Tag Archives: Matt Sluka

12.15.23
by

One headline we won’t be seeing about Temple football on Tuesday

All over college football on the early signing day, the headlines are going to be this team or that team had a terrific signing day.

This is the headline I’d like to see.

There is this team. There is that team.

And there is Temple.

“Temple has done a good job at filling needs so far in the transfer portal.” (We’ve already seen that about Georgia Tech, see above.)

We won’t be seeing that about the Temple football Owls. Maybe Pradva, a site run by a paid employee of Temple University, might have the balls to do it.

This is the TYPE of guy Temple needs badly.

We won’t unless we get the Albany quarterback, the Holy Cross quarterback or the Texas backup.

Without getting into names and there is no use doing that until the signatures are on the dotted lines, what would a great signing day for Temple look like?

Sign someone who is either an accomplished FBS starting quarterback or an accomplished backup, or a starter who put up BETTER numbers than E.J. Warner did at that position. Don’t as in DO NOT give me anyone who had as many interceptions as TD passes. (“Our EJ”–Drayton’s words three weeks ago–had 23 and 14, let that be the benchmark for the next QB.) Better yet, get me Albany starter Reece Poffenbarger or Holy Cross starter Matthew Sluka, two guys who are objectively significantly better than “our E.J.”

That’s priority No. 1.

The idea here is to get better and if Temple’s signing day on Tuesday looks a lot like the one it did a year ago, the Owls won’t be getting better any time soon.

Last year, if you’ll recall, the No. 1 priority in this space was to fix the running game by getting me a big-time back with big-time numbers. There was a Ball State running back available (Carson Steele, he went to UCLA), a kid from Western Michigan available (1,000-yard back Sean Ryan, who went to Minnesota), and a Liberty kid (Dae Dae Hunter) who entered the portal and never found a home. All had approximately twice the 2022 FBS yards as Temple starter Edward Saydee.

What did Temple do?

Sign a player, E.J. Wilson, who had half of Saydee’s yards at FIU. The reason was that he had a prior relationship with a Temple RB coach.

Weak sauce.

Great city, great school, once ESPN Game Day program, should be an easy place to bring big-time recruits to and not just guys who had prior relationships with current Temple assistant coaches.

I’m not real good at math but that’s how you get twice as worse and not twice as better.

The numbers pretty much reflected that in Temple’s brutal 2023 season. Wilson made no impact for Temple.

None.

This Tuesday, the bottom line is also the numbers.

If the Owls can bring in a FCS starting quarterback with better numbers than E.J. Warner, they are going to get better. If they bring in a FCS starter with single digit TD passes and more interceptions, they are going to get worse. There are quarterbacks from Holy Cross and Albany who can do WAY BETTER than that but, so far, there is no indication Temple is recruiting either of them.

If they don’t, they will be flirting with a one- or two-win season in 2024 and head coach Stan Drayton will be saying goodbye to his short head coaching career.

Speaking of Drayton, one of the stated reasons that Temple brought him here was that he was a terrific recruiter at places like Texas and Ohio State.

He has not been that here.

Since Maalik Murphy, the backup at Texas, was recruited when Drayton and athletic director Arthur Johnson were at Texas, you would think those two would do Temple a solid by bringing him to Philadelphia. If his relationship with those two and a definite starting job with the Owls isn’t enough, what are we paying those guys $4 million for?

You would think that but that’s probably not going to happen.

My prediction is that a lot of guys will be signed who had prior relationships with Temple football assistant coaches and not necessarily guys who put up impressive numbers in their prior spots. Watch the relationship and watch the numbers those transfers put up at their prior places.

If the numbers aren’t good and the relationships are, put two and two together, minus two more and you will get the record of the 2024 Temple Owls.

If, on the other hand, some big-time running back and a big-time quarterback who have NO relationship with the current Temple coaches get here, put two and two together and add two and you have a bowl contender.

Don’t hold your breath for that second scenario, though.

Monday: Holding My Breath

12.08.23
by

Temple needs to game the system

You know how to get Temple fans excited? Bring in a better QB than E.J. Warner.

Evolution is a pretty good teacher only to students eager to learn.

College football has evolved.

In 10 months, we will find out if Temple’s coaching staff has learned anything from Darwin’s New Football Theory.

The No. 1 lesson should be that to succeed as a G5 college football program the answer is to forget the old model. The “old model” was recruit high school guys, redshirt them for a year, have them back up for another year and finally start around the third.

That doesn’t work anymore.

The first G5 coaching staffs to learn that lesson will survive. The others will become extinct.

Both the Albany and Holy Cross quarterbacks would be significant upgrades for Temple over E.J. Warner.

If your true freshman starts, you are lucky to have him for one more year. If your true freshman becomes a sophomore and draws attention, he’s gone before he gets to the third year.

Do Temple coaches either a) realize that fact or b) have a plan to counter it?

Quite frankly, early indications are that they have not but it’s never too late.

All we’ve heard so far is that the Owls signed a couple of JUCOs and are in the process of recruiting a third-team linebacker from North Carolina State.

Not good enough.

Holy Cross’ quarterback, Matt Sluka, is also better than E.J. Warner. Get him on the next train to 10th and Diamond.

The model the Owls have to follow is the one that made teams like Liberty, Troy and New Mexico State national stories this season.

Neither Liberty, New Mexico State nor Troy–all teams with similar or worse NIL resources as Temple–put together double-digit win seasons by grabbing third-team P5ers or JUCOs, which seems to be Temple’s approach. They put together very good G5 teams by ignoring the high school and the JUCO route and going straight to FCS football, which is a significantly higher level than both. They grabbed top players from very good FCS programs and those players had enough of a chip on their shoulders to thrive at a tick higher level.

The only way to fix this, Stan, is to get me a better quarterback than E.J. Warner. When I posted this on Facebook, OwlsDaily editor Shawn Pastor correctly pointed out that including last year’s Duke game, the tally without Warner is 130-14. Ugh. Tough job, but that’s why we are paying you the $2.5 million.

If Temple head coach Stan Drayton was smart, he’d make a special trip to the Temple vs. Albany basketball game on Sunday night and grab both their quarterback and defensive ends, three guys who are better than anyone the Owls had this season. Albany beat Villanova, 31-10, this season and there is no bigger Temple lover and Villanova hater than me but even I have to take the Cherry and White-colored glasses off and admit Villanova would have destroyed Temple this year given the roster and coaching makeup of both teams.

The Great Danes are led by QB Reese Poffenbarger, who threw for a pair of TDs and ran for two scores in a win over Richmond. Poffenbarger leads the FCS with 33 passing TDs and ranks seventh with 3,030 yards passing on the season. He’s a big reason why Albany averages 30.5 points per game this year. Albany’s defensive pressure has also helped produce an FCS-best 27 turnovers. What did Temple do worse than any other FBS team this year? Get turnovers. On defense, edge linemen Anton Juncaj and AJ Simon have combined for 26.5 sacks this year. The Great Danes lead all FCS teams with 47 sacks and they only give up 16.8 points per game.

Having all three be the same kind of package deal both P.J. Walker and Jahad Thomas were out of Elizabeth High would be a recruiting home run for Temple.

Our bowl picks. We played them both separately and in a parlay. If this 12-team parlay hits, a $10 bet returns $23,456.50 from Parx Casino.

Would Poffenbarger be an upgrade over E.J. Warner?

Most definitely.

Would he come to Temple?

Way more likely than, say, Ohio State’s Kyle McCord, who would probably give Temple a hometown discount.

Poffenbarger’s edge rushing teammates on the other side of the ball also could make an immediate impact on a Temple team starving for turnovers.

Getting guys who destroyed a team that would destroy Temple moves the Owls up the food chain by quite a bit.

Also, the Owls got Diwan Black from Florida last year and Florida has a number of highly rated recruits in the portal now. Use that resource of Black to develop a pipeline to Temple. Have Diwan recruit those guys. Diwan was a backup at Florida. He didn’t need a big NIL deal to sign at Temple.

It only figures that if Temple has Florida talent it has a better chance against Oklahoma on Aug. 31 than it does by wasting precious scholarships on JUCOs and high school talent.

Everybody says there is no shot a quarterback like McCord comes to Temple but McCord’s dad is loaded the family doesn’t need a big NIL deal. Would it hurt to reach out? No. Temple should at least TRY to upgrade from E.J. Warner’s departure. At least give the McCords a call. I’d grab the Albany quarterback first. If not him, then go after the Toledo quarterback or the Holy Cross quarterback.

Right now, by signing JUCOs and third-string NC State guys, it looks like they are mailing it in and, if that’s so, they are sealing their own severance paychecks.

Although we don’t know everything going on behind the scenes, the Owls need to aim for some P5 players who can make an impact or proven FCS guys.

Forget the high school and JUCOs. There is no time to gamble and Temple needs to reach for the stars. They don’t need to grab 25 but at least a dozen accomplished players would upgrade a roster that needs significant upgrading.

Monday: The Single Bullet Theory