Tag Archives: nfl

01.27.25
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Temple needs to embrace the Eagles’ success

Temple students headed to the Eagles’ Super Bowl winning parade in Feb. of 2018.

Temple students love football.

Temple students love the Philadelphia Eagles.

Temple students probably don’t love their own football Owls as much but, if anyone understands the connection between the students, President of the university and the pro team in town it is new head coach K.C. Keeler

Owls share the same stadium with the NFC champion Eagles and that needs to be a selling point both for recruits and fans.

Maybe he can do something about it.

Already Keeler is pounding the pavement talking about his team and the Eagles.

Last week, at the annual Philadelphia sports writers dinner, Keeler told the story of scheduling a team meeting at the same time the Eagles were playing the Green Bay Packers.

“One of the players took me aside and said, ‘Coach, do you know that’s the same time the Eagles’ game starts?’ I said we can adjust.”

And that’s just what Keeler did.

Team meeting was scheduled for after the game and a team bonding session was scheduled around watching it.

Keeler also likes to tell the story of Temple president John Fry cheering for the Eagles as a selling point for him to take the Temple job.

Brainstorming ways to tie in recruiting to playing in the Eagles’ stadium in front of NFL scouts is one way to make up the difference between Temple’s NIL and, say, Memphis. Coming to Philadelphia to play in an NFL stadium was the major selling point for kicker Maddox Trijillo and, partially as a result, he will be kicking for an NFL team next year.

Keeler needs to sell that.

Temple as an institution needs to help out with creative ticket-selling ideals. While students are given free tickets to the games, getting them inside the stadium as been the rub in the past. Maybe an Eagles’ ticket giveway to a student who is actually seating somewhere in the stadium in the fourth quarter one idea to put fannies in the seats.

It could not hurt. Maybe it starts as 100 fannies. If word spreads through loudspeakers on campus during the week that a couple of students won Eagles tickets, maybe that 100 turns into 1,000 the next week and so on and so forth.

Beyond that, any paying Temple season ticket-holder who is also inside the stadium in the fourth quarter gets a shot at winning a raffle for Eagles’ tickets.

Buying those few Eagles season tickets is an investment that probably won’t pack the stadium but would certainly capitalize on the connection the city feels with their NFL football team.

Getting some of those fans into the stadium to see an exciting and well-coached Temple team might create a similar bond.

Friday: The No-So-Dirty Dozen

01.17.25
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A Temple nugget for the national title game

Tip of the hat to TFF reader and CBS Sports talk show host Zach Gelb for this idea.

High-profile TV games involve big-time announcers and a lot of research from highly-paid TV teams yet nobody hits 1.000 or even .400.

Some even strike out.

Case-in-point was Sunday’s NFL Wild Card game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers.

For all of the millions of dollars Tom Brady, Kevin Burkhardt, Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi make none knew that the Packers’ kicker who missed his first field goal in that game (Brandon McManus) played his college ball in the same stadium.

Joe Jones (26) watches Ryan Day explain the “chop” technique. He caught at TD pass against Army that week.

Got to go with “knew” because that’s a nugget that should have been tossed out somewhere along the line. Certainly worthy enough to mention in the game-day broadcast.

Here’s a helpful hint for Monday’s announcers in the national championship game: There is a Temple angle more than worthy to be pursued.

Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit are those guys.

Huge news for the Owls. Way better than Tarleton State. Wake me up the next time the Tarleton State fans storm the court after beating the No. 18 team in the country.

Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden is inarguably the one person who is responsible for turning the Temple program from a 19-season loser to a consistent winner and he is the Notre Dame defensive coordinator.

Golden was smart enough to hire a guy named Ryan Day as his wide receivers’ coach.

Now the two are on opposite sides of the field in Monday’s national title game.

While the fake Miami (Ohio) might have been previously earned the reputation of “Cradle of Coaches” that doesn’t apply to this year’s national title game.

Temple is the only school that earns that distinction on this night and in this game.

It deserves to be either mentioned or highlighted in a pre-game piece.

Hopefully, they won’t swing and miss like the NFL crew did on Sunday.

Monday: Five Most Impactful Guys

01.12.25
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Walker should turn the LFF scoreboard into an adding machine

This is the way Montana State plays offensive football and the way Temple will going forward.

After three years of watching Stan Drayton’s offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf throw 3-yard swing passes on 3d and 5, Tyler Walker’s approach should be like a breath of fresh air.

Walker is Temple’s new OC and he will be joined by offensive line coach Al Johnson.

There are a couple of strong signals in those hires for Temple football fans.

One, there is no indication that either one of those coaches had a prior relationship with new Temple head coach K.C. Keeler. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing, as Drayton showed by his hires that he was more wedded to hiring friends than he was to the overall advancement of the Temple program.

He made one of those friends, Everett Withers, his Chief of Staff and then gave Withers carte blanche to hire a staff that included three of Withers’ assistants at Texas State University. Withers was fired there after a 2-10 season.

Losers beget losing and that’s exactly what happened at Temple.

Huge red flag.

Arthur Johnson and John Frey have to be pleased with K.C. Keeler’s staff additions.

Hire the best people, not the guys that you feel comfortable having a conversation with by the Edberg Olson coaches office water cooler.

Keeler has signaled he is willing to do the former, not the latter. Drayon never did.

Two, the frustrating offensive system that caused Temple fans to pull their hair out is no more. That means a unique RPO game based on establishing the run first and then throwing off fakes to the running backs that results in explosive downfield plays in the passing game.

Too often, especially with immobile quarterback E.J. Warner, Langsdorf tried to force a square peg into a round hole–hoping a short passing game would open up running lanes on draw plays.

That never worked because the Owls could never convince defenses their running game was a threat.

That’s where Johnson comes in because the Montana State offensive line coach and new Temple one, realizes that some beef is necessary to move the ball on the ground first.

Fortunately, he had a mobile quarterback who won the Walter Payton Award as FCS Player of the Year but still that mobile quarterback threw for 29 touchdowns against only two interceptions.

Contrast that to Warner’s best year at Temple–23 TDs, 13 interceptions.

In case you didn’t notice what happened in the NFL on Sunday, winning teams only win when they cut the number of mistakes to as close to zero as possible.

Temple QB Evan Simon may not be as mobile as the Montana State QB, but he has functional mobility and a knack to protect the football.

Even if the Owls don’t get a super mobile QB in the transfer portal, Simon can run this kind of offense and maybe even draw some NFL eyes with it.

Drayton proved that hiring losers begets losing and Keeler is determined to show hiring winners will do the exact opposite. Sounds like a plan.

Friday: High-Profile Reunion

Monday: Five Most Impactful Newcomers

Friday: Wants and Needs

01.02.25
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K.C. Keeler: Trust, but verify

K.C. Keeler’s New Year’s Eve message to Temple fans.

If you had to create a perfect Temple football coach in a petri dish, you would be hard pressed getting the DNA to replicate a K.C. Keeler.

Born North of Philadelphia, had success both East and South of Philadelphia with other teams, intimately familiar with the team in the middle who gave him his only loss in the 1979 season.

Hell, he wanted to go to Temple but head coach Wayne Hardin ran out of scholarships.

Not hard to trust K.C. Keeler as my football coach for the next few years.

That said, as Ronald Reagan might say of the Soviet Union when it made a nuclear weapons sweetheart deal with the U.S., “trust but verify.”

K.C. Keeler said his goal was to be in a bowl game immediately. If so, he needs to upgrade the roster via the transfer portal with about 20 solid FBS/FCS players right now.

For a guy who got a new job in December, he’s been pretty slow to make major moves on the coaching offensive side of the football or the transfer portal.

There are a couple of clues about the verify part.

Keeler hasn’t announced a new offensive coordinator and that might be because one of the leading candidates, a running backs’ coach from Penn State, is currently otherwise occupied. If so, I’m more than willing to wait.

The transfer portal is another story.

Temple has been slow to pull the trigger. Maybe too slow.

Kinda hoping that Al Golden’s first national title was with Temple but, that being impossible, I am literally betting on him to take it all as ND’s DC and I made that bet 14 days ago.

Watching Notre Dame win its quarterfinal game on Thursday night against Georgia, 23-10, it was abundantly clear they did it on the backs of two transfer portal acquisitions: 1) Duke’s Riley Leonard and 2) Marshall’s Jayden Harrison.

Temple fans are all too familiar with Leonard, who led Duke to a 30-0 win over Temple in Stan Drayton’s first game.

Notre Dame went out and got a big-time P4 quarterback in Leonard.

Temple can’t do that but certainly a big-time FCS quarterback is within reach. In my humble opinion, I can ride or die with Evan Simon who has shown he is Temple tough. I can’t depend on either Forrest Brock or Tyler Douglas to be a capable AAC backup. Keeler has to show me he can either convince the Sam Houston starting quarterback to come here to compete for the job with Simon or get me a star-level FCS quarterback to do the same.

I love Evan Simon as my quarterback and I’m sure once Keeler sees him throw a few balls in practice he will feel the same way. The film is the film. All K.C. has to do is to watch the entire Utah State game. If Simon played against UConn, the Owls win by at least two touchdowns. I will never change my mind about that. Simon has been quoted as saying he loves Temple.

(For the record, Simon wins the job in my mind.)

Harrison was the No. 1 kickoff returner in the country for Marshall last year and ended up at ND as a portal transfer. His return the house to open the second half was maybe the key play in a national quarterfinal game. Temple hasn’t had a good kickoff returner since Isaiah Wright was named AAC’s Special Teams’ Player of the Year in 2018.

Does Keeler have to get me the No. 1 FBS kickoff returner in the country?

Hell no.

I’ll take the top FCS kickoff returner. I’ll take the top Division II kickoff returner.

Just don’t give me another JUCO like Stan Drayton has done.

The trust the level with a guy who has done it at Rowan, Delaware and Sam Houston State is off the charts.

The verify level will come with what we see in the next couple of weeks.

Hoping it’s a nuclear-type jawn like Reagan had with Gorbachev but as always in this space we will be honest with what we see.

12.30.24
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What Temple can take from Navy’s win

If Temple can keep a lot of players like Khalil Poteat, it should be OK next season.

About a year and a month ago, Temple got a terrific game from a quarterback and a linebacker and earned a 32-18 win over Navy.

A couple of days ago Navy completed a 10-win season with a win over an Oklahoma team that opened this season by beating Temple, 51-3.

The AAC’s image improved this bowl season. Now it’s time for Temple to contribute to that profile.

If anything, the juxtaposition shows how much fortunes can change in one year.

That’s because the transfer portal system both giveth and taketh away. The schools who decide to build their rosters with high school players will be left behind by the other schools who judiciously scour the portal to upgrade their rosters with 20 or so new players who can compete for starting spots.

So far, Temple head coach K.C. Keeler has talked about building a team through high school players and, as the lady on the video said, “ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Me when I heard K.C. wants to build his roster with high school players.

For now, let’s hope that is all that it is–talk.

However, if Keeler adds a couple of key players from, say, Sam Houston, a few all-star type players from FCS ranks and as many disaffected really good players from P4 schools who can’t get on the field there that’s the formula to do what Navy did–go from three wins (and dominated by a three-win team)–to, if not 10, then eight or nine wins.

Ironically, Navy got better not from an influx of new players but from being able to retain its roster. Temple can do the same but still needs to keep the good players like quarterback Evan Simon and a few others.

On the flip side, the Owls need to upgrade their offensive line with solid players from the portal (be it FCS, Sam Houston or P4) so Simon doesn’t spend next year running for his life.

That’s one of the reasons why the old staff got fired. They relied too much on JUCOs on the offensive line. The one player who fit the profile of the kind of guy they should target, a South Carolina transfer starter, was their most valuable offensive lineman. Really, the only good one.

So Keeler knows what he has to do. Keep a solid chunk of the current roster and upgrade with the top end of the 6,000 or so players who won’t find a home. He already has shown the chops for being able to coach them up.

First, he has to get them to coach them and we’ll be keeping an eye on those developments over the next four or so weeks.

12.16.24
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TFF and Temple football: Back in business

Brian Smith’s loss was felt by every Rice fan, unlike Everett Withers’ loss at TU (felt by only one).

Every once in a while, you get an unexpected expense.

Today’s was $145.44 because a bad Acer adapter sucked all of the life out of my battery, putting the laptop out of commission.

I only found out because I went to write Monday’s regular post and no numbers or punctuation marks were showing and then the screen went black.

Brian Smith’s defense held Navy’s Blake Horvath to 10-for-21, 121 yards and two interceptions in a 24-10 win this year. Everett Withers’ defense held Horvath and company to 38 points.

Having zero technical skills, I took it to an expert and he figured it out.

New charger and new battery put us back in business.

So, too, can the same be said of Temple football.

Having zero football skills, both new President John Fry and old AD Arthur Johnson found an expert who already is showing signs of recharging the program.

Unlike the last time, they got a pro and not some apprentice learning from another pro.

This pro, K.C. Keeler, already is making an impact with the Owls by hiring defensive coordinator Brian Smith from the Rice Owls.

Go to the Rice message boards and there is much gnashing of teeth over Smith’s loss. Smith, unlike the last Temple defensive coordinator, Everett Withers, is a proven point-stopper. We only know one Temple fan who felt the loss of Withers, OwlsDaily editor Shawn Pastor, who called him “a great asset to the program.”

The “trade” of Brian Smith for Everett Withers could go down as the second-best football swap in Philadelphia this year (the Eagles letting D’Andre Swift go to the Bears and acquiring Saquon Barkley was probably the best).

Since Withers’ primary job was a DC, and since Withers gave up 39.7 ppgs per game as a DC at FIU in 2021 and 38.7 and 35.7 the last two years at Temple, I’ll pass on that so-called asset.

Basically, he got both Butch Davis and Stan Drayton fired. (Drayton probably deserved more blame than Davis because he hired Withers after the FIU disaster.)

“You had one job!”

Some asset.

Keeler went for the best guy available, not the best friend he felt more comfortable with and Smith has the numbers to back it up.

Smith’s defense finished ninth in the nation in passing defense, 36th in total defense and held opponents to just 25.4 points per game, more than 10 points per game lower than Withers’ best figure this decade. Smith, unlike Withers, was nominated for the Frank Broyles Award as best assistant coach in the nation.

Smith held a very good Navy offense to just 10 points in a 24-10 Rice victory and his 3-4 defense is particularly effective against triple-option teams like Army and Navy because it puts a nose guard over the A gap (to stop the fullback) and emphasizes speed from sideline to string out the option.

An additional benefit of that scheme is that it’s harder to recruit big interior linemen like defensive tackles and nose guards and easier to find linebackers and that’s probably why Keeler is going to keep what he did at Sam Houston State.

When your football team is broken, got to put it a bag and take to an expert and then plug it back in the AAC outlet.

So far, the additional expense of buying out Drayton and Keeler (at SHS) and paying Keeler on top of that portends that the Owls will be back in the business of winning sooner than later.

Friday: The Letter

12.08.24
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One era begins, another one ends

EDITOR’S NOTE: Despite what you see to the left, the article below was written by Kevin Fitzpatrick, a long-time member of the Temple chain gang who is hanging up the poles (really handing them off, deciding to retire) after 38 years on the job. Thanks for your service, Kevin.

By Kevin Fitzpatrick

For the love of the game, I’ve been involved in Temple for 38 years on the chain crew.

No more.

My final game was two Saturdays ago.

First off I’d like to shout out to the many guys that have been on the crew over those
years. The current group is about half Philadelphia Catholic league grads (St Joe’s
Prep, North Catholic and Father Judge) and half South Jersey guys. A little less than
half are Temple grads (me included). I was invited on the crew by a co-worker whose
father, also on the crew, was going to miss time with a knee replacement. It was during
the Bruce Arains, Paul Palmer years. A great time to start. We played all the big time
Eastern programs, which at that time were much more relevant nationally too.

The venues were Veterans Stadium, Franklin Field and Lincoln Financial Field. The turf at the Vet
was really rough; my knees and back hurt from just standing on it for three and a half
hours. I can’t imagine being driven into the turf or sliding on it.
I was just happy to be close to the action. That’s why I titled this for the love of the
game. It is a different game up close. The speed is incredible. I got rolled up by a
player in my first game but never again, although there were many close calls.

The teams I saw included some of the best players of that era: Bruce Smith, Donovan
McNabb, Michael Vick, Matt Ryan and too many Penn State and Miami players to
mention. We were always at a disadvantage against those teams but played them
tougher than I’ve seen us play lesser teams the last few years. I don’t remember giving
up 50 or more points until the Bobby Wallace years. After we turned it around in the Al
Golden years and kept it going for a decade, I never thought I would see that garbage
again.

Our current situation with a new coach coming in makes me think of other coaches
I’ve seen and their approach to the game. Two that impressed me were Andy Talley of
Villanova and Joe Paterno of PSU. Both were CEO types that could watch the game
and pick apart a weakness in-game. They didn’t wait until halftime to make

adjustments.

They just turned around and told their coordinator or position coach what
they saw or what would work against that look. Talley had a knack for calling runs on
obvious passing downs and passes on running downs and making it work. Joe Paterno
could look at the opposing team and see who was just a yard or two from where they
should be and what would work against them. They also generally respected the refs
and would plant seeds about a missed call rather than berate the refs. That’s not the
norm. The language can get pretty bad on the field. One of our coaches, Steve
Addazio, called the refs every name in the book. But most of our coaches did not
berate the refs. Again the speed of the game makes it really difficult for the refs but
they usually do a great job. This year was an exception with many head scratching
calls.


Our last two coaches show that different approaches don’t always give different
results. Coach Carey was a screamer and was hard on the players hard creating a very tense
team. Coach Drayton was more positive, and player focused yet they got the same
results.


The tendency when something goes wrong is to blame the coach but remember they
are working with 18-23 year olds. What were you like at that age?

All in all I loved my time on the chain crew and will end with some of the lasting
memories from my time on the field.

Best play: Michael Vick weaved through our entire defense back and forth at the Vet for
a 70-80 yard touchdown run.
Fastest get off at the snap: Dan Klecko, who left O linemen grasping at air.
Couldn’t believe he got up: Walter Washington was lifted into the air and slammed to the
turf with the defender placing all his weight on him, yet the QB got up slowly and didn’t
leave the field.
Most impressive game and best offensive player I saw for the Owls: Paul Palmer and
his then record 300+ rushing yards vs ECU

Best defensive Owl: tie between Lance Johnstone and Tyler Matakevich
Best game ( as if there is any doubt) : beating Penn State at the Linc, with the Notre
Dame game a close second.


Here’s hoping Coach Keeler can make some similar memories for future chain crews.

12.03.24
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Temple football has a winner in town

Former FSU All-American QB Danny Kanell nods his head in agreement as Chip, Tom and Bud Elliott compliment Temple on the choice of K.C. Keeler to coach the Owls.

One day after being named one of CBS Sports’ “Coaches of the Week” for Week 14 in college football for a Texas team, K.C. Keeler was standing at a podium 1,000 miles away in Philadelphia talking about leading a Pennsylvania team.

Things move fast when you beat other teams to the hiring punch as Temple seems to have done.

Keeler didn’t open his press conference like Buddy Ryan did with the Eagles in 1986 by saying “you’ve got a winner in town.” He didn’t have to because, as a real winner (Bill Parcells) once said, “you are what your record says you are.”

Unlike 1986, Philadelphia–and most importantly Temple–has a winner in town.

Keeler’s wife, Janice was back in Texas selling their house in Huntsville. They already have another house 40 minutes from Philadelphia that they’ve maintained since leaving for Texas.

Keeler’s opening press conference brought something even the press conferences of Al Golden, Matt Rhule, Steve Addazio, Geoff Collins and Rod Carey never did.

A winning pedigree in post-season football.

Ryan was 0-3 in playoff games as Eagles’ coach. Carey was 0-7 in bowl games both at Northern Illinois and Temple.

Keeler’s post-season exploits are chronicled elsewhere in this post. You don’t have to google him. He’ll get you to the postseason and he will win his fair share there.

That’s kind of where Temple is at now.

K.C. Keeler under the goal post where the best field goal kicker in the nation this year practiced his craft every single day.

The arms’ race is such in college football that really the best the Owls can hope for–barring putting the NIL genie back in the bottle–is playing in great bowl games and winning in the postseason. Maybe grabbing an AAC title every five years, tops.

A great school like Temple should expect to be in the top 80 of college football teams every year when only 134 teams are playing at the FBS level. The Owls should expect to win their share of postseason bowl games.

Do that and the fans come back, especially after four-straight 3-9 seasons. Making Lincoln Financial Field a happening place again requires only consistent winning. Al Golden proved that. So did Matt Rhule.

K.C. Keeler’s postseason record screams winner.

Keeler has a history of doing that, too, even against teams with greater resources. With no NIL, Keeler’s Sam Houston State destroyed a Rice team that beat Navy. That was the same Navy team that beat Temple, 38-11.

He has a history of turning loaves into fishes and he’s going to have to take that approach with Temple.

Keeler’s familiarity with Temple will help as he talked about playing three games in his college career and losing twice to the Owls, including in Delaware’s national championship 13-1 season (1979).

“Then lens through I look at it is Temple was a great program at one time,” Keeler said. “This is a great university. It can even be greater.”

It got greater on a very cold December Tuesday morning in Philadelphia. Now all that remains is to determine how great.

Friday: The Letter Keepers

Monday: The Reaction

11.20.24
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The case against Elijah Robinson

Unlike many Temple fans, I’m going to take Fran Brown at his word.

As someone who recently took up the sport of kings, I learned pretty early in the process to stay away from Maiden Claiming horse races.

Reading the thumbnails on The Daily Racing Forum, some horses got better reviews than others on the basis of their pedigree.

Pretty good return on a $2 investment on Tuesday at Parx because I picked the four horses with the most wins. Arthur Johnson will cash at the Temple football coaching hiring window if he takes the same approach.

You’d never really know if they could win a race until they did.

Some never did.

I didn’t start to consistently finish in the black until I stopped betting Maiden Claimers and stuck to the Graded Stakes and Allowance Optional races.

That’s because I had a “past performance” record to go on and my formula of picking exotics based on how many past first-place finishes put me in the black. Not a perfect formula, but a pretty good one.

That works, too, with college football coaches.

The big-time programs don’t take a chance on career assistant coaches because there isn’t a “past performance” sheet to check and double check.

That’s not the only reason why Temple shouldn’t take a chance on Elijah Robinson (or his Syracuse staff mate, Jeff Nixon), but it is the best one. Robinson, a career assistant, is 1-2 as an “interim” head coach.

With Texas A&M talent. Doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies about what he might be able to do with Temple talent.

We were on record as being against the Manny Diaz and Stan Drayton hires BEFORE THEY WERE HIRED HERE for many of the same reasons we’re against any assistant coach, including Elijah Robinson and Jeff Nixon.

Here’s another: Every single great thing said of Robinson by an ex-player or ex-coach (or current one, even) was also said about Stan Drayton three years ago.

You know how that worked out.

Yes, Temple has had some success with assistants before, like Al Golden and Matt Rhule.

That was a different time and a different place in the college football world.

There was no NIL or transfer portal and an assistant could take the time to build a program from the ground up with high school recruits. Back then, you could recruit a high school guy, get him in the weight room, red shirt him and play him by his second season.

Nobody’s got time for that anymore.

You’ve got to get the transfer portal people to win right away.

An instantly recognizable guy with a winning record as a head coach not only would create the kind of excitement with the fan base that would drive NIL money into the program but might bring some of his own players from a winning team and inject that winning culture into Temple.

A guy like Scot Loeffler might bring players from Bowling Green. A guy like Geoff Collins might bring players from UNC.

Doubt very seriously Robinson (or Nixon) bring players from Syracuse.

Had Temple gone, say, for Jim Mora Jr. three years ago instead of Stan Drayton, do you think the Owls would be better off?

I certainly do.

Mora will have UConn–a team Geoff Collins beat 57-7–in two bowl games in the same three years Drayton had the Owls going 9-25.

Past performance is the best indicator of future performance and, with an assistant, there is really nothing to go on but hope.

Hope doesn’t get me to a bowl game but a guy who has proven he can win as a head coach and has Philly and Temple ties will. Go get a guy like that.

Friday: UTSA Preview

11.15.24
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Temple-FAU: A question of coaching

While the two teams will be playing at night in the fourth quarter, the crowd should be about 1/20th of this photo.

Not much to choose from a metrics standpoint in tomorrow’s FAU at Temple football game.

Plenty to choose from a coaching standpoint.

At one end of the ring, you have an AAC championship head coach in Tom Herman. In the other, you have someone who rose to success as a running back’s coach but no higher anywhere else.

The game between a pair of 2-7 teams (2 p.m., ESPN+) will come down to a question of coaching. Head coaching to be specific.

Temple’s been pretty stubborn in its approach all season.

On the offensive end, the Owls refuse to jumpstart a running game by using two tight ends and bringing more blockers to the point of attack than any defense can handle. Instead, the philosophy of OC Danny Langsdorf has remained stubborn: Use a short passing game to set up a running game.

The only problem with that is defenses don’t respect all of these ball fakes and RPOs without an established run game and you can’t establish the run game without utilizing at least two tight ends and maybe a fullback. That sense of urgency is heightened by the fact that there should be high winds the entire afternoon.

Tom Herman knows both of those facts. After nine games of watching Temple closely, we doubt that Stan Drayton does.

The key two words here are “gusty winds” and that means Temple has to devise a game plan to help Torrez Worthy establish the run by using two tight ends and a fullback. It won’t.

That’s not the only reason Temple, a two-point favorite, will probably lose.

On the other side of the ball, FAU is starting a new quarterback now that Marshall transfer Cam Fancher got injured.

Everett Withers’ philosophy on defense is to drop about 111 people into pass coverage and let the other quarterback run around and pick a receiver. (We’re exaggerating for effect, but we know that Withers, a former DB himself, would drop all 11 guys into pass coverage if he could.)

Our low/risk, high/reward picks for this weekend.

The way to attack a new starting quarterback is to blitz linebackers, particularly D.J. Woodbury, on third-and-long situations and Withers has an unreasonable reluctance to do that.

When at Temple, Bruce Arians said “the best pass coverage is to put the quarterback on his ass.” Arians should know. He was a starting quarterback at Virginia Tech only about nine years before he became Temple’s head coach.

You should know if Temple is going to win tomorrow by watching for two things.

One, a two-tight end offense that helps an immense talent like Torrez Worthy establish a running game. Two, a defense willing to send the house to sack the quarterback.

If you don’t see either by the end of the first quarter, Temple will lose.

That’s my guess because the Unholy Trinity of Stan Drayton, Danny Langsdorf and Withers has been way too stubborn in their approach while Herman can improvise and adjust.

It’s what championship coaches do and low-level assistant coaches don’t.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

Monday: Debunking an NIL Theory