conferences but could have been even more impressive. UCF fans were salty that Temple and not it was playing a Power 5 team in a bowl game and, in retrospect, it looked like those fans were right. The thought process probably was then that Temple would draw better to the Military, but the thought process was skewed because, to this league, prestige means more than money at this point.

If Aresco had to reseed the bowls, we’re going to guess he might have gone with these matchups instead:

Military Bowl _ UCF vs. North Carolina. The speed of the Knights would have been a much better matchup against the Tar Heels than Temple would have been. While UNC put up 55 on the Owls, UCF put up 62 and, if it traveled pretty well to Philadelphia (it did), it would have done the same to Annapolis. UCF, 39-35.

Gasparilla Bowl _ Temple vs. Marshall. Cincinnati went to Marshall and beat the Thundering Herd, 45-13. Temple traveled to Cincy and would lose a 15-13 game it would have won if it had an even marginally passable special teams. Temple, 35-14.

Birmingham Bowl _ SMU vs. Boston College. SMU finished 10-2 in the regular season and was “awarded” with that trip with a game against FAU in the Boca Raton Bowl. That game was played on FAU’s home field and an unmotivated SMU team lost big-time. Had SMU played a BC team that Cincy beat, 38-6, got to think that the result would have been similar. SMU, 28-7.

Aresco could have done nothing about the Cotton Bowl because Memphis earned its spot and Navy’s beating of Kansas State in the Liberty Bowl was definitely a feather in the league’s cap.

Also, the Armed Forces Bowl that saw Tulane beat former rival Southern Mississippi was a good matchup. That said, the best the AAC could have done was gone 6-1 and we’ve got to think that’s probably why Aresco is kicking himself now because, with a little better forethought, that’s exactly what would have happened.

Thanks to a 55-13 loss, Temple will probably be sent to bowl hell next year if the Owls even make a bowl and it will be a well-earned sentence.

Friday: The Other Side of The Portal

 

11.17.19
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Temple-Tulane: Stayin’ Alive

The classic 70s music booming from the boombox of one the best post-game tailgates (of many good ones) was from the Bee Gees yesterday.

“Stayin’ Alive.”

Not “staying” alive. Stayin’ alive.


“You know what?
I’ve never lost
to Cincinnati.”
_ James McHale,
a starting tackle
with the Owls the
past four seasons

Can’t go wrong with 1970s or 1980s music at any tailgate, pre- or post-game.

Kudos to that boomer for his boombox because no song was more appropriate for the set of circumstances facing the Temple football Owls now.

The situation has narrowed down to this: Temple stayed alive for what would probably be the most improbable conference title ever with a 29-21 win over a very good Tulane team.

Screenshot 2019-08-02 at 11.21.00 PM

A win over Cincy on Saturday night makes this beautiful moment a realistic possibility once again.

 

Improbable because has a conference champion ever lost 63-21 to another team from the same conference in the regular season? As Donovan McNabb might utter: “I would say no.”

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. The point is it’s not THAT far ahead of ourselves. Just less than a week now.

Goodbye to the few Tulane fans who made a lot of noise from their super box. They weren’t very original as “Get that ball back” seemed to be the only rhythmic cheer they could muster.

The Temple fans in the cheap seats below turned around and waved goodbye (Shaun Bradley style, Cincy, 2018) to them a few times and, to their credit, the Tulane fans in the not-so-cheap seats goodnaturedly waved back when it was apparent they lost.

Goodbye, and good luck.

Really, because if those fans make enough noise and come up with more original cheers in New Orleans next week, the Green Wave can do Temple a huge favor by knocking off UCF. (We suggest DEE-FENSE, DEE-FENSE and Let’s GO TU-LANE for starters.)

Tulane is a very good team so that’s not impossible.

Maybe not even improbable.

Screenshot 2019-11-16 at 9.10.20 PM

In order to beat Cincy, got to bring those rushing attempts and rushing yards up to 54 or so and 200 yards. Temple isn’t even trying to run the ball this year and it’s puzziling.

Should Temple travel to Cincy on that same day and beat the Bearcats for the fifth-straight season, all the Owls would have to do is hold serve against UConn to earn a trip to Memphis for the whole ball of wax. “You know what?” former Temple offensive tackle James McHale told me on the subway on the way home. “I’ve never lost to Cincinnati.”

McHale made a very good point about pride and tradition. Current Temple players: Do not let yourselves be the first class in five years who do because winning is imperative if the Owls are to have a chance at grabbing their second chip in four years. They are standing in the way and you are the way. Does anyone believe the Owls DON’T have a chance to win in Cincy? No. Does anyone believe Cincy is going to win in Memphis? I guess Cincy fans do, but I don’t. Temple must take care of its business first and the reward could be substantial.

After losing by consecutive blowouts in the middle of the season, that would be something.

Cue the Patsy Cline song “Crazy” for the post-game UConn tailgate should that happen but that’s from way back in 1961 so we might need another boomer box. A little Electric Slide action (Marcia Griffith, 1990) would also be nice for the playlist.

It’s up to the Owls getting by with only a little help from their friends (1968, Joe Cocker) to make it happen.

Tuesday: Fizzy’s Corner

11.12.19
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Championship Not A Crazy Thought Now

One of the reasons I declined initial overtures to be invited back at the beginning of the season into the most popular Temple football facebook group after a hiatus was some of the attitudes of the posters.


It’s not like Temple
is asking UConn or
ECU to win a game.
It’s asking good teams
to beat other good teams

For just one example (of many), the way any discussion of a game past the next one was rebuffed by some (err, most) with this inane response: “Let’s beat (XXXXX) first before we can discuss (YYYYY).”

Like a group of fans on a facebook page talking about future games had any impact on what happened on the field in the next one. Now that’s a crazy thought, even crazier than what we’re about to discuss in this post. You can only beat your head against a wall so much before walking away from the wall.

That is there. This is here.

Screenshot 2019-11-10 at 9.06.45 PM

Hell, beating Tulane is the most important thing but we can dream about sitting next to the trophy again on the team bus in December and let the players chew Green Wave gum for a game scheduled on 11/16 at the same time.

Taking one game at a time is the job of the kids and the coaches.

Fans? Not so much.

Thanks in part to a miracle provided by a winless (in the league) Tulsa team over a team that scored 63 points on the Owls (UCF), an American Athletic Conference championship isn’t all that crazy to think about anymore.

At least for Temple. For purposes of this post, we won’t talk about the injuries or any problems the team has on offense or defense but just about beating the three teams left on the schedule.

Cincinnati–a team Temple has beaten four-straight times–still holds all the cards but that doesn’t mean it is going to collect the chips.

Or, as the kids say, the chip.

It basically comes down to this:

  • Temple wins out;
  • UCF loses at Tulane;
  • Cincinnati loses to Memphis

Then, the Owls could play a title game in Memphis. Tough, yes. Crazy? No. It’s not like Temple is asking UConn or ECU to win a game. It’s asking good teams to beat other good teams and, if it is a good team, it can win three-straight games, two at home.

Based on the above-bulleted scenario, Temple would hold the tie-breaker against Cincy based on head-to-head competition. UCF would drop out with its third league loss.

americansked

Tulane has an offense similar to the one UCF brought to Philadelphia so that must’ve factored into the Green Wave entering the week as a four-point favorite and quickly dropped to 3.5 and now 3 at the time of this post. Still, with the brutal weather forecast, that might be a mitigating factor in the Owls’ favor. Temple went down to ECU and beat the Pirates more comfortably than Cincinnati did and the Cincy offense isn’t that crazy wide-open type that seemingly gives the Owls fits and Temple seems to match up favorably with the Bearcats.

Screenshot 2019-11-11 at 10.05.48 PM

Tulane is a far better team than Tulsa and, without a championship on the line, UCF could pack it in there. With SMU nipping at Memphis’ heels, the Tigers know they have to beat Cincinnati at home to host an AAC title game and would be extremely motivated to do so. Memphis holds first tie-breakers over SMU and Navy.

The beneficiary in all of this could be Temple if the Owls can play the way they did against Memphis or even Georgia Tech.

Temple can only control what it can control and, if the Owls and their fans bring the noise on Saturday, they get one step closer to the most improbable championship ever.

Yeah, I know let’s worry about Tulane first. Me musing about a championship has no impact of what the kids do on the field this Saturday.

It’s called multitasking.

Thursday: Stopping The Spread Option

10.05.19
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Saturday Games: How will they affect TU?

monroe

Memphis plays in this stadium today before coming to LFF next Saturday as perhaps a Top 25 team.

Maybe getting an extra few days to prepare for Memphis is a good thing, particularly with the penalties and pass protection issues still plaguing the Owls.

There is no maybe involved, though, when it comes to the Tigers, who have to travel to the University of Louisiana-Monroe today at 3:45 p.m.

Screenshot 2019-10-04 at 3.34.34 PM

Early games today

Temple coaches have the added benefit of watching the game live on TV and then breaking down game film afterward.

Memphis should be able to cover the 15-point spread easily in this one but the travel to Louisiana and back to Memphis and then a trip to Philadelphia for Temple homecoming should benefit the Owls at least a little.

Other AAC games of interest today include USF at UConn (surprised that the Bulls are only 10.5-point favorites there) and SMU giving 13.5 points at Tulsa. SMU looks like the best team in the league so far and that includes UCF and Cincy. Beating a TCU team that beat Kansas, 51-17, is pretty impressive–especially after Kansas traveled to Boston to double-up Steve Addazio’s Eagles two weeks prior. I have to root for host Navy getting 3 points against Air Force and think the Middies should be able to pull the mild upset.

Screenshot 2019-10-04 at 3.36.07 PM

Later games today

Picks today: ARMY getting 3 against visiting Tulane. The Green Wave is pretty good this year but Army has won 15-straight home games and I think Army wins this game outright. Also like Rod Carey’s former team, Northern Illinois, covering the 4.5 against visiting Ball State, Maryland covering the 13.5 at Rutgers, Navy getting the 3 against Air Force and Western Kentucky covering the 3.5 at Old Dominion. With Cincy beating UCF last night, we are now 18-5 for the season and 14-9 against the spread.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

08.17.19
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Russo Picks Temple to Win AAC East

Screenshot 2019-07-20 at 10.43.33 AM

The biggest news coming out the last couple of days about Temple football was not on the practice field where the team is working hard for the season opener in less than two weeks but because a Russo picked Temple to win the AAC East.

And it wasn’t even Anthony Russo.

Ralph D. Russo (no relation), the Associated Press’ long-time college football beat writer, picked Temple to win the AAC East.

That’s good news.


The most long-awaited
depth chart in the history
of Temple football (there
hasn’t been one since the
2016 season finale) will
be released on Aug. 26

 

The bad news is that he also picked Memphis to win the overall title but, since we’re still five months away from that potential matchup, the Owls can have a lot to say about both getting to that game and winning it.

First things first.

Russo didn’t detail his reasoning but he probably thinks the Owls would beat Memphis (and UCF) at home, lose to Cincy on the road, but probably set themselves up for a home rematch against the revenge-minded Tigers and lose. History, though, proves that teams playing against revenge have won the title (UCF over Memphis last year, despite the Tigers losing the regular-season game, 31-30) so the Owls don’t have to follow that script.

fb_img_1536247677885

It won’t be long now

Meanwhile, the Owls are writing their own foreward (this one spelled with an ‘e’ in the middle) of what could be a remarkable 2019 story.

To me, all of these predictions could get blown up with a key injury here or there so the predictions are pretty much made with minimal injury impact in mind so building depth is an important ingredient and that’s just what the Owls are doing now.

The most long-awaited depth chart in the history of Temple football (there hasn’t been one since the 2016 season finale) will be released on Aug. 26, but while there is hitting at practices, there is no tackling so expect a lot of the proven tacklers last year on defense to rise to the top of the depth chart this season as well.

That means on defense expect last year’s starters at corner, Linwood Crump Jr., and Ty Mason to be trying to fight off Harrison Hand–who started four games for a Power 5 team (Baylor)–to keep their jobs.

At safety, reports from OwlsDaily.com that DaeSean Winston is lining up as starter is particularly impressive since he did not get as many reps as Benny Walls, the other safety starter. The fact that they are both holding off Penn State backup Ayron Monroe (who played in all 12 regular-season games for the Nittany Lions) probably is a good sign for the quality of the safety group.

The fact that the five current linebackers (Shaun Bradley, Chapelle Russell, Sam Franklin, William Kwenkeu and Isaiah Graham-Mobley) are the strength of the team has been pretty much common knowledge since the end of last season. Franklin’s value is that he can play any defensive position (end, LB and safety) and can be moved all over the field as needed. Owls will be hurt by graduation at that position in that only IGM is an underclassman.

Probably the two key ingredients to winning college football games are getting to the bad guys’ quarterback and keeping the bad guys off your quarterback and the Owls should have no problem doing that with a group that includes starting ends Quincy Roche and Zack Mesday and interior linemen Dan Archibong and Karamo Dioubate. Dana Levine, who started three games before getting injured, is also back at DE along with junior college transfer Nickolas Madourie–who had an eye-popping 17.5 sacks in one season as a JUCO.

This defense has the potential to shut a lot of people down and with the abandonment of Geoff Collins’ Mayhem scheme–which left gaping holes in an attempt to ramp up turnovers–should be more fundamentally sound.

Monday: Thoughts on The Offense

08.10.19
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Strange Offseason For AAC Gives Some Hints to Future

Screenshot 2019-07-20 at 10.33.54 AM

Very few teams in the American Conference, heck, college football, had a stranger postseason than Temple.

First, Geoff Collins announces how excited he was for his team to play Duke in the Independence Bowl then, the next day exits stage right for Atlanta and Georiga Tech.

Then, athletic director Pat Kraft announces a national search and settles on a guy whose dad was Mayor of Miami and then, not surprisingly, the kid leaves for Miami about 18 days later.

Then some normalcy returned in the form of a proven FBS winning head coach (52-30) in Rod Carey. Yet, spring practice was an extension of the strangeness as the Owls did not have a spring “game” for the first time and had virtually no hitting in those 15 practices that extended from mid-March through mid-April.

Temple is back to full hitting now in summer camp.

Just because Temple had a weird offseason doesn’t mean the rest of the conference was immune to the elements.

  • UCF, the favorite, replaced its Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback with a big name, Brandon Wimbush, from Notre Dame. Darriel Mack Jr., the backup who led UCF past Memphis in the title game broke his ankle in a non-football workout so it looks like this is Wimbush’s job to keep.  Wimbush began last season as Notre Dame’s starter and has a lot to prove after being benched after the third game of last season. He passed for only 719 yards and threw six interceptions as opposed to four touchdowns. In 2017, he passed for 1,870 yards with 16 touchdowns and six interceptions.
  • Houston did what some was unthinkable for a Group of 5 school, hiring a fairly successful Power 5 head coach, Dana Holgerson, to replace Major Applewhite. This could work.
  • Tulane’s Willie Fritz has committed to a hybrid triple-option–closer to what Paul Johnson did at Georgia Tech than what Ken Niumatalolo is doing with Navy–that features more downfield passing. It caused the league numerous problems the last year and his team figures to be even more improved this season.
  • UConn not only exited the league–it will compete as a lame-duck this season–but virtually committed football suicide by going independent. The Huskies need only to look a few miles North to Massachusetts to see what that holds for their future.
  • Meanwhile, Cincinnati has the most “stable” year as the Bearcats not only beat Virginia Tech in the Military Bowl, they got to keep their head coach, Luke Fickell, who was one of the final two candidates for the West Virginia job. They also have Temple at home in what should be one of the games of the year in the AAC and benefit from four-straight No. 1 AAC recruiting classes.

If Cincy doesn’t win the league this year, a lot of people will be surprised but that’s why they play the games.

Monday: 5 Temple Headlines We’d Like to See

 

 

07.20.19
by

AAC Media Day: Not-so-great expectations

Chris Giannini on 2019 Temple: “That is a really, really good team” .. yet he picks Owls to go 7-5

Anyone arriving at the AAC Football Media Day was greeted with one of those graphic boards usually seen at horse races listing the entrants and their odds.

This time, though, the board read the media preseason polls and the expectations for the season by a poll of so-called experts.

Screenshot 2019-07-20 at 10.33.54 AM

The expectations for Temple, the winningest team in the league in the last four regular-season years (yes, more wins than UCF, USF, Houston and Memphis from 2015-2018) were not so great. The Owls were picked fourth in the AAC East behind UCF, Cincinnati and USF.

The reasoning was simple.

Temple was losing Geoff Collins and gaining Rod Carey was usually the first thing out of their mouths. The second thing was the loss of a NFL fifth-round draft choice at running back, Ryquell Armstead, who former Houston coach Major Applewhite called “the best running back in our league.”

Sound reasoning for outsiders, not so much for insiders.

Losing Collins, long on schtick and short on substance, was the antonym of the new Temple coach, Carey, a guy long on substance and short on schtick.

 

connection

The Owls are only 20-25 handoffs from this guy to that guy away from winning an AAC title.

It’s hard from an insider’s point of view–particularly this one–to see that as anything but a net gain for both the organization and its preseason chances.

The running back conundrum is another story, though.

Carey has promised to give the ball to potentially the best running back in the league, Isaiah Wright, a lot more. If Carey has the kind of substance we think he has, he will figure out the best way to do that is making Wright the full-time replacement for Armstead because, as good as Armstead was, Wright has the kind of moves and speed that could make the rest of the league forget about Armstead. It’s a no-brainer because Temple is extraordinarily deep at wide receiver with Branden Mack, Jaden Blue, Randle Jones and Freddie Johnson, among others. Still, the last two Temple head coaches also promised to get the ball into Wright’s hands more but did not deliver on those promises.

Nothing would achieve that goal more than quarterback Anthony Russo sticking that pigskin into Wright’s belly 20-25 times a game and maybe added a few swing passes out of the backfield to give Wright the space to do his thing.

In the middle of July, that, to me, seems to be the key to the season. Ride that horse and the Owls’ odds of moving from fourth to first improve dramatically.

Monday: Practicing What You Preach

Saturday: Plausible Deniability 

Monday (7/29): Up Against The Walls

Saturday (8/3): Game Month