Tag Archives: Jason Wingard

04.01.22
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Wingard speaks: Stadium is dead

Funny how a done deal goes from one perception of done to another.

Two of my very good friends, I will call them Mark and Dave (because those are their real first names) are about as anti-on-campus-stadium as anyone I’ve ever met.

Me?

Kinda riding the fence on this issue but would not have minded falling into the yard on the other side. My reasoning simply is this: Since the 1970s I haven’t seen a real home-field advantage for Temple football in my lifetime.

A great home-field advantage (once)

Yeah, the Penn State game in 2015 where 35K Temple fans went crazy while 35K Penn State fans sat on their hands was kinda it but not really. Probably the Tulane game a few weeks later game closest (Owls won, 48-14) before 35K fans, all but a couple of hundred rooting for Temple.

Give me the 1970s era West Virginia game where, in a 20K seat stadium, 14K fans were going crazy for the home team at Temple Stadium in a 39-36 win. Or maybe another game in the same decade where a sellout crowd of 20K in a 20K-seat stadium roared for Temple in a 34-7 win over Boston College.

I was at both games.

The first, as a kid, I walked out of Temple Stadium hearing the chants “We Want Nebraska!” on Bayard Strett walking back to the cars. (Nebraska was the No. 1 team in the country at the time; Temple just had beaten the No. 19 team.)

The second came as a sophomore at Temple when the Owls avenged their only loss of a 9-1 season with a 34-7 win over Boston College the next season, an 8-2 one for Wayne Hardin.

As an adult, I hoped to see a similar home-field advantage for my favorite sports team again. Nothing in the Temple fan department since (Franklin Field and LFF) ever compared to those days at Temple Stadium from the standpoint of the way TEMPLE FANS influenced the outcome of a football game.

After listening to Jason Wingard recently, I realized I probably won’t ever see anything like it again.

Sad, not for me necessarily but for the generations of Temple fans after me who never experienced anything like it.

Wingard has basically said (see the above video) that Temple has given up its previously stated dream of building an on-campus stadium and is satisfied with Lincoln Financial Field.

That’s OK to Mark and Dave who still blame Temple fans for not filling a 70K-seat stadium. To me, asking Temple to fill a 70K-seat stadium or even bring 40K consistently on a regular basis has never been a good business model considering that the concept of supply and demand rules the business world.

The Temple Board of Trustees, when it approved the plans for an OCS, cited that reality. Cutting the supply (of tickets) would increase the demand and Temple was much more likely to fill a 35K stadium than ever filling even half of a 70K-stadium.

At one time, the BOT was all-in on a stadium. When this story is written 100 years from now, they will say a great university of 40K students, 12K employees, and 250K alumni let 20 or so neighbors push them around.

Someone or some group got to Wingard and supplied the talking points.

That was probably the Board of Trustees.

Since the disastrous meeting with the “community” three years ago in March, obviously, the BOT has waived the white flag on the stadium. During Wingard’s interview before accepting the President’s job, that was probably communicated to him as well.

Wingard is simply toeing the company line. A lot of my fellow Temple fans are holding onto the “not at this time” statement as if there will be another time.

There won’t. Not under this President or the next or even the next one after that. You’ve got to bulldoze a lot of residences and create a lot of Temple “green space” before that happens.

Not good news for me but terrific news for fellow Temple fans who I respect like Mark and Dave. They like the creature comforts of the Linc and think an on-campus stadium would be a disaster.

They are as entitled to their opinions as I am to mine. To me, I’ve always felt that Temple deserves to have an on-campus stadium as much as the marquee schools in other cities (Boston College in Boston, Georgia Tech in Atlanta, USF in Tampa, UAB in Birmingham, etc.) deserve to have on-campus stadiums as well. Those schools never let neighborhood opposition stop them from building anything they want on their own property nor should Temple.

In the 2012 NCAA tournament basketball win over North Carolina State, a million-dollar Temple contributor told Mark that the on-campus stadium was a “done deal.”

Yeah it’s done, but not in the way that guy (RIP) described.

Maybe someday 100 years from now when I’m long gone and watching Temple play in the ACC from the clouds above, I will heard a loud “Let’s Go Temple!” chant from a packed on-campus stadium.

That will not happen in my lifetime or most of yours.

If Wingard’s statement reflected anything, it’s a done deal.

Done bad, not done good.

Monday: Who da man?

Friday: Pre-Cherry and White

Monday (4/11): Post Cherry and White

01.21.22
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Johnson’s biggest project yet to come?

Plenty of room to build a 10,000-seat North end zone plus getting rid of those few houses (quite a few currently boarded up) across 10th Street would give the Owls a 25,000-seat West Grandstand.

If only a Rod Carey football game plan had as many surprises as the introductory press conference of new Temple football coach Stan Drayton, the Owls might have won enough games to keep Mr. Boring in charge today.

One surprise struck me, though.

Johnson said this in front of the assembled media when asked about his involvement in picking Drayton: “I had a chance to get to know Stan while we worked together at the University of Texas. He is an outstanding football coach and an even better person. He knows what success looks like at the highest levels of football. He also knows what it takes to be successful in this city having spent six years of his career here and learned from two of the city’s legendary football coaches.”

The only way TU can convince Norris Street neighbors to build at 15th Street is to give them all new houses overlooking the new stadium like this and that might be cost prohibitive.

No more than minutes later, Johnson said this in a smaller post-conference gathering:

“I don’t think my being at Texas was a big part of Stan being hired here. I was involved in about $675 million dollars of building projects there so I only knew him superficially.”

Hmm.

We went from “get to know” to the connection “not being a big part.”

That wasn’t key thing, though, Johnson said as far as Temple football’s future.

“I was involved in about $675 million of building projects …”

Four months ago, Temple was looking for an AD and, of the four finalists, only one was involved in any significant building projects.

The Board of Trustees hired that guy.

This is the same board of trustees that voted nearly unanimously to submit a plan to the City of Philadelphia that closed a portion of 15th Street permanently to build a $250 million football stadium and only backed off when they were confronted by a small but angry group of community residents one memorable March night a few years ago.

Presumably, they still want to build it and must feel Johnson is the point guy to get this project done like he did so many in Austin, Texas.

Now, with President Jason Wingard in place along with Johnson and Drayton, the Owls have three high-profile African-American point men to convince a mostly African-American community that this is in the best interest of both the university and the community.

To me, getting this done requires some thinking outside the box in addition to the personalities involved.

Closing 15th Street–even between Norris and Montgomery–seems to be a non-starter so the administration should be looking for another place to build.

They got the community to come on board for a $22 million athletic facility at Broad and Master a few years ago that is used 87 times a year, not the six times Temple will use a new football stadium. Since a trade building was part of that deal, knocking it down to build a football stadium there (and moving the Olympic sports to 15th and Norris) probably also is a non-starter.

How about using the Edberg-Olson facility as the new stadium?

There’s already a regulation 100-yard field there, plus enough room for a 10,000-seat North End zone and a 25,000-seat West Side. The current E-O offices can be used for a small (maybe 1,000-seat Owl Club super box plus press box) area.

The only concessions the university would need from the city is to close 10th Street from Susquehanna to Diamond and that would seem easier to do than 15th from Norris to Montgomery. Tenth Street is not as viable a thoroughfare as 15th Street is and nowhere near the number of residents would be impacted on the Edberg Olson side of the campus.

For the time it takes to build the stadium, the football team can move its practices and offices to Geasey Field. If needed, another $10 million practice facility can be constructed at 15th and Norris. (That’s where the Owl football team practiced from 1974-2004.)

That’s the kind of thinking outside the box that Johnson did at UT.

If he can pull that game plan off at UT, he should be able to do it at TU. Hell, considering his resume, that’s what they might have hired him to do.

Monday: Humility Personified

11.27.21
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Temple football: The waiting is the hardest part

Temple AD Arthur Johnson with my friends Joe Greenwood (left) and Sheldon Morris (right), two great players from the Bruce Arians’ Era who probably gave him an earful.

After Saturday night, The Unholy Trinity of Temple football head coaches had the exact same season in 2021.

3-9.

In an era where 80 of the 130 FBS teams playing football make a bowl game, Steve Addazio, Geoff Collins and Rod Carey all finished in the bottom 50 and, really, in the bottom 10.

That’s not the only thing they had in common.

Daz benefitted from the talent Al Golden recruited to go 8-4 (he really should have been 11-1) in 2011 and both Collins and Carey benefitted from the talent Matt Rhule recruited.

All three turned out to be frauds but, until now, Temple never had the unpleasant task of firing any one of them. Boston College took Daz off Temple’s hands by hiring him after a 4-7 season based on his 2011 season with Al Golden’s recruits. Georgia Tech was fooled by Collins’ success with Rhule’s recruits. Carey’s only good season came with Rhule’s recruits. Temple has been lucky, really.

Every single other school fires coaches.

Now it’s Temple’s turn.

Dr. Jason Wingard needs to act not tomorrow but right now to get Temple its next great football coach.

Do they answer the call or cower in the corner?

Over the next 24 hours or so, we will find out if Temple is serious about excellence in football (or as a university as a whole) or just gives it lip service.

What was most shocking to me after Navy’s 38-14 win over Temple on Saturday was the fact that Carey was even allowed to be talking about the future.

Arthur Johnson, Temple’s new AD, should have put his arm around Carey before he walked to the podium and said, “Hey, Rod, we’re going to pay you but please don’t talk about the future. You won’t be here after Monday or Tuesday. Just talk about the game.”

Instead, Carey talked about a “plan in place” to improve for next season.

Hey, Rod, you had your chance for that plan and it was last season, not this one.

Everybody and his kid brother at the end of last season picked Temple for last place for 2021. In order to avoid that fate, this staff had as it charge improving the roster to the point that it would compete for six wins, not half that much.

In order to do that, Temple had to get players to replace the 15 good ones who left last season.

It got six.

The math never added up.

If Temple, a team that produces more NFL talent than anybody else in the G5, couldn’t use that as a selling point to compile an FBS-worthy transfer portal roster from just the P5 talent in it, the Owls certainly could have put together an FCS all-star team that would have given them a chance to compete.

What did we see instead?

Relying on the backups of a 1-6 season to make this one better.

Losses of 52-3, 49-7, 34-14, 37-8, 44-10, and 38-14 ensued and that adds up to a national embarrassment for a great university, its alumni, students and fans.

That’s the kind of math you get when you replace 15 good players with six lesser players.

Carey, with his five-year contract, probably thought he could have been lazy with recruiting in this offseason.

Temple’s administration must act and swiftly and swiftly means now, not a week from now or a month from now.

Until they do, they are proving to everyone they are not serious about sports. The wait should not have been this long and it better not be any longer or they will be playing before no more than 100 or 200 fans in 2022 in a 70,000-seat stadium.

A noon press conference on Monday should not be just recommended it should be mandatory.

After this dumpster fire of a season, waiting should not be the hardest part but, failing a swift post-game firing of Rod Carey, it is.

Tuesday: A firing press conference or a big announcement