Tag Archives: recruiting

07.01.14
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Temple Football: Just How Good Is Recruiting?

Shareef Miller, Temple football,

Adding Shareef Miller could be the domino that moves Temple football recruiting from good to great

Social media is a great tool to follow college football recruiting and, if you have been following twitter in the past few days, there has been a significant buzz regarding Temple football.

Some of the top recruits not only in the region are seriously talking about committing to the Owls and if that gets done, head coach Matt Rhule will be in better position to do what he was  brought in to do—win games.

Because for all the buzz surrounding Rhule’s second recruiting class, it was still ranked behind Steve Addazio’s 2012 class nationally and the second-best recruiting class in Temple history. It was still ranked No. 4 in the AAC—impressive for a 2-10 school but maybe not good enough to get the job done.

If some the people mentioning Temple on their twitter feeds—most notably George Washington High School’s Shareef Miller—make an early commitment to the school, they can be the Pied Piper leading other four- and five-star recruits to the Philadelphia school.

I’ve always thought that Temple could become the new U (like Miami of Florida became), enticing urban talent to stay home and build something new and exciting, just like the Florida kids did for the Hurricanes.

But it has got to turn from talk in the newspaper article here into reality.

Plus, if you go from a national championship staff at Florida (offensive coordinator Steve Addazio, defensive coordinator Chuck Heater, quarterbacks’ coach Scot Loeffler)  to guys Rhule hired from Tennessee Chattanooga  (Marcus Satterfield)  and Eastern Michigan (Phil Snow), the game day credibility just doesn’t measure up. We all saw what happened on game day last year and it was not pretty.

Daz had his faults, but no one with a shred of credibility can say his 2011 staff was less qualified than Rhule’s 2014 staff.

I’ll never forget what John Palumbo told his father after Daz’s first spring camp: “Dad, I thought Golden was good but these guys from Florida are big-time SEC coaches and it is not even close.”

Until Matt Rhule wins on a consistent basis, it will stay that far apart. Getting some four- and five-star recruits in here might begin to make a difference but until these guys sign on the dotted line, it’s just talk.

The earlier talk the talk becomes walk the walk the better. All it takes is one guy. He might already be here, too.

01.02.14
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Recruiting: Embrace it or Fail

Arguably, the jewel of this recruiting class is cornerback Anthony Davis of Gateway and probably not arguable is that cornerback is the one position where Temple needs immediate help.

Say what you will about Matt Rhule and we haven’t been shy about saying a few thousand words about him over the last few months, the facts of life in college sports start with a head coach who excels in recruiting.

Sure, you need a little bit on the ball on game day but, if you have better players, you are usually going to make the better plays.

247Sports' AAC recruiting rankings.

247Sports’ AAC recruiting rankings.

Back to Rhule, though. The guy’s most positive trait is that he’s embraced recruiting pretty much like Al Golden did and that’s a very good development for Temple football going forward. Kids like him and he seems to like hopping aboard airplanes and trains to solidify relationships. He’s also good on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and that’s just part of the recruiting game these days. For all of those reasons, I think Rhule will hold together a pretty good recruiting class and have Temple ranked No. 3 or  No. 4 in the AAC in recruiting this season. That’s outstanding coming off a 2-10 season because a belief system that would have been there for 10-2 doesn’t exist at 2-10. At 2-10, you are asking kids to come to your school based on blind faith.

One of the reasons Bill O’Brien left Penn State was that I don’t think a whole lot of guys who spend extended time in the NFL have a zeal for recruiting. Reading between the lines of O’Brien’s comments today, it looks like he saw it as a necessary but not exciting part of the job. O’Brien also seemed miffed with the “Joe Paterno” faction of the Penn State fans.

Now he just has to concentrate on football and I think he will do a good job as head coach of the Texans.

Matt Rhule has got to get better on game day and I thought one step in that direction would have been hiring part-time CBS Sports Analyst Tom Bradley to be his new full-time defensive coordinator. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, but Penn State defensive line coach (and great recruiter) Larry Johnson is out there and probably will be looking for a job soon and Temple so happens to have an opening for a defensive line coach. (Unless, of course, Johnson goes to the pros.)

Seems like a no-brainer to me but a lot of things seemed like no-brainers this season that turned into brainers.