Tag Archives: Glenn Thomas

11.11.16
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Rest, Relaxation and TV Watching

Colin Thompson is almost always wide open on that TE throwback.

About two hours into raking the leaves the morning after Temple’s last game, my cute and somewhat younger neighbor Abby and her dog Roadie dropped by to say hello.

Abby saw my Temple sweatshirt and said: “So how did Temple do last night? I watched early and they had a 21-0 lead.”

“They scored on three of the first 14 plays and called it a night,” I said.

Abby detected a hint of disgust in my tone of voice.

“Not good, huh?” she said.

aacstandings

“I’m a perfectionist. I thought they were headed for triple digits. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the win. It just should have been so much better.”

Roadie looked at me like he understood, not so sure about Abby.

At least Temple offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas probably thought along the same lines. After I shut off the TV the night before, I listened to Harry Donahue do the post-game show. Harry said Thomas was leaving the coach’s box and “looked very upset.”

I guess he’s a perfectionist, too, which gives me an enormous amount of hope for the balance of the season for the Owls. Twenty-one squat got the job done, but it was nowhere reflective of how much better Temple is than UConn and I thought the Owls let the Huskies off too easy. If Thomas applies a couple of simple fixes going forward, the Owls could be on Easy Street the rest of the way. Had Thomas been smiling ear-to-ear after the offense fell flat on its face for the final three quarters, I might be worried today.

The Owls get some needed rest this week, while we all go through Temple football withdrawal.

Thomas probably went back to the drawing board, played a little game of tic-tac-toe with the X’s and O’s and might have come to the same conclusion I did. P.J. Walker throwing over the middle and to the other side featuring the tight ends is probably something the Owls should have incorporated into their offense last Friday night and something that probably should be a part of the game plan for the balance of the season. One, P.J.  is extremely effective at moving the defense to the side where he rolls out, so that leaves the whole other side of the field open. Two, he sells that throwback pass to the tight end really well and he tosses it with impeccable touch.

That’s not just against UConn, but every team.

The Owls are tweaking today and off tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean Temple fans have nothing to do. There is a men’s Big 5 basketball game tonight against visiting LaSalle (7 p.m., ESPN News) to take in and, on Saturday, Tulsa being a 1.5-point favorite at Navy is one of two compelling league football games affecting Temple. My thought on this game is that Tulsa has an outstanding offense, but Navy chews up such large chunks of the clock that it might not mean enough and Navy wins this game outright. Also, South Florida is a three-point favorite at Memphis and the Tigers might have been emboldened by a 51-7 win at SMU last week. If Memphis takes down USF, the Owls will only have to win one of two to clinch AAC East.

So go Tigers and watch for the throwback to the tight end.

Tomorrow: Saturday Picks

Monday: How The East Will Be Won

09.03.16
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Cherry and Vanilla

Phil Snow had 9 months to prepare for the triple option and this is what he came up with?

In one of those offseason brain-storming sessions between fans and coaches, new Temple offensive coordinator Glenn Thomas reportedly told the group that he felt the Owls’ offense was “too stubborn” last season.

If last year was too stubborn, then just what was that 34,004 Temple fans were forced to watch in a 28-13 loss to Army on Friday night?

falcons

Glenn Thomas: Too stubborn

Last night might as well been the return of the Single Wing, with the Owls trying to force feed two things they do not do particularly well—run the ball straight ahead and throw the ball in the pocket.

Fight, fight, fight for the Cherry and the, err, Vanilla.

When you have a quarterback like P.J. Walker, you move him around the pocket and create the threat of run/pass. When you drop him back, you invite him to get killed and that’s just what happened.

Thomas gets an F for his first night as the new coordinator, but the real responsibility rests with the CEO of the operation, Matt Rhule. What worked for the Owls was the little rollout passes Walker was able to complete and the Owls should have counterpunched by going over the top for the long ball. Army’s defensive backs could not hang with the Owls’ wide receivers but those mismatches were never capitalized upon. Rhule is not blind. He has to take charge when he sees mismatches.

Why?

Too stubborn was as  good a reason as any, maybe too nice a guy the other.

Phil Snow also gets an F, but we outlined here that Snow has a checkered history against the triple option—giving up no less than 31 points in each of his last four of his last five tries against it. (The one exception was a 34-13 win in 2013.) Last night, he improved upon that by three but the Owls allowed 324 rushing yards. Again, the buck stops with Rhule because Wayne Hardin never lost to a triple option team in his 13 years at Temple a testimony to studying film and countering it well—with blitzes from the blind side blowing up pitchouts before they got downhill.

At times over the last three years, it looks as though Temple never even looks at film of opponents. Rhule likes to preach the process but it’s painfully apparent film study of opponents is not a valued part of it. Fordham scored 37 on Army last year and Duke scored 44 and allowed just three points. Might want to copy what Duke did on defense and Fordham did on offense.

A team that recruits NFL players, like Temple and Duke does, should never lose to a team that requires a five-year military commitment. Duke and David Cutcliffe got the job done. Temple and Matt Rhule and his crew did not.They had nine months to work on a game plan for this one-dimensional foe and impressed no one with it.

Monday: What’s New?

 

02.27.16
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There’s No Doubting Thomas

falcons

Glenn Thomas has been a positive influence on P.J. Walker.

When the Temple offensive coordinator position opened up, we put together a wish list of five potential candidates for the job, listed the pros and cons, but came to the conclusion that Matt Rhule will hire “the least sexy” person for the job, Glenn Thomas.

Now, sexy in football and sexy in real life are two different things. To me, Mike Locksley would have been football sexy because he would have locked up the recruiting in DMV (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) and had Power 5 OC experience.

pjwalker

The goal should be getting P.J.’s QB rating over 150.8.

Sometimes, though, least sexy is good when you want to get things done. (I learned that watching Sheena Parveen doing the Tornado Watch last week when I listened to the entire forecast but realized afterward that I didn’t really hear anything because I was so distracted.)  Things were not perfect–down 11 in the fourth quarter there has to be an alternative to wasting 20 seconds looking to the sideline for a play–but there was an undeniable upward trend in 2015.

sharknado

The forecast for the TU offense is bright and sunny.

Thomas has the potential of getting things done, especially with the arrival of recruit Anthony Russo. Thomas was Matty Ryan’s quarterback coach with the Atlanta Falcons and Russo’s game is so much reminiscent of Ryan’s that guru Trent Dilfer ended up calling Russo “Ryan Russo” for a day at his Elite 11 camp.

First things first, though, and that is the continued progress in P.J. Walker’s game. For Walker not to be known as a guy who peaked as a freshman, he must slightly improve his numbers in his final year of 2016. Thomas, at least, has him pointed in the right direction. As a freshman, Walker had 20 touchdown throws against only eight interceptions. In Marcus Satterfield’s ill-advised spread formation in 2014 (when Walker got zero protection in the pocket), Walker fell to 13 touchdowns vs. 15 interceptions.  A new scheme that featured a fullback and two tight ends—ostensibly  two additional blockers for Walker—enabled P.J. to see the field better last year and go 19-8.

Ideally, against this schedule, you’d like those numbers to be around 25 and eight (or less) for 2016. If that happens, another double-digit winning season is in sight and that’s about as sexy as things get for Temple football fans.

Unless, of course, Sheena Parveen comes on the Jumbotron instead of Hurricane Schwartz.

Monday: The Case For An Exciting Name As New Slot Receiver

01.14.16
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Least Sexy Choice Gets Head (OC) Job

stare

“You really want me to waste 20 seconds on every  snap waiting for a play call?”

Say what you will about Matt Rhule, but he has been predictable in his three-year tenure as Temple’s head coach.

Ten days ago, we wrote that Glenn Thomas’ resume was the weakest of our five possible candidates for the open offensive coordinator job but “Matt Rhule has shown a propensity to hire from within” so that’s probably why Thomas was the leading candidate. In our caption we said he was the “least sexy” candidate so that’s “probably why he was going to get a bigger office.” Sure, he had been Matt Ryan’s quarterback coach but, prior to that, a stint at Midwestern State wasn’t going to knock anyone’s socks off.

thomas

Sometimes, being right is a pretty hallow feeling and that’s the feeling I had this morning after hearing that Thomas was moved up to the OC job.  For all of the progress this offense had in the first 10 games of the season, it produced just 13 and 17 points in the two most important games at the end and probably could have used a different pair of eyeballs.

Unlike last year, this offense doesn’t need a complete overhaul, just some tweaking. Putting Jahad Thomas in the slot would be an explosive upgrade, as would giving Jager Gardner and Ryquell Armstead a real shot at the No. 1 tailback position. Those moves are a lot less likely to happen now.

After AAC championship loss, Zach Gelb was the only reporter in Houston with the gonads to ask the tough questions about the “dog stare” offense. The disgraceful time management when Temple fans were yelling “Hurry the F*ck Up!” from Philadelphia loud enough to be heard in Texas fell on deaf ears in the post-game presser. The answers from Rhule,  P.J. Walker, Marcus Satterfield and both Thomases (Glenn and Jahad) were that nothing went wrong. The answers seemed to be “something went wrong?” or “I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary” or the standard Sargent Schultz response: “I know nothing. I see nothing. I hear nothing.”

They had known no other way. A coordinator who had not been part of that fiasco might have been better able to map a new direction.