Tag Archives: Geoff Collins

07.19.17
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Media Day: Sign Season Not Far Away

When I used to vacation in the Poconos, there was no more significant sign the summer was coming to an end than ads along the side of Route 209 promoting the West End Fair or the Carbon County Fair.

Since I wasn’t interested in county fairs but was very interested in an endless summer, those were always signs of trouble up ahead like, you know, the  end of vacations and the beginning of a long, cold winter.

preseason

The last time TU was picked to finish third in the East, it won the division.

I always had Temple football to fall back on, which was nothing to write home about—or even blog about—during the Dark Ages of 1991 through 2005. Now, that’s much different.

College football’s way of telling you the summer is coming to an end are the various Media Days.

The American Athletic Conference held two of them the last two days so as one door closes another opens and it was the AAC’s way of telling you that before the long, cold, winter comes is some exciting football ahead.

Players on the way into the facility at Newport (R.I.) were greeted with the photo of the P6 helmet. The AAC likes to market itself as a P6 Conference. That’s a little silly. While it is the best of the rest, it is still a G5 Conference. What is the Power 5 to do? “Oh, yeah, that helmet reminds us that you are just as  good as us, so here is your invite to join us.” Not happening. As George Carlin says, “it’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”

Commissioner Mike Aresco inadvertently made news when he said that Temple and Miami have signed a home-and-home and Temple quickly denied that a contract had been signed. Temple needs to add more ACC schools to its schedule and Miami would be a nice addition with Duke and Boston College. Maybe Aresco misspoke; maybe he jumped the gun. Hopefully, Miami replaces Bucknell or Idaho.

Even Cincinnati, Temple, Houston and UConn—the four most likely future P5 schools—are stuck in this conference for a long time and they might as well make the most of it.

From Temple’s perspective, even after a championship, there is still a lot left to accomplish and those were basically the answers the players provided on Tuesday morning. There is a great opportunity to beat Notre Dame on Opening Day, and a chance to beat even a more hated rival the next week. There’s a chance to prove to the people picking South Florida and Navy to win the AAC that, not so fast, Temple is really the Gold Standard of this league.

Then there is the challenge of going to a bowl and winning one for a change, a reminder that all this could be accomplished before the real cold part of winter.

Friday: The Big Uglies

Monday: The Gold Standard

07.17.17
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The Magnificent Obsession

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Recently, we’ve been accused of “obsessing” with the Notre Dame game.

I plead guilty of this so-called obsession, but I don’t think too much emphasis can be placed upon this one moment in Temple football history.

There are a few reasons:

  • It’s the next game and you take them one at a time. (We’ll probably obsess about Villanova the week before that game.)
  • Most people think Temple will “take a step back” this season. A win over ND would do a lot to debunk that notion.
  • Eyeballs. This game will be on the bar in every tavern in the country.
  • It’s a long walk through the scheduling desert to get to 2024 and that is the next “national” name opponent on the Temple schedule: Oklahoma. While there are some interesting regional opponents, like Boston College and Maryland and Rutgers, none hold the cache of Notre Dame or Oklahoma and probably none will for another seven years.
  • Seven years. That’s a long time. Does Pat Kraft strike you as a person who is seeking rid the Owls of the Bucknells and the Idahos and schedule more national games? I didn’t think so.
  • Nothing would give the Owls credibility with the Joe Philadelphia Subway Alumni fan as beating Notre Dame and this is likely their last shot to do so.

The Owls have done a lot since Al Golden took the job over a decade ago. They have soundly beaten an ACC team (Maryland) and a SEC team (Vanderbilt) and a Big 10 team (Penn State). They’ve been to two AAC title games, winning one. They have not beaten Notre Dame. Beating Notre Dame on NBC National television during the first week of the season and that’s the kind of promotion that money cannot buy—especially if Notre Dame goes on to have a decent season and beat Georgia the next week after losing to the Owls.

Win this one, and a lot of good can come out of it.

So, yeah, it’s a big game.

Obsessing over this game does not mean the other games are unimportant.

So consider this a Magnificent Obsession.

Wednesday: Owls at Media Day

Friday: The Big Uglies

07.14.17
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The Mildcat Offense

wright

In a very strange way, Matt Rhule’s introduction of a wildcat offense a year ago might be a nice starting point for new head coach Geoff Collins.

While the biggest question going into the Notre Dame game could be who is going to start at quarterback, the prospect of Isaiah Wright coming out in the first series under center could probably throw off the Irish defense.

Last year, Wright ran a rather muffled version of the Wildcat offense for a couple of series each game. We’ll call it The Mildcat. When the very talented runner came in the game, you could bet that he would carry the ball.

If, though, Collins could jazz up the package with a pass or two–creating an equal threat and keeping the defense on its toes–that might work better for the Owls. People who watched in practice a year ago have related stories that Wright can throw the ball 65 plus yards on a dime.

Unfortunately, we’ve never seen that in a real game.

Maybe this year.

Maybe even on the first series.

One thing is certain: The Owls are going to have to find a way to get the ball into Wright’s hands, either as a slot receiver, running back or Wildcat quarterback. They have an abundance of good receivers, so creating some package which has him throwing the ball more often might make the offense harder to stop and give him more holes to dart through in the running game.

It could not hurt.

We’ve waited this long to find out who the starting quarterback will be. If Owl fans have to wait until the second series of the first game to find out the “true” starter, they would probably understand.

Monday: The Magnificent Obsession

07.12.17
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Marketing Mayhem

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When Geoff Collins was defensive coordinator for Mississippi State, in his office was displayed an emoticon with a Philadelphia Phillies hat.

Other than the foretelling of his future geographical destination, the emoticon and the Minister of Mayhem are wedded in a couple of ways.

The Phillies, despite their recent cellar-dwelling habits, have done a nice job marketing themselves with things like Fireworks, dollar hot dog nights, ambiance and mascots.

Temple University would do well “borrowing” from that organization by marketing its new head football coach and his balls-to-the-wall system.

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Talk to any Temple fan and they will invariably tell you that the No. 1 way to market the team is to win.

The 2015 team did a fairly good job of that and delivered an opening-day crowd of 34,005 for the Army game. Then, despite our warnings to use the nine months the good Lord has given them to develop a defense designed to stop the triple option (eight men on the line, employ a nose guard with A gaps plugged on each side by tackles), Humpty Dumpty fell and all the marketing in the world could not put that fan base together again. All the Owls needed to do was take a half-hour a practice in the spring and the summer to go over the triple option defense. They could have still concentrated the rest of their time on the 4-3 and have been as prepared for the season as they needed to be. But, as John Belushi would say, nooooo. They had to do it their way. The Owls played their base 4-3 defense and the Army fullback kept getting chunks of yards through the A gaps. Even the North Texas State coaching staff figured that out by mid season and played an eight-man line in a 30-19 win at West Point. North Freaking Texas Freaking State.

The Owls got caught with their pants down and did nothing to force Army’s vertically challenged quarterback to beat them. The NTSU coaching staff figured out what any group of professionals would have against Army: load the box and make them beat with the pass.

Let’s hope Collins and his staff are studying any weaknesses of ND right now and adjusting the game plan.

So you need winning based off marketing to get a big crowd for Villanova and more winning to keep that crowd coming back again. Beating Notre Dame will beget a crowd of 35,000-plus for Villanova but to keep them, you have to hammer Villanova as well. A win over ND would wake up a lot of softcore Temple fans who grew up as ND subway alumni and are not quite as impressed with, say, an AAC title.

Anyone who walked out after the Army game last year heard plenty of “same old Temple” comments from fans they never saw again the rest of the season.

Nothing would market the Mayhem like a Mayhem-based win at Notre Dame. Sack, not just pressure, the quarterback, hit him in the mouth and come away with fumbles and interceptions and a win.

Then market the hell out of this form of football, call it new, and get the Joe Philadelphia fan–and especially the softcore Temple fan–onboard. Plaster the I95 and I76 with Mayhem signs inviting Eagles’ fans who cannot get into LFF to watch some exciting football.

Even the Phillies would be impressed with that kind of marketing.

Friday: The Mildcat

Monday: The Magnificent Obsession

Wednesday: Whereabouts

 

07.10.17
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House Money

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One of the things you always here on sports talk radio is the phrase “the line is telling me something.”

While there might be sound fiscal reasons behind the phrase, there are a couple of things wrong with that reasoning.

Take the Temple football opener at Notre Dame for instance.

The game opened way back in February with the Irish as a 6.5 favorite. Even one of the Notre Dame websites had a headline we published here: “Irish open as ONLY a touchdown favorite over Temple.”

The horror.

It is now 15 points, mostly moved by a John Q. Public that sees the brand “Notre Dame” as good and “Temple” as bad. A century of mostly success on one hand, failure on the other, has set the perception in stone, although in the last decade the Owls have started to chip away at the rock. It’s a big rock and there’s more chipping to do.

That’s the first problem with what the line tells you.

The second is that the people in Vegas cannot know how good or bad either team can be.

Temple is coming off a 10-4 season, while Notre Dame is coming off a 4-8 one. Different schedules for sure, but one of the four losses Temple had was at the Big 10 champion by a touchdown in a game where the Owls had 120 yards in penalties. While many of those yards were self-inflicted, a good number of them were the result of very bad calls—the replay showed Dion Dawkins clearly blocking from the side (legal) on a touchdown pass to Marshall Ellick, a play that was called back due to a block in the back (illegal). Unfortunately, holding calls are not reviewable or the Owls might be the only G5 champion with a win over a P5 champion last year.

That would have done a lot to change the perceptions of the bettors for this game.

Vegas does not know how, say, for sake of argument Anthony Russo or Logan Marchi are because they never took bets on Archbishop Wood or St. Paul’s (Conn.).

Vegas does not know what Collins’ famed “Mayhem” defense will look like.

They could find out on Sept. 2. (In all fairness, either way.)

That’s why another betting phrase comes to mind first when thinking about how the Owls play in this one.

House Money.

Notre Dame has more to lose and will play tighter than Temple, which will take this loosey goosey attitude into the game. Whether that leads to more fumbles and interceptions going Temple’s way is yet to be determined but that’s one thing the line cannot tell you today.

So, right now, 53 days before the game, no matter how loud that line yells in your ear, the best policy is not to listen.

Wednesday: Marketing Mayhem

07.05.17
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Summer Practice: Picking Up That Can

crew

As a matter of comparison, what has happened at the quarterback position since the departure of P.J. Walker has been simply a case of kicking the can down the road.

More precisely, four cans.

This summer’s practice isn’t all about picking up the can with the best ingredients but it will be the most intriguing development.

Collins, correctly, postponed the decision on starter until the summer practice that begins in a couple of weeks.

It probably won’t be announced on the first or second week, but probably settled on by the third or fourth week. No one would be surprised if it was revealed a few days before the Sept. 2 game at Notre Dame. Game notes being what they are, and a national television audience being what it is, the crew of the game probably would want to do their homework on the Temple starter on something other than the morning of the game. So don’t expect a game day surprise.

As it sits now, I cannot tell you who will start.

Collins probably couldn’t either.

That’s because no one really has separated themselves from the other in the four weeks of spring practice. Will it happen in the summer? Possibly, but it’s also possible that the talent level will be so close other factors have to be considered.

In Toddy Centeio, the true freshman from Florida, the Owls have a high upside guy. Maybe the highest. Still, when was the last time a true freshman led a team to a P5 or a G5 title? That’s probably the best reason for a redshirt year that includes time leading the scout team, building up muscles in the weight room and loading the head with modern offensive concepts in the film room.

That leaves Anthony Russo, Logan Marchi and Frank Nutile.

In Russo, the Owls not only have their highest-ranked quarterback recruit since Ron Dickerson was able to convince Kevin Harvey to take his Parade All-American certificate to Temple, but one of the top three recruits of any school from one of the three big Philadelphia City Leagues. Russo has a better pedigree that even a couple of NFL MVPs, Rich Gannon (St. Joseph’s Prep, Delaware) and Matty Ryan (Penn Charter, Boston College). Both Gannon and Ryan had 20 touchdown passes in their final year of high school play; Russo had 35. Same level of competition.

The Owls could go to Nutile, a game manager type who was nowhere near as effective a high school quarterback as Russo.

The appeal of Marchi is that he has the mobility none of the other three have and he’s a year farther along than Russo. Given offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude’s stated fondness for a dual threat quarterback, Marchi might be the slight clubhouse leader at this point.

Collins and Patenaude will kick these cans down the interstate as long as they can, but somewhere between here and South Bend they will have to settle on one. Right now, they would prefer one of the guys to be so much better than the other three that the player, not the coach, decides.

That’s what summer practice is for but it’s also to make the tough coaching calls if a player doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity.

Friday: Class Warfare

Monday: House Money

 

 

07.03.17
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Real News

There are plenty of reasons to turn to the sports pages nowadays and one of them is the news.

When Team A beats Team B, no one says it’s Fake News. There is a score, a scoreboard and highlights proving it’s real news.

The same is true for college football recruiting.

There is nothing fake about what Geoff Collins is doing by elevating the Temple recruiting pedigree.

Last year at this time, the Temple commits—mostly—had solid offers from schools like Old Dominion, Stony Brook and Towson, while, this year, the solid offers are from schools like Maryland and Mississippi State.

On this day, we can only laud the hustle of Collins and the proof is right there in black and white in the names of the schools he’s beaten for Temple recruits.

Since we left the recruiting trail a few days ago, the Owls have added two more recruits, defensive end Dante Burke of Bishop Sullivan in Virginia Beach (Va.) and athlete David Martin-Robinson of Hempfield (Pa.).

Let’s take Martin-Robinson first.

He could play tight end, linebacker, wide receiver or safety which fits him well within the “position flexibility” concept of Collins’ recruiting.

Maryland and Rutgers offered Martin-Robinson.

As for Burke, he had summer visits lined up to a number of Power 5 schools but said as soon as he set foot on the campus of Temple University, he knew it was the perfect fit.

He had offers from Rutgers, Maryland and Georgia Tech.

With those two in the family, there are 10 scholarships remaining for Collins’ first full class. It’s just another reason to right past the front page into the sports section every morning. If the final 10 are anything like the first 15, this story could get more compelling every day.

Wednesday: Summer Practice Priorities

Friday: Class Warfare

06.30.17
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This Year’s Slogan

projectmayhem

No one has confirmed anything about it yet, but after “Leave No Doubt” and “Unfinished Business” were such a success, the hunt for a new slogan may be over.

Right there on a shirt Geoff Collins wore were two simple words with a double entendre: Project Mayhem.

If the powers that be are still looking around for something catchy, Collins may have either stumbled upon it or developed it by stroke of inspiration, if not genius.

Leave No Doubt made its mark because it was born out of Kenny Harper’s heartfelt speech to the team at the end of the 6-6 season. Many people thought the Owls deserved to make a bowl off that 2014 season, but it turns out they were one of four 6-6 teams left off the bowl list.

Harper’s departing words speaking to the juniors were: “Next year, leave no doubt.”

Leave No Doubt became the slogan and it led to a 7-0 start, a win over Penn State and a Game Day appearance with visiting Notre Dame.

That was tough to top but “Unfinished Business” was born out of reaching the AAC title game, but losing it to Houston on the road.

Thus, “Unfinished Business” was a natural follow-up to “Leave No Doubt.”

Those slogans produced a pair of 10-win seasons and projected progress.

For the Owls to progress this season, they would have to slip through the head of a very small needle—winning the AAC again and THEN winning a bowl game. That’s really the only way this season would be considered better than the last two.

Since “Let’s Win The Title and Top That Off With a Bowl Win” is too cumbersome a slogan to fit on a T-Shirt, I’ll take what Collins was wearing the other day.

Project Mayhem.

Project (noun) Mayhem in that this new philosophy is a project that could be worthy of entertainment dollars and Project (verb) Mayhem as in project Mayhem on the opposition, especially on defense, resulting in sacks and turnovers.

If both lead to the more cumbersome slogan becoming a reality, then Project Mayhem will be as hard to top as Leave No Doubt and Unfinished Business were.

Monday: The Newest Additions

Wednesday: Summer Practice

Friday: Comparing The Classes

 

06.28.17
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Perspective: They’re Back!

 

Incoming freshman first days have come a long way from the days when they piled all of the football players into the basement at Peabody Hall.

Now the freshmen come into Morgan Hall, which is about as upscale an experience for a perspective recruit as there is in the country. Instead of keys, the players are given swipe cards. Instead of a view of an alley, they get to see perhaps one of the best views of Center City Philadelphia anywhere. They will go to school in an exciting, vibrant, city, playing for a name that is now respected nationally.

newmeet

Workout this morning at The Art Museum

This past weekend was the first for the 2017 true freshmen, many of whom will be redshirted. The “jewel” of the class has already been here for awhile, Dwyer (Fla.) High Toddy Centeio, who was a mid-year enrollee. It would only be a mild surprise to see Todd play a lot this year, not a major one. He performed pretty much as well as the other three quarterbacks vying for the job.

Some things change, some remain the same.

The parents still come and go and there are bags of stuff to haul through the dorms and hugs and goodbyes.

Other than that, though, it’s a whole different ballgame.

Temple players live in a state-of-the-art high rise and practice in a state-of-the-art $17 million practice facility.

It’s a long way from the days of Peabody Hall and the “largest Astroturf field in the world” (Geasey Field) in which to practice or the days when the “weight room” was located in the basement of McGonigle Hall next to the bowling alley.

Somehow, the kids of Wayne Hardin’s and Bruce Arians’ days overcame facilities and brutal schedules and won a “fair share” of games.

The kids today have it a little better, both facility wise and schedule wise.

When it comes to perspective and how they have done and how they are expected to do, it’s important to have those two items in mind.

Friday: The New Slogan

06.26.17
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2018 Temple Recruits: History Revisited

Amir Gillis (No. 1 for Simon Gratz) is listed as an “athlete” by Temple

Though it is not cited in any history book, a pretty convincing argument on the history of the Temple football program changing can be made by Al Golden’s first recruiting class.

In it, there were 29 guys signed—four more than the usual take—and 18 of them were captains of teams that won their high school league championship games.

Five were guys who got solid offers, and not just “interest,” from Power 5 teams.

One, Adrian Robinson, was an MVP of the Big 33 football game between Pennsylvania and Maryland.

There was a thought process with Golden’s first class that would endure through five of the best recruiting years the Owls had since Bruce Arians roamed the sidelines. Golden wanted leaders and he wanted winners, so he targeted captains of championship teams. He wanted a full team, so he recruited 11 offensive guys, 11 defensive guys and a couple of specialists every year. Mix in those players with guys Power 5 schools wanted, coach up the other guys and that laid the foundation of Golden’s house of brick, not straw.

When Golden left for the Miami (Fla.) job five years later, he left a foundation of talent that won the school’s first bowl game in over 30 years.

A lot of what Golden did with his first class is being done by Geoff Collins with his second class.

Collins seems to have spread the offers over a number of positions, getting a quarterback, a linebacker a defensive end, a specialist (athlete), a running back, a corner, a couple of wide receivers and a couple of offensive linemen. The days of Steve Addazio offering scholarships to the “best player available, regardless of position” seem to be over.

Take, for instance, the story of Jaydee Pierre, a defensive end out of Dominion (Va.). Pierre is 6-0, 295 who had solid offers from Boston College, Rutgers, Maryland, Northwestern and North Carolina State. He could have taken any of those offers. He chose Temple. He could be for this class what Robinson was for Golden’s first one.

Trad Beatty, a quarterback from Columbia (S.C.) who is 6-5, 200, had offers from four Power 5 schools (along with G5’s Georgia State) but said “Temple was the one school that checked off all the boxes” in terms of academics, feel with the current players and offensive system. He will have a 6-1, 175-pound receiver in Kadas Reams, who ran a 4.37 last week in Temple’s camp. The first school to offer Beatty was Mississippi State, which did not check off as many boxes for the young man as Temple did.

Love the way this kid calls the interviewer “sir.”

There is much to like about the current 13 players he was able to sell Temple to, but it’s really encouraging one of the biggest targets said “Temple checked off all the boxes” because when Golden was recruiting, Temple did not have many boxes for perspective recruits to check.

Now Temple has plenty of boxes and, with a dozen more scholarships to give out, the smart recruits left are going to grab their box of goodies before they are all gone.

Wednesday: Perspective