Tag Archives: John Chaney

01.22.24
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Branding and Temple University

Coach John Chaney, who would have been 91 yesterday, was a big proponent on changing the name of Temple to Philadelphia University.

In the grand scheme of things that hold Temple football back, branding is about 147th on the list but it came to the forefront for a minute while watching the school’s basketball team play SMU the other day.

Sometimes you’ve got to give credit to the other guy and the Mustangs deserve credit for hitching their wagons to the city of Dallas.

They have “Dallas” on their uniforms both in football and basketball and, in part, rode that association to a P5 invite. (It also helps to have about 10x more millionaire alumni than Temple does.)

John Chaney would have been 91 on Sunday but both he and his president at the time, Peter J. Liacouras gently floated the idea that Temple change the name of the school to Philadelphia University.

It never got any traction because so many of us have gotten used to the name “Temple” that old habits would have been hard to break.

Honestly, though, that ship has probably sailed because there is no stomach among the current members of the Board of Trustees to change anything.

With Liacouras and Chaney, though, Temple had back then what it doesn’t have now in strong, local, leadership. Liacouras was a lifelong Philadelphian and graduate of Drexel. Chaney was the Philadelphia Public League’s Player of the Year in 1950. The Catholic League POY that season? A guy named Tom Gola.

Philadelphia remains the fourth-largest TV market (and sixth-largest city) in the country and the largest market without a Power 5 college football team. Philadelphia is highly regarded as a city across the country, if not within the city limits.

It was a huge bargaining chip when the Owls made consecutive AAC championship football games in 2015 and 2016. It no longer is that now.

But branding with the city by putting “Philadelphia” like SMU does with”Dallas” on the uniforms–if not changing the name of the school itself–is something that Temple can control and should do.

It probably won’t get Reese Poffenbarger here or a dozen other badly needed FCS starters who can upgrade the football team but getting the city on the uniforms won’t cost any NIL money and that swag won’t hit the transfer portal in a year or two.

Heck, maybe if Temple sports gets respectable again, someone in the ACC will put two and two together while watching the Owls and notice that there is one big TV market out there left to grab.

It couldn’t hurt.

Friday: Better Late Than Never

Monday: Wrong and Right

11.25.16
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ECU: Throttle The Known

This was Zay Jones versus Temple last season.

A couple of great Temple coaches have shown at least there are two ways to build a respected program.

John Chaney did it in basketball by playing the best non-conference opposition and paying particular attention to stopping the player or thing that makes the opponent formidable. Matt Rhule has done it with a slightly less challenging schedule and not so much of a focus on the foe but on the “process” and not worry all that much about what the bad guys are doing.

attitude

Both have worked pretty much, but the Owls would be wise to take a page from old Doylestown Intelligencer colleague Steve Wattenberg’s terrific “Winning Is an Attitude” book about Chaney in preparation for an all-important game on Saturday night (7:30, don’t worry about TV, just be there) with visiting East Carolina. In that book, Chaney said the key to the Owls’ success was defensive preparation and “stopping the known over the unknown.” By that, Chaney meant studying what the opponent does well by taking that away and mixing in accentuating what you do well. Chaney would concentrate on taking away the opponent’s top threat and challenge lesser threats to beat him. On his side, he would yell at players who took shots when people like Eddie Jones, Rick Brunson and Aaron McKie (among others) could have had better ones.

That was a formula that took Temple to the top of the basketball world.

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It is a philosophy Rhule would be wise to adopt against ECU on Saturday. East Carolina wide receiver Zay Jones is good enough to hurt the Owls, but he won’t do it if the Owls’ can cover him with a corner and rotate safety Sean Chandler to his side of the field for help coverage.  That’s the known. If the Owls are going to get hurt, they should take away the known and challenge the unknown to beat them. If the unknown was any good, that guy would be talked about as a future NFL staple. Other than Jones, no such player exists on the Pirates’ squad.

If Temple football has had an Achilles’ heel over the last three or four years, it has been the occasional lapse in preparation as shown in this year’s loss to Army and other losses in the past.

The Owls had eight months to prepare for the triple option and came up with a defensive game plan that defied common sense, let alone football sense.

Sometime common sense in the best currency and that will be the case on Saturday night. Jones is the all-time Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) leader in receptions with 392. The old mark of 387 was set by former ECU standout Justin Hardy, now with the Atlanta Falcons. This season he has 151 receptions for 1,685 yards and eight touchdowns. With four more catches, he will tie the FBS single-season mark set by Freddie Barnes. You do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the Pirates will try to get Jones going early. By rotating Chandler—who himself has terrific ball skills—over to help, the Owls might be able to come up with a pick six or two.

Sometimes, the “process” includes being able to borrow from other successful processes and the one the Owls should pilfer this week is from a guy who is a part of their own Acres of Diamonds.

Sunday: Game Analysis