Tag Archives: Geoff Collins

06.08.18
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Could Geoff Collins Be THE One?

kraft

Press conferences hiring FBS head coaches are elaborate and well-attended functions with both sides toasting the other with usually a few hundred glowing words.

Unlike another elaborate and well-attended function with similar toasts, the words “until death do us part” are never uttered.

veracity

That’s because these things usually end with that old business formula: Up or out.

For Temple recently, it’s been a lot of ups—Miami, Boston College and Baylor come to mind—and few outs (Bobby Wallace).

That’s a good thing.

The only scenario better for the Owls would be an “up and up” situation like the ones currently enjoyed by places like Ohio University and The Naval Academy at Annapolis.

Of the successful Group of Five coaches in the last decade, just about everyone other than Frank Solich (Ohio) and Ken Niumatalolo (Navy) have moved on to so-called greener pastures. So-called because the Temple coaches who left probably now are finding out that money does not buy the same type of happiness they had at 10th and Diamond.

After Al Golden, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule did not, is head coach Geoff Collins The One to give Temple football a long-term commitment?

Temple fans have longed hoped that some coach looks into that history and figures out that $2 million-a-year is enough to live on and have a nice life without having one eye on the door.

Maybe we’re reading a little too much into this, but Geoff Collins gave an indication he’s only planning to go one place for any extended period NEXT offseason.

Rome.

Collins committed to taking a group of a dozen football Owls to Rome next season after a successful trip to Tokyo last month.

Rome, like Tokyo, hosts a satellite campus of Temple University and the Owls plan to go there next year.

If Collins can do something like winning a championship here this year and fixing the revolving door at the E-O and stay next year, he will be joining a pretty exclusive club.

For now, though, keeping that Rome trip commitment after any kind of positive success this season would be a good way to start.

Monday: Immediate Needs

Wednesday: Road Trips

Friday: Early Recruiting Rankings of Note

Monday (6/18): Birthday Wishes

Wednesday (6/20): When No News Equals Bad News

05.28.18
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Temple Football: Great, Not Just Good

 

Paging through the comments of some of the stories on Temple building a football stadium, I came across these two gems:

“Their football team isn’t even good.”

“Temple should drop down a division like Villanova.”

Hitting the reply button in both cases was too temping to pass up.

standards

The point is, to both of those people, the first by a woman and the second from a man, ignorance is bliss and perception of a decades ago reality is something they chose to hold onto.

The current reality should be the only thing that matters and that is in black and white for all to see.

Unless you are Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma or Clemson, very few teams have carved out a higher profile than Temple recently.

Of the last three years, Clemson and Alabama—with two 14-win seasons—certainly is at the top of college football’s food chain.

Ohio State and Oklahoma are part of that next rung averaging roughly a dozen wins over the last three years.

templeparents

Then there’s Temple, which belongs to a very successful “Group of Seven” schools within the 63-team Group of Five.

Of the Group of Five (G5) schools, the Owls are “not even good” because they are close to being great. They are one of only four teams—Houston, Toledo and Boise State are the others—who have either won or been to their league championship games twice over the last three years.

Arguably, the Owls are in the Final Four of that group if you use the current (three-year) sample. Of the teams who have won at least 27 games, only four have been to two league championship games and Temple is one of them.

Their 27 wins of the last three years puts them right there with teams like San Diego State (32), Boise State (30), Toledo (30) Houston (29), USF (29), Memphis (27), Navy (27) and ahead of teams like Ohio (25), Brigham Young (22) and UCF (19).

Even if you limit your sample to just G5 teams—and in many ways that is the fairest comparison, Temple is in the top 10 percent of the most successful college football teams in the nation.

It doesn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to figure that if this edition of the Owls is “ridiculously good” (as head coach Geoff Collins has said), they can move right up to the top of that class.

The people who think the football team representing the school “is not even good” are probably right. By any standards, a three-year run that puts you in a cumulative top four of a 63-team group qualifies for greatness.

The Cherry (and White) on top of all this would be a NY6 win and that has to be the next step for this program.

Wednesday: Camp Haul

Friday: Color Bearers

Monday: Matchmaking

 

 

05.16.18
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Another Sign of the G5 Apocalypse

aranda

Dave Aranda, a SEC coordinator, is now making considerably more than Geoff Collins.

Every offseason or so over the past five years, something has happened to illustrate the urgency of getting Temple out of the G5 and into the P5.

You can argue all you want about the window already being closed for that eventuality, but if there’s even a one percent chance of it happening, Temple should pry to prop up that window and force it upward.

Maybe building a 35,000-seat stadium is a step in that direction. Maybe it’s not. (I’m thinking a 40-45K stadium probably would work more than a 35K one in attracting interest.) Probably winning a NY6 bowl game would be the best way to do it and bringing along a top basketball program would not hurt as well.

Whatever, staying in the G5 for the next 20 or so years is not a sustainable business model. Worse, it could mean “an event involving destruction or damage on an awesome scale.” That’s the very definition of the word apocalypse. If the G5 is marginalized into pretty much what is now FCS football–without the distinguishing feature of a true championship–it will be damaged beyond repair.

Real football will be playing with the big boys in the P5. Anything else will be considered the minor leagues.

The latest evidence of that occurred when it was leaked that several schools at the top of the Power 5 food chain are now paying their top coordinators MORE than the $2 million Geoff Collins is being paid to be the Temple football CEO.

If so, the trickle down effect—the inability of G5 schools like Temple to attract top head coaches and therefore top assistants—probably assures that the ceiling will be made of cement, not glass.

LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda is now making $2.5 million per season—a hefty $500,000 more than Collins currently makes—for doing the same job at the same level Collins left Florida to do. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to figure that Aranda does half as much with about a quarter of the headaches of Collins these days. That’s not to say Collins doesn’t love his job; it’s just that it is his responsibility to keep 105 scholarship athletes on the straight and narrow in addition to the winning that is demanded of him.

If LSU puts together a good defense and loses, the head coach, not Aranda, gets the blame.

Aranda now makes more than 75 of FBS head coaches and there are only 127 of those jobs in the world.

It appears the Aranda contract and other seven-figure contracts signed by Power 5 coordinators this offseason further marginalizes the 63 schools who play non-Power 5 football.

Pretty close to an apocalypse.

Friday: Scoreboard Watching

05.04.18
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Collins: Calling All Fans

 

 

One of the most revealing passages from the Temple position paper on reasons for building a new stadium is this:

“Overall, the trend is clear—stadiums built since 2000 have capacities that are sized to fit the institution’s market and football program’s success. The average recently built FBS stadium has a capacity of 37,561, similar to the intended 35,000 seats at Temple. Ninety-five percent of Temple football games over the past 10 years could have been accommodated in a 35,000-seat stadium.”

 

That doesn’t mean that in the last two years of its current contract with the Philadelphia Eagles to play in the cavernous Lincoln Financial Field that the Owls will not try to fill it.

Hence, the hashtag campaign of #filltheLinc and head coach Geoff Collins personally calling season-ticket holders who have not renewed and asking them to renew.

(I didn’t get a call because I renewed during the first week in February.)

A noble goal, but as has been stated here over the years and reiterated in Temple’s own new stadium reasoning somewhat misguided. Our theory is that there is a hardcore base of around 20,000 fans who will come to see the Owls, win, lose or draw. Then there is an additional “softcore” base of about 15,000 who will come out to see the Owls win, win or win.

That base gets cracked easily when the Owls lose an opener they should not have like Villanova in 2009 and Army in 2016.

Win an opener like Penn State in 2015 and the softcore crystallize into diehards the rest of the year.

There is a ceiling of Temple fan interest and it is right around the 35,000 Temple fans who attended the Tulane game for the 6-0 Owls in 2015. It is right around the 34,005 fans who saw the Owls lay an egg in the opener the next year against Army.

The attendance problem simply is not just a matter of wins and losses but of a larger economic driver, supply and demand.

Temple needs a stadium sized to fit its program.

In the American Athletic Conference, Temple currently plays in the largest-capacity stadium and draws below-average attendance, resulting in the lowest percentage of stadium seats filled for home games. Too much supply limits the ability to drive ticket sales and, as a result, gameday revenue.

If Collins calling fans personally leads to the hashtag #fillthelinc then that would be a miracle that would qualify him for Sainthood. It would also have the domino effect of causing the Power 5 to suspend its moratorium on expansion and immediately invite Temple into the conference of its choice. (Hell, if Temple averaged 70,000 fans over the 27 wins of last three years can you imagine a conference NOT inviting the Owls?)

More likely, shoot for a glass full and drink in half that and the Edberg-Olson phone calls will be well worth last month’s hefty Verizon bill.

Monday: Immediate Help

Wednesday: Mr. Softee A Welcome Addition

Friday: Ranking the 5 best Temple teams of All Time

04.27.18
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For TU fans, Love Should Be Better Second Time Around

timessquare

A real ad paid for by Temple on the marquee in Times Square 4/26/18.

If you are a Temple fan who did not fall in love with Geoff Collins in his first year, there are indications that love is better the second time around.

OK, I’ll admit it.

I wasn’t crazy about his trust in an offensive coordinator who recruited a guy for Coastal Carolina and gave that guy about the longest rope to hang himself of any Temple quarterback in my 41-year history of following the Owls.

Seven games with six putrid and one acceptable performance was six games too much for my taste and it almost put the Owls out of bowl contention.

Forgetting that Nick Sharga was the best pure football player on the team—on both offense and defense–was another major strike against Collins.

That was then and this is now.

Mayhem might not have been coming a year ago, but there are at least inclinations that it could be here in five months.

Collins made a couple of impressive CEO moves in the offseason, promoting Andrew Thacker to DC to replace Taver Johnson was the first. We did not see the defensive Mayhem we had been promised until the 13th game of the season and Collins was not a happy camper. Presumably seeing the handwriting on the wall, Johnson went back to the Big 10 and accepted the same job he had a Purdue before taking the Temple DC job (defensive backs’ coach) at Ohio State. Collins also made Temple lifer Ed Foley the “assistant head coach in charge of offense” presumably as a check and balance on Patenaude.

hearts

Those aren’t the only signs Year Two Can be better than Year One.

All you have to do is look around the American Athletic Conference (which probably should have kept the Big East name, but that’s a story for another day).

Look at what all of the other second-year coaches did.

Navy’s brilliant Ken Niumatalolo went 8-5 with a loss in the Eagle Bank Bowl his first year and then went 10-4 with a win in the Texas Bowl his second year.

Memphis’ Mike Norvell went 8-5 his first year, then 10-3 the second.

SMU’s Chad Morris went 2-10, 5-7 and 7-6 before he accepted a Power 5 job with Arkansas.

UCF’s Scott Frost went 6-7 his first year and then 13-0 the second.

Those are significant improvements in numbers across the board.

The numbers suggest that the bottom line for Collins will produce much better than the seven wins he was able to post while feeling his way around in the first season. If it’s Rhule and Frost good, that’s an improvement of anywhere from 4-7 wins. Even if it’s Norvell good, that’s a nine-win season.

Just split the difference between, say, Rhule and Frost and every Temple fan—even the skeptical ones—will be sending Valentines Collins’ way come Feb. 14, 2019.

The only question where be where to send the card with the Whitman’s chocolates.

Monday: Facts Of Life In AAC

04.09.18
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Spring Phenoms Old and New

zamani

Great Zamani Feelings shot of Bruce Arians, Geoff Collins and Todd Bowles on Saturday.

Having seen names like Myron Myles and Lou Angelo light it up on Cherry and White Day and disappear a few months later, I’ve come to take a skeptical view of one-day spring wonders.

That said, spring practice is more than a month of hard-hitting and difficult throws and catches so the cream seems to rise to the top over 30 days and this year offers several intriguing candidates. Forget some of what you will see on Saturday in the spring game and remember a lot of what you see below.

From what I’ve been told from people who have been able to see at least one practice every week, these are the guys who are getting the reps that might surprise you (hometowns in parathesis):

Sean Ryan, WR, New York City

After Ventell Bryant and Isaiah Wright—probably one of the best receiving tandems in the nation—there was a huge dropoff in talent from the first to second unit. Ryan, one of NYC’s top receivers a year ago, seems to be filling the talent void and has made a number of difficult catches with the kind of deep speed that Wright seems to have. Offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude likes to use three-receiver packages and do not be surprised if Ryan is able to make an impact right away.

connection

Anthony Russo, QB.  Doylestown

Patenaude said at the end of last year that Russo was “light year’s different” in practice in December than he was in September. Add that to the fact that Patenaude also said early last March that Russo corrected a “looping motion” in his release plus increased playing time with the ones means that Russo could slot into the role Nutile had at the beginning of last year—a guy in the No. 2 slot who is ready to get his chance in a real game. Mix in the fact that the staff is trying to find new positions for Todd Centeio and there is a clear indication that the first and second jobs are Frank Nutile’s and Russo’s. A lot of the Philadelphia area has been waiting to see what Russo can do in a real game and not a practice or a scrimmage and this year could very well be that chance. It took the staff eight games before it finally decided to insert Nutile in there to give him a chance to run the squad and hopefully they will give Russo the same chance this season that Juice got last one.

gardner

Jager Gardner, Black Mountain (N.C.)

One thing that has been a relatively accurate predictor of future success at Temple for any player has been eye-popping numbers in high school. Folks here kind of knew Adam DiMichele would have projected as a pretty good quarterback here when he tossed 35 touchdown passes as a senior for Sto-Rox in the WPIAL. As a running back, Gardner had far better numbers than the other guy, Ryquell Armstead, who came in his class. Gardner’s senior year numbers: 2,776 yards and 36 touchdowns on 282 carries. Armstead’s senior year numbers at Vineland (N.J.): 1,488 and 18 touchdowns. Gardner got injured and fell behind and now seems to have caught up. Head Coach Collins said this has been a “break out” spring for him. Since Gardner already owns the Temple all-time record for longest run from scrimmage, that bodes well for this year.

Rock Ya-Sin, DB, Decatur (Ga.)

Already one of the greatest “names” in Temple roster history, Rock looks primed to become one of the great producers on the field in this his first season for the Owls after transferring from FCS school Presbyterian. Last season, playing for a Villanova-level school, Ya-Sin led his team with 49 tackles and five interceptions. More importantly, he has stood out during spring practices in an area of need—defensive back—as the Owls scrape hard to find replacements for three departed starters.

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Benny Walls, Safety, Cherry Hill, N.J. and Keyvone Bruton, Norfolk, Va.

Walls was a standout for a great state championship team in St. Joseph’s Prep and clearly the star of Wednesday’s practice when Collins tweeted that Walls had a dominant day. Walls was a two-time first-team All-Catholic playing in one of the best high school football leagues in the nation. Benny has great athletic genes. His dad, also Benny, played basketball at Camden High and his uncle, Kevin Walls, was even more famous–scoring 81 points in a single game for Camden High before going off to Louisville to play his college basketball. Bruton—not to be confused with defensive backs coach Nate BURTON (different spelling) had 18 interceptions for Lake Taylor (Va.) High and is just as likely to be a starter with Delvon Randall as Walls is and this should be a position battle that lasts through the summer.

Wednesday: The Scrimmage

Friday: 5 Things to Watch for at Cherry and White

 

03.30.18
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The Fun Starts When The Winning Begins

practice

There used to be an old Beach Boys’ song about a Thunderbird and one of the lines was:

“She had fun, fun, fun until her Daddy took the T-Bird Away.”

We don’t think that’s on Jeremiah Atoki’s play list today at Temple football practice, but it sums up a lot of what has been going on with Temple football the last two years and something we had not seen for the prior 100 or so years:

  • No depth charts
  • Plenty of swag
  • Endless search for Mayhem
  • Only scholarship D.J. in college football
  • Position flexibility

A lot those topics are all about injecting fun into college football for the other 104 scholarship athletes on the roster. If you do those things and lose, it’s called shtick.  If you do those things and win championships, it’s called innovation.

As a cub reporter for the Temple News, I had a sit down with then Temple football coach Wayne Hardin in his cramped McGonigle Hall office and asked him what was the most “fun” thing about being Temple football coach.

celebration
Winning at UConn on a last-second FG: Doesn’t get much more fun than this celebration

I’ll never forget his answer.

“To me, the only thing that’s fun is winning,” he said.

On his last day as a head coach, he mentioned to me he was quitting at the end of a mediocre 1982 season. Standing in a small room after the last game, I asked why.

“Mediocrity is not my cup of tea,” he said.

That was at what I thought was a pretty young and vital age of 55.


To me, a 7-6 record
is the very definition
of mediocre, bowl win
notwithstanding. Temple
is going to have to do
better this year for it
to be a successful season.
To me, Temple TUFF is
back-to-back 10-win seasons,
not finishing around the
middle of a 126-team FBS pack

Nobody won more and lost less as a Temple football coach, so I consider Hardin, not Geoff Collins, the expert here. I wish coach was alive today so I could ask him about the bullet points above, but he’s not and I don’t think he would look too kindly on the changes.

It wouldn’t have as much to do with being an old foogie as it would be a difference of philosophy on how to get to the end result.

To me, a 7-6 record is the very definition of mediocre, bowl win notwithstanding. Temple is going to have to do better this year for it to be a successful season. To me, Temple TUFF is back-to-back 10-win seasons, not finishing around the middle of a 126-team FBS pack.

Position flexibility is a great thing if you have a pass rusher like Romond Deloatch who also plays wide receiver. I did not see any of the pass-rushing attributes in Keith Kirkwood that I saw in Deloatch, so taking reps from Deloatch on the other side of the ball for the minimum snaps he gave the team as a DE last year was, in my mind, counterproductive.

Now we have the team’s best linebacker, Shaun Bradley, taking reps at a position where the Owls are deep—running back—and you have to question the process.

The Owls did not use Nick Sharga as a fullback last year nearly as much as they did in that championship season two years ago and, in retrospect, they probably should have used him at a position of need, linebacker, if the offensive staff felt he wasn’t going to get reps. Sharga was an impact player on defense at Army, and a forgotten man the rest of the season.

Whatever Collins decides to do is OK with me, as long as the bottom line is achieved—a championship.

If it doesn’t happen this season, his daddy (Pat Kraft) should take the T-Bird away and replace it with a whip. As coach Hardin says, the only fun in football is winning and that should be the eternal measuring stick.

Until proven otherwise, anything else is shtick.

Sunday: Done Deal Part II

Tuesday: The Rest of The Story

Thursday: New Uniforms?

Saturday: Spring Phenoms

03.28.18
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Succession Plan: Never Too Early

fiucollins

FIU was one of many stops for the Minister of Mayhem

There has been a lot of talk on social media, if not the real one, about this supposed succession plan Temple has with basketball coach Fran Dunphy.

It comes down to these choices:

One, Dunphy returns to complete the remaining three years on his contract;

Two, Dunphy is told he has one more year and Aaron McKie will be named coach in waiting;

Three, Dunphy is told he has one more year to get to the NCAAs or he’s out.

Following Temple athletics as closely as I have for the last 40 years, I’ll opt for No. 1 and bet a good $20 on that happening. Temple has the same kind of aversion to eating contracts as Jon Stewart has to eating at Arby’s.

What does this have to do with football?

The Owls, at least in football, have to have a succession plan for reasons probably not to their liking. This may not be the topic to talk about during spring practice, but this is the kind of thing Dr. Pat Kraft should be at least thinking about and it’s never too early.

burn

My five-point criteria is specific: 1) Proven winner; 2) Proven ability to win as a FBS head coach; 3) ability to recruit; 4) ability to CEO and hire a solid staff; 5) ability to win at Temple

 

Since Al Golden left in at the end of the 2010 season, Steve Addazio and Matt Rhule have left and, the way I read Geoff Collins, he would probably be gone after eight or nine wins this year. It has nothing to do with Collins himself, just that it’s a nomadic profession that lends to stops at places like Albright, Western Carolina, Georgia Tech, UCF, Mississippi State, FIU,  Florida and Temple. He’s probably used to moving and not adverse to it. Think about it: Is something so special about 10th and Diamond that would make Collins want to plant roots in the concrete and build something here like Joe Paterno did at Penn State?

I didn’t think so.

Kraft, who probably isn’t going anywhere, has to have a few names on the piece of paper in his pocket should he get that 3 a.m. call from Collins in December.

If he does, it probably means the Owls have done something special, like win another AAC championship and that would probably be an acceptable trade-off.

To me, the next head coach at Temple is a no-brainer. My five-point criteria is specific: 1) Proven winner; 2) ability to win as a FBS head coach; 3) ability to recruit; 4) ability to CEO and hire a solid staff; 5) ability to win at Temple.

Since someone is out there who has proven all of those qualities (Al Golden) and is probably not going to get a better offer than head coach at Temple over the next couple of years, it would be wise for Kraft to keep that name and phone number on a scrap of paper in his pocket.

Otherwise, work on a guy who has at least four of those qualities.

Churning the coordinator pile is like walking through a mine field. If you get through three or four mines, there is always that fifth one up ahead. That’s the one that could blow up this program.

With a $17 million practice facility and a (possible, not probable), $130 million stadium to gamble, you do not want to roll the dice on another unproven coordinator.

Friday: Spring Practice Position Flexibility

Sunday: Done Deal II

03.23.18
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Patenaude: Watch What He Does, Not Says

performance

Spring practice is fully underway and Dave Patenaude handled the first questions thrown his way like Freddy Galvis used to handle hard hit balls to his right.

Flawlessly.

Galvis isn’t around town anymore, but Patenaude is and he said all of the right things about the quarterback position in a recent Temple News story—that Frank Nutile, despite being a bowl-winning quarterback, has to win his job and that Anthony Russo and Todd Centeio are both significantly better than they were at this time last year.

To get a better perspective, though, of what was said this year by the Temple football offensive coordinator, it helps to dig deep to find out what he said a year ago at this time. Patenaude was enthralled with the running ability of Logan Marchi—a player he tried to recruit for Coastal Carolina—and seemingly gave Marchi the benefit of the doubt despite a subpar performance in the Cherry and White game. To the fans watching under umbrellas on that rainy day, Marchi was easily the fourth-best quarterback behind, in no particular order, Nutile, Russo and Centeio.

russo

 

Will Russo get the chance that Nutile did a year ago in a “real” game—not a practice—and prove to be even a juicier upgrade?

 

That benefit turned out to be a detriment for the Owls as Marchi went way too deep into the season, starting seven games, and the Owls almost did not recover.

Pardon me if I don’t trust Patenaude as far as I can throw him. I’m from Missouri this year. He’s going to have to show me he’s playing no favorites and gives everyone a chance to move the team in a game. I didn’t see that last year until the eighth game.

When Nutile finally got his chance in a real game—not a practice, but a game, as Allen Iverson would say—fans saw the kind of difference they saw on Cherry and White Day.

It was obvious to anyone who watched the Army game last year that Nutile was the far better leader and winner than Marchi ever was.

That was probably just as obvious to Marchi, too, who saw the handwriting on the wall and got out of here.

Will Nutile be last year’s Nutile or this year’s Marchi? Certainly, Nutile deserves first dibs on defending his job. He does not deserve to play seven unimpressive games before another guy gets a shot.

Will Russo get the chance that Nutile did a year ago in a “real” game—not a practice—and prove to be even a juicier upgrade? Will Centeio’s “packages” result in real gains in terms of yardage or will they be blown up by defenses like they were last year? Will Trad Beatty get the benefit of a redshirt year that Nutile, Russo and Centeio enjoyed? They all benefited from the extra year of film study and in the weight room and if Beatty is headed to the pros, he deserves the same advantage, too.

Those are the questions that can only answered by deeds, not words but trusting what everyone sees in the upcoming  Cherry and White game might be a good place to start.

 

03.12.18
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Spring (Practice) Is In the Air

mondayeve

This is what will be on the ground for the first day of spring practice

Like last year’s Temple football team for instance, the last month of weather has been a tease. Those back-to-back 77-degree days of late February have been replaced by some brutal cold since. Since last year ended OK (not great), we’ll say by Cherry and White Day it will be nice and warm.

We think.

The calendar says the Owls start spring practice tomorrow, but it won’t look that way. Spring practice is in the air. Spring, on the other hand, seems a long way away.

aramark

At least the new indoor facility is the equal to anything a P5 team has.

Either way, the Temple Owls’ football team will have to deal with the 1-3 inches on the ground or move the first practices of the “spring” a couple of blocks away to the spectacular new $50 million Aramark Star Facility at 15th and Montgomery.

That’s a call for head coach Geoff Collins to make, though.

Bruce Arians used to come to Geasey Field on spring practice days—there was no indoor facility back then—and open with “get your work done” in that Southern accent he developed while a player at Virginia Tech, even though he was from York, Pa.

Either in rain, sleet or snow, the Owls have a lot of work to do to address these questions (in no particular order):

What will Trad Beatty’s role be?

The super quarterback recruit from South Carolina obviously is a Dave Patenaude favorite but, in the entire history of Group of Five football, no true freshman starter has led his team to a G5 league championship. That factor has to be weighed in the development of Beatty and the goal of the Owls to win the 2018 AAC title, just like they did the 2016 one. In Frank Nutile, they have a bowl-winning quarterback and a guy who has the best passing stats in the nation against a rush. Juice will be awfully tough to beat out.

Who are the defensive backfield replacements?

The Owls lose three of their four starters at the key positions of cornerback and safety. The only returner is first-team AAC safety Delvon Randall. They will have to plug around the edges. The speedy Linwood Crump Jr. has the inside track on the left corner spot, while the right corner spot will probably be occupied by Rock Ya-Sin, a first-team All Big South performer who had more interceptions against Wake Forest (one) in 2016 than the whole Temple AAC championship team did.

Other than Ya-Sin, who starts immediately?

My money is on Nickolas Madourie, an incoming junior college transfer from Dakota College at Bottineau in North Dakota. Shortly after former Central Florida coach Scott Frost took the same position at the University of Nebraska earlier this month, Madourie rescinded his verbal commitment from the Knights. Madourie had 45 tackles during his recently completed sophomore season, including 17.5 sacks. If the Owls go three wides on offense, look for true freshman Sean Ryan from NYC to join Isaiah Wright and Ventell Bryant. Me, I hope they scrap the three wides, use a tight end (Kenny Yeboah) and a fullback (Rob “Nitro” Ritrovato).

We should find out the answers to those questions by April 14.

Hopefully, by then, spring will have already arrived.

Wednesday: The Greatest Cherry and White Ever