Tag Archives: Rod Carey

03.15.21
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Special Teams clues abound for Temple

Temple’s special teams have pretty much been a humorless joke over the last two years.

You can learn a lot from thumbing through the bios in the latest Temple Football Media Guide.

If fixing teams is a priority–and it should be–the Temple coaches should be pouring over those lists to find guys with moves and speed who can help on that squad.

Does Temple football special teams coach Brett Diersen know backup wide receiver Kadas Reams has been clocked at 4.37 in the 40-yard dash?

Does he know defensive back Trey Blair played offense at Haverford High AND scored touchdown on both kickoff and punt returns as a senior?

You would think so but the Owls were content to have as their No. 1 punt returner last year a guy named Willie Erdman or came to the table with no such speed stats or history of success in the return game even at the high school level. It would be more accurate to call Erdman a “fair catch specialist” instead of a “punt return specialist.”

And both Reams and Blair were on the team last year.

Special teams used to be elite at Temple. Love to get back to those days again.

Knowing those facts, it’s not hard to come to a couple of conclusions: 1) they didn’t know and 2) they didn’t care.

Wide receiver Branden Mack blocked a punt under Geoff Gollins but was not on the punt return (don’t know if the Owls even have a punt block) team. He is 6-6 with a wingspan of 97 inches. Mack isn’t here anymore, but the Owls do have 6-6 guys with similar wingspans. It’s just logical to put your tallest and longest guys on your kick block teams. Steve Addazio’s Owls would not have won a game at UConn had he not put 6-6 wide receiver Deon Miller on special teams, where he blocked a field goal.

Having success in the special teams is knowing the, err, special talents of your personnel and using those talents to make plays. The Owls have shown no interest in two years about making dynamic plays in the special teams area and that needs to change starting when spring practice begins in two weeks.

We can talk about Diersen and his shortcomings all we want but the ultimate responsibility for the special teams success rests with the programs’ CEO, Rod Carey. If Carey is more comfortable with personal relationships with members of his staff than he is about getting the most of the talent he has, that’s a problem.

One of many we’ve seen in the last two years.

Opening two books would help: the American Coaches Association’s Complete Guide to Special Teams and one other.

The Temple Football Media Guide.

Friday: Sports Talk and Temple Football

03.12.21
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Spring practice: Admitting a problem

Because Thursday was the first 70-degree day in an otherwise ridiculously horrible winter, I got out on the Lectric E Bike and went for a spin on the Pennypack Trail.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew Temple was playing basketball in the AAC tournament, but that’s no longer a priority.

It hasn’t been for some time. I watched a couple of games earlier this season and came away so uninspired by this team, I tuned them out.

Getting out and enjoying the day is the priority over Temple basketball.

Instead of Harry Donahue and John Baum, my playlist on the headphones included Post Malone, Dua Lupa, Arianna Grande mixed in with a little Earth, Wind and Fire, Harry Chapin and Bryan Adams.

Temple basketball never entered my mind until I got home in the middle of the afternoon and read this post from a longtime fixture (who predates even me) on the Temple football sideline:

“Great game Temple BB. Looks like the future is bright for this team.”

Wow, I thought.

Temple won.

Then I opened my phone.

“Tap for updates.”

I tapped.

Temple lost to a 9-12 team.

That did not compute.

I thought Temple played a great game. I thought the future was bright.

Instead, a once nationally renowned program lost to a 9-12 team and one of our long-time fans thought that was an encouraging sign.

Have our expectations fallen that low?

That’s a little like, after a loss to Wagner this fall, the same guy says: “Great game, Temple FB. The future is bright for this team.”

Exaggerating for effect, but you get the drift.

The first step toward fixing a problem is admitting you have one and the two marquee sports at Temple are two big problems right now.

That’s why, somewhere between spring bike rides, I will be checking in on spring practice that begins in a couple of weeks.

Does Temple football head coach Rod Carey believe his special teams are horrific or does he believe they are on their way to getting fixed?

To me, special teams should be two things: Dynamic and dependable.

The dynamic part will be putting a punt returner back there who has sub 4.5-speed and the moves of Timmy and Matty Brown and someone who is able to make the first guy miss and pick up at least. … AT LEAST … the equivalent of a first-down (10-yard gain or above) on every punt return. In the absence of that, a jailbreak punt block would be nice.

The dependable part would be no blocked extra points returned for two (as in Cincy circa 2019) or kickoffs out of bounds (too many times to mention in 2020).

We haven’t seen either dynamic or dependable in the two years of the Rod Carey Regime and that’s the No. 1 thing that needs to be fixed this spring.

If he refuses to admit he has a problem, it will never be fixed and that’s why tuning out of Temple football should be as easy as tuning out of Temple basketball was yesterday.

Of course, the priority here is getting my favorite sports team by far (Temple football) fixed because that’s what the fall should be all about. Hopefully, the current staff cares enough about their careers to understand the problem and address it. Otherwise, they will have punched their ticket out of Philadelphia.

Monday: How to address it?

Friday: Trolling Costco

03.05.21
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Buyer’s market: Don’t forget the kicker

If Rod Carey didn’t know Cristian Zendejas’ name, he does now.

Especially if he reads his own twitter feed. Several fans, from Temple and elsewhere (including this one), sent Carey the above video of Zendejas, the son of former Philadelphia Eagles’ kicker Luis Zendejas.

It would take the Zendejas Story full circle as one of the great stories of Philadelphia sports folklore had Luis in the middle in the infamous Bounty Bowl between the Eagles and the Cowboys.

It’s now up to Carey to pull the trigger and offer a scholarship.

Yeah, we know kickers usually don’t get a full schollie but Carey should make an exception in this case.

Temple hasn’t had a reliable long-distance placekicker since the days of Austin Jones and Aaron Boumerhi. Guess what Temple did in those days? Win the AAC East both years and the overall AAC when Boomer stepped in to replace Jones after he was injured on a kickoff in the Memphis game.

Luis (left) and Cristian Zendejas

Was Boomer the reason Temple won the championship? You could make an argument that P.J. Walker, Nick Sharga, Jahad Thomas or Robby Anderson were more important on the point-scoring side of the ball but there’s no doubt in my mind had one of the post-Matt Rhule kickers taken over for Jones, the Owls would have not won the championship.

Boomer saved the Owls’ bacon (or whatever Owls eat).

In typical Carey fashion, though, he let Boomer go because Boomer had an injury. Boom went to BC and had a decent finish to his career.

Zendejas, who is still uncommitted as of 12:23 a.m. this morning, would give the Owls a reliable long-distance kicker and, in an era where a lot of games are decided by three or less points, he could be the difference between a winning and losing season. The fact that a guy with this kind of leg hasn’t been scooped up yet indicates he might be willing to go to the first school who shows him love. It’s also an illustration of what a buyer’s market this year’s portal is due to the extra year of eligibility given to all of the seniors in college football.

In this buyer’s market, given Temple’s needs and Zendejas’ stated wants and skills, it’s a perfect match.

Giving Cristian a scholarship would be a clear signal to Temple fans that Carey is starting to get serious about fixing Temple’s atrocious special teams. Going with the status quo is courting another year of disaster in that area.

Let’s hope his dad doesn’t hold a grudge against Philadelphia.

Monday: Fair Weather or All Weather

02.22.21
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UCF’s coaching hire is bad news for Temple

If the Enemy of My Enemy is a bad hire, and the AAC has had a few of those, don’t look to Gus Malzahn as falling on his face at UCF.

Geez, as a Temple fan, I hope he does what Charley Strong did moving over from a great coach at Louisville to a lousy one at Texas before falling on his face at USF. Dana Holgerson had five-straight winning seasons at West Virginia before putting up a lackluster 7-13 loss the last two years at Houston.

The thought process is a lot of these “big-time” Power 5 guys who are forced to resuscitate their careers at the G5 level don’t put in the energy that got them there in the first place.

I don’t see that with Malzahn simply because he was a G5 head coach before taking the Auburn job at Arkansas State and knows what it takes to win at this level. Malzahn was 9-3 with a Sun Belt championship at Arkansas State and that punched his ticket to Auburn, where he merely was 65-38 (including 39-27 against SEC teams).

Like the NFL mantra for drafting (‘always pick the best available player”), picking the best available head coach is always a good philosophy. Did Temple pick the best available head coach when it selected Rod Carey? No, his Indiana connections with Pat Kraft and Temple CFO Kevin Clark made him the most comfortable pick available.

The difference between Auburn and Temple is that the Auburn administration didn’t blink at spending $21.5 million to buy out a 65-38 head coach but Temple is blinking like a broken tail light at spending $6 million to buy out a 9-11 head coach.

UCF picked the best head coach available and it might be the best hire in G5 history.

Could he fall on his face like Strong and, so far, Holgersen?

Possibly, but there is nothing in Malzahn’s history to show he won’t be anything but successful.

In that case, he is the friend of my enemy and that’s not a good thing for the Owls.

02.18.21
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Temple football: What could go right?

Temple went from having the most dynamic special teams in the country to terrible in Rod Carey’s two seasons

On the surface, Temple football looks like a dumpster fire right now.

The Fire Chief allowed his best firefighters to walk for other departments and the hiring process to find capable replacements is going slower than expected.

That’s the surface.

Is there anything underneath?

At least Rod Carey will have the best hoodie in the AAC

Well, put it this way. The entire Temple coaching staff was responsible for multiple championships in a FBS league and five wins–presumably with lesser talent–over Big 10 teams against only two losses.

Maybe they know something we don’t know.

For Temple to turn a 1-6 season into a 6-or-better-win season, maybe this is what they are thinking:

One, everyone remains healthy. The first units on offense and defense are fairly impressive yet there are big holes to fill on the offensive line and defensive line but normal attrition for injuries has to be factored into the equation. Look at what happened in the championship year of 2016, for example. When Austin Jones, who had kicked 17-straight successful field goals, went down, Aaron Boumerhi took over that job and did not miss a beat. Averee Robinson got injured at nose tackle and Freddy Booth-Lloyd went in and locked down the Navy fullback in a 34-10 AAC title win. Does Temple have that kind of depth? I don’t see it, but maybe they do.

Two, a renewed emphasis on the running game. With the RPO system, it seems the Owls could never get out of their own way on offense. Temple football has always been establishing the run first, then throwing off fakes to it. If by adding Iverson Clement and Ra’Von Bonner convinces them to establish the run first, then the Owls should be a much more explosive team. Put it this way: If EITHER Clement or Bonner get 1,000 yards and 20 or more touchdowns rushing, Temple wins at least six games. Does this staff have that kind of commitment to the run? Doubt it, but maybe that’s the thinking at the E-O right now.

Three, Duece Mathis in a system that he’s comfortable in, thrives. If Mathis plays like a SEC starter, and starts finding Jadan Blue and Randle Jones for explosive plays in the passing game, the Owls will be hard to stop. Anthony Russo’s best full regular season at Temple was 21 touchdown passes against just 11 interceptions. If, say, Mathis does 22 touchdowns versus 10 interceptions (in other words, just a little better than Russo), the Owls will be successful.

Four, an aggressive approach to special teams. For two years, Rod Carey has been more than content to view the fair catch as a positive special teams’ play. That’s got to end. If the Owls don’t return kicks, they should block them. It’s got to be one or the other. Giving up positive plays on one third of the team never helps but that’s not been this staff’s DNA dating back through their time at NIU.

That’s it. That’s the path to a winning season. Maybe that’s the thought process at the E-O. If it is, it would be a welcome change.

Monday: The Enemy of My Enemy

02.05.21
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Temple football’s sinkhole problem

With each and every passing snowstorm, thoughts of pulling up stakes in Philadelphia and downsizing to Florida seem more appealing every year.

At least to me. If I never see another snowflake, that would be just fine.

There are advantages and disadvantages to said solution. One is sinkholes. From my preliminary investigation, they are everywhere down there. There is no “sinkhole proof” area and, if your house is the unlucky one, you are out a huge deductable even with the best insurance.

Temple football has its own sinkhole problem and it has nothing to do with the ground underneath the E-O Complex.

Too much talent is eroding from the building and the talent brought in to replace it does nothing to address the depth problem underneath. Simply put, the Owls are in a situation where the starters have to stay healthy or the underpinnings of the program fall apart. Starters have replaced starters and even some top Temple reserves have joined the portal and nothing has been done to address that depth issue. Temple needed to address the starters leaving the building and, for the most part, it has. Depleted depth caused by key backups leaving? Not so much.

That’s true every year but moreso this one.

Two tackles came in to replace Dan Archibong and Ifeanyi Maijeh but Khris Banks, who provided depth at that position, is off to Boston College.

The Owls’ linebacker corps is largely untested in real games and, with the exit of Christian Braswell, better hope and pray that Ty Mason and Freddie Johnson make it healthy through what is hoped to be a 12-game season because there is not much experience behind them, at least experience playing for a winning Temple program.

In the above video, coach Rod Carey is excited for the season but presumably he was excited for last season as well. He can be “super excited” all he wants but the proof is winning more than losing. I’d rather have Carey dreading the offseason and finishing 6-1 than being “super excited” and finishing 1-6.

The offensive line should be pretty good but recent departures of top subs has loosened the soil undereath the starters. Iverson Clement and Ra’Von Bonner might find plenty of holes behind the No. 1 group but what happens should two or three go down? Those holes close up right away.

In the sinkhole industry, that might be a good thing. In football, where injuries are a part of the business, the whole house goes under.

Monday: Top 5 Portal Targets

01.29.21
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Single digits should remain at the E-O

On the first day of spring classes, Christian Braswell took his single digit number and skipped town for what he hoped would be greener pastures.

No. 2 dumped all over a Temple football tradition, the single-digit number.

Braswell wasn’t the first single-digit Owl to leave but he should be the last.

The way to do that would simply be to tweak the rules and reward single digits only to seniors in the summer camp prior to their last seasons.

A year ago, Quincy Roche took his No. 9 to Miami.

Now Braswell is taking his No. 2 elsewhere, joining another single-digit, Isaiah Graham-Mobley, in playing somewhere else after being rewarded with Temple football’s highest honor.

He won’t be the last Owl to leave Edberg-Olson Hall, especially under Rod Carey, but this is one problem that does indeed have a solution.

To me, there’s a lot to be said for the single-digit tradition but loyalty should be valued as much as toughness. There’s something annoying about watching a Miami game and hearing several times (as I did this past season) that “Roche is so tough, he earned the Temple single digit as an underclassmen.”

Matt Ioannidis (left) and Tyler Matakevich were two of the most loyal single digits in Temple history

When you think about it, it’s a slap in the face to Temple that someone like that plays for someone else.

That should remain a Temple staple and the only way to do it under this present college football environment is to reserve it for seniors who have stuck with the program for their entire careers.

If Carey is really out of scholarships, as he appears to be, there’s not much he can do now to upgrade the talent enough for a significant boost in the 2021 win total but he at least can implement a change that should outlast his time here.

Reserve the single digit for Temple seniors so that no Temple single-digit guy ever plays for anyone else.

It’s the least he can do.

Monday: The Bruce Arians’ Playbook

Friday: The Sinkhole Problem

01.25.21
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TU Football: Optimism seems misplaced

A discussion involving two ex-Temple coaches

Message boards are a good place to take the temperature of a fan base.

Sorting out the Wild Wild West part of it (the insults and incivility), though, you occasionally come across a gem of a post and I found a reasonable one written by long-time Temple fan MH55 recently on OwlsDaily.com:

“Meanwhile, shouldn’t everyone by now know our blueprint ? Regionally embedded staff intimately familiar with this area. The last three hires do not fit this mold and sadly, something is drastically wrong at EO. There seems to be a complete disconnect. The transfer portal and soliciting the MAC and FCS isn’t going to get it done. Reading the optimism is annoying and irritating. There is no reason for it.

“This team will start 2021 as 14 pt dogs to Rutgers. If we played them in 2019 we would have been 3 TD favorites. That’s where we are, realistically.”

_ Temple Fan MH55

It perfectly encapsulates where I am with the program right now.

A dose of realism

A lot was done between the December signing date and now to bring in some talent to refurbish the program but, in reality, a lot more needed to be done. This team needed a SMU-like 2019 infusion of talent (15 Power 5 starters) and got less than half of that.

There are now indications that Temple is done in more ways than one.

The Owls have new a linebacker from New Jersey who committed to Temple as a walk-on because he said he talked to a member of the staff who told him “they didn’t have any more scholarships left.”

If true, that’s not good.

Just when I thought the bleeding of talent leaving the E-O stopped, another single-digit guy, cornerback Christian Braswell, left on the first day of spring classes. There may be more to come. What was hemorrhaging in the fall has become a steady drip drip and who knows when it will be over? The addition of a Georgia transfer and a couple from North Carolina and one from Purdue, among others, seems to have sparked some optimism among the fanbase but, in reality, MH55’s post provided some needed pushback. Rod Carey’s recruiting, if it is indeed over, has fallen short of the mark and will probably fall well short of the talent level of Temple’s top rivals in the AAC.

At least this year.

The answer is going back to the blueprint that got the talent here and kept it here. MH55 is not the only Temple fan to realize what that blueprint is. We’ve been writing about it in this space for over 15 years now. Get great recruiters with a knowledge of and contacts with high school coaches up and down the East Coast and great coaches using a unique system. Navy wins because the Mids run the triple option and recruit nationally. Temple won in the Golden Rhule Era because it built great defenses, special teams and shortened the game by emphasizing the run and passed off play-action.

Al Golden and Matt Rhule realized that, even if it took Rhule two years of figuring it out once he came back to Temple.

That’s the blueprint. Rhule isn’t available but Golden might be. If Golden isn’t, surely there is someone who fits the blueprint of a great recruiter of THIS AREA and someone who realizes that the way to win here has been established and is willing to bring it back. Maybe Gabe Infante, who has the added experience of being a legendary head coach. Maybe Fran Brown, who doesn’t, but there certainly are people out there ready to follow the blueprint.

Peter J. Liacouras said that universities with FBS football must invest to succeed and sometimes that investment means eating the final couple of years of a guaranteed $10 million contract.

What happened between December and now on the recruiting front represented incremental change when wholesale change was needed and the university hierarchy must get ready for what, by all indications, will be some unpleasant results by the end of the fall.

That’s if they care about the Temple University national image anymore.

Friday: A New Single-Digit Concept

Monday: The Bruce Arians Playbook

01.18.21
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The Temple 22 guessing game

Temple football needs to be fun again and the only fun comes from winning and singing the fight song afterward.

Any shot at picking a starting Temple “22” for football on Jan. 18th is a guessing game.

Mix in COVID and a fluid roster situation caused by the transfer portal and it’s really throwing darts but here we are on Jan. 18 and the first game is September and, just from the roster currently posted on Owlsports.com this morning and the transfers coming in, we’re going to be taking a shot.

Lancine Turay

OFFENSE (11)

WIDE RECEIVER _ Jadan Blue, Randle Jones and Amad Anderson. The fact that both Blue and Jones are still listed on the roster is really gratifying from my perspective. Jones is the fastest wide receiver we’ve seen at Temple since Travis Sheldon and Blue is on pace to break all of the Temple career records. Anderson is an accomplished Power 5 transfer who can play the slot. This should be the strength of the team.

QUARTERBACK _ D’Wan “Deuce” Mathis. Temple’s never had a quarterback transfer in who started a game for a Power 5 team, like alone the first game for a powerhouse SEC team so this is a no-brainer. Mathis has big shoes to fill, replacing a guy who tossed 44 touchdowns vs. 32 interceptions. Mathis will have to cut down on the INTS since he threw 3 to just a couple of touchdown passes. Whatever, Rod Carey’s read/option is more suited to Mathis’ skills than Anthony Russo’s.

TU needs more help at LB for William Kwenkeu (35)

RUNNING BACK _ Iverson Clement, the first four-star Temple running back since Juan Gaddy (at least coming in although you can say anyone who was a Heisman Trophy finalist, like Paul Palmer was, played like a five-star). He will undoubtedly be pushed by R’Von Bonner, who did more at Illinois than Clement did at Florida.

TIGHT END _ David Martin-Robinson. The redshirt junior-to-be is steady as they come and had five catches for 72 yards in the 2020 opener at Navy.

OL_ Michael Niese and Isaac Moore (G) and Vic Stoffel and Adam Klein (T) with C.J. Perez at center. That’s a big, experienced, group.

(For those counting, that’s 11.)

DEFENSE (11)

ENDS–Will Rodgers III and Manny Walker. Rodgers is a sackmeister from Washington State, who recently posted on twitter that he “loves Philadelphia.” If he puts quarterbacks on the ground at the same rate he did in Pullman, Philadelphia will no doubt love him back.

TACKLES–Xach Gill and Lancine Turay, two transfers from North Carolina. Kevin Robertson will push both players for time.

LINEBACKERS _ William Kwenkeu, Audrey Isaacs and Jordan McGee. Kwenkeu was the defensive MVP in the 2017 Gasparilla Bowl.

SAFETIES _ Amir Tyler and Trey Blair. Tyler is the senior leader and Blair will be a future playmaker and leader.

CORNERS _ Ty Mason and Freddie Johnson_ Two solid players. Mason took the year off from COVID (he didn’t have it but was just afraid of catching it) and should be well-rested, albeit rusty.

Rodgers, Walker, Gill, Turay=4; Kwenkeu, Isaacs, McGee 4+3=7; Tyler, Blair, Mason, Johnson=4-7=11.

Is this lineup good enough right now to beat Rutgers on opening day?

I would say no because we need two “Kwenkeu-level” linebackers to join William and more depth along the defensive and offensive lines.

Still, there’s no doubt that Temple has improved from the Temple we last saw in November and adding a couple of linebackers should go a long way to turn what is projected to be a losing season into a winning one.

Friday: A dream matchup that never happened