Navy week: Headed for a dubious record

Current Charlotte DC Ryan Osborn explains how to stop the triple option four years ago. He held this Navy team to 14 points.

Say what you will about Everett Withers’ performance in his last two DC jobs.

He’s consistent.

Say what you will about Everett Withers' performance in his last two DC jobs.
He's consistent.
Withers in 2023 ….

As the Florida International DC only two short years ago, his team gave up 39.7 points per game in a dozen games for a grand total of 476 points. As DC for Temple in 2023, his unit has given up 38 points a game with four left.

Maddeningly consistent.

He’s on the verge of breaking a dubious mark: With four games left, Owls have to give up “only” 43 points a game for this team to pass that one in futility.

If you think that’s not possible, the trend for Temple has been downward. All talk of a bowl game is out the window. It would take a minor miracle for this team to finish 3-9 for a third-straight year.

Temple TUFF is becoming a distant memory.

The Owls have given up more than 40 points per game in five-straight games and their tackling will be put to the test by Navy this Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field (2 p.m., ESPN+).

This is historically bad territory for Temple. The Owls haven’t given up 40+ points a game in five consecutive games since Ron Dickerson’s 1994 season. That’s hard to do because it also includes Bobby Wallace’s last season (0-11) and Al Golden’s first season (1-11).

…. Withers in 2021

This will be the first time Withers has faced a triple-option service academy team in a long time. He did not face one at FIU nor did he face one in his prior three years as head coach at Texas State (2016-18).

It might help to go over 2016 Temple film for a primer. In the opening game that season, the Owls fell to Army, 29-13, going with their usual 4-3 defense. They left the “A gap” open and the Army fullback gouged them for over 100 yards.

They finished that season with a 34-10 win over an even better Navy team in the AAC championship game, going to a 5-2 taking away the Navy fullback by putting a nose guard over the center and stringing the Navy offense from sideline to sideline where the Owls could use their superior speed. Both Averee Robinson and Freddy Booth-Lloyd alternated at nose guard for the Owls on that glorious championship afternoon.

Phil Snow adjusted from the lesson of the opener and applied a fix to the closing game plan.

Does anyone here think Withers has the knack for defensive adjustments that Snow had? Do you even think he spends the requisite hours in film study in his current and past jobs?

The numbers certainly don’t reflect that.

In fact, they are headed in a historic Southerly direction and head coach Stan Drayton is giving every indication that Withers will be able to do the same damage to Temple that he did to FIU by refusing to fire him.

FIU recovered from the Withers’ Era. It’s not entirely clear that Temple will be able to do the same.

Friday: Navy Preview

Late Saturday Night: Navy Analysis

The Temple coaching tie that binds

At least Texas State has a nice on-campus stadium

When things get particularly boring or depressing in the defensive coaching room at Edberg Olson Hall this fall, at least the new Temple defensive football coaching staff can talk about old war stories in San Marcos.

We’re not talking about the WW2 Italian campaign led by Fifth Army commander U.S. General Mark Clark.

We’re talking about going to war leading the football team at Texas State in San Marcos, Texas.

No less than five Temple staffers, mostly on defense, spent some time at Texas State and three of them (defensive line coach Antoine Smith. linebacker coach Chris Woods and cornerbacks coach Jules Montinar) coached for current Temple football Chief of Staff Everett Winters, the head coach there from 2016-2018.

The war there did not go as well for Winters and his troops as it did for Clark in the big one. Between 2016-18, the Bobcats finished 7-28 with a pair of 2-10 seasons.

Winters has his fingerprints all over these hires and, while he might be pleased with them, had new head coach Stan Drayton consulted NFL Hall of Famer Bill Parcells, he would have nixed those hires in the bud. Parcells was famous for this one line: “You are what your record says you are.”

Spoiler alert: It’s not good.

In the 2016 season, the Bobcats gave up 64 to Houston, 42 to Arkansas, 41 to Georgia State, 40 to Louisiana Monroe, 47 to Idaho, 50 to New Mexico State and 40 to Troy. That was the same year Temple held the then highest-scoring team in the nation, Navy, to just 10 points in winning the AAC championship.

The next year wasn’t much better: 44 to UTSA, 45 each to three teams (Monroe, Wyoming and New Mexico State) and 62 to Troy.

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to what is mostly the new defensive staff at Temple University.

Ugh.

New DC D.J. Eliot doesn’t get off free in this comparison. He also coached at Texas State, albeit in 2003 and 2004.

Presumably, he knows he knows the cuisine in San Marcos as well as the other guys.

If doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, these guys better remember what they did at Texas State and do the exact opposite here.

If not, somebody will be eating crow and that person could be former Texas (not state, though) Director of Football Operations Arthur Johnson, who opened the floodgates for all of these Texas guys to relocate to Philadelphia.

Friday: Building Blocks