Tag Archives: Rod Carey

10.31.20
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How Did Temple Get This Bad This Fast?

In any other year, Rod Carey would be on the hot seat at Temple University after a 1-3 start.

As we’ve all found out since about mid-March, this is not just any other year.

In the year of Covid, probably two or three years of it, really, no one is getting fired at any university because the revenue streams coming in are so unpredictable. The Owls are allowed almost no fans this year and next year is up in the air as well.

The university is in the hole for $10 million of a five-year contract to Carey and there is no Lew Katz around willing to eat it.

How did Temple go. in just two short weeks, from the No. 1 team in conference wins (since championship play began in 2015) to a likely 1-7 season?

In a word, Pride. In other, stubbornness.

As King Solomon, a pretty wise guy himself, said: “Pride Goeth Before the Fall.”

In Carey’s case, he had a nice “square peg” offense at Northern Illinois in the RPO and players suited enough for him there to post a 52-30 record as a FBS head coach. When he came to Temple, he found himself with “round hole” players who were more suited to a pro-set offense, and a quarterback who could never sell a defense on a RPO but is damn good at flinging it down the field after the run is established off play action.

Those of us who thought Carey might have been a good hire did so thinking a good coach adjusts his schemes to his available personnel and not try to force an ill-fitting system onto some great players from another system.

I did not see that coming. I thought a professional head coach would be able to improvise and adjust. Carey has not been.

What we learned in Temple’s 38-3 loss to Tulane–a loss that broke an 86-year (five games since the 1934 Sugar Bowl loss) winning streak–was that Anthony Russo is only about 10x a better quarterback than his two backups and that might be a conservative estimate.

Get well soon, Anthony.

Even more than that, though, is that Temple should have been 3-0 coming into the game had the Owls approached the red zone with some simple shit like throwing the fade to Branden Mack on first down instead of dicking around with runs on the first two downs. You’ve got a 6-6 wide receiver and a quarterback more than capable of throwing a fade like this and you piss away two wins by throwing a dump pass short of the goal (Navy) and running straight up the gut followed by a quarterback draw (Memphis)?

This is what Carey should have done for the 2-point conversion at Navy (30-second mark)

If Temple is paying Carey $2 million a year for that, the administration should demand its money back for those two losses alone.

Temple needed a running back and a pass rusher in the offseason but passed up on chances to get running back Ricky Slade from Penn State (who went to Old Dominion) and defensive end Scott Patchan (Miami, who went to Colorado State). Both were arguably better than any player they had here at both positions. Those are administrative errors, but Carey’s coaching errors cost the Owls two precious wins prior to the Tulane fiasco.

Due to missing 13 players (covid) and Russo (shoulder) it is hard to blame Carey for the loss to Tulane but, in the history of college football, rotating quarterbacks has resulted in about zero wins in 1 million games.. That’s why, if Russo is injured, you’ve got about three days to settle on one guy and not use a game as an audition.

This ain’t Hamilton where you audition guys to play the role of Aaron Burr during the play itself.

The Owls have tried two methods of hiring head coaches, one bringing in up-and-coming assistants, and one bringing in a proven FBS winning head coach. They haven’t tried the Greg Schiano Method (hiring a guy who proved he could do the same exact job at a high level), but Al Golden is available. Maybe even a better option is grabbing a local head coaching legend like Gabe Infante, who has been proven to be a great gameday coach.

So far, the prior two methods have been problematic. If Temple goes back to the old way, do you trust Fran Dunphy to identify the next Matt Rhule?

I don’t. Fran is more likely to bring a guy like Bob Diaco than he is a Jeff Hadley.

One led to a revolving door that ended finally after an 18-day turnaround. Another brought in a guy who wanted to do it his way when he was delivered a blueprint for winning at Temple long before he got here.

He ignored it and now we’re stuck with him for three more years. Saturday was ugly, but it’s about to becoming uglier and, unless one of us hits the lottery and are willing to buy him out, we can’t do a damn thing about it.

Brace for impact. To paraphrase King Solomon (and Barry McGuire), we’re on the eve of destruction.

Monday: Fizzy

10.29.20
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TU-Tulane: What we won’t see

No one knows what we will see when Temple and Tulane play in New Orleans on Saturday.

We do know that Vegas believes the game will be decided by around three points and Vegas has usually proven to be right so making a play in special teams for once in Rod Carey’s short Temple life could be the difference between a win or a loss.

.This was just two years ago. It now seems like 200.

Judging on nearly two years of evidence, we do know what we won’t see: An impact play by Temple on special teams. By impact play, it’s simply this: A blocked field goal, punt or return for a touchdown.

It’s as simple as that and as complicated. Penn State might be Linebacker U and Miami (Ohio) might be the cradle of coaches but it wasn’t that long ago Temple was “Special Teams U.”

James Nixon’s 93-yard kickoff return in the 2009 game beat a 10-win Navy team. Delano Green’s punt return in 2010 beat Fiesta Bowl-bound UConn. Those plays were the residue of hard work in training camp below and the coaches putting their most elusive athletes in a position to advance the ball.

Who is the Matty Brown on this team?

Willie Erdman is our Matty Brown this year and that says more about Rod Carey than it says about Erdman. I rarely have to rub my eyes and go to the roster when I see a Temple player but when No. 84 fielded a punt against Memphis I had to ask myself: “Who is 84?”

It turned out to be Erdman, who was profiled on OwlsDaily this week. When I read the lead that he was a transfer from Georgia, I got excited for about a millisecond. “Must’ve been a five-star recruit with moves like Gale Sayers” went through my mind before discovering he was a walk-on with zero punt returns for zero yards at Georgia.

I’m all for transfers from P5 schools coming to Temple, but you can leave the walk-ons there to the Villanovas of the world. If I get a P5 transfer, I want it to be a guy from Penn State, Ricky Slade to throw out a name, who had to transfer to JMU to get playing time despite being the No. 1-rated RB recruit in the country.

Back to Erdman, though. Carey seems to be from the school of thought that just catching the ball and securing it is enough. He doesn’t seem to understand that securing the ball and advancing it are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Where is our Avery Williams?

Williams is shown above blocking a punt. Under Carey, Temple hasn’t even tried to block a punt and no one knows why but a clue can be provided by how Carey approaches the return game. Carey is risk adverse, which means that he’s probably worried more about getting a 15-yard penalty for roughing (or running into) the kicker than he is about, say, Branden Mack using that 91-inch wingspan to leap up and block a punt and then have about 10 other Owls chasing it into the end zone and falling on it.

Again, it’s possible to block a punt without running into the kicker. Temple used to do it all the time. For instructions on how, pick up the phone and ask Ed Foley.

Carey is too proud to do that and too conservative to change his special teams philosophy now. Let’s hope he can make up the three points in other areas but abandonment of one of the three most important phases of the game is not something Temple can sustain.

Predictions this week: Had Marshall laying the 26.5 on FIU but that ticket returned voided due to game being canceled; also was lucky enough to jump on BC getting the 31.5 before the Lawrence injury and picked Georgia Southern covering the 6.5 (barely) in a 24-17 win over visiting South Alabama. Of course, won’t count those so we start at 0-0 with these official TFF picks:

Air Force getting 14.5 against Boise State (any team that beats Navy 40-7 has my respect); going with Boston College now getting “only” 24 against Clemson and Michigan laying the 25 against Michigan State. BC is incredibly well-coached, while Michigan State hiring Mel Tucker coming off a 5-7 season at Colorado was a real head-scratcher to me and that was reaffirmed by Rutgers’ win at MSU last week. Not touching Temple-Tulane (no trust in Temple’s defense or special teams), Memphis-Cincy or Houston-UCF, three AAC games that can go either way.

Update as of 11/1: Lost on both Air Force and Michigan, won on Boston College.

Record so far: 1-2 against the spread.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

10.26.20
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Fizzy: Success comes down to this

TU had 500 yards and 30 first downs, but still found a way to lose.

                                                                                                                        

Editor’s Note: Former Temple football player Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub brings the perspective not only of a player but a lifetime of coaching football, teaching and writing. He breaks down the Memphis game here.

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

    If I could be the defensive coordinator facing Temple every week, I could be the fourth Temple guy in the College Coaches Hall of Fame along with Ray Morrison, Wayne Hardin, and Pop Warner. That’s because I know what happens when Temple gets a first and goal inside the opponent’s 10-yard line.

  1. The first play will be a run up-the-gut.
  2. The second play will be a quick-screen to the outside.
  3. The third play will be a fade to the corner of the end-zone.

     I know this because that’s what they did all of last year and the first three games of this year.

     Coaches Rod Carey and Mike Uremovich don’t understand the importance of the first and goal play call. If you run the ball and don’t get real close to the goal line, you are screwed. The defense can now assume the next two plays will be throws or trick plays. A first and goal is the most wonderful time to call a play-action pass or another kind of imaginative play.

The TU football playbook in the red zone so far has been 2 runs followed by an incomplete pass.

      Thus far in 2020, Temple has been to the goal line three times in the first half in three straight games and come away with 3 points, 6 points, and 7 points. Saturday, they had a missed field goal, a made field goal, and a missed fourth and goal. That’s why they lost. The main reason Temple is 1-2, instead of 3 -0, is they don’t know what the hell they’re doing at the other team’s goal line. Temple could just as well be 0-3. 

     Success in football depends on three essential factors, coaching, coaching, and coaching. Temple keeps making the same mistakes over and over. Do you blame the players or the coaches? 

Friday: Tulane Preview

Saturday: Tulane Game Analysis

10.24.20
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TU-Memphis: No Mulligans Allowed

There is a school of thought out there that because of a national pandemic things like doing your job correctly should be overlooked.

That maybe this year every coaching staff in America should get a Mulligan and be re-evaluated next season.

Noble, but incorrect because other people in your same profession have no trouble doing theirs. The new head coach at Boston College is doing just fine. The Georgia State coach is doing great. The BYU coach is a sensation.

All have arguably lesser talent than Temple with the possible exception of BYU.

Whether or not Rod Carey is the right head coach for Temple University’s football team going forward is very much an open question.

What we do know based on the evidence of three games is the program is going backward.

In three games, we’ve seen the Owls allow 31 points to a Navy team that scored only 27 on a very bad ECU team, allow 37 points to a team that got beat 42-13 by Tulsa and now made some very questionable moves in a 41-29 loss to Memphis on Saturday.

If you think that’s the Temple football we have all come to know and love, think again.

We said this before the game.

Matt Rhule preached “not beating yourself” but running the ball twice after a turnover that gives you a first down at the 10 is beating yourself. Not doing the basics in the kicking game is beating yourself.

Even the best part of the team, offense, is riddled with coaching mistakes.

In the red zone, the Owls have a ready-made mismatch in 6-6 wide receiver Branden Mack against any secondary. Why not lob it to him in the back of the end zone on the first play after the turnover when the Memphis defense is not set? Your chances are a lot better of a) scoring and b) getting a pass interference that puts the ball on the 1 with a first down than what Carey chose to do. Would Rhule have thrown to Mack?

I bet he would have. That’s why he’s in the NFL and Carey is 0-7 in bowl games.

The Owls missed a chip-shot field goal their first drive. Before the game, Carey said he was “happy” with the kicking game. Any other coach in the United States would look at the results and not only say he wasn’t happy, but that “our kicking game sucks and we need to do something about it.”

Let’s see. After a comical performance in the kicking game the first two games, the Owls not only missed that chip shot field goal but also missed an extra point, had two kickoffs go out of bounds and only by a miracle missed a third kickoff going out.

When you have three kickers on the team and one of them has kicked it out of bounds twice, what do you do? Of course, try another kicker.

Instead, Carey sent out the guy who kicked it out of bounds twice for a try at a third kick out of bounds. Only by some miracle did the ball take a crazy hop and squirt down the sidelines and stay inbounds.

This happens to no other team in America yet Carey tolerates it and has done so for two years.

Sure, Anthony Russo threw three interceptions but one of them was a ball delivered perfectly to Jadan Blue that should have been caught and another came after a brutal non-call on a perfectly-thrown ball to Mack that probably would have led to a touchdown for Temple and robbed Memphis of a touchdown.

That’s a 14-point swing right there and it would have been the difference in the game.

We said before the game that the defense needed to hold Memphis to 28 points or less for the win but because they did not generate even a semblance of a pass rush, they could not.

The kicking and special teams, though, is another story and there is a minimum standard that every team must achieve and Temple is far below that standard.

It has nothing to do with COVID and plenty to do with incompetence and that’s a standard Temple cannot accept but knowing the Temple administration as I do it probably will.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

10.23.20
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Memphis-TU: Can anyone here play defense?

Hold this team to 28 points again and it’s a Temple win.

Temple football came back from the dead with an injection of special teams and defense and a little binder of men written by Al Golden.

Right now, it doesn’t look like the special teams are coming back but maybe the defense will.

Temple has the best all-time record in conference play (since championship play began in 2015) and Memphis can tie with a win on Saturday.

That’s really the only hope 13.5-point underdog Temple has for winning Saturday’s noon showdown (only on ESPN+) at Memphis.

Full disclosure here: I thought going into the season that Temple’s offense was going to be the better of the three units (special teams, defense, offense) and had little hope for the special teams to improve.

Defense, I thought, was going to be a different story. I thought the defense was going to be an almost equal partner in any success the 2020 Owls would have.

So far, I’m wrong but it’s only two games.

Sure, the Owls had to replace their top nine tacklers but they had star quality players returning in tackles Dan Archibong and Ifeanyi Maijeh, linebackers William Kwenkeu and Isaiah Graham-Mobley and safety Amir Tyler along with four solid corners.

One of those corners, Ty Mason, opted out due to COVID-19 concerns on his part but three–Christian Braswell, Linwood Crump Jr. and Freddie Johnson–have plenty of solid starts under their belts.

There’s no way a team with this much talent should have given up 31 and 37 points, respectively. That has to turn around if the Owls are going to have a chance this week.

Maybe they will play up to their potential on Saturday, maybe they won’t. Maybe the first two games were the result of lack of hitting due to City of Philadelphia restrictions. Maybe the fact that the current staff never faced a triple option had to do with Navy’s success.

There’s no excuse, though, for what happened against USF and that’s concerning.

Maybe our expectations for this group are way too high but we should find out by Saturday at 3. Temple has to hold Memphis in the high 20s or low 30s for the win and score in the mid-30s.

I think they have the talent to do it but they have to start putting pressure on the quarterback and force fumbles and interceptions.

The good news is that Memphis doesn’t play any defense, either, so it should be an entertaining game nonetheless.

When Golden got here in 2005, he understood the fastest way of getting Temple from the Bottom 10 to the Top 25 was to build the defense first and then make plays on the special teams. His reasoning was that if you could keep the bad guys off the scoreboard, you could stay in every game and, if you can stay in every game, you can steal a few maybe you shouldn’t.

Stopping the run and getting after the quarterback were the hallmark of Golden’s teams. The binder of men had to do with Golden’s Eastern recruiting contacts developed as an assistant at Boston College, Penn State and Virginia. Golden went out and got physical, tough, defensive players who were mostly captains of championship high school teams.

That leadership developed the culture.

Something has happened in the last couple of years to stray from that culture. Special teams have become suspect and defense has suffered a noticeable decline. There are a lot of good players on defense but they have to play up to their potential.

What we do know is the physical and tough Temple defense we expected to see early in October has to show up now that November is just around the corner.

Or that one win we saw on Saturday might be it.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

10.17.20
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TU Fans: Enjoy the win

In the waning days of Andy Reid’s tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles, his team did not look good.

Mostly losses, and even the wins were sloppy.

After the unimpressive wins, Reid would walk into the press room and brush off legitimate questions with one phrase: “Enjoy the win, fellas.”

That’s pretty much the message to Temple fans today.

This is what Temple has looked like on special teams

Enjoy the win because this might be the last one of this strange season.

It’s not hyperbole.

I can’t find a single team remaining on the Temple schedule as bad as USF was and is but the Owls had to struggle mightily to beat the Bulls, 39-37. In fact, they needed the USF quarterback, Jordan McLeod, to inexplicably put the ball on the carpet for a scoop and score that pretty much gave Temple a gift win.

I had to laugh at a few of the exchanges I saw on social media Saturday. After the game, former Owl Barry Jenkins correctly noted these Owls were “soft on defense” and “couldn’t stop the run.”

To that, a familiar face on the sidelines for the last couple of decades responded: “Adam (Klein) was hurt. We’ll be fine.”

My response: “He was talking about the defense. There was nothing about the defense that spelled fine unless you are talking about Larry Fine of The Three Stooges.”

If the defense was the only problem, that would be one thing. Defense is only one-third of the team. Offense is another third and special teams is a third.

That was the Al Golden Mantra. Defense one third, Offense one third, special teams one third. The way Rod Carey has prioritized special teams since his arrival has made it abundantly clear that he considers special teams 1/10th of the team, defense nearly one half and offense nearly one half.

That’s a losing football mentality.

The sad thing was that he had the best special teams coach in the country, Ed Foley, and let him slip through his fingers. If there was anyone who was a Temple lifer it was Foley. Coaches from Al Golden to Steve Addazio to Matt Rhule to Geoff Collins were smart enough to give the keys to the special teams car to Foley and know that he would not wreck it. Foley had that thing shiny and clean and purring like a kitten and he changed the oil and filter every 3,000 miles.

Since Carey let Foley go because he “wanted to get an extra defensive coach on the field” the Owls have looked like the Keystone Cops on special teams. They can’t block kicks (they used to routinely lead the country in that department), they can’t return kicks, they can’t cover kicks, and they can’t even kick it into the damn end zone. They even have a hard time recovering onsides’ kicks. Anthony Russo doesn’t even hold on field goals any more and defenses consequently don’t even have to account for a possible fake, which makes it much easier to block field goals.

Other than that, they are doing great on special teams.

Yet, for some reason, Carey thought getting an extra defensive coach on the field was a higher priority.

How did that extra defensive coach work out against USF on Saturday? He probably had a lot to do with USF, a team that was shut out by Notre Dame, scoring 37 points.

Not good.

Enjoy the win, though, fellas. It might be the last one because two-thirds of the team looks remarkably like all thirds of The Three Stooges.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

10.12.20
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Fizzy’s Corner: Dissecting The Loss

Editor’s Note: Former Temple football player Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub brings the perspective not only of a player but a lifetime of coaching football, teaching and writing. He breaks down the Navy game here.

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Well, you saw the game. There could have easily been fourteen more points on the board for Temple, and the two-point conversion call at the end was stupefying. That’s not what I want to discuss. 

     Throughout last season and this year’s first game, one consistency stands out. Temple does not adjust during the game, especially on defense. The game plan you come in with is the plan for the entire game. No matter what.

      Saturday was the worst. With over a month to get ready to play Navy’s triple-option, the plan was an overshifted 4-3 with a defender (nose-tackle) head-up on the center. Guess what? It didn’t work, and Navy ran up and down the field because Temple couldn’t stop the fullback. The only time the defense changed was when Navy had third and/or fourth and short.

 My opinion is that if you stop Navy’s fullback, you destroy their offense. So one different alignment might have a middle linebacker stacked in back of the nose-tackle, and they each blitz the gaps on either side of the center. Another might be two defenders lined up in the gaps on either side of the center. You have to remember that Navy’s quarterback couldn’t run well and couldn’t throw deep. There was no risk.

     After the debacle, Inquirer reporter Mike Jensen interviewed head coach Rod Carey. Carey said the problem was, “Our pad level was too high.” Of all the poppycock excuses I ever heard, this takes the cake. What the hell does that mean? Do you have to get shorter defenders? Carey made no mention of coaching deficiencies. 

     With last year’s defensive collapses in the second half and the poorly designed defensive strategy vs. Navy, one thing is abundantly clear. Temple can’t adjust. What a waste of talent.

Friday: USF Preview

10.10.20
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No Defense for that loss

IF Temple fans were allowed at Navy, this would have been their reaction.

In the strangest of strange seasons, The Citadel ended its season two hours before Temple started its season.

The Citadel’s season was over about 4 p.m. on Saturday. Temple started its season a couple of hours later. The Citadel’s defense did a much better job against a much better option offense than Temple’s did.

There are no more games left on The Citadel’s 2020 football schedule. There are seven more left on Temple’s 2020 schedule and, from what we saw on Saturday night, that might not be a good thing.

No one knew that the Owls’ season also would end at about 9 p.m. but effectively it did. We will get to why later in this post.

There was no defense for what Temple did in its opener.

Literally and figuratively.

“I should have given you the ball when I won the opening coin toss. I’m sorry.”

Last week against Air Force, Navy’s perennially vaunted running game amassed only 90 yards in a 40-7 loss.

Saturday at Annapolis, the Midshipmen had 251 rushing yards in a 31-29 win. They came in averaging 157.

What happened?

We knew going in that the Temple offense was the better of its three units–offense, defense and special teams. Yet what did the Owls do? They won the coin toss and deferred to the second half.

I’d rather have won the game than won twitter

Putting the Temple offense on the field could have given the Owls a 3-0 or 7-0 lead and deflated what had been a shaken Navy team even more. If your offense is the best part of your team, you’ve got to give your offense the ball if you win the coin toss.

Did that lose the game for them?

No, but it gave Navy some hope and a defense that had four months to prepare for a triple option acted like it had four days. Sure, the Owls lost their top nine tacklers from last season but they returned players like Dan Archibong and Ifeany Meijeh in the middle. Those two guys should not have been as affected by the fullback dive as they were, but they were.

What does this mean for the rest of the season?

If you can’t beat Navy in a down year, you have no chance of winning the AAC and very little chance of a winning season. Forget about winning season, a championship should be every team’s goal coming into a season and that’s not happening because I don’t see Cincy and UCF losing more than one or two games and Temple HAD to win every game it was favored in to even have a chance.

If you can’t gameplan an effective running game against the worst rushing defense in the country, then there is little chance of gameplanning effectively against teams like Cincinnati and UCF.

Temple had the best freshman running back in the nation last year and a steady dose of Ray Davis behind an experienced and talented offensive line might have taken off 10 minutes of the first quarter and given the Owls momentum the rest of the way.

Instead, the opposite happened and Navy had the ball for the first 10 minutes.

If this is the best the Owls can do with four months to prepare, it does not bode well for what will be weekly preparation the rest of a very short year.

That’s why the season is effectively over. Does finishing 4-4 or 3-5 even remotely resemble the Temple football you know and love? Does making no (zero) impact plays on special teams for the second year in a row give you the warm and fuzzies? Were you excited that a squib kick late in the game that gave Navy the ball on the 40 was the best a Temple kicker can do?

I didn’t think so.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

Friday: USF Preview

10.09.20
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The Longest Wait is Almost Over

The Longest Wait is a book by suburban Philadelphia native Erin Lynne about three Philly friends waiting for love.

Waiting and waiting.

Lynne might have to rip that book up and write a sequel because those three friends have nothing on the thousands of Temple football fans who have been waiting for the 2020 college season to begin.

This is literally the longest wait for a season to start since 1922. From 1918 through 1921, Owl fans had a longer wait because there was no varsity due to World War I. Since the 1922 season, though, this is it.

The first chapter begins tomorrow night (6 p.m., CBS Sports Network) and whether or not it’s a compelling read should be known by, say, halftime. If the Owls use the first half to establish the run behind a veteran offensive line and a terrific running back, they should be coasting by then.

If, on the other hand, they get cute with the RPO and bubble screens and a heavy dose of throwing long bombs, they could be very lonely by the end of the evening. Logic says Navy has had trouble stopping the run all year. So logic will dictate that the Owls attack that weakness.

We shall see but, if we found out something about Rod Carey in his first year as Temple coach, it’s that he does things his way and does not necessarily tailor his game plans around the weakness of the opposition. Good coach, but a little too stubborn. At least in that first season.

When asked about the 26 passes in the first 34 plays from scrimmage at Cincinnati, offensive coordinator Mike Uremovich said “we saw some mismatches with our wide receivers that we thought we could take advantage of and that’s why we emphasized that.”

The mismatches never materialized.

Receipts

When the Owls went to the run with Ray Davis in the second half, the offense started to click but, by then, it was too late. Navy was also the last place we saw the Owls and they got their butt kicked there 55-13 by a North Carolina team that entered the game only a 6.5 favorite.

The Owls started the season by winning 56-12 and ended it by losing 55-13. They beat Bucknell in the opener and then the Tar Heels made Temple look like Bucknell in the finale.

It was not a good look.

Live and learn.

Or maybe not.

BYU beat Navy, 55-3, and Air Force beat Navy, 40-7. Navy beat Tulane, 27-24. My feeling is that the Owls probably are not as good as BYU but there is no reason to believe they are not as good as Air Force.

Does that mean they are going to win 40-7? No, because each football game is a different entity and the Owls are not going to run the fullback against Navy. That doesn’t mean they can’t win 31-14 because the film has given them a blueprint on how to do it.

Run the ball, control the clock, and THEN make explosive plays in the passing game off play fakes to Ray Davis.

It might not be as sexy as Lynne’s book, but it certainly could be the first chapter of a compelling read.

Rod Carey has the pen and paper in his hands. It could be the best of times or the worst of times depending upon what he does.

Sunday: Game Analysis

09.25.20
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Waiting: The hardest part

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers said it best.

The waiting is indeed the hardest part.

No season has been more anticipated in Temple football history than the 2020 season that will hopefully begin in a couple of weeks.

Saturday’s TV schedule

That’s not because of championship aspirations or unbeaten seasons but simply because everybody else is playing while Temple waits. UCF and Cincy look like tougher outs this season than last but there’s no reason to believe that Temple can’t go 6-2 this regular season and maybe (gasp) even win a bowl game.

At 0-7, Rod Carey is due. Or maybe you are what your record says you are.

I’m still hopeful for unbeaten seasons but I always feel that way before pretty much every year this last decade and it never happens.

The most impressive thing to me about UCF’s 49-21 win at Georgia Tech was not the score itself but the fact that so many of those scores were the result of quarterback Dillon Gabriel squeezing the ball into tight windows to make touchdown passes. One of them, where the Georgia Tech defender was draped all over Marlon Williams, seemed to pass through a needle. It reminded me very much of the time Temple’s Will Hayes covered Notre Dame’s William Fuller well but not good enough for the touchdown that gave the Irish a 24-20 win. Those were five-star players making plays against two-star players.

Can Temple beat guys like that? They deserve another shot to avenge a 62-21 loss but 62-21 losses happen for a reason.

Right now, Temple will be the last team in the AAC kicking off. Houston, which has had a couple of games scheduled and postponed/canceled, kicks off two nights earlier than the Owls.

Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe not, but all of these wasted weeks have put the Owls behind the eight ball. If any of their eight regular-season games are postponed, there is little to no wiggle room to reschedule.

Hopefully, the Owls are playing in the championship game but teams in the league who will not could also be playing postponed games on that date.

Right now, the most important game is Navy and it does not engender a whole lot of confidence knowing Rod Carey has never coached against a triple-option team. He was the offensive line coach for Northern Illinois in 2012 when it allowed 40 points to Army. NIU won, but that was against a 2-10 option team.

A few games later, he became head coach in the Orange Bowl when G5 teams do what G5 teams always seem to do–have great seasons and lose their head coaches to P5 teams for the bowl game.

It would be nice if the Owls could get a tune-up for Navy on Oct. 3 against a triple-option team but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

We can only hope that a professional coaching staff knows the way to stop the triple option is to close the A gaps and string the plays from sideline to sideline, allowing the Owls to use their speed to dominate. Tulane allowed the fullback dive and that set everything else up for Navy, including the occasional surprise pass.

Tulane’s Willie Fritz is a professional coach, too, and he didn’t figure it out. Many don’t, including Matt Rhule and Phil Snow in 2016 and they had nine months to prepare for Army. That loss might have cost the Owls a BCS bowl bid.

Maybe the extra couple of months will be helpful for Temple this time. If the Owls spend it dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s of the option, the wait might even be worth it.

Monday: 5 Under-The-Radar Newcomers

Friday (Oct. 2): 5 Things We’d Like to See This Season

Monday (Oct. 5): The Other October

Friday (Oct. 9): Finally, a Game Day

Sunday (Oct. 11): Game Analysis