Hands off our players.

Kip (80) gets TU love after scoring.

Anyone who read this blurb on Philly.com had to have one reaction: “What the Eff?”

Kip Patton was that rare talent end who had the speed and the athleticism of a wide receiver in a tight end’s body.

There is a rest of the story, as Paul Harvey might say, that neither the article mentioned nor any of the first 24 comments suggested. Patton is transferring from Temple to Tennessee Tech and the new Tennessee Tech head coach is his former offensive coordinator  at TU, Marcus Satterfield.

The optics of this are just not good.

I’m sure Satterfield will deny any charges that he is “poaching” a Temple player, but it sure looks like that. If Patton was transferring to Tennessee or Vanderbilt or even Tennessee-Martin, I would understand it. But transferring to Tennessee Tech should not have been allowed. Where there’s smoke, though, there’s fire as Temple walk-on Yeedee Thaenrat—a former Father Judge player and Rutgers’ commit—is following Satterfield to TT.

The last time I worried about a Temple player leaving with a  Temple coach that player was P.J. Walker and that coach was Steve Addazio, who recruited him to Temple. At the time, I hoped that Daz would have enough integrity to keep his paws off Walker or any other Temple recruit that year. Much to his credit, Daz did have that much decency.

The same cannot be said for Satterfield, no matter how innocent (or guilty) this transfer might be. All the best to Patton, but the optics of this situation is very bad for Temple University, Tennessee Tech and Satterfield himself.

What the Eff, indeed.

Wednesday: Temple’s No. 1 Foe Not On Schedule