Tag Archives: Al Golden

11.14.25
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2025 Temple is very similar to 2008 Owls

Had this not happened, the 2008 Owls would have made a bowl game. Same can be said for the current Owls not taking three knees and kicking a field goal against Navy if the Owls aren’t able to win one of their last two.

Leave it to Shawn Pastor to put the 2025 football Owls in perfect perspective.

On a recent post, the Owlsdaily.com editor compared the 5-5 current Owls to the 5-7 2008 ones.

That was Heartbreak City for Temple fans.

That team deserved much better. This team does, too.

So many similarities between the 2008 and 2025 Owls. A 5-7 record may be in the offing again, but not if the current Owls rise up and play their best football.

If this current version finishes with the same record, it will be Heartbreak revisited again.

Like then, the current version has a great head coach (K.C. Keeler/Al Golden), a great quarterback (Evan Simon/Adam DiMichele), and a great defense.

The 2008 team also had their share of heartbreaking losses (a Hail Mary at Buffalo and overtime losses to UConn and at Navy). This team had heartbreaking one-point losses at home to Navy and on the road to Army. The next year, without DiMichele, the Owls won nine-straight games and made their first bowl game in 30 years.

I don’t want to wait until next year, nor do any other Owl fans.

The difference this time is that team can do nothing about the 5-7 outcome.

This team can.

At the end of that season, I wrote a tribute to DiMichele saying we might never see his like again at Temple. Fortunately, I was wrong in that Evan Simon probably will finish with a better career. It would be nice to see him get what eluded Adam. I do know this. The Simon I saw crawl on his hands and knees to recover a meaningless fumble last year in a 53-6 loss at Tulane will move Heaven and Earth to beat Tulane this year.

Adam DiMichele was a helluva QB for the 5-7 2008 Owls. Evan Simon is probably better and would cement that belief by winning one more game.

Let’s hope the other 54 Owls who dress for the game take the same approach.

The path to a bowl game is difficult because both Tulane and North Texas will be double-digit favorites.

Think of it this way, though.

Temple beat UTSA, 27-21, and Tulane was blown out by UTSA, 48-26. That doesn’t mean Temple will beat Tulane by 30 points or even 20, but it does suggest that Temple has a chance.

What will have to happen that hasn’t happened the last few games is for both Sekou Kromah and Sultan Badmas to get healthy and get on the field and cause Jake Retzlaff the same kind of agita they did to Owen McCown in the UTSA win. McCown, after leading the Roadrunners to a 14-3 lead at halftime, was constantly running for his life in the second half when the Owls outscored his team, 24-7. He was either sacked or running 20 yards in the wrong direction and making throws off the wrong foot. (Hell, this was the same McCown who was 31-for-33 for 370 yards and four touchdowns against Tulane demonstrating how important a pass rush is in college football.)

There are a couple of lessons in those stats for both Brian L. Smith, the Temple DC, and Tyler Walker, the OC, and, ultimately, Keeler, the CEO, to consider why devising the Tulane Game Plan:

One, if McCown can put up those numbers against Tulane’s secondary, unleash Simon. Two, put relentless pressure on Retzlaff.

That kind of thing MUST happen in one week or the Owls season will be pretty much over. It would also help if every Temple fan within an hour of the game puts down the remote and comes out to support the Owls.

That’s the Tulane game, which is all important.

If you are looking for a silver lining in the game at North Texas, it’s that the Owls of Stan Drayton … yes, Stan Drayton and Everett Withers … lost by only a touchdown to North Texas last year at the Linc.

Gotta think both Keeler and Brian L. Smith give the Owls a better chance this time, but you don’t want to let it come down to that.

For the Owls to avoid the same kind of Heartbreak that happened 17 years ago, it’s not up to Tulane. It’s up to the Owls themselves. They know how they beat a better team in UTSA. They know how hard it was. They have to take things into their own hands and take care of business at home in eight days.

Otherwise, it will be the kind of de ja vu nobody wants to revisit.

Monday: Survival Week

07.03.25
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New Temple Unis: A Solid B

Al Golden, whose 56th birthday is today, brought back both the striped pants and TEMPLE on the helmet.

One of the things a lot of new Temple coaches do is try to change the uniforms.

Some get it right.

Some swing and miss.

Some get close.

New Temple football coach K.C. Keeler is in the third category.

I had hoped to give the new Temple uniform reveal which came three days ago an A.

Got to admit I’m a little disappointed to hand out a B, but I have to be honest.

It’s not an exaggeration to say Al Golden saved Temple football, both from an on-field standpoint and a uniform standpoint.

Only two Temple football coaches in my lifetime nailed the new uniform assignment and both were among the best, Wayne Hardin and Al Golden. (Happy Birthday to Temple Hall of Fame head coach Al Golden and a sincere thank you from TFF for saving the program.)

Hardin turned the old Owl the side of the helmet into TEMPLE on both sides.

“A lot of people wear Ts on the side of the helmets,” Hardin said in 1971. “Tennessee, Texas Tech and Texas A&M, among others. We don’t want to be confused with anyone. We’re TEMPLE and we’re proud to wear the name on our helmets.”

That theme returned in Al Golden’s second season when he decided to put TEMPLE back on the helmets.

“When I played at Penn State, we played a lot of teams that hit us pretty hard,” Golden said. “We played Notre Dame. We played USC. Nobody hit us as hard as those guys wearing TEMPLE on the side of their helmets. I wanted to return to that kind of tradition.”

Helmets through the years. The only decent ones were TEMPLE and the T.

So Golden, like Hardin, put TEMPLE back on the helmets.

That’s kinda what I was hoping for Keeler.

Not being a perfectionist, all I wanted was for the team’s football logo (TEMPLE) to share the school’s logo (T).

Split the baby is what we’ve been writing about for the last decade.

A King Solomon-style solution would be for one side of the helmets to be TEMPLE and the other side of the helmet to be the school’s familiar T logo.

Keeler made a step in the right direction with putting the T on both sides of the helmet. Maybe next year he’ll consult with King Solomon. For now, getting rid of the stupid numbers on the helmet is a huge step in the right direction. There was never a need to have numbers both on the front and back of the jerseys AND the helmets.

Steve Addazio made the most egregious change in the helmet when it removed the TEMPLE of Al Golden to the T of the school.

He was out after two years. I would have fired him for the helmet change but fortunately BC took him off Temple’s hands after a 4-7 Owl season in 2012.

Keeler’s unis–while not the pure dark Cherry colors or having the TEMPLE on the helmet–aren’t perfect, but they are a step toward perfect.

Kinda like the program on the field at this point and we’ll have another reveal this time next year so there’s always hope that the grade could be upgraded to an A.

King Solomon is counting on it.

01.17.25
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A Temple nugget for the national title game

Tip of the hat to TFF reader and CBS Sports talk show host Zach Gelb for this idea.

High-profile TV games involve big-time announcers and a lot of research from highly-paid TV teams yet nobody hits 1.000 or even .400.

Some even strike out.

Case-in-point was Sunday’s NFL Wild Card game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers.

For all of the millions of dollars Tom Brady, Kevin Burkhardt, Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi make none knew that the Packers’ kicker who missed his first field goal in that game (Brandon McManus) played his college ball in the same stadium.

Joe Jones (26) watches Ryan Day explain the “chop” technique. He caught at TD pass against Army that week.

Got to go with “knew” because that’s a nugget that should have been tossed out somewhere along the line. Certainly worthy enough to mention in the game-day broadcast.

Here’s a helpful hint for Monday’s announcers in the national championship game: There is a Temple angle more than worthy to be pursued.

Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit are those guys.

Huge news for the Owls. Way better than Tarleton State. Wake me up the next time the Tarleton State fans storm the court after beating the No. 18 team in the country.

Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden is inarguably the one person who is responsible for turning the Temple program from a 19-season loser to a consistent winner and he is the Notre Dame defensive coordinator.

Golden was smart enough to hire a guy named Ryan Day as his wide receivers’ coach.

Now the two are on opposite sides of the field in Monday’s national title game.

While the fake Miami (Ohio) might have been previously earned the reputation of “Cradle of Coaches” that doesn’t apply to this year’s national title game.

Temple is the only school that earns that distinction on this night and in this game.

It deserves to be either mentioned or highlighted in a pre-game piece.

Hopefully, they won’t swing and miss like the NFL crew did on Sunday.

Monday: Five Most Impactful Guys

01.19.24
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Temple and The Eagles

My favorite media question of the week resulted in a reverse jam dunk by a Temple University product, Todd Bowles, that illustrated a couple of things:

One, the class act of a guy I knew and loved while covering the Temple football Owls for the Calkins Newspaper group back in the 1980s remained the class act of an NFL coach in the 2020s;

Two, the way he let her down gently;

Three, the current state of sports media where they let anyone without a football background ask a question;

I’m sure this person got up in the morning and jotted down her question for the presser thinking beforehand it was a brilliant question nobody else would ask the Tampa Bay head coach prior to a divisional round game at Detroit.

She was half right.

Yes, it was a question no one else would ask.

Former New York Jets’ head coach Todd Bowles rocks the Temple swag on a Jets’ pre-game show.

No, not a brilliant question. Actually, the opposite.

How the bleep would anyone who knew anything about football ask a weather question about the Detroit Lions without knowing as a base the Lions don’t play outside?

Ugh.

The question got me pondering the deeper meaning of Tampa Bay eliminating the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night.

The Eagles were eliminated by a defensive guru who applied for the Temple head coaching job who learned his football at the feet of a former Temple coach, Bruce Arians.

What was Arians’ major defensive philosophy?

“The best pass defense is to put the other guy’s quarterback on his backside,” was Arians’ favorite quote.

What did Todd do against the Eagles?

Every time Jalen Hurts checked into an empty backfield Bowles checked into a blitz.

It’s Football 101.

With no blockers back there to protect the quarterback, the QB has to do one of two things: 1) throw the ball out of bounds or 2) take a sack.

Hurts did a lot of both and, as a result, the Eagles lost, 32-9.

(The adjustment to defeat that would have been for Hurts to check into max protect and get the ball out on swing routes but that never happened and you’ve got to wonder what Sirianni and Brian Johnson and Hurts were thinking.)

How does this affect Temple?

Bowles wasn’t the only Temple connection to look good.

Ever since Sean Desai was replaced as DC, the Eagles went from a decent defense to the worst in the league. Desai, like Bowles, was a former Temple person (professor in the classroom and special teams coordinator at 10th and Diamond) who shined in North Philadelphia. Desai also once applied for the Temple head coaching job.

Maybe replacing a DC who shut out Kansas City in the second half of a 21-17 win wasn’t the best idea.

Maybe the Eagles fire Nick Sirianni. Maybe they don’t.

But, if they do, the names of Desai (future head coach) or current Eagles’ LB coach D.J. Eliot should be on both a long and a short list to help Temple football get out of its current funk.

Eliot objectively took pretty much the same Temple football players current DC Everett Withers had and performed as the 74th-best defense in the country in the 2022 season.

Withers replaced him and had the Owls rated 129th in the next season, which was tied for fourth-worst in Temple football history (with Bobby Wallace’s 2005 squad) from a ppg standpoint. Withers was two points per game away from being the DC with dubious record of leading the worst Temple defense in all of a history that dates back to 1889.

If Sirianni is let go, Eliot becomes available to slot back into his former role and make the Owls’ defense twice as good in 2024 as it was in 2023.

Does Drayton, probably Withers’ best friend, have the organizational skills to fire the guy or does he say “bleep it, me and Everett are going down with the ship?”

If the Eagles fire Nick, we will find out in day or two. If they don’t, expect Oklahoma to put a a 70-spot on the Owls because we will be stuck with Withers.

The saddest part is all of this could have been fixed a long time ago had Temple hired Temple.

Monday: Ships sailing and learning curve Friday:

Friday: Temple’s No. 1 foe

Monday: If this is wrong, I don’t want to be right

09.18.23
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Miami and Temple go way back

For a couple of schools who are separated by over 1,000 miles of prime East Coast real estate, Temple and Miami football have a lot in common.

The Owls and the Hurricanes go way back when Temple was the powerhouse team and Miami was a team lucky to get on the Owls’ schedule back in 1930. The Miami players were so grateful for the game that they brought the Owls coconuts as gifts.

In return, the Owls beat the Coconuts out of Miami, 34-0. That year the Owls finished 7-3 and somehow squeezed in a crowd of 16,000 to see that game at Atlantic City’s Convention Hall.

The Owls haven’t beaten Miami in the 13 subsequent meetings but will take another swing on Saturday (3:30 p.m., ESPN2) at Lincoln Financial Field.

If the Canes bring turnovers this time instead of coconuts, the Owls might have a chance. Miami comes into the game ranked No. 20 and the Owls are unranked but unranked teams have beaten ranked teams before and Group of Five teams have beaten Miami before. The Hurricanes lost to Florida International and Middle Tennessee in recent years and that fact has to give the Owls some hope.

Other things Miami and Temple have in common:

Vinny Testaverde and Paul Palmer with Brian Bosworth. All were wearing Cherry and White.

In 1986, the Hurricanes had the Heisman Trophy winner (Vinny Testaverde). The second-place finisher that year? Temple’s Paul Palmer.

Both teams tried to build on-campus stadiums. The Hurricanes’ proposed 8,000-seat stadium in 1926 was blown down by a literal Hurricane and plans to build it were scrapped. Temple held a meeting with the community to explain its Board of Trustees approved plan to build a 35,000-seat on campus stadium on March 18, 2018 and that was blown down by carbon dioxide emitted from the breaths of protestors at Mitten Hall. Plans to build that stadium apparently have been scrapped as well.

Both teams were originally members of the Big East Football Conference.

Temple’s field goal specialist, Camden Price, used to be Miami’s starting kicker.

Temple defensive lineman, Allan Haye, was once a defensive lineman for Miami.

Miami hired two Temple coaches, Al Golden in 2010 and Manny Diaz in 2018. Temple erected a billboard on Interstate 76 to welcome Diaz as its new head coach. Eighteen days later, Diaz reneged on his Temple contract to take the same job at Miami.

Temple almost hired current Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, who was considered the front-runner for the job in 2012 until he called then athletic director Bill Bradshaw from the Philadelphia International Airport asking “directions to Temple” for his interview. That call caused Bradshaw to pause and take the advice of then assistant AD Al Shrier who said, “Bill, listen to me. Hire Matt Rhule.”

Bradshaw listened and told Cristobal to get back on the plane. Rhule didn’t need directions to Temple and produced consecutive 10-win seasons for the Owls, including Temple hosting ESPN’s College Game Day on Halloween of 2015.

If the Owls beat Miami on Saturday, it will be the most significant thing they’ve done since that day.

If the Canes bring the turnovers, the Owls should return the coconuts. It’s the least they can do.

Friday: Defying All Logic

06.30.23
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What could go wrong? The buddy system

Stan Drayton himself was the beneficiary of the buddy system, going from working for Texas football to be hired by the former Texas football directior of operations Arthur Johnson.

One of the benefits of being a 50-plus-year Temple football fan is seeing what worked and what did not.

From my observation, the best Temple football coaching staffs had only a small element of guys who were past buddies and a larger composition of guys who applied for the job and were interviewed and hired by a head coach who really didn’t know the guys elsewhere before.

The staffs that qualified under the former were the ones of Wayne Hardin, Al Golden, and Matt Rhule.

You know how that worked out.

At least a couple of favorite Temple football coaching hiring stories come to mind.

Vince Hoch met Hardin at high school football coaching clinic in South Jersey. Hoch approached Hardin and asked for five minutes of his time then laid out defensive coaching philosophies. Hardin was so impressed he hired him on the spot. Hoch might have been the best DC ever. Hardin didn’t know Hoch from Adam.

A young assistant from West Carolina drove five hours to 10th and Diamond and asked Temple aide Nadia Harvin if could wait two more for Al Golden to be finished from his meeting. That assistant, Matt Rhule, wasn’t hired on the spot but he made such an impression on Golden that when the first spot opened Al hired him.

It helped that they both played at Penn State but Al didn’t really know Matt until then.

The rest is history.

Matt Rhule drove five hours and waited for two more outside Al Golden’s office to ask for a job at Temple.

The other staffs who failed here were the guys Rod Carey loved (an entire NIU staff pretty much), the Geoff Collins staff and, to a far lesser extent, the Steve Addazio staff.

At least with Addazio, he brought with him from Gainesville, Fla. significant pieces of the national champion Florida Gator team he left behind. Absolutely mind-blowing that a DC who Urban Meyer credited for half a national championship one year was in the same spot at Temple the next. Less mind-blowing but still impressive was that Tim Tebow’s quarterback coach (Scot Loeffler) turned Chris Coyer into the first Temple bowl-winning quarterback since Brian Broomell.

If Everett Withers posts consecutive shutouts his first season as DC at Temple like Chuck Heater did in his, a lot of Temple fans will be shocked out of their minds (most of all me).

What happened under Chuck Heater:

His Owls posted back-to-back shutouts. A Temple team hasn’t done the same since then.

What does that have to do with this year’s prospects?

If Stan Drayton’s Owls were to post even as memorable a season as Daz’s first Temple team did (8-4), it would be to buck a 50-year Temple football trend because the staff Drayton has put together includes three assistants from a couple of 2-10 Texas State teams and a head coach of that same team (Everett Withers) who never shut out anyone when his sole job was as a DC.

Drayton’s staffs pretty much mirror the staffs of Carey and Collins and probably aren’t even half as accomplished at Daz’s staff.

What’s that famous Bill Parcells’ quote?

“You are what your record says you are.”

The flip side of that coin is that Drayton’s resume as an assistant is as impressive as his aides are putrid.

This isn’t the 1987 Frankford High era when one head coach (Al Angelo) and one assistant (Tom Mullineaux) can lead a team to a 12-0 season without the help of a single other coach.

Or even 1950 Penn State where the only two coaches were Rip Engle (head) and a young assistant named Joe Paterno.

Drayton might be the head chef but he did not do himself a favor by hiring those who have surrounded him. There are a lot of cooks in this kitchen and one overcooked or undercooked meal could ruin the bowl prospects of a team without a large margin of error. They may be nice guys and he may be comfortable with them but familiarity can breed contempt if the bottom line isn’t met.

He will go to war with the devils he does know and it’s obvious he’s comfortable with it now. Let’s hope this staff is an exception to a well-documented Temple football past.

Monday: What Can Go Right?

06.27.22
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Drayton makes the call to Temple fans

As if he didn’t have enough work to do, new Temple coach Stan Drayton was given another task by the Temple administration last week.

Making phone calls.

Like the calls to recruits and portal transfers and other coaches, the latest calls were just as important.

Maybe more important.

TFF would like to thank a player from the Al Golden Era, Matt P., whose generous donation enabled us to purchase a printer for this site. Copying down info on recruits by hand was really time-consuming and now going forward this speeds up the process of gathering stats and other information for the site. All donations to TFF go back into the website, paying for things like copyrighted photos and site hosting and, now, a TFF printer. Thanks, Matt.

Drayton called a hefty number of fans who had been season-ticket-holders but for some reason or another decided to put the money away the last two years.

The diplomatic reason is COVID but I suspect the real reason Temple season tickets dropped particularly last year was the abysmal performance of the prior coaching staff.

Notice we didn’t say “team” because the kids who left for other teams depleted the talent level on the roster so much so that the kids who were left behind couldn’t compete.

I got a little taste of what was to come at the 2019 tailgates when several parents mentioned to me at post-game tailgates, “Mike, nobody likes the guy (Rod Carey) and everyone wants out.”

If that was in the late stages of an 8-5 season, you can imagine the patience completely ran out after 1-6 and 3-9 seasons.

It’s apparent Drayton has stopped the bleeding of players out the door, welcomed a lot of good players into the program and is liked by the team, all the while instilling discipline necessary to compete at a high G5 level.

You need players and coaches committed and Temple has that.

The last piece of the puzzle is fans and Temple must show the rest of the college football world that the buzz around the program extends beyond the practice facility and into the stands.

With those phone calls, it’s apparent Drayton understands what’s needed and a personal appeal to the Prodigal Son fans is an excellent way to start.

Getting the Doubting Thomases, though, back into their seats requires a win at Duke and, if Drayton understands the first three pieces of the puzzle (as he’s demonstrated), he surely understands what he has to do next.

Friday: Decrafting the schedule

Monday: Honeymoon Period

02.18.22
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How did a DC become a better job than a HC?

Roughly nine years a couple of months ago, the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame took a head coaching job at an AAC school.

It wasn’t just any defensive coordinator. It was the one, Bob Diaco, voted as the Broyles Award Winner, the best assistant coach in the country.

For UCONN, it was a spectacular fail of a hire, hitting on a number of themes we warn about here on a regular basis (i.e., being an assistant is a totally different job from a head coach and being good at one is no guarantee of success at the other).

Classroom, community, competition, complex.

Those are the four C’s that helped Al Golden build Temple from a 20-consecutive loss team to a nationally respected program.

When Golden took the Temple job, the Owls were ranked dead last in the classroom and lost scholarships due to a poor APR. By the Eagle Bank Bowl, the Owls were ranked among the best in the classroom. Under Golden, the Owls were a regular part of the community, building bridges of trust with the neighbors. The competition factor was there for all to see as the Owls went from 1-11 to 5-7 to 9-3 and 8-4 in Golden’s final season.

As far as the complex, one of Al’s secretaries told me his last sentence on the day he left the E-O was: “God, I love this place.” He then turned around and walked out the door. Miami and the big money were even more of a lure than that love.

There was some talk about Golden, like Diaco, going from an assistant coach (this time in the NFL) to head coach at UConn. No one knows if UConn offered the job to Al but I would not be surprised if the Huskies did and he turned them down.

Notre Dame might not have been on the horizon then but it certainly makes sense now than any current G5 head coaching job.

That’s because the UConn head coaching job as presently constituted is now an inferior job to the Notre Dame DC and, if Golden didn’t see that, he wasn’t reading the current college football landscape right and he’s too smart for that.

Reason being that the deck of cards that were stacked against the G5 schools even back in 2013 are even more slanted today. G5 players routinely transfer to the P5 even if they have a modicum of success and that wasn’t even a thing in 2013.

Moreso, a G5 team probably will never make the CFB playoff after Cincinnati goes to the Big 12 because one of the leagues, the ACC, is dead set against playoff expansion.

Back in 2013, there was always some hope for the G5 to eventually join the big boy club but now it looks more and more impossible.

Marcus Freeman jumped from DC to perennially top 10 program HC at Notre Dame and that’s probably the path more coaches feel will be more realistic in the future than grabbing a HC job at a G5 and moving on up to the East side.

Golden was rumored as a head coaching candidate to replace Rod Carey at Temple but at least six of his former players told me he would not take it not because it was Temple but because “he loves being in the NFL.” A contrary view by a guy who coached with Al at Temple told me that Golden himself told him that he would take the Temple job if the Owls “recruited” him. My response to that guy, who currently works in the NFL, was that since Golden is in the school’s Hall of Fame that’s a courtesy Temple should have extended him. It probably never happened because the school’s new Texas AD was enamored with hiring a guy from the same school, much like LaSalle’s Bill Bradshaw hired a guy from his school (Fran Dunphy) and Indiana’s Pat Kraft hired a guy from his school (Rod Carey).

You would think those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it but there are always exceptions to every rule and, as a Temple fan, I hope the hiring of Drayton gives the Owls a .333 batting average in crony hires. Right now, it’s 0-for-2. You know what George W. Bush was getting at when he said “fool me twice” even if it escaped him at the moment.

Well, it turned out that the Owls a) probably did not “recruit” Golden and b) that Golden didn’t love the NFL so much he wouldn’t return to college for the right job.

For him, being an assistant at Notre Dame is a better job than HC at UConn and, probably, Temple.

Sadly, for his career trajectory, he is probably right.

That wouldn’t have been the case nine years ago and that’s another reason why college football has devolved and not evolved in that relatively short span of time.

Fans of teams like Temple should take no joy in that fact.

Monday: The Calendar

12.12.21
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TU Announcement: Avoid High Risk at all Costs

New Temple University athletic director Arthur Johnson probably had plenty of time to pull out a book while watching one of those boring 52-3 or 49-7 football losses his team had this fall.

Or maybe it was the 44-10 one or the 37-8 one?

Hopefully, he read Bob Reiss’ 2000 book, “Low Risk High Reward,” which should be must reading for any Temple athletic director and it particularly applies to the current search for this school.

Reiss played basketball on an unbeaten Columbia University team in the 1960s and applied much of his competitiveness to the business world.

Simply put, Reiss argues against the “High Risk, High Reward” theory that has been accepted by some. He advocates that low risk can produce high reward as well.

A lot of these assistant coaches Temple seems to be wooing come under the theory of “High Risk, High Reward” and, if Reiss was part of the search firm hired by Temple, he would probably present a compelling reason why that’s not the way to go for the university at this time.

Reason No. 1: There are a couple of “low risk, high reward” candidates out there so there’s no need to go the high-risk route. Reason No. 2: If the high-risk assistant proves The Peter Principle (rising to his level of incompetence), then Temple football will be sentenced to a Dark Age where they will have no choice of honoring a bad contract for the duration. Bob Diaco, the National Assistant Coach of the year who fell flat on his face at UConn, is the perfect example of a highly-regarded assistant coach not being able to handle the headset on gameday. He basically killed the UConn program.

Temple can’t afford to pay off Rod Carey, pay the next guy millions and then find out a couple years into a five-year contract that the new guy is Rod Carey 2.0.

Places like Miami and USC have the wherewithal to replace a bad coach every couple of years. Temple’s quota is one firing every generation.

They will have to suck it up and lose big for five years and that might be the death knell of the program.

The solution is simple: Lower the risk by getting a proven winning head coach (no matter what the level) who comes with an intimate knowledge of Temple and how to produce a high reward in this specific job.

Al Golden is such a guy. If he’s not interested, Gabe Infante and Preston Brown are proven head coaching winners whose time at Temple gave them an outline of what needs to be done to turn things around here.

Anyone else is a crapshoot and Temple doesn’t have the chips to play craps with this hiring.

There’s no need for the risks associated with hiring a Texas running backs’ coach or a Texas A&M defensive line coach, a current NFL assistant or even another MAC head coach.

Temple has the chance over the next couple of days to prove to the world that the lower the risk the higher the reward.

Friday: Reaction to the Hiring

12.09.21
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TU coaching search: Checking all the boxes?

Had an interesting text back-and-forth with a longtime observer of Temple football who mentioned Candidate X (we won’t say who his name is) and added confidently, “he checks all the boxes.”

Hmm.

“Where’s the box for prior head coaching experience?”

“Err, all the boxes except that one, I mean.”

“That’s a box, too, and a pretty important one.”

“You mean like Rod Carey?”

“No, Temple needs to find a guy who checks all 10 boxes, not nine of the 10 boxes. Carey checked the head coaching box, but didn’t check the other nine boxes (things like knowledge of the recruiting footprint, Temple personnel, etc.)”

My point was that if you can get a guy who has head coaching experience, knowledge of Temple personnel and recruiting footprint and all the other boxes, why not go for the 10 boxes, not the nine?

If someone like that wasn’t out there and available, that would be one thing but there are a few.

Our post from Dec. 3 … I still have that feeling and I hope to hell I’m wrong.

Hopefully, the Temple administration gets a guy who checks all the boxes and, in my opinion, that eliminates all but a very few top candidates.

Al Golden checks all the boxes. Gabe Infante checks all the boxes and, to a lesser extent, a guy like Chris Partridge (Ole Miss DC) checks all the boxes due to his one year as head coach at Paramaus High. Lesser extent is the key phrase here. In fact, Preston Brown’s two seasons as a regional South Jersey championship head coach catapults him over Partridge in the all-important head coaching box. He already has him beaten in the knowledge of Temple and recruiting department. (Although Partridge does have a rudimentary knowledge of Mid-Atlantic recruiting.) Golden and Infante, like both Fran and Preston Brown, are popular with the players (and the players’ families) and have the added bonus of being winning head coaches.

Golden, Infante, Patridge and Brown pairs the guys who check all of the boxes to just four. Dan Mullen checks the head coaching box, as does Eastern Michigan’s Chris Creighton, but getting a guy who understands Temple in and out are the top boxes. Mullen and Creighton strike me as Carey 2.0. While all of the other high-profile head coaches have gone to the big power schools, Temple does have a chance to hire one head coach who would be better for Temple than all of them.

Head coaching experience might not be the most important box, but it needs to be on the “all boxes” list. It would be nice to have a coach who locks down special teams, who has an attacking defense (and not a slogan like Mayhem) and a ball-control offense that keeps your own defense off the field.

That comes with experience calling the plays and being a CEO of a successful program. College experience is preferred, but if you’ve proven you can be the CEO of a championship program at a lower level, that’s better than a running backs coach who has not.

Why do I get the feeling that Temple will hire someone who checks some of the boxes and not all?

That’s because the names I’ve been hearing, like Texas connections Elijah Robinson (A&M line coach) and Stan Drayton (Texas RB coach) keep popping up.

If the search committee serves as a guardrail in place so that another crony hire doesn’t blow up in Temple’s face (like Pat Kraft and Rod Carey and Bill Bradshaw and Fran Dunphy), it will have served its purpose.

Hopefully, they’ve got a list that doesn’t miss any boxes and they check them all off.

Monday: The Announcement