Tag Archives: E.J. Warner

07.28.25
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Temple hopes for a 1990-type repeat

Temple won at Pitt, 28-18, for one its seven wins in 1990 after a 1-10 season in 1989.

One of the things Temple head coach K.C. Keeler brought up at the American Conference Media Day was that he doesn’t want his team to be “realistic” (his word) about achieving incremental goals, like one or two more wins than last year.

After a loss in front of 93,865 fans at Tennessee, Temple won its last three games to finish 7-4 in 1990.

What he does want is the team to be talking about getting to bowl games and winning them and even doing the same when talking about getting to the conference championship game and winning it.

What would that look like?

Temple would have to win at least six more games this year than it did last to even entertain getting to the championship game.

While that might seem impossible, it has been done before.

At Temple.

Back in 1990, another coach with local ties who won at Penn–Jerry Berndt–was able to turn the Owls around from a 1-10 season in 1989 to a seven-win season in 1990. In that season, the Owls won on the road against Barry Alvarez’s Wisconsin team and won at Pitt’s on-campus stadium, 28-18. (Temple led 28-10 before Pitt added a cosmetic touchdown with 0:08 left on the fourth-quarter clock.)

Temple’s 1990 season represented the biggest single-season turnaround in program history. If the 2025 Owls just duplicate that, they will be in league championship game.

Berndt then, like Keeler now, said the same thing before the season that Keeler is saying now. “Our 1-10 season is in the past,” Berndt said. “I know we have winners on this team and we want to have a winning season. That’s all we’re talking about right now.”

Because there weren’t nearly as many bowl games back then, Maryland beat out Temple for an Independence Bowl bid when both teams were being considered as the “Eastern” representative.

Still, Berndt proved then what Keeler hopes to prove now–that a dramatic turnaround is possible at Temple.

In reality, it should be easier now than it was then because the Temple football of 1990 didn’t have a transfer portal to add key “ready to play” pieces like Keeler already has done. Keeler already improved the quarterback position with the addition of Gevani McCoy, meaning at the very least if Evan Simon goes down, the team won’t look as lost as it did in the years that E.J. Warner was injured.

Also, they upgraded the running back room by not only keeping Terrez Worthy but by adding the leading rusher from Sam Houston, Jay Ducker, and the leader rusher two years ago from Louisiana Monroe, Hunter Smith.

Those are just a few examples, although you can say key pieces were added for both lines and especially linebacker and defensive back.

None of those resources were available to the 1990 Owls but they still found a way to get it done.

Knowing that the 1990 Owls refused to be defined by their 1989 season should give the 2025 Owls a valuable point of reference.

Friday: Misconceptions

09.22.24
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Warner/Simon: How A is Unlike B

Evan Simon has come a long way since being sacked by Layton Jordan here.

Just like election polls, nothing is decided yet but the early trends are pointing in one direction:

Evan Simon might just be an upgrade at quarterback over E.J. Warner.

Like that other thing, nobody saw this coming back in June when the only evidence we had was that one was a record-setting passer at Temple and the other was a guy who had seven interceptions against only four touchdowns on the FBS level.

While the other election night is more than a month away, the election night between Warner and Simon is in four nights (ESPN, 7:30 p.m., Lincoln Financial Field). Simon’s popularity is soaring with Temple fans after throwing five touchdowns and running for another in a 45-29 win over Utah State on Saturday.

That popularity will be under a microscope on Thursday night, as several thousand more Prodigal Son Temple fans return to Lincoln Financial Field buoyed by that win.

Evan Simon threw five TD passes and ran for another. (Photo courtesy Zamani Feelings)

We have a real A and B comparison and if I’m reading the returns right, about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday we will find out who the better quarterback for Temple is.

That’s because we can compare what Warner did against Army vs. what Simon will do against Army.

The No. 1 benchmark is the win.

If Simon gets Temple a win against the unbeaten Cadets, it’s a landslide. That’s the No. 1 job of a quarterback. If you put up gaudy stats and lose, it doesn’t prove much.

Still, even without a win these are the numbers Simon needs to surpass to get the vote of the swing fans: 28 for 43 completions, 235 yards, two interceptions, two touchdown passes. That’s what Warner had against Army in a 37-14 loss.

Same defense, two different quarterbacks.

A Temple win and good TV ratings wouldn’t hurt the Owls’ national perception on Thursday night.

It’s an apples-to-apples comparison the likes we have not seen so far.

Our feelings about Warner were always this. He was the perfect guy for Danny Langsdorf’s system of short drops, quick releases, short passes. But he had this annoying habit of throwing Pick 6s in close games that cost Temple wins. Had Warner not thrown a Pick 6 against Rutgers in 2022, Temple wins that game, 14-9. Had Warner not thrown a Pick 6 against South Florida last year, Temple wins that game, 22-20. That was the same South Florida team that beat Syracuse, 55-0, in a bowl game a few weeks later.

Warner’s size contributed to both those disasters as his vision was obstructed in both cases.

Simon doesn’t have the same problem.

All he has to do Thursday night to win this election is go 29-for-42 with 236 yards, 1 INT and 3TD passes. One more yard, one less pick, one more TD pass.

Or complete one or two passes for a couple of yards and get Temple a win.

Polls close on or about 10:30 p.m. Thursday night.

Wednesday: Temple-Army Preview

Friday: Temple-Army Analysis

01.05.24
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What we once had at Temple: Fairness

A couple of years before Steve Conjar committed, Wayne Hardin put Temple football on the map.

Honestly, what Stan Drayton might see as light at the end of the tunnel some of us (raising my hand here) see an oncoming train.

Give Drayton at least some credit here.

Pretty sure the Temple job he signed up for nearly three years ago is not the same as it was back then. Hell, in three years it might be worse. Yes, there was a transfer portal back then but NIL didn’t exist and neither did tampering.

At one time none of that existed.

A story on one of the two greatest linebackers in Temple history appeared recently on social media and it was a reminder of both simpler and fairer times.

Emphasis on fairer.

Steve Conjar in my opinion was a better linebacker than Tyler Matakevich because it took him three years to compile pretty much the same number of tackles Matakevich amassed in four full years.

Loved them both because they loved Temple back.

In that story, Conjar explained that “bigger-time” schools backed off from him because of a high school injury but Temple was the one school that remained loyal and that’s why he remained loyal to Temple.

Now, nobody shows loyalty to Temple anymore with the number of great Temple players who have entered the portal.

Temple was one of only a few (and the biggest-name school) to recruit quarterback E.J. Warner. Instead of showing gratitude to Temple by honoring his commitment, Warner bolted for another school in the same conference.

Really, nobody shows loyalty to anyone anymore because even Alabama lost 12 players to the portal this week.

The two greatest linebackers in Temple history meet up post-game.

That can be a good thing because nobody in any power structure cares if the Temples of the world are getting screwed in college football but start screwing the Bamas and the Georgias and watch change come from the top down.

Change will never happen from the bottom up but there is hope from the top down.

All we have now is memories of what Temple did against other schools with bigger names when the playing field was level.

Now it’s tilted in a 180-degree direction with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

Until the system backfires on the rich, nothing will change.

At least we had the Steve Conjar and Tyler Matakevich Eras.

Monday: Apples to Apples

12.29.23
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Kurt Warner admits E.J. blew it (kinda sorta)

“Those opps did not come, UNFORTUNATELY.”

_ Kurt Warner, talking about E.J. Warner’s “opportunities” after transferring from Temple

E.J. Warner blew it.

Without saying so, Kurt Warner pretty much said it in as many words the other day.

The word “unfortunately” (our emphasis) says it all.

It looks as though from that one-sentence quote above that Warner was looking for a Power 5 opportunity and had to “settle” for another team in conference, Rice, with the same goals and aspirations as the team he left, Temple.

If it was unfortunate to Kurt that “opps” did not come you’ve got to think that if that information was known before transfer portal time Warner might have remained put.

At best, it’s a lateral move because Temple has had much more success in the sport over the last 15 years than Rice has had. E.J. probably didn’t care.

Unfortunately is a very good word because unfortunately Temple took a huge public relations hit by Warner landing at a fellow conference team at least perceived to be no better than the one he left.

The website Crossing Broad said it was embarrassed for Temple that Warner left for Rice. Long-time college writer Mike Jensen also publicly scratched his head over the move.

Since ultimately the kid (and maybe not the dad) made the final decision, it’s on him. In his mind, Rice was better than Temple and maybe this bowl season backs him up.

You can tell a lot about the state of Temple football by watching these bowl games, even though the Philadelphia Owls haven’t been a participant in a bowl since four years and two days ago. The Houston Owls have been in bowl games the last two seasons.

On Thursday, 6-6 Boston College, the same team that squeaked by Bob Chesney and Holy Cross, 31-28, hammered a team that destroyed Temple, 55-0.

Just goes to show you how far Temple has fallen.

We as fans have seen it.

So apparently has E.J. Warner.

The same people who put a roster together capable of losing 55-0 to a conference foe are still in charge of putting the 2024 roster together.

The defensive coordinator who was in charge of the FIU defense when it allowed 39 points a game and the Temple defense when it allowed 38.7 ppg is still in charge.

Evan Simon is still the projected starting quarterback even though both Matt Sluka and Reece Poffenbarger are still in the portal and remained unclaimed.

Can’t give anyone the warm and fuzzies about TU’s 2024 chances.

Let’s hope E.J. didn’t make the right decision. Hell, I hope A.J. Padgett beats him out for the starting job and E.J. rides the pine for the rest of his career. It won’t make Temple look any better if E.J. shines there.

Right now, though, unfortunately, E.J. looks like he’s made the right decision. It’s up to Drayton to prove him wrong by bringing in a lot more talent than he already has. This current roster is about one dynamite quarterback and a half-dozen starters short of, say, Rice.

Monday: What’s The Holdup?

11.30.23
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E.J. Warner: Could haves and Should Haves

The fact that E.J. was concussed during this press conference probably led to him leaving Temple. Ironically, a “concussed” Warner made far greater sense here than a fully “cussed” Stan Drayton did in any of the press conferences.

When the history of Temple football of Temple football is written, and I have a sinking feeling that will come pretty soon, there should at least be one chapter titled: “Could haves and Should Haves.”

Maybe two.

One for players and another for coaches.

Stan Drayton has exactly nine months to close a 161-team gap in talent.

Not only for the 2023 season, but the program as a whole.

Had to laugh at all the “should haves, could haves” coming out of Stan Drayton’s press conferences in this abysmal 3-9 season.

Instead of blaming the guy who was in charge of the defense when both FIU (2021) and Temple (2023) imploded, he shook his head and blamed the PLAYERS for “misfits” after allowing 48 to Tulsa, 55 to SMU, 45 to North Texas and 45 to Memphis.

That finger should have been pointed inward, not outward.

No way could Saint Everett Withers be responsible for putting said players in terrible spots.

Sarcasm intended.

Now E.J. Warner is gone in the transfer portal and another set of should haves and could haves need to be raised today.

Had Temple gone out this offseason and got a big-time offensive line and a big-time running back in the transfer portal, would Warner be gone now?

Doubtful and there are a couple of clues.

The players wanted Matt Rhule and the administration gave him to them and they rewarded with consecutive 10-win seasons. The players wanted Fran Brown and they gave a big FU to the players and ended up with Rod Carey and Stan Drayton. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

His mom, Brenda, tweeted after Warner missed the North Texas game “I hate football but I love my son.” The hate comes from the fact that Warner’s bell was rung so much in the UTSA game that he had to miss the next two. E.J. had a big red mark on his far head for the final couple of games he game back to play. My educated guess at some point is that mom and dad discussed after the concussion that it was time to get Warner out of Temple before he got killed (figuratively speaking, of course).

Had Warner been protected sufficiently and Temple established a running game that would have contributed to at least a few more wins, the discussion could have changed.

Warner’s dad is worth $30 million. E.J. doesn’t need the NIL money. Playing in an NFL stadium for an improving team with a halfway decent offensive line and a viable running game probably would have been enough to make him stay.

Could have, should have but we will never know.

Check that, as Harry Donahue might say.

We will ONLY know what Drayton thinks about Warner leaving on signing day, Dec. 21, the next “media availability” for Drayton. That’s almost a month away.

E.J. Warner is headed to another school, my guess following Curt Cignetti to Indiana. Both should have been retained by Temple.

If this were any other big city with any other high-profile quarterback, the head coach of the city’s most prominent college football team would have already been interviewed and given his thoughts on the departure and plans to replace him.

Instead, nobody from the media cares and there is no demand among the fans of the few outlets who cover the team to get a quote or two from the coach.

In the same week, two former Temple assistant coaches were arguably the very best college football head coaching hires this offseason. On Tuesday, Fran Brown was hired by Syracuse and, on Thursday, Curt Cignetti was hired by Indiana. Brown was a defensive backs coach at Temple. Cignetti was a four-year QB coach at Temple.

When the Owls had head coaching openings, Temple players begged for both Cignetti and Brown to be hired and those pleas fell on deaf Temple administration ears. When it comes to Temple football, the Temple administration has dropped more balls in Sullivan Hall than anyone ever has at Lincoln Financial Field.

Amazing how Temple players begged the administration to hire four coaches in my lifetime: Cig, Matt Rhule, Phil Snow and Fran Brown and the administration gave a big FU to the players all but one time. That one coach the kids selected gave Temple a win over Penn State and an ESPN College Gameday.

Could haves, should haves indeed.

Monday: Do You Believe in Magic?

11.24.23
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The worst of all 3-9 seasons

For the third-straight year, Temple University finished an abysmal 3-9 in football.

That’s the only thing that matters.

Not injuries, not coaching staff changes, not losing recruiting battles.

Not nothing.

This team without E.J. Warner has been a complete and utter joke. Congratulations to E.J. If this is the end, it was a pleasure to be a fan of yours (I won’t be once you leave but that’s the same thought process I have for every Temple player who leaves the nest.)

The bottom line is the bottom line.

Temple lost, 45-21, on Friday to a Memphis team that it lost to, 24-3, a year ago.

Whatever was gained on the offensive end was more than offset by the loss on the defensive end.

That’s been the story all season.

Basically, it was the same thing on a different day. This happened to be on a Friday in front of an ESPN audience. Most embarrassments came on a Saturday in front of ESPN+ viewers. A Thursday ESPN show ended up in a 48-26 loss to Tulsa (a team it lost 29-16 in 2022) and multiple Saturdays resulted in worse outcomes. Every single game against same opponents Temple performed at a worse level in head coach Stan Drayton’s second season than it did in his first.

Think about that.

In Al Golden’s first season, he was 1-11. In his second, he was 4-8.

In Matt Rhule’s first season, he was 2-10. In his second, he was 6-6.

That’s the way this thing is supposed to work.

It didn’t this year. Every opponent on Temple’s schedule in 2023 performed at a higher level against the Owls than they did in 2022.

The only outlier was the Navy game.

That’s not supposed to be the way things work when you spend $2.5 million to hire a new coach.

In the press conference afterward, Temple head coach Stan Drayton blamed injuries.

He didn’t blame a coaching staff that sat on its hands in the portal instead of bringing in 20 potential new starters from P5, JUCO and FCS teams. The only starters that needed to keep their jobs were quarterback E.J. Warner, linebacker Jordan Magee and (under a DC who knew what he was doing) LB Layton Jordan.

He didn’t point the finger to himself for not conducting a nationwide search for a defensive coordinator instead of picking the first friend to come to his mind. A great defense gives you a chance … chance .. to stay in every single game. D.J. Elliott outperformed Everett Withers in all but one game of Drayton’s first year without the benefit that goes with that additional year.

That’s more of an indictment of Withers than it is praise of Elliott, who is now the LB coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.

A poor defense can get you blown out on any given day.

An argument can be made of the three consecutive 3-9 seasons, this is the worst. First, the 3-9 Carey season at least had a win over a ranked team (Memphis) and this one did not.

Last year’s 3-9 team showed some fight in their last two games and this one did not.

Afterward, Warner was asked if he was leaving and said: “Please don’t ask me that.”

(If that doesn’t mean he’s gone, I don’t know what does. I hope he stays but I’m not an idiot. My educated guess is that he ends up at a place like James Madison in a couple of weeks.)

If no big firing is made on Monday (and we’re talking DC here because we don’t expect Drayton to be fired), Temple is telling the nation that finishing 3-9 every year is perfectly fine. Drayton is telling you he prefers a comfortable friendship with Everett Withers over winning football games at Temple.

That’s not perfectly fine with me. Nor should it be with you.

Otherwise, every Saturday next year will be the same Groundhog Day it has been every Saturday for the last three seasons.

A reminder that the opener next year is with Oklahoma, not Bucknell nor Akron. The urgency to get big-time players in here should have been last offseason, not this one.

Monday: 5 Immediate Fixes for Temple Football

Friday: At Least We Had This

Monday: The Nuclear Option

Friday: A Big Announcement in Lieu of a Big Announcement

11.04.23
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Some much-needed respect

Respect is earned, not given, and, honestly, the Temple football Owls didn’t deserve much respect over the first eight games of this rapidly ending season.

When Temple wins, the Owls have more people talking about them than an Insurrection, Tucker Carlson and Trumpers.

It took until Game 9 for the Owls to earn it, though, and earn they did, with a 32-18 win over a Navy team that already did enough to earn respect on the basis of its prior games.

Had not one player fumbled twice on consecutive plays, it probably would have been 39-11 instead of 32-18.

The worst thing, though, about Temple’s five-game losing streak was reading so many of the comments that “Temple should drop football” and “give it up, we’re not good at this” because other schools lose games and don’t have to listen to that garbage.

Nobody on any Navy site is calling for the Middies to drop football and concentrate on basketball after the Temple loss and neither should anybody from Temple overreact the other way when adversity faces the Owls.

It was just seven short years ago that Temple pummeled No. 22-ranked Navy in the AAC championship game, 34-10, proving a couple of things.

Temple can win in this sport and a fan base that has something to cheer for will show up, as 10,000 Owl fans who traveled 120 miles proved that afternoon.

Just win, baby.

This slap made my day.

We’re not going to overreact either way today because the Owls looked so bad in those five games there is a strong argument to be made that the Navy game was an outlier. Even the other two wins were nothing to write home about. Akron hasn’t exactly set the world on fire since losing to the Owls and Norfolk State still has a Division II blemish loss on its record.

Here’s what we do know, though. Temple is a representative team with quarterback E.J. Warner in the lineup. In my mind, UTSA will win this year’s AAC title because it has a seven-year quarterback and a great coach but the Owls were still within shouting distance of that team late in the fourth quarter with Warner. Even coming off a concussion, Warner finished an insane 27 for 33 with 402 yards and four touchdowns against Navy.

For that, he became the first Temple player in history (I wasn’t around in 1934) to be carried by his teammates in the lockeroom.

I’ve never seen a Temple player carried off the field in my lifetime (Dick Beck and other Owls carried Bruce Arians off the field in 1988). If Warner wins four-straight to close out the season, expect him to be carried off the field after a win over visiting Memphis. (Temple has beaten Memphis the last two times it came into Philadelphia.)

As Temple head coach Stan Drayton said after the win over Navy, “You can’t spell Warner without a W” and E.J. slapped that W on the Lincoln Financial Field wall with some added gusto.

Scary, though, because what happens to the Owls without Warner? Obviously, all three backups are light years behind him so let’s enjoy the Owls while we have him.

Navy isn’t great, but is pretty good. The Middies beat both Charlotte (14-0) and North Texas (27-24). They hung with USF (44-30) and a really good Memphis team (28-24). Temple has both USF and Memphis left on the schedule. It will have to win those games plus scratch out a win at UAB to get a bowl bid.

Impossible?

No.

Likely?

Also no.

If the Owls are able to keep Warner clean and avoid fumbles, they have a shot and, at this point, this is all we can ask.

After being a national laughingstock for five-straight weeks, any morsel of respect is both needed and appreciated.

Monday: The Road Forward

10.13.23
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North Texas: The Eclipse Game

Sometime in the middle of the second quarter of Temple’s game at North Texas, a solar eclipse will darken at least 80 percent of the sun for maybe 17-29 minutes of the game.

It will be the first eclipse game in Temple football history. Maybe the eclipse changes the Owls’ fortunes. Maybe not. Think the Eagles at Chicago Bears’ “fog bowl” for a historical perspective.

Of all the games in the country, Temple will be the darkest game in the middle of the second quarter. I’m guessing they have science at North Texas and know this.

Gotta hope the folks at North Texas are aware of that and keep the lights on for the short time day becomes night in Denton.

Around that time, though, the light has to turn on for Temple football or this season is over.

Some people who do not wear Cherry and White glasses (see above video) believe in Temple here. The line has dropped from North Texas being an 8.5-point favorite (Monday) to a five-point favorite (today) and that means the “wise guys” are backing Temple.

The hard reality is that Temple will not be favored in another game this season unless the Owls are able to string two or three wins together.

Our picks this week.Logic is SDSU has much better coaches than Hawaii. Troy is a sneaky good team, the Charlotte kids play incredibly hard and the Iowa State loss at a good Ohio team was as fluky as it comes. For the season we are 8-8 against the spread and 16-8 overall.

This might have been what the “general public” expected but not what I expected listening to the glowing reports coming out of camp from March spring practice until the kickoff of the first game against Akron. We were told this was the best offensive line at Temple in years and all we’ve seen is that Isaac Moore’s blocking has been missed more than we thought and nobody can keep the bad guys away from E.J. Warner on any consistent basis. On top of that, we haven’t seen anything like Edward Saydee’s 254-yard game against USF last year and that’s a big indictment on the offensive line.

Worse, the defense had nine returning starters and a “normal” defensive coordinator replacement for the departed D.J. Eliot (Eagles) should have been able to post a shutout or two.

Instead, we got a friend of the boss (Stan Drayton) with a dismal record of stopping modern offenses coming into the season and he proved that old saying from Bill Parcells “you are what your record says you are.”

Everett Withers’ record screams “I suck” and has since 1985. (When he posted his last shutout as a DC.) Withers strikes me as a guy who punches the clock at 9 a.m. and punches out at 5 p.m. and if additional film study is needed at midnight to help his kids stop any future foes he just says “fuck it. I’m outta here.”

That, apparently, never bothered Drayton and he has reaped what he has sowed. He loves the guy evidently more than he loves Temple because it has not bothered him sufficiently enough to fire him after he gave up 48 points against Tulsa and 49 against UTSA. Blind spots will get you fired as a head coach and Drayton has a blind spot with Everett Withers.

I love Temple and if I was the Temple head coach, I would not have tolerated 48 and 49 point games from any defensive coach. Even given the hiring freeze by Temple, I would have told Withers he was free to go elsewhere and promoted a professional defensive coordinator (Chris Woods, USFL) to the top job.

A North Texas offense that has had success against any defense other than Navy last week figures to feast on Temple tomorrow (noon, ESPNU).

The only hope the Owls have is to outscore the Mean Green.

That is possible only if E.J. Warner’s replicates his five-touchdown, 472-yard performance against UTSA a week ago.

It figures to be a shootout. I’m guessing E.J. Warner has studied more North Texas defensive film than Withers has Mean Green offensive film.

Knowing E.J., I think that is a better bet and that’s sad because he’s not pulling down the half million Withers is stealing from Temple.

Temple 39, North Texas 35.

Let’s hope this is the start of something big. Failing that, something bigger than we’ve seen so far. In a 2-4 season, we’ve had enough of watching the Owls come up small.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

10.07.23
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Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Defenses

After Saturday’s Homecoming 49-34 loss to UTSA, the math just doesn’t add up for Temple.

With six games left, the football Owls have to win four games just to become bowl eligible. That doesn’t look likely. Hell, Stan Drayton’s stated dream of “winning championships” at the school will have to wait another year.

Or two unless he hits the portal as hard as he should.

Or maybe never with this guy in charge of his defense.

You could make a strong argument that the math didn’t add up all the way back on St. Patrick’s Day when Drayton handed the keys of his defense to long-time friend, Everett Withers, after D.J. Eliot left the same DC position to become a linebackers’ coach with the Eagles.

If Drayton learned anything this season, friends don’t let friends drive defenses.

Were there more qualified people available?

Sure.

The last time a head coach handed the keys to his defense over to Withers was not all that long ago in 2021 and Withers got the head coach, Butch Davis, fired at FIU. Of the 130 FBS teams that year, FIU finished 128th in total defense, giving up just over 496 yards and 39.7 points per game. That’s hard to do on purpose, let alone ostensibly trying to tackle people.

That’s not the kind of resume you take into a job interview.

Yet Drayton probably didn’t vet Withers because he knew the guy and liked him.

When I was sports editor of two daily newspapers, I never hired a guy because I liked or knew him before. I would sort through the resumes and find the best guy for the job. When I was 24, I was given the responsibility of hiring someone for an assistant editor’s position.

Nobody worked out. They were either too slow or too sloppy or too unreliable. That is, until an experienced guy walked in and killed the tryout. Wrote the best headlines, made the best edits, laid out the best-looking pages.

“This is the guy I want to hire,” I told my Editor-In-Chief.

“But he’s 50,” my editor said. “Are you sure?”

“Fifty isn’t old,” I said.

“You’re getting a raise,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m 50.”

Editor was true to his word with the raise and he let me hire the guy, who turned out to be one of the best hires I ever made. I didn’t become his friend until after the hire.

Withers is 60 but he could be 30 and still wouldn’t have been the best person for the job. In his last season at FIU, he allowed 54 to Texas Tech, 31 to Central Michigan, 58 to FAU, 45 to Charlotte, 34 to Western Kentucky, 38 to Marshall, 47 to Old Dominion, 50 to MTSU and 49 to North Texas.

Most not FBS powerhouses but he made them look that way.

I’d rather have a 90-year-old guy who knows how to stop a modern offense than a 60-year-old who appears to be in over his head.

So far at Temple, against FBS opposition, he’s given up 21 points to Akron, 36 to Rutgers, 41 to Miami, 48 to Tulsa and now 49 points to a 2-3 UTSA team.

He has Temple on par to break the dismal record of the 2021 FIU defense.

That’s a shame because an offense that scored 26 points against Tulsa and 34 points against UTSA has done enough to win. E.J. Warner woke from his season-long slumber and became the E.J. we knew and loved at the end of last year. He and the offense deserved better. The defense once again didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

Sometimes you have to take the keys from your friend and tell him he can’t drive anymore. If Stan doesn’t do that to Everett, he’s staring at another 3-9 season.

That’s only if there’s at least one team out there Temple can win a shootout against.

Monday: Post-mortem

09.28.23
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The Indiana Football Curse Strikes Again

Everett Withers could be the greatest friend and the nicest guy in the world but he has been complete garbage as a DC for FIU and now for Temple. He’s killing Stan Drayton. He needs to go like yesterday.

Many things can be true at once.

For Temple, the four truthers in a 48-26 football loss at Tulsa on Thursday night at Tulsa were:

One, defensive coordinator Everett Withers can’t stop a nosebleed. We already knew that.

Two, E.J. Warner’s sophomore slump is official. We “kinda sorta” expected that before this but it is now confirmed.

Three, Temple should avoid hiring buddies as football coaches.

Looks like Pat Kraft hired the wrong Indiana football coach.

Four, and maybe most importantly, The Indiana Football Curse struck again.

A former Indiana football person once again killed Temple.

Kevin Wilson, the Indiana head coach from 2011-2016, coached the pants off Stan Drayton. Wilson joins former Indiana player (and current Indiana quality control coach) Rod Carey as killing any Temple football hopes. Carey’s accomplice was former Temple AD Pat Kraft who could have hired anyone but chose his fellow Indiana alum. He picked the wrong Indiana guy.

The first and third killers are directly related because Withers is a buddy of Drayton and hiring buddies is a proven disaster at Temple. What was that Peter, Paul and Mary song? “When will they ever learn?”

Bill Bradshaw hired his buddy (Fran Dunphy) and that didn’t work out.

Kraft hired his buddy (Rod Carey) and that didn’t work out.

Arthur Johnson hired his buddy (Stan Drayton) and that doesn’t appear to be working out.

Stan Drayton hired his buddy (Everett Withers) and that has definitely not worked out. We saw that coming a mile away if you count St. Patrick’s Day as a mile.

Let’s sift through the resumes and hire the best person for the job and abandon this buddy system. That, unfortunately, is a hard lesson to learn and the Owls’ football program maybe has run out of time. When you have a bean-counting BOT that doesn’t even think painting the field is worth it, can the program itself be that far behind?

Our picks this week. As long as Withers is the DC, it’s money in the bank to pick against Temple.

Very little hiring oversight at Temple and that is showing through on national television.

As a result, a once-proud Temple football program is a national laughingstock. It pains me to say that but the evidence was there on Thursday night for any TV in any bar in America that was tuned into this game. (My guess it was on one TV in the far corner of every one while the NFL game was on every other TV.)

A 2-2 start to a season that started with so much promise pretty much ended on Thursday night. You can’t lose to a team that lost games by 66-17 and 43-10 no matter how good the teams that had the 66 and the 43 were.

This “Waiting for Warner” to be as good as he was last year needs to stop. Anybody who was shut out in the first three quarters by Rutgers and held to three points in the first half by a horrible Tulsa defense is just not good enough for Temple going forward. Stop babying him and worrying about him leaving. If he’s not turning the scoreboard into an adding machine, and he’s not, he needs to sit.

Quincy Patterson needs a shot from the beginning and not just in garbage time. He’s a big guy who, unlike Warner, can see over defenses and, also unlike Warner, can take off and run and do some damage should the play break down.

That’s probably the only thing to look forward to in the future. That, and discovering if Stan Drayton has the gonads to fire a friend for the overall advancement of the organization. That’s what great CEOs are able to do. Unfortunately, I very much doubt it.

For now, the reality is that the Indiana football curse struck Temple again and, ironically, Pat Kraft hired the wrong buddy.

Update on picks: Went 12-3 this weekend. Since they were all on the moneyline, going to keep those separate from my 8-4 against the spread in the previous two weeks.

Season: 20-7 overall

Spread: 8-4

Monday: Tweaking A Recruiting Model

Friday: Sense of Urgency