Tag Archives: Penn State

09.24.26
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Some signs that Temple is the side Friday

Way back in February when the American Conference released its schedule, I wrote in this space that Army is the most important game for Temple this season.

Not Rhode Island.

Not Penn State.

Army doesn’t have the speed to stop this guy.

Not Toledo.

Army.

There were a couple of reasons for that back then that still hold true today.

One, Temple’s goal is not and should not be to win the national title. Selling out to beat Penn State and, to a lesser extent, Toledo, would have served that unrealistic purpose. The only realistic goal for Temple is to win a league of like-minded schools, The American, and this is the first American Conference game.

To win the American Conference beating Army on Friday (4 p.m. start, ESPN’s flagship station), is a must because the next game at South Florida figures to be a tougher task. To get into the American Conference championship game means no more than one conference loss and it can’t be Army and it can’t be at home.

When All-American tight end Peter Clarke evaluated the team a month ago at the conference’s media day, he said anything less than a league title would be unacceptable. He was responsible for keeping this team together so it appears he is dead serious.

There are some clear signs that Temple is the side tonight.

Chief among them was my hope that one quarterback would seize the job and run with it. After the first two games, it looked like it might be a back-and-forth with Jaxon Smolik and Ajani Sheppard that served no good purpose for Temple.

It didn’t matter how someone seized the job. It mattered that someone did. I thought that might never happen.

Fortunately, I was wrong.

Sheppard was that guy with 162 passing yards and 99 rushing yards in the 49-48 OT loss at Toledo. He proved that this is a guy you can win the conference title with. Incredible relief that one of those two guys have the “it” factor, and right now, it’s Sheppard.

Two, Temple head coach K.C. Keeler–18-3 against the spread in his last 21 games as an underdog– wisely held out an 85 percent Sam Brown–a high-end quality “Big 10” back–in the first and second games to wait until he was 100 percent.

Army might be able to stop Sam Brown or Keveun Mason, but they can’t stop an entire team of weapons that include Ajani Sheppard, Colin Chase, Peter Clarke and JoJo Bermudez. Cadets can’t match that kind of athleticism.

Three, a “100 percent” Brown proved what a weapon he was against Toledo, rushing for 105 yards and making a couple of all-world catches, one for a touchdown.

He’s the kind of special player Army does not have with the possible exception of quarterback Cale Hellums nor the inexperienced Army rushing defense figures to stop.

Here’s the difference between Army and Temple in the athlete department: Army is returning only three defensive starters from a year ago and Temple has quality edge athletes in Brown, fellow running back Keveun Mason and receivers Clarke, Colin Chase and JoJo Bermudez.

Those are the kind of guys who have speed that Army can’t counter.

There is, though, a flip side and a mental to physical aspect of the game.

Can the Owls shake off the searing disappointment of losing to Toledo in overtime in one of the toughest losses in Temple history?

That’s a damn good question.

The last time Temple had a two-headed rushing game against Army Matty Brown scored the first two touchdowns of the game, went out with a hammy and was replaced by Montel Harris, who went for 351 yards and 7 touchdowns in a single game, both Temple records. Temple won, 63-32. I will sign for that now if I can get it. Here, Montel explains why he is so fast and Army captain and linebacker Nate Coombs (22) was so slow. Two great athletes and my favorite Temple post-game photo of all time.

Temple seems to have the physical edge but head coach K.C. Keeler said in Monday’s presser than they worked extra hard with a “24-hour rule” to put that Toledo game out of their minds.

If it lingers anywhere in the back of those minds, the Owls will lose. If the Owls use the physical advantages they have, most importantly speed, they will win.

Any Temple alums or students who want to help out the kids show up and be heard would certainly make a difference. This is not the time for any of the 250,000 alums within an hour’s drive of the stadium to sit home and watch on TV. Hopefully, the 12,000 students who live on campus will take advantage of those free subway rides that take them from the main campus to the stadium in 10 minutes.

This win would totally wipe out the disappointment of a week ago and is way more important than what has happened since opening day.

Friday Near Midnight: Game Analysis

09.13.26
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Plenty of good to like on Saturday

Pretty hard to get a White Out when there is this much Cherry in the stands.

After 24 hours of stewing over a game that should have been closer, a few things became clearer about Temple football from a 30,000-feet perspective.

Stop the count …

One, from a sheer physicality standpoint, the Owls on both sides of the football more than held their own with one of the most talented rosters in college football. What needs to be cleaned up is getting the Owls’ athletes in space to turn the scoreboard into an adding machine and that did not happen enough. The Toledo game (3 p.m. Saturday, CBS Sports Network) will determine if the Owls fix that issue.

Two, Penn State fans actually thought Lincoln Financial Field was going to look like this …

… when, in reality, it looked like the photo at the top of this post. Even Co-Pilot noticed:

For the most part, the 12,500 students who currently live on the Temple campus deserve a big thumbs up from this space because that’s the largest student involvement at a Temple game since Luke Butler led the Cherry Crusade in the Al Golden years. Strong student leadership led to scenes like this back then:

More of this, please, for the Army game and the rest of the season … this is when Luke Butler had the Cherry Crusade rocking.

If the students are going to show this kind of support for the rest of the season, the team should be in good shape because the players feed off that kind of energy. My only regret is that the Owls didn’t score more and we didn’t hear “T from Temple U” being sung from the stands enough because of it. A lot of Penn State fans were puffing their chests about their fan turnout but, for a team with seven-straight losing seasons, the Temple turnout was nothing to sneeze at. It’s easy to show up when your team has been in a bowl every year. It’s hard to show up when your team rarely sniffs a bowl. Memo to President John Fry: Close classes on the afternoon of the Army game so the kids can have some fun at LFF.

A lot of Penn State fans who thought the score was going to be 50-0 or worse left disappointed but their disappointment could wane if the Owls, say, won the American Conference title. More importantly, the disappointment of Temple fans. That means the Owls getting their athletes in space in one-on-one matchups. The best way to do create that space is to have a pass/run threat at quarterback who the defense has to account for and maybe even spy. After two weeks of watching these two quarterbacks, I have the nagging feeling that kind of dynamic runner and passer is maybe a year away from playing (Lamar Best). What we saw is the offense sputter after taking that lead into the second quarter. Interesting that in the 2015-win, Temple scored 27 straight points and in the 2026-win, Penn State scored 27 straight points. Both scores would have been 27-10 if the Owls just took the XP. Owls got great QB play from P.J. Walker that day, but neither of these two guys is P.J. Walker.

I hope I’m wrong and one of these two guys grab the job and show the kind of “it” factor in putting points on the board that Evan Simon had last year. There is not enough evidence of that yet.

That should be the goal and for the Owls to fight as hard as they did and refuse to be pushed around was the good that came from the loss.

That, and the students showing up. Good times ahead if that’s a trend and not an anomoly.

Friday: Toledo Preview

09.12.26
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TU-PSU: You play to win the game

Down three offensive linemen, their best running back, and one defensive lineman, Temple head coach K.C. Keeler was faced with a dilemma.

Play to win, or play to keep it close.

From this seat way up there in 215, it was pretty apparent what he did.

Play to keep it close.

I’m from the Herman Edwards School of Thought: You play to win the game.

I’d rather lose 37-10 playing to win than 27-9 playing to keep it close.

After the game, Keeler said “there are no moral victories” but this really seemed like it to me after losing 27-9 to Penn State on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field.

Temple fans left the 2015 game happy partly because John Cristopher threw a “Philly Special” throwback pass to P.J. Walker and we didn’t see anything like that today.

What would playing to win look like? A double reverse here, a jet sweep to JoJo Bermudez there, the same kind of pass Ajani Sheppard threw on the first play of the game last week there. A few more blitzes on defense. There is value in creativity.

We never saw any of that on Saturday.

What we did see was the kids play hard enough to earn a victory but never got close enough to pull it off.

To me, that was a missed opportunity. For Temple, the opportunity was right there for not only a win over a ranked team, but that win fueling an attendance boost for the rest of the year.

Beat Penn State in front of 61,355 fans and that translates into 30,000 Temple fans for the rest of the season. Right now, we’ll be lucky to hit 20,000 in any of the remaining games.

I’m not from the school where I will ever be happy to lose by less than 20 points. Sorry.

It’s not like Temple doesn’t have talent to score more than nine points against anybody. The Owls have plenty of explosive players in space. They just have to devise ways to deliver them the ball.

This team–other than quarterback–has enough weapons to turn the scoreboard into an adding machine. Keveun Mason is a proven halfback and most Temple insiders say Sam Brown is better than him. Colin Chase is probably the best possession receiver in the league. JoJo Bermudez is not only the best punt returner in the country but a guy who can take any jet sweep to the house.

Other than Mason’s 76 yards, we saw none of that talent utilized against a team that many feel will be in the national championship picture.

What we did see was a defensive line that fought hard enough to win, but didn’t get it because there was no imagination on the offensive side of the ball.

Maybe Keeler was saving that for later but beating Penn State would have been a gamechanger for the program and the gamechanger was sacrificed for whatever is left in the season.

Did you see anything like this on Saturday? I certainly did not.

To me, the biggest problem ahead is that no one grabbed the quarterback position. Jaxon Smolik did some nice things in the first half but the bottom line is that Jaxon Smolik put only three points on the board. The other guy, Ajani Sheppard, is a bigger running threat and, in this era of college football, that’s the kind of a guy you win with.

Still, neither is Evan Simon and I think, with Evan Simon, Temple puts way more than nine points on the board. Simon had a knack, a sixth-sense if you will, to duct out of a rush and find a receiver downfield.

I don’t see that in either Temple quarterback after two games. Simon had an “it” factor. One of the two quarterbacks better show it or develop it and, after watching P.J. Walker, Steve Joachim, Marty Ginestra, Anthony Russo, E.J. Walker and Simon they all had it right away in the first game.

These guys either don’t have it or have not shown it. That’s a problem.

Temple won the rushing battle and time and possession battle.

What happened instead is a lot of Penn State fans left pissed off that they didn’t win 52-0. If that was Temple’s goal, congratulations.

My goal is to win.

Others are to cover.

I stopped by the concourse and saw a Penn State fan pleading for Matt Campbell to go for two after the Nittany Lions’ last touchdown and thought to myself it was nice he lost a lot of money on the game, but I wish Temple had rolled the dice just a little more. If having him win a bundle, meant my team was closer than a 27-9 score was a tradeoff I was willing to make.

It might not have been a moral victory to Keeler but it seemed like that way to me.

Monday: The Good

Friday: Toledo Preview

05.15.26
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What will the next Halcyon Days look like?

Only sustained winning will enable Temple to repeat this: 35,000 of its own fans for 2015 Homecoming against Tulane.

A little bit after Temple beat Penn State for the first time since 1942, Matt Rhule visited our tailgate and was holding the game ball.

He gave it to 90-year-old Wayne Hardin, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and said, “Coach, this is for all the times you came close and should have had one of these.”

Taking it all in, I turned to my good friend, John Belli (RIP), and whispered, “These are the good old days.”

He understood.

It wouldn’t get better than beating Penn State and extending them the courtesy of a worse beatdown that 27-10 by taking four knees to end the game on the Lions’ 12-yard-line.

Tailgating late into the night afterward was the Cherry on top of that White.

Why didn’t it finish 34-10?

That was a little bit of the Penn State in Matt Rhule. I would have scored the touchdown to make the final 34-10, but that’s me remembering Joe Paterno rubbing it in when Penn State won by 47-0 and 55-7 scores.

Today, a football site dedicated to the G5 remembered that 2015 team was a damn good one. What they forgot to note was that the team in the next year was even better.

That got me to thinking.

Was I right when I mentioned that to John?

Yeah.

Not only did Temple beat PSU that year, it went 7-0 and hosted No. 9-ranked Notre Dame and drew the highest rating for a Prime Time game ever in the 4th-largest TV market. Had safety Will Hayes turned the right way on a touchdown reception, the Owls would have started 8-0.

I shouldn’t have thought beating PSU was the Zenith of Temple football but I said it out loud then. Maybe it was prescient.

Because in no way did I ever dream that college football would devolve into what we have now. You not only pay to play, but you pay to win.

As much as I would love to beat Penn State in September of this year, I’m a realist, too. They pay to win and as much as I like to think Temple has a chance to win that game, I don’t.

What will the next “Halcyon Days” at Temple look like?

Webster’s dictionary refers to Halcyon Days as being “a very happy and successful period in the past.” We can be happy in the future, but I think it’s unrealistic given the current landscape to expect to be as happy as, say, 9/5/15 or championship Saturday the next season. I think K.C. Keeler is every bit the coach Rhule and Al Golden were so there could be happy days in the future.

Happier?

I think Temple–with the No. 1 recruiting class in the AAC and the No. 1 transfer portal class–has an outside chance to win the league this year but I think that would be more likely next.

Still, would it match that two-year stretch in 2015/2016?

You don’t win this attendance title with just ND and PSU sellouts. You win with getting 35,000 all Temple fans to do the wave at Homecoming.

No, because the student involvement with the program then was much more strong than it is now and enabled the Owls to draw 35,000 of their own fans for a 48-14 Homecoming win over Tulane in 2015. You need sustained winning seasons to build that kind of support and even if the Owls have one now after four 3-9 and one 5-7 seasons the fan momentum is not at the level in 2026 that it was a decade or so ago.

So, what do we have to hope for?

Minimum 6-6 seasons going forward with an occasional league championshipis the ceiling.

Even though that ceiling isn’t high, it certainly beats the floor we’ve seen in the six years of Carey/Drayton.

Unless college football goes back to the foundation it had then, that’s a ceiling we will have to embrace.

04.09.26
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Cherry and White Game: Back to the Future?

This is the kind of Cherry and White Day that led to an upset of Penn State five months later. No white helmets in sight.
Bright and breezy, which means we might see a Carl Hardin 60-yard field goal on Saturday.

After the Super Bowl and March Madness, there is a dead spot in sports for me that doesn’t get filled in until Temple football’s Cherry and White game.

I mean, after baseball’s opening day, there are about 161 more games, most boring until something big happens.

So, being the movie buff I am, I thought which cultural movie icon did I miss that I need to see to fill the void? That was an easy answer in the wake of the death of probably the best Youtuber I have ever followed, Adam The Woo (real name David Adam Williams).

Adam was a big fan of Back to the Future. Having never seen that trilogy, I absorbed the first two over the weekend.

In one of them, BTF travels to the year 2015.

They saw flying cars, which didn’t happen, but missed out on Temple beating Penn State in football, which did happen. Robert Zemeckis didn’t know specifics, just generalities so he gets a pass.

Cherry and White game three years ago was cloudy, windy and in the mid-40s. We all froze our asses off. That won’t be the case this year.

Temple fans who travel to 10th and Diamond for this year’s Cherry and White game might experience a little back to the future on their own because now, like then, Penn State is coming to town and now, like then, Temple has a chance to put itself on the national map with an upset win.

There are other factors even Zemeckis couldn’t see back in 1985 when he made BTF (like the transfer portal and NIL) working against the Owls’ chances but there are others that are similar. Now, like then, Temple has a great head coach (Matt Rhule, K.C. Keeler) who had some experience as Owls’ head coaches under their belts. Now, like then, Penn State has a first-year head coach (James Franklin, Matt Campbell), who is coming over from Iowa State but feeling his way around in a new job for the first time.

Now, like then, Temple players have bought into their head coach. The thing I remember most from a fan perspective is that Rhule made a point of hitting all of the major tailgates to interact with the fans in the hours before kickoff and I hope Keeler does the same kind of networking. That was a contributing factor, albeit small, to Temple having a big homefield advantage on 9/5/15, where 2/3s of the 70,000 in attendance were wearing Cherry and White. If I had to ask Keeler one question it would not be who the quarterback is going to be or why the pass rush is going to be better, but why the hell does he approve White helmets?

Answer: There is no good reason.

White helmets have been Bad Karma for Temple football since 1884 and they need to go in the trash heap of history. Football-wise, the only thing we will learn is if the players have the same kind of urgency that 2015 group seemed to have. That group was coming off a 6-6 season. This one is coming off a 5-7 season that could just has easily been a 7-5 one except for one-point losses to the service academies.

Now, like then, the current players understand the quality of the opponent ahead and the urgency between April 11 and September that it takes to compete with them.

We got a sense for that urgency in April of 2015 and will eagerly see if we get the same vibe at 2 p.m. on Saturday that punched us in the gut a little over a decade ago.

Monday: Cherry and White Recap

07.11.16
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The Easiest Money In All of Sports

First week has the Owls favored by 19. I would stay away from that.

First week has the Owls favored by 19. I would stay away from that, but Indiana covering the 4 at FIU looks tempting, as does Paul Johnson covering the same number at Steve Addazio.

 

For a lot of us, probably me included, it is a good thing we don’t live in Las Vegas.

We would either be living in a poor house or a mansion but probably not in between.

I don’t feel a great urge to gamble much, but when I see certain things involving Temple football—like last year’s ambush of a bowl game in Boca Raton or last year’s opener in South Philadelphia—the urge is strong enough to walk to Las Vegas and place a few sheckles on an event. (I know tons of friends who do bet online and leave their credit card information offshore, but I am not willing to do that.)

back

I would never bet against the Owls, but the administration put the team in an impossible spot with really nothing to win by beating Toledo last year and a few dollars would have eased my pain for that loss I saw coming a mile away.

This year’s “easiest money in all of sports” involves the Owls’ third game of the season, a Sept. 17th date at Penn State. The Owls are 6.5-point underdogs and they shouldn’t be. Looking at this objectively, which I can do (see last year’s pre-Toledo post), I cannot see how this should be anything but a pick-em at worst and a slight Owl lean at best.

That’s why grabbing the 6.5 now is a gift you can thank me for later.

My reasoning is simple. Two relatively easy tuneups, Army and Stony Brook, ease some talented newcomers into the lineup to help the holdovers and bring them up to speed. Penn State has a tough, emotional, game at Pitt the week before and that will take a lot out of Nits. (They don’t think it will be emotional, but Pitt will hit them in the chops and they will respond but the fight could be bloody.)

This year’s version of the Owls’ defense—which returns three starters at linebacker in Stephaun Marshall, Avery Williams and Jarred Alwan—return. Despite the loss of Tyler Matakevich, this should be a better linebacker group. They are faster and better at pass coverage and, in Alwan’s words, their “chemistry is ridiculous.” Ridiculous, as in good. The linemen in front of them—Haason Reddick, Karamo Dioubate, Avery Robinson, Greg Webb and either Praise Martin-Oguike or Sharif Finch—represent the fastest Temple group in the last decade. There is solid depth behind them with guys like Michael Dogbe and Freddy Booth-Lloyd, who can easily fight themselves into the starting lineup.

With a four-year starter at quarterback in Phillip Walker, and an All-AAC running back like Jahad Thomas, the offense should not have too much difficulty moving the ball against Penn State. On the other side of the field, Penn State will have a rookie quarterback facing a four-year starter.

Mix all of that in, and a don’t think a home-field advantage is going to be enough to rattle these Owls. In fact, I think the South Florida game at home later in the season will be much tougher to win.

Wednesday: Don’t Mess With Phil

Friday: Checking Off The Boxes

Monday: The Andres Blanco Of Temple

Wednesday (7/20): Recharging The Batteries

Friday (7/22): Owls Will Internet

Monday (7/25): The Unwashed Masses

09.25.15
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Temple’s Dream Scenario

Hooter lifting the National Championship trophy. (Photoshop byChris Ventura from Rappid Development, a company run by recent Temple grads)

Hooter lifting the National Championship trophy.
(Photoshop by Chris Ventura from Rappid Development, a company run by recent Temple grads)

All of those “one-game-at-a-time” people please leave the room right now. As if what we’re about to discuss in the following paragraphs has any impact in Temple winning or losing a game on the field the rest of the way.

Are they all gone?

OK.

Now we can talk.

No one even put on the pads yesterday at Temple, but the Owls won by Memphis beating Cincinnati, 53-46, last night. The win drove another stake into Cincy’s hopes for winning the AAC East and put Temple squarely on the road to the AAC title game. Cincy looks like it will go on to a great season, either with Gunner Kiel or Hayden Moore as its quarterback. Memphis’ defense looks as vulnerable to Robby Anderson as it did in 2013. The only difference is that this time Robby has plenty of help.

Now onto the dream scenario: The BCS/Power 5 conglomerate has rigged the system by making it almost impossible for a Group of Five team like Temple to crash their national championship party.

The emphasis is on the word almost for a reason.

A Temple-Miami national semifinal would shut a lot of people up.

A Temple-Miami national semifinal would shut a lot of people up.

Temple is perhaps the only team in the G5 with a possibility of crashing the party due to having already beaten a team that can (but probably won’t) win the Big 10 championship coupled with another top 10 team in Notre Dame. So Temple is not just carrying the banner for 275,000 alumni, 39,000 students and 12,000 employees and the city of Philadelphia, but for the half of college football teams in the country being forced to play under a morally and financially corrupt system. If the Owls can break through the injustice, it would be a dream come true for those locked out of the P5.

The dream scenario would be this:

  • Temple runs the table and finishes 13-0 (12 regulars and the home win against Navy in the AAC title game);
  • Memphis beats everyone but Temple and Navy;
  • Cincinnati has a solid season to boost Temple’s rating, following its win over the fake Miami with a win over the real Miami;
  • The real Miami wins the ACC;
  • Penn State wins the Big 10;
  • Notre Dame finishes with one loss.

It would be impossible for the conglomerate to keep Temple out of the semifinal playoff under that scenario or even a scenario that fit all but one of those criteria. (For example, PSU can still have a great season but doesn’t have to win the Big 10.)

At 3-0 and with nine games left it is too early, but the fact that Temple fans can even dream this is really something special. So let the fans dream and the players and coaches take the one game at a time. Maybe the national semifinal game will be against Al Golden. (That would make the “Temple coach=Temple results” banners look really silly.) Now we can go.

All of those “one-game-at-a-time” people can return to the room right now.

fifteensked

Tomorrow: Saturday TV

09.09.15
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PSU vs. Temple: The Final Words

While the defense might have beaten PSU, I have a feeling Robby Anderson and the offense will have a big hand in beating Cincy on Saturday.

While the defense might have beaten PSU, I have a feeling Robby Anderson and the offense will have a big hand in beating Cincy on Saturday. Welcome back, Robby.  (Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

Amazing how in 24 hours Penn State went from terrific to terrible, but judging from the reaction in the middle of the Commonwealth, that’s exactly what happened.

For the 24 hours leading up to the game with Temple, this was supposed to be a special season in State College:

This according to SB Nation.

This according to SB Nation.

These are the results of a preseason poll in the Centre Daily Times.

These are the results of a preseason poll in the Centre Daily Times.

psu3

Now, all of a sudden, according to Penn State fans, the same Christian Hackenberg who was so good putting up 31 points against Boston College in his previous game now stinks, as does the same offensive line he was in front of that day. The same PSU team coached by a great coach in James Franklin is now coached by a bum named James Franklin. The same guy who caught 82 balls last year in the Big 10 cannot get any separation this season.

Nowhere in the post-game analysis up there is the sense that Temple could be better than anyone expected. No one even remotely thought that Temple’s corners, Sean Chandler and Tavon Young, were more than up to the challenge or that playing the 11 returning starters from the overall No. 4 scoring defense in the country might have had something to do with 10 points.

No one factored into the result that Temple might have been supremely motivated, having a full year to stew and game plan over a sub par performance last Nov. 14.

Usually, in scenarios such as these, the truth lies somewhere in between but not in this case. What we have is a lot of people saying “Temple sucks” and the “reasons we lost to them” range anywhere from the Owls doing a Deflategate to a Spygate. (Yeah, we think that thread is ridiculous, too.)

Guess what? Nothing changed in a little over three hours of football on Saturday.

I’ll stick my neck out right now and say that Penn State will win 10 games this year, just like many of those preseason prognosticators wrote and that will be affirmation of Temple’s goodness, not Penn State’s deficiencies. Even if Temple loses to Cincinnati on Saturday, the Owls will still have a good season as well. Maybe just as good if not better. What we had on Saturday is a classic case of overreaction, like many of the MAC posts (I’m talking about you, Akron fans) who said, “I can’t believe we lost to Temple.” They got used to it. Penn State will, too. For today’s denial to turn into tomorrow’s acceptance, both the Owls and the Lions will have to have good seasons. One result on Saturday does not change that reality.

Post-Mortem: The only negative thing about this day was remembering a bunch of great Temple fans who never lived to see it. I’m talking about Steve Bumm, who came up and introduced himself to me outside what could loosely be called men’s room at Franklin Field in the Dark Ages. Like many fellow Temple fans I’ve met in similar circumstances we became good friends. Steve ran the “City of Palms” High School Basketball Christmas Tournament in Florida for many years before he died at age 51.

steve

Or Shane Artim, who never missed a home game. Or Dan Glammer, who tried to make all of the away games as well. Both of those good men died at the tender age of 46. When their friend, Jay Solnick, celebrated birthday number 47 a few years ago, I told him he was now here to stay because if you could stand Temple football as it existed then past 46, you’ve crossed the proverbial Rubicon. There was Dave Edwards, better known as NJ Schmitty, who brought his own unique sense of gallows humor to the last years of Bobby Wallace and the first couple of Al Golden. Maybe he just kept a few people sane with that perspective. People always knew he was there with the giant white Temple ‘][‘ above the Chevy Conversion van. That van and that ‘][‘ will make a return on Oct. 10, his brother  told me on Saturday. Sadly, Schmitty will not but we know this Susquehanna University grad would have loved beating Penn State.

Wes Sornisky says something to Wayne Hardin after a 17-17 tie at Cincinnati.

Wes Sornisky says something to Wayne Hardin after a 17-17 tie at Cincinnati.

There are many,many more, but we’ll just end with former kicker Wes Sornisky, who died in a fire at the far-too-young age of 64 last Dec. 18. Wes was singularly responsible for bringing all of the old players back and plopping them down in the Jetro Lot. They kept coming back and the involvement of the football alumni, once nearly nonexistent, went up exponentially every year. He deserves a lot of the credit for it. The saddest thing is that Wes is buried in a Potter’s Field with no headstone in Delaware, but I have a feeling that, given some time, that sad circumstance will be rectified. When I got a little melancholy on Saturday about that, people told me not to worry because they were watching from Heaven.

I cannot say for sure, but I think it was better to be there live than to watch from Heaven. No. 1 on my bucket list is now crossed off.

Tomorrow: We’re On To Cincinnati

09.04.15
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5 Things to Get Excited/Worry About Tomorrow

Watching Temple head coach Matt Rhule address the media one final time before tomorrow’s 3:30 p.m. showdown with Penn State, people in the media had to be struck by one thing he said about being worried the “moment would be too big” for “the kids.” He said he did not think so but just by bringing it up, the thought must have entered his mind. Nowhere in that statement did Rhule express a concern that the moment might be too big for his coaching staff.

The butterflies will be there one way or another tomorrow (3:30) at Lincoln Financial Field and we are both excited and worried about these five things.

sat

  1. Offensive Coaching

Excited About:  Recognition. Both head coach Matt Rhule and OC Marcus Satterfield seemed to say the right things about the fiasco that was the 2014 Temple offense. Rhule said that he would go back to Temple’s offensive brand, which had been running the ball with a high skill level tailback behind a lead-blocking fullback.

Worried About: Backtracking: Nothing that happened the first two years has indicated Satterfield is comfortable calling that kind of offense. It’s not what he ran while winning all of those FCS National Championships at Tennessee-Chattanooga. (Oh wait. He didn’t win any.) Now they are talking about dropping the fullback concept and going back to being “more multiple.” More multiple was the reason they were 126th and last in FBS third-down efficiency.

  1. Defense

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Excited About: Experience. All 11 starters from the nation’s fourth-best scoring defense return and all 11 guys are flat-out ballers who do not back away from anyone.

Worried About: Lack of Praise. We’re not talking about endorsements from the media here, but a guy in No. 50, Praise Martin-Oguike,  who provided the the Owls with a pair dynamite playmakers at DE with Nate D. Smith. Praise might be out and Nate is tough as they come, but will PSU attack the soft underbelly of the Owls’ defense with sweeps to the other side? James Franklin does not get paid $4.4 million a year to overlook those types of things. Also worried about them not rushing Christian Hackenberg, but I do not think they are stupid enough to take that same passive approach two years in a row.

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  1. Running Game

Excited About: Jager Gardner and Ryquell Armstead. Those are two guys who give the Owls what they have not had since Bernard Pierce: A guy with the speed to take it to the house by merely turning the corner. Home run hitters is what they are.

Worried About: Caution. Jahad Thomas, the starter, does not seem to be a home run hitter but a guy who earned the job by having the fewest summer fumbles. Yet we’ve seen both Thomas (Houston game) and Zaire Williams (SMU) caught from behind and a premier Temple running back (Mike Busch, Tommy Sloan, Bobby Harris, Anthony Anderson, Zack Dixon, Kevin Duckett, Paul Palmer, Stacey Mack, Tanardo Sharps, Elmarko Jackson, Bernard Pierce, Matty Brown, and Montel Harris) simply does not get caught from behind. That is not what we do here at Temple. When we break into the open field, we turn it into six. Williams is now a LB. If Thomas breaks free, he must take it to the house to keep his job.

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  1. Tight Ends

Excited About: Colin Thompson. When was the last time Temple had a four-star recruit from the SEC (Florida) transfer here? Answer: Never. The guy has a four-star skill set: speed, size, blocking ability, great hands.

Worried About: Witness Protection. Evidently, no one told Rhule he was on the roster last year by the few times he was targeted. Why not use him the same way both Al Golden and Steve Addazio used Evan Rodriguez? Short little 5-yard waggle rollout passes to keep the rush off P.J. Walker, ala Chester Stewart at Maryland. Then toss an occasional jump pass in the back of the end zone, ala Stewart to Steve Manieri at the fake Miami a few years back. Both films are in the can at  the E-O. Rhule might be wise to dust them off one last time tonight.

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Even something this innocuous is an automatic 15-yard taunting penalty now.

  1. Robby Anderson

Excited About: Everything. This is a big time player who makes big-time plays against big-time teams. If, say, UCF was not a moment too big for him two years ago, Penn State will not be now. He’s got a 44-inch vertical leap, sub-4.5 speed, great hands and great moves in the open field.

Worried About: Rule changes. We’re not talking about Matt Rhule changes, but Anderson might not be aware of all the hand gestures that he made two years  ago after big catches—even innocent ones—are now automatic 15-yard penalties. He must be schooled to catch the ball, get to the end zone and simply give the ball back to Mr. Official without any histrionics. You would think Matt Rhule would have talked to him about this already, but one team in the TU-PSU game got a critical 15-yard penalty for a throat slash last year.

It was not Penn State.