Tag Archives: AAC football

11.15.14
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Crashing and burning in State College

Rushing only three much of the game, the Owls made Christian Hackenberg a lot more comfortable than he should have been.

Rushing only three much of the game, the Owls made Christian Hackenberg a lot more comfortable than he should have been.

Plenty of lesser talented Temple teams have walked into Beaver Stadium against infinitely more talented Penn State teams and walked away with better results than this once-winning Owl team did on Saturday.

What happened was a complete and utter disgrace. Quite frankly, with Penn State at an ebb in its program and Temple coming in with more scholarship depth due to sanctions, this was Temple’s only chance to beat Penn State, maybe for the next 73 years as well.



Name Change:
Nate should go down to City Hall
tomorrow and legally change his name
to Anyone L. Else. That way, the next
time Rhule says, “I don’t have anyone else”
the Stepfords can ask him if Else was injured

Temple simply doesn’t recruit on that level and, at least with this staff, certainly are not going to out-coach James Franklin. We can only hope he moves onto the Potato Skins, or whatever the Washington NFL team is called in a few seasons.

With talent removed from the equation, there can only be one logical conclusion to make: those other Temple teams were simply better-coached than this one is, for just a few reasons we’ll list here:

The Mr. Haney Offense

haney

When you go on the cheap to hire a hick offensive coordinator from Hooterville, like this one is, you get what you pay for. Temple rolls out the 3- and 4- wide receiver formations Marcus Satterfield won all those national championships at Tennessee-Chattanooga with (oh wait, he didn’t win any; never mind) every week and wonders why it struggles to move the ball every week. On offense, what the Owls have are a lot of really good players with unique skills who are not being put in the best position to win. Temple should not be struggling to score points in the AAC. The Owls have two potentially great blocking fullbacks in Kenny Harper and Marc Tyson, but they rarely use them that way. Temple has a potentially great tailback in Jahad Thomas, but they rarely use a fullback block at the point of attack to spring him for big gains. Temple has a potentially great tight end in Colin Thompson (a five-star transfer from Florida) and rarely throws him the ball. Temple has at least two offensive linemen who will be playing in the NFL on Sundays — tackle Dion Dawkins and center Kyle Friend — and rarely use those two with Thompson and Tyson running interference on toss sweeps to Thomas that could open up that entire offensive arsenal.

Speaking of that arsenal, Temple has a change-of-pace tailback who runs the ball well in space in Jamie Gilmore, but — you guessed it — they rarely use him that way. Hawaii transfer Keith Kirkwood (his OC called him Kirkland on a radio interview), John Christopher and Romond Deloatch — guys with magnets for hands — are rarely thrown to but instead target too many guys who do drop balls. The Owls have an extremely talented rollout quarterback, P.J. Walker, who they try to make a dropback passer far too much.

This offense is a cluster-bleep of trying to fit perfectly good square pegs into imperfect round holes.

With this talent and more traditional two-back and I-formations with plenty of play-action, Temple is as formidable on offense as it has been on defense this year.

Maybe more.

What Have You Done With All That Practice Money?

eo

Last year, Temple built a $10 million addition to Edberg-Olson Hall, which cost $7 million to build in the first place. Yet the team jumps so much on offense (and three offsides on defense) that you’ve got to assume that happens in practice, too. If so, should not practice be stopped and have the team do the play right 15 straight times before they move on, like Mike Pettine Sr. used to do with CB West? You’d be amazed how much peer pressure causes mistakes like that cease and it does carry over into games. Do we practice the throat slash? If so, why don’t we practice doing it behind our own bench instead of in front of the officials?

The Passive Aggressive Defense

snowbird

If Temple should have learned anything from Northwestern’s 29-6 win over Penn State, it was that head coach Pat Fitzgerald made Christian Hackenberg very uncomfortable by going out of his base 4-3 defense into a 5-2 for that game. Fitzgerald had the Wildcats hit Hackenberg so much, that he would throw the ball up just by hearing footsteps. Temple outsmarted itself by “mixing it up” and that only mixed up its own defense. The Owls often rushed only three and made Hackenberg way more comfortable than he should have been. Put three-time Pennsylvania large school state wrestling champion Averee Robinson over the center as a 5-2 nose guard and make Matt Iaonnidis and Hershey Walton the right- and left tackles with Sharif Finch and Praise Martin-Oguike at the ends (on running downs sub in Brandon Chudoff). Watch Robinson blow up the center and free those other guys to get in Hackenberg’s face. When you have two LBs like Nate D. Smith and Tyler Matakevich, you can play the 5-2. Temple’s strength on defense is its deep, physical and athletic defensive line. By rushing three, Temple was doing Penn State a favor and not playing to Temple’s own strength.  It should not be surprising for someone who allowed 44 points a game and 38 points a game in two of his last three seasons before being hired at Temple. If you are going to be flexible on defense, be flexible to be aggressive, not flexible to be passive. That’s Temple weak, not Temple TUFF.

Not-So-Special Teams

Nate L. Smith

Should officially change his name to “Anyone L. Else.”

When asked if John Christopher was returning punts against PSU in the pre-game presser, Rhule said: “I don’t have anyone else, to be quite honest with you.”  Of course, the group of reporters who meet the coach every Tuesday–Matt Rhule Pravda, I’ll call them–never thought to follow up on the question. Hmm. Nate L. Smith, who led the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in punt return yardage and touchdowns via punt return in 2011, returned Temple’s last punt against Memphis for 30 yards. Since Nate L. Smith played against PSU, we can assume he wasn’t injured. Nate should go down to City Hall tomorrow and legally change his name to Anyone L. Else. That way, the next time Rhule says, “I don’t have anyone else” the Stepfords can ask him if Else was injured.  Putting Smith back there gives Temple a chance to score or at least significantly change field position on every punt. When you are struggling on offense, you need to maximize opportunities to move the ball any way you can. Matt Rhule does have someone else, to be quite honest with you. Temple has given up on the punt return as an offensive weapon. That’s Temple weak, not Temple TUFF.

Par for the course and a just a few reasons why a season that started so promising is now headed for what could be a Hindenburg-like crash and burn.

Hell, Might as Well Use Him at WR, Too:

11.12.14
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Temple-Penn State: When A Game is More Than a Game

We often hear, especially in times like last week after a tough loss, that “it is, after all, only a game.”

That’s easy to say for every week other than Penn State Week for Temple people. For  people who say “it’s only a game; it’s’ not life-and-death” … it is life and death for us who have waited for a win over Penn State all of our lives and desperately want to see one before we go to the other side.

lewis

Mr. Katz

Thinking about all of the great Temple fans that I had the pleasure of talking to in the concourses at the Vet, Franklin Field, Temple Stadium and Lincoln Financial Field, like Steve Bumm (see No. 4 in this story), NJ Schmitty, Shane Artim and Dan Glammer, among others, who never got to see this and, of course, Mr. Katz.  They are all gone and none forgotten and never had a chance to see Temple beat Penn State before going to the other side. How many more of us will pass this year with no chance to see a win next year?

This win is much more than for a chance to participate in a bowl game. It is for the respect of an entire city and state. Philadelphia has been force-fed PSU football coverage for 50-plus years when they already had a hometown team. The day Temple beats Penn State will be the day you stop seeing Temple students wearing PSU sweatshirts on campus. It is the day you will finally hear Temple football talked about on the radio and television stations.

owlsrevival22-L

Dan

So, for all those reasons, it is life and death. The Penn State game is much more than a game for Temple people and it has been for 73 years and it will be until the day Temple beats Penn State and hopefully that day is just a few hours away.

I think it is and I don’t think I’m looking through Cherry-and-White-colored glasses this time.

For all of the mismanagement on offense, Temple’s defense—particularly its defensive line—will win this game. Temple has an athletic and quick defensive line and Penn State has largely an inexperienced group of offensive linemen (and thanks to the Penn State fan who sent us that information). These guys are not walk-ons, but they’ve struggled. If Temple’s defensive line does what it did against Vanderbilt—with four SEC starters  returning from a team that went 9-4 in the best conference in America—the Owls should win this game. We are not asking the Temple defensive line to do something it is not capable of doing or has not done before.

shane

Shane

On offense, what the Owls have  is a lot of really good players with unique skills who are not being put in the best position to win. Temple should not be struggling to score 13 points against the likes of Houston, UCF and Memphis.  Temple has two potentially great blocking fullbacks in Kenny Harper and Marc Tyson and it rarely uses them that way. Temple has a potentially great tailback in Jahad Thomas and it rarely uses a fullback block at the point of attack to spring him for big gains. Temple has a potentially great tight end in Colin Thompson and rarely throws him the ball. Temple has at least two offensive linemen who will be playing on Sundays—Dion Dawkins and Kyle Friend—and rarely use those two with Thompson and Tyson running interference on toss sweeps to Thomas that could open up that entire offensive arsenal.

Speaking of that arsenal, Temple has a change-of-pace tailback who runs the ball well in space—Jamie Gilmore—and rarely uses him that way but fans jump all over him when he drops a catchable bomb when they should be jumping all over the coaches instead.  Keith Kirkwood (his OC called him Kirkland on a radio interview), John Christopher and Romond Deloatch—guys with magnets for hands and stick-em rubbed all over those magnets—are rarely thrown but instead target too many guys who do drop balls. The Owls have an extremely talented rollout quarterback, P.J. Walker, who they try to make a dropback passer far too much.



Owl Conundrum:
Temple gets no WR separation
or QB protection in those
formations but stubbornly
roll those formations out
week after week and wonder
why it struggles to score

This offense is a cluster-bleep of trying to fit good square pegs into horrible round holes.

What Temple has on offense is an OC from Tennessee-Chattanooga who is in love with a three- and four-wide formations that this personnel is not suited for and a head coach who is too nice a guy to over, err, rule his good friend. Temple gets no WR separation or QB protection in those formations but stubbornly roll those formations out week after week and wonder why it struggles to score.  With this talent and a more traditional two-back and I-formations with plenty of play-action, Temple is as formidable on offense as it has been on defense this year.

Maybe moreso.

For all that messing around on that side of the ball, I think Temple still wins this one in a game closer than it should be, say 13-10.

11.08.14
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Running The Football Was a Forgotten Promise

Amnesia is a terrible thing to have once, let alone twice in the same week.

Evidently, though, that is just what happened to Temple head football coach Matt Rhule after the glorious 20-10 win over East Carolina, fueled by this promise:

“Last week, we were a little bit shell-shocked on the plane coming home from the loss to Central Florida. As a staff, we made a decision … so, this week we wanted to get back to who and what Temple is: play good defense and special teams and run the football.”

Rhule remembered the good defense part. He forgot the run-the-football part and the special teams part.

Since Matt cannot control what a punter does or does not do, let’s just concentrate on what he can control—the run-the-football part.

Just to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, I got up early this morning to chart all of the Temple offensive plays. Temple ran 71 offensive plays and lined up in three wide receivers on 68 of those. Temple ran the ball 32 times and passed it 39 times. By any definition, that doesn’t jive with “play good defense and special teams and run the football.”

Kenny Harper scores

Kenny Harper scores

Against East Carolina, Temple ran 56 offensive plays, lined up in three wides 22 times and ran the ball on 37 of those offensive plays. Of the 37 running plays, Temple lined up with a fullback, Marc Tyson, 20 times. Both Temple offensive touchdowns were a result of a Marc Tyson block off a two-back formation. Tyson, like so many uniquely talented Temple players the last two seasons, joined federal witness protection last night.

You can blame the loss on the drops all you want, but that’s something the coaching staff cannot control. The coaching staff CAN control the commitment to the running game. Not only did the Owls coaching staff forget about it in game-planning this week, it forgot to stick to the running game after Kenny Harper ripped off a 75-yard touchdown run.

Amnesia twice in one week.

Before the game, we wrote this:

“If you decide to pray for anything, please pray that the Owls don’t fall back into their three-wides, no-blocking-back for P.J. Walker approach they had against Houston and UCF. In that scheme, Walker had no time–none–to throw and receivers could get zero separation. So happy to see the Owls get away from that last Saturday.”

Well, with the help of some selective amnesia, they got back to it Friday night and, not surprisingly, they lost. Hopefully, on the bus ride home from LFF, Matt Rhule remembers what he said on the plane ride home from UCF–and, this time, never forgets.

11.06.14
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Jeez(y), This Temple Team Deserves a Big Crowd Friday Night

Another slick, short and sweet video by Temple Athletics pumping up the fans for Temple’s Friday Night Lights’ game and there’s plenty to like about it.

The audio part, though, could use a little work. Imagine Dragons?

You’ve got to be kidding me … Young Jeezy must have some more appropriate lyrics for Temple’s epic showdown with visiting Memphis on Friday night. After all, YJ pumped up the team with a pre-game talk that helped the Owls double up East Carolina, 20-10, last week. Jeez is more than an honorary Temple football fan. He’s a real one. A Jeez phone call might close the deal on a five-star someday. Let that thought marinate for a minute. I prefer Mumford and Sons and the Foo Fighters, but I’m not a five-star so I yield to Jeez. Chances are Jeez’s playlist is on most five-star’s headphones.

Looks like Matt Ioannidis has his game-face on, but Tavon Young and Kenny Harper were politely asking for the students to get on the 4:30 buses that leave the main campus for the “free tailgate.” Having been a Temple student once, I was so broke I knew the word “free” back then evoked a Pavlovian response, like “I’m there.” If some on the main campus cannot make the 4:30 buses, there’s a dedicated subway line right in front of the Liacouras Center that takes all of 10 minutes to get to the game.

Time for the alumni to put away the remote, put on a coat, get in a car, bus or train to the Linc and wear out the vocal chords.

Time for the alumni to put away the remote, get off the couch, put on a coat, get in a car, bus or train to the Linc and wear out the vocal chords. I will be there. Will you?

For all of the bitching and moaning of not having an on-campus stadium, it’s hard to imagine a following without an on-campus stadium having easier transportation options than Temple fans have. Heck, Uconn has its own stadium but it’s 27 miles from the main campus.

More importantly, there’s an epic game to be played and how can a student or alumnus miss it? National TV, winner-take-all for a bowl game and the winner gets a bowl, loser gets to bite their fingernails for one or two more weeks or maybe even the rest of the season.

If those stakes don’t cause the fans to stay standing in their seats and yell “Let’s Go Temple” and “DEE-fense, DEE-fense” (both while the Owls are on defense, of course), nothing will. Make no mistake about it. This will be a tough game. Memphis went toe-to-toe with UCLA and destroyed a good Cincinnati team. For Temple, a win here could be just the momentum-generator the Owls need to make a program-changing win over Penn State next week.

There are 12,500 students who live on campus now and 27,000 additional full-time students who commute home. There are 291,000 living alumni, about 180,000 of them live within an hour’s drive of the stadium. There are 6,000 full-time Temple employees. Even if you get half of the 12.5K and 6K and one-quarter of the 180,000, you have pretty close to a full stadium.

A lot of yelling and cheering for these guys could not hurt and no doubt would help. You can just tell by looking at their faces they would appreciate it. They deserve your support and, for the students especially, it costs nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other and walking two more feet to a bus or a subway. They are, after all, representing you and the Linc is our “Hood.”

11.01.14
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The Perfect Owl Storm

People of a certain age will remember a commercial by Julius Erving after the Sixers imploded and lost a playoff series they were favored in and, in an attempt to win fans back the next season,  Erving said: “We Owe You One.”

Well, for those of us who have sit in many Gosh-awful storms—and one documented Hurricane–to watch the Temple University’s football team lose heartbreakers, another storm, this time unnamed, came through with big-time payback on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field.

Watching looks of happiness on the faces of long-time great Owls like Steve Conjar and Mark Bresani made this win even more worthwhile.

Pure post-game happiness by the Mulvihills surrounding two of the greatest ex-Owls, Mark Bresani and Steve Conjar, who is putting up the No. 1.

Pure post-game happiness by the Mulvihills surrounding two of the greatest ex-Owls, Mark Bresani and Steve Conjar, who is putting up the No. 1. I think Steve is saying he’s got the No. 1 tailgate in Lot K.

I don’t think the Owls win this game without the storm, but who cares? They won and that’s the bottom line. Nobody cared when Uconn got several calls at the end of regulation and OT that won a 12-6 game during Hurricane Hanna and years down the line no one will care that East Carolina was a team built for a fast track and a dry ball this year.

What’s important now is that the Owls take this ball and run with it–with the emphasis on the key word “run.”



“We made a decision to get back
to who and what Temple is.
We tried to play good defense
and special teams and
run the football.”
_ Matt Rhule

They know they can beat Memphis on Friday night to become bowl-eligible. Heck, they beat Memphis last year by 20 points with essentially the same offensive players, sans Robbie Anderson and Chris Coyer. Colin Thompson has shown he can become a Coyer; someone is going to have to step up and become a Robbie Anderson. Maybe Keith Kirkwood can. Memphis is better than it was last year, but so, too, is Temple. I don’t think Memphis has improved more than Temple, but that’s something Temple must prove on Friday night.

The Temple defense is light years ahead of last year and, if there is a better linebacker in the country than Tyler Matakevich, I have not seen him. This was Matakevich’s best game yet. We need a nickname for him. Maybe Pac-Man because of the way he eats up ballcarriers but I’m sure someone can come up with something better.



Temple Fun Fact:
Owls held ECU
to 60 fewer points
than North Carolina
did–despite having
to go to class
during the week

The Owls won because they did a better job taking care of the ball and a better job at committing to the run. It was heartening to see the post-game comments by head coach Matt Rhule that Temple had to get back to being Temple—which is running the football. Seeing Marc Tyson back there as a blocking fullback in a two-back set was a big step forward for the Temple run game and, hopefully, Kenny Harper can get some fullback time in, too. Harper’s spin move on one touchdown was a thing of beauty, as was his hesitation to pick up Dion Dawkins’ block on another TD. He’s both smart and tough, though he doesn’t possess high-end tailback speed.

The defense is playing at a big-time level and it’s high time the offense played up to their capabilities. If that happens, this could be the start of a long winning streak. If not, it will be a struggle to get to six. Maybe the renewed commitment to the run will help jump-start the play-action passing game.

Let’s hope so. They owe the defense one.

10.30.14
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Shaken, But Hopefully Not Stirred

A long time ago a former Temple football father started a music craze with these three simple words:

Shake, rattle and roll.

Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” is widely credited with getting the rock and roll genre started in the 1950s and his son, Scott Haley, was an outstanding tight end for the Owls when the Owls used to throw to tight ends way back in the football stone age of the 1980s.

Scott Haley's dad. He rarely tailgated.

Scott Haley’s dad. He rarely tailgated.

Now at least a derivative of  those three words have entered the Temple football dictionary again as Matt Rhule mentioned his team appeared “shaken” in practice this week.  A report in the Philadelphia Daily News about this press conference (above) noted Rhule used the word “fast” three times but his use of shaken has got me rattled and rolled.

Under Al Golden, even when Temple was playing very good BCS-level teams (Uconn, Navy and UCLA come to mind immediately), the Owls always played with a “Temple TUFF” swagger. Golden even noted that coming off the field at halftime in the UCLA game before a national TV audience: “We always play Temple tough,” Golden said, adding, “that’s spelled T-U-F-F.”

Shaken never entered the Temple football vocabulary back then.

It has now. Sure, the Houston and UCF teams the Owls played the last couple of weeks were very good but they were no better than Uconn, Navy and UCLA back then and back then Temple was playing with MAC-level recruits.

High winds: Hopefully, the Owls can move out of the spread and go 2 backs and power football. Failing that, maybe some of those Shane Carden passes will blow into the waiting arms of Tavon Young.

High winds: Hopefully, the Owls can move out of the spread and go 2 backs and power football. Failing that, maybe some of those Shane Carden passes will blow into the waiting arms of Tavon Young.

Got to wonder if at least a little part of the shakes has to do with a loss of confidence in the leadership above the captain’s level and reaching to the very  top of the program. At least Golden had the good sense to use his breakaway 5-5, 150-pound back  from New Jersey, Matty Brown, as a change-of-pace running back and not a slot receiver. At least  Golden had the good sense to know if he found a tailback with Jahad Thomas’ elusiveness and explosiveness, he would use him like he used Bernard Pierce, behind a great blocking fullback,  to maximize his skills and not as a decoy in a spread offense. Golden never had a five-star tight end recruit transfer in from Florida but my guess is that he would have down something radical  like THROWN HIM THE BALL. Just a hunch. Then again Golden never hired an offensive coordinator from Tennessee-Chattanooga.  Probably because Golden never had any friends from Tennessee-Chattanooga.

Rhule’s right about one thing: The Owls appear shaken. What he could be wrong about are the reasons for the shakes.

10.26.14
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Not P.J.’s Fault

All you have to do to determine the problem with the Temple offense is look at the last 43 incompletions P.J. Walker has thrown.

I have just finished watching them and there has been exactly one (1) Temple receiver open in the last 43 pass attempts that P.J. has missed. Granted, that was a bad overthrow but all of the other throws were tightly-contested ones with Temple’s receivers getting no separation. There is nobody open an alarming number of times in this ill-conceived offense. Nobody.

Would I pull a talented young quarterback for missing one pass?

No. This monstrosity is definitely not his fault.

Would I pull the scheme that created this mess?

Yes.



“We have to go back and look at
everything we’re doing ….”
_ Matt Rhule, Inquirer, Oct. 26, 2014

Really, you could see this train wreck coming three weeks ago in the Tulsa game. Tulsa is a terrible team and Temple’s receivers could get very little separation on even that porous defensive backfield. Walker had to thread the needle before getting pounded on a blitz to Jalen Fitzpatrick for a big touchdown in that one.

The problem is a solvable one and it’s a formula that has been outlined here before. Two backs, with Kenny Harper as a fullback leading the way for Jahad Thomas. The offensive line has not been blocking well but both tight end Colin Thompson and Harper are accomplished and effective blockers—even Rhule has said that—so sweeps to that side of the field probably would work a whole lot better than the head-scratching plays Temple is calling now.

Running Thomas behind Harper is like giving Thomas an extra pulling guard and, Lord knows, this offensive line could use that. Create shorter down-and-distance situations for Walker and have him throw when there is a tangible threat of a run. That way, Walker fakes to Thomas, freezes the linebackers and safeties, and opens those closed passing windows for guys like Fitzpatrick, John Christopher, Romond Deloatch, Keith Kirkwood and Thompson. More play-action and rolling the pocket could not hurt.

That’s the only way this Temple offense would ever work and it would be nice to see it at least tried before this season, like last one, goes right down the tubes.

10.24.14
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TU-UCF: Too Many Ifs and Buts

If Temple rolls the pocket and throws off play action, it will win. If it keeps asking P.J. to throw into tight windows, it will lose. Simple as that.

If Temple rolls the pocket and throws off play action, it will win. If it keeps asking P.J. to throw into tight windows, it will lose. Simple as that.

In one of my several side jobs, I write prediction stories for Rantsports.com on college football.

This week, I got a call from my editor asking for a prediction story for the UCF-Temple game.

“Can’t do it,” I said. “Too many ifs and buts.”

I took the Rutgers-Nebraska, Marshall-FAU and Penn State-Ohio State assignments instead.

CBS Sports Network is on Channel 854 Comcast.

CBS Sports Network is on Channel 854 Comcast.

If I had a better feel for Temple’s approach to the game, this would be an easy assignment. For example, the first play of the Houston game, I thought would be a perfect time for the reverse Jalen Fitzpatrick pass to Robbie, err, Keith Kirkwood. Hit Houston before it had a chance to get settled. Houston doesn’t know Temple’s top wide receiver was a Big 33 quarterback. There’s no law limiting trick plays to one a game, let alone one a year. Heck, Bruce Arians can tell you they work multiple times in a game. Two trick  plays—flea-flickers from Matty Baker to Mike Palys—both resulted in touchdowns for the Owls in a 45-28 win over Boston College in the 1988 season. They do work if you have the gonads to call them. Arians had the gonads.

To me, this is a game Temple can either a) win by blowout; b) win close; c) lose by blowout d) lose close.

That pretty much covers all the bases and why I would stay away from this game if I was a betting man.

  1. Win by blowout: Temple beat a Uconn team, 36-10, that Tulane could only beat 12-3 (7-3 for much of the game). Tulane hung with UCF most of the way in a 20-13 loss.
  2. Lose by blowout: Temple looked pretty clueless on offense in a 31-10 loss to Houston. UCF beat Houston, 17-12.
  3. Win close: If Temple can hang with Penn State Nov. 15 (and I think this year’s version of the Owls can), it can steal a win at the end of the game with UCF on a field goal just like Penn State did. How delicious would it be if freshman kicker Austin Jones, from Orlando, kicks the game-winning field goal in a stadium where he’s kicked many times? I’ll take it, though I’d prefer scenario No. 1.
  4. Lose close: With P.J. Walker being asked to throw into so many tight windows, that is the most likely path to not getting the most out of this talented kid’s ability. Hopefully, the Temple coaches will finally devise a system where he’s throwing most of his passes out of play-action and others on the roll, forcing LBs and safeties to honor the threat of the run and opening those passing windows. I really think the Temple coaches believe in “the process” and the only process I’ve seen so far is a lot of passes that call for P.J. to thread the needle. Not a good process.

Related:

http://www.rantsports.com/ncaa-football/2014/10/23/predicting-the-final-score-of-florida-atlantic-vs-marshall/

http://www.rantsports.com/ncaa-football/2014/10/23/predicting-the-final-score-of-rutgers-vs-nebraska/

http://www.rantsports.com/ncaa-football/2014/10/21/predicting-the-final-score-of-ohio-state-vs-penn-state/