Tag Archives: Danny Langsdorf

12.22.23
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Postgame Show: Temple’s Final Hail Mary

The most impressive thing about this video is Kevin Copp being at the E-O on 7 p.m. Wednesday night and in Hawaii by 2 p.m. Eastern time the next afternoon. Call him the Padre Pio of the Owls.

Unless something changes, it’s not hard to envision the final 30 seconds of Temple’s opening half at Oklahoma roughly nine months from now including a meaningless Hail Mary.

Evan Simon goes back to pass at midfield and before he gets a chance to throw, is swarmed under by a host of Oklahoma Sooners.

Temple runs off the field in Norman, down, 43-0, with the announcers saying the clock will run continuously in the second half.

Temple fans turn off the TV in disgust and head for a run or a bike ride on a beautiful August afternoon.

A couple of things COULD happen between now and then to make that halftime score more respectable–say, 28-13 instead of 43-0–but Wednesday night’s signing day show gave no indication that would be the case.

Just from watching Stan Drayton, I got the distinct impression this whole signing day was one big recruiting Hail Mary.

If this one falls incomplete, and Temple finishes with another three-win season, I could see the Temple Board of Trustees saying we don’t like the way college football is going and we’re not going to compete in it anymore. We don’t like paying a coach $2.5 million-a-year who got beat by 12 coaches over the last TWO seasons making LESS money.

Signing Darian Varner and Reece Poffenbarger would probably put Temple in the middle of this pack.

The ROI doesn’t make sense.

I’m somewhat surprised they haven’t come to that conclusion now but Drayton and the program have been given a stay of execution.

They don’t have good appeal lawyers judging from this recruiting class.

While all over the AAC teams were bringing in five to 10 Power 5 recruits and supplementing those by more FCS players and only one or two JUCOs, Temple signed more JUCOs than any other team in the conference.

It’s just not logical that JUCOs can beat guys who were recruited to win national championships but this is the logic Drayton and staff are going with right now.

There is a reason why the Alabamas and Georgias and Washingtons and Michigans have recruiting classes ranked near the top of the top 10 every year and finish in the same place on the football field. The highly ranked recruits produce on the field and the coaches who don’t give up 39.8 points-per-game in their last two stops–which Everett Withers has–tend to stop the teams they are playing.

So by going with JUCOs and sticking with Withers, Temple is throwing a Hail Mary pass.

A high wobbly dying quail and not the kind of tight spirals we’ve been used to seeing E.J. Warner tossing.

A couple of things can change that dynamic. Temple can get Darian Varner back because he has entered the portal and Temple’s biggest defensive need is putting the bad guys’ quarterback on his ass. Temple can also upgrade the quarterback position from Simon to Albany’s Reece Poffenbarger.

Unlike Simon, Poffenbarger can make big-time plays, avoid the rush and hurt teams with his feet. He entered the portal yesterday and probably the first team that shows him love will be shown love in return.

Does Danny Langsdorf even know that? Does Drayton?

We will soon find out if they can add a starting quarterback LIKE Poffenbarger or a pass-rusher Prodigal Son like Warner.

If they don’t, these great Temple fans will have to figure on doing something else on Saturday afternoons for the next 20 or so years. That’s probably how long it will take for college football to return to the old transfer and money rules.

By then, Temple could be NYU or The University of Chicago. A great school that once had a great football program.

Don’t let that happen, Stan and Danny.

Monday: Off for Christmas

Friday: From One Owl To Another

10.13.22
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Langsdorf: Same bleep, different day

Temple’s defense almost allows a big fat guy to score against it. Far cry from the UMass or RU games

What started out as something sweet turned sour pretty quickly in Temple’s 70-13 loss at UCF on Thursday night.

E.J. Warner was holding the baton and orchestrating the offense like Leonard Bernstein and The New York Philarmonic for a while and Temple oh-so-briefly held a 10-7 lead.

Then the same old Danny Langsdorf offensive coordinator shit that we’ve seen the first five weeks of Temple football predictably happened on the sixth.

Danny Langsdorf contributed to Nebraska’s decline on the college football landscape and now he is doing his part to negate all the good Stan Drayton has done so far.

Quincy Patterson was inserted into the ballgame as the quarterback and–you guessed it–ran the football.

The playlist Bernstein, err, Warner had setup was perfect except that every football team that scouts Temple knows what’s coming when Patterson comes in: A run.

Talk about a buzzkill. As embarrassing as the 30-0 loss to Duke was, this was worse.

This harkens back to the Bobby Wallace days of consecutive 70-7 and 70-21 losses against Bowling Green.

I have no problem at all, unlike former Pennridge and Pitt running back/defensive back Louis Riddick, with Patterson coming into the game.

I have a problem with him doing the same damn thing in Game No. 6 that he did in Games 1-5: Run.

Had Patterson, say, THROWN the ball, there’s a good chance that UCF would not have been ready for it and Temple might … might … have been able to squeeze out a 17-7 instead of a 10-7 lead.

The game of football is a momentum game and who knows how Temple’s defense would have responded with the Owls not only having momentum but also the scoreboard on their side?

Probably wouldn’t have won but would have certainly made it more respectable than the 70-13 disgrace on national TV.

After a perfect 4-0 week against the spread last week, our picks this week.

We will never know.

The Temple defense certainly doesn’t get a pass but what happened was what we predicted would happen in this space a week ago. At what point does the defensive effort erode when they realize that they are busting their ass without any help from the offense?

We saw that breaking point on Thursday night. Say what you will about the defense, but at least that side of the ball gave maximum effort for the first five games.

The offense has shown little effort and less of a clue from a coaching perspective for ALL six games.

It’s not that Langdorf hasn’t been warned.

We’ve been saying in this space for a few weeks that the tendencies of the Owls are so clear when Patterson is in the game that the Owls might as well be handing their entire playbook and the plays themselves to Gus Malzhan during the pre-game warmups.

Winning in college football is hard enough as it is. When your offensive tendencies are that predictable, it’s almost impossible.

New Temple coach Stan Drayton does not have to fire Langsdorf before Tulsa–although by doing so he would send a clear message to Temple fans that he’s not accepting failure–but he does have to use his running back acumen and dictate the philosophy on offense.

Giving Patterson some PASSING series and not RUNNING ones is a good place to start. In a 2-4 season, the Owls haven’t tried that concept yet.

The seventh game might be too late to start but it’s definitely worth a try. Langsdoff has tried this shit for exactly half the season and the stink is unbearable.

Update: Went 4-2 with ODU and Illinois not only covering as dogs but winning outright; Navy covered the 12.5 and Buffalo and UMass went under (41) the No. (47); lost on NIU and Kansas. Last two weeks we were 8-2 ATS. Season: 17-13 ATS.

Monday: The path forward