One of the best sights of this season was seeing a guy like Juice Granger celebrating in the end zone. He’s been an unselfish Temple Owl for three years and deserves a win this Saturday.

A year ago around this time, Juice Granger threw four times, completed 50 percent of his passes, added 85 yards on the ground and orchestrated an offense that produced 63 points.

Former Temple head coach Steve Addazio left the blueprint for beating Army on the field at Michie Stadium last year.

Run the ball. Run it again and run some more.

Click over the Duke coach for five upsets this week.

Matty Brown started it all with two touchdown runs, then he got hurt and Montel Harris added a game for the ages: 351 yards, 7 touchdowns. Even Kenny Harper added a touchdown run.

Mostly, though, it was Interstate Highway-sized holes being opened up by several members of the current offensive line, with the exception of Martin Wallace who has gone on to the Cleveland Browns. They can open those holes up again for Harper and Zaire Williams, if this coaching staff permits it. While Harper and Williams might not be as talented as Brown and Harris were, they can certainly negotiate their way through those kind of holes.

It’s all right there on what former Temple football coach Bobby Wallace used to call the “fill um.” Current Temple head coach Matt Rhule was in attendance that game but he can check the film if memory of how it was done escapes him.

Or he can ignore the evidence, do things his own way, and join Wallace in Alabama as an assistant Division III offensive line coach next season.

We’ll know if Rhule learned from his mistakes against Fordham and Idaho as early as the first quarter. Army is at a size disadvantage against a Temple offensive line that includes at least  two future NFL players in Kyle Friend and Cody Booth and quite possibly a third in Pete White.

If at least 12 of the first 15 plays are not runs, you can leave at that point and head to the parking lots because Temple will lose.

If the Owls run a clean (penalty-free) dozen, they will win and maybe handily no matter how successful those plays are because it will set the tone that will enable Temple to wear down Army on the ground over four quarters. There is an ancillary benefit to running the football against a team like Army: Chewing up the clock and keeping the ball away from a team that scored 50 points a week ago.

If the Owls do what they’ve been doing so far in an 0-6 season–throwing 10 long bombs of  about 50 yards–they are opening themselves up to turnovers and a loss. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Hopefully, sanity returns to Lincoln Financial Field in the form of a pound-and-ground Homecoming win on Saturday afternoon. If it doesn’t, we’ll have to find a new guy to draw up the blueprints.

Related:

http://articles.philly.com/2012-11-18/sports/35187635_1_temple-s-addazio-temple-coach-steve-addazio-temple-tailback

When I watch Phil Snow coach defense for the Temple Owls, I am reminded of the quote of  J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the two fathers of the Atomic Bomb.

Oppenheimer was asked what his first reaction was to seeing the A-Bomb “work” in the New Mexico desert. He said he thought of a quote from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

“Now I have become Phil Snow,  the destroyer of programs.”

That’s the quote rattling around in my head when I watch Temple play defense.

Don’t take my word for it. To quote Denise Simpson when talking about O.J., “You know his record.”

It’s right here, serving as a defensive coordinator  for Eastern Michigan/Temple and a defensive assistant for the Detroit Lions:

The Phil Snow Winning File

We’ll only go back to 2008, because it’s too depressing to go back before that.
Let’s put it this way: Snow’s last shutout against a Division IA team (they were know as Division IA teams then) was 1996. That’s the last century for anyone counting.
In his last 70 games against Division IA foes, he’s held teams to single digits just three times.
That’s three as in the number after two.
Last year, he had the Eastern Michigan defense ranked No. 120 of 125 FBS teams in yards-per-game with a 453.91-per-game yield.
This year, he has Temple’s defense ranked No. 120 out of 125 teams with a 510.8-yards-per-game yield.
You’ve got to give him points for being consistent.

Before you blame it on the players, these are the same players who Chuck Heater had shutting out UConn in the second half of a 17-14 win. That’s when Temple coaches used to make adjustments at halftime.
(Speaking of which, on the offensive side of the ball, Temple hasn’t been much better this year, scoring ZERO points in the second half of games vs. Notre Dame, Houston and Cincinnati. That’s zero, as in the number before one. Doesn’t seem to be too much effective offensive chalkboard work being done at halftime, either.)
When Snow was hired, I wrote I saw no justification in hiring him and speculated it was only because Snow was an old buddy of Matt Rhule’s at UCLA. What he’s done since hasn’t changed my mind at all. This is what I wrote in this blog way back on Jan. 18: “I’m all for hiring old buddies, but not old buddies who give up 38 points per game.”
From someone who watched Temple develop a strong defensive identity under Wayne Hardin (Vince Hoch), Bruce Arians (Nick Rapone), Al Golden (Mark D’Onofrio) and Steve Addazio (Heater), this might be the toughest part of the season to swallow. Rapone would coach the DBs to step in front of the ball and intercept it, rather than let the guy catch the ball and tackle him. That produced NFL defensive backs in Terry Wright, Eddie Parker, Todd Bowles and Kevin Ross. In those days, Temple played the ball and not the man.
Heck, when Dick Bedesem was the secondary coach at Temple, the Owls led the nation with 26 interceptions.

This year?
They have zero.
That’s as in the number before one.
I might be tempted to say it’s the players, but I know the record of the DC all too well.

This tidbit from footballscoop.com.

Related:

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2012/11/27/3692606/ellis-johnson-fired-southern-miss-football-coach

http://www.sportsgrid.com/ncaa-football/college-football-coach-firings/