Tag Archives: Scott Patchan

05.11.20
by

Virtual Press Conference: Rod Carey

Everything is virtual these days.

Virtual graduations.

Virtual games.

Even a virtual Kentucky Derby showdown between Seattle Slew, Affirmed and Secretariat (spoiler alert: Secretariat won).

There are even actual newscasts seeming virtual with reporters and weather people working from home.

Temple head coach Rod Carey gave his thoughts on the NFL draft from home via Skype to reporters from Jeff Skversky to Fran Duffy, two guys with deep Temple connections.

Maybe it’s time for a Carey press conference on the state of the program where no reporters have to show up and the folding chairs for the press don’t have to be six feet apart.

NCAA Football: Florida at Miami

Scott Patchan could have filled an area of need for Temple.

If there was one, these would be the five questions I’d ask Rod:

You brought the RPO offense from NIU but Temple has used play-action and a power running game to post consecutive 10-win seasons and recruited that type of personnel. What was your thinking behind that?

What Rod would probably say: “Really, that’s the only offense we were comfortable running at NIU and Mike (Uremovich) doesn’t know how to run anything else.”

What we hope he would say: “Yeah, that was a mistake. We took a long look at the film and we’re going do try to establish the run first and have explosive plays in the passing game of play fakes. When you have a guy with a great arm like Anthony, you can’t be exposing him to decisions on whether or not to run the ball. Plus, Ray Davis and our OL gives us a chance to establish the run. Once that happens, I can see a lot of success off play-action to guys like Jadan and Branden.”

carey

What did Quincy Roche say to you when he transferred to Miami and what did you say to him? 

What Rod would probably say: “We have a rule that once you are in the portal, you are off the team. We wished him good luck.”

What we hope he would say: “We pointed out that Haasan and Muhammad were first-round defensive linemen picks out of Temple and told him there was no reason he couldn’t follow in their footsteps. Plus, we showed him how much progress he made in one year under Walter (Stewart) and if that was repeated next year, the sky would be the limit.”

Temple fans haven’t watched their team beaten 55-13, 63-21, and 45-21 in the same season in a long time. What do you attribute those lopsided games to?

What Rod would probably say: “We had a lot of bad luck, turnovers, missed assignments, things like that. We just let those games get away from us. Matt (Hennessy) didn’t play in the UCF game and that hurt us.”

What we hope he would say: “That kind of alludes to what I said above. Temple has been known in the past as a tough team that runs the ball, controls the clock, shortens the game, and wins it in the fourth quarter. That’s what we have to get back to and that’s where we hope to be in 2020. I’m still kicking myself for throwing the ball 26 times in the first 34 plays at Cincinnati. If we had flipped that, like we started to do in the second half, we would have won that game.”

Did you show any interest in available portal players Scott Patchan (Miami DE who ended up at Colorado State) or Ricky Slade (Penn State running back who is still in the portal)?

What Rod will probably say: “We were only interested in guys who wanted to be here. Manny Walker, for example, wanted to be here.”

What we hope he would say: “We know we had holes at DE and RB and looked at every available guy. We tried to sell Scott on proving to Miami they gave up on him too soon but he wanted to go play for Steve Addazio.”

You mentioned after the NFL draft that Temple is already cashing in on the NFL success with potential recruits? Which recruits with Power 5 offers have committed since the NFL draft?

What Rod will probably say: “I can’t tell you names but I can say we got a few guys who MAC schools offered and we hope to get more.”

What we hope Rod would say: “We got a few guys who saw the NFL stuff, want to play in the NFL, and said Temple was a proven place to achieve that dream. We convinced Muhammad and Haason to make those calls and that really helped us with recruits. We got one guy with an offer from the SEC, one from the Big 10 and one from the Big 12. We’re going to release those names soon.”

Friday (5/15): Advantages of a shortened season

Monday (5/18): Recruiting Patterns

Friday (5/22): Suspending Campaigns

 

02.17.20
by

TU Recruiting: The Ones Who Got Away

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You could muster a lot more optimism around here if Ricky Slade, Scott Patchan and Michael Maietti were joining the family for spring practice in a few weeks.


Temple doesn’t need wide receivers
or quarterbacks or defensive backs,
but it certainly needs centers, tight ends,
defensive ends, and running backs.
The fact that this coaching staff
addressed non-issues and ignored
real issues should be setting off
all kinds of alarms

Assuming Rod Carey is done recruiting, at least three players–perhaps more–who could tangibly help Temple football have gone elsewhere or will go elsewhere.

Michael Maietti, a center from Don Bosco who started 33 games in the Big 10 and was good enough on an awful Rutgers’ team to be named to the Rimington Watch list (best center in the country), signed with Long Island University.
 
Long Island University. I’m only aware they have a football team because they played Villanova last season.

Now the Owls will probably have to move guard Vince Picozzi to a position where he never played before coming off a surgery that will force him to miss the entire spring. Maybe Leon Pinto or Wisdom Quarshie. Nice players, but do they have the credentials and the experience of a Maietti?

Err, no.

You can want to be here all you want but it’s the coaching staff’s job to upgrade the talent that is here.

Maietti was so excited about a rare (only) RU touchdown against Maryland, he inadvertently punched his quarterback in the face last season. Maybe Carey didn’t want to sign him because he was Maietti would knock out Anthony Russo.

Screenshot 2020-01-09 at 4.45.17 PM

Josh Pederson would have represented a huge upgrade at TE from Kenny Yeboah and add a large family to the Temple fan base

The thought here is that with the uncertainty at the center position facing Temple this season, Maietti would have been a better replacement than anyone on the current roster, but that’s on Carey.

So, too, are the failures to address depth at the running back position. As of this writing, Ricky Slade–formerly the No. 1 running back recruit prospect in the nation–is still stuck in the portal after telling Penn State coaches he was entering it in late January.

Scott Patchan, a defensive end from Miami with multiple starts in the ACC and would have filled an area of need for Temple, is still in limbo. Do you think this guy would be motivated to outperform Quincy Roche at Hard Rock Stadium on Sept 5?

Josh Pederson, a tight end from Louisiana Monroe, entered the transfer portal and would have been a nice replacement for Kenny Yeboah in that he had more catches, more yards and more touchdowns than Yeboah last year but, after getting no interest, decided to remain at ULM. Do you think he would have liked to play a year in his dad’s stadium in front of family and friends?

A quick check of their twitter feeds late Sunday afternoon indicates that both Patchan and Slade still haven’t signed elsewhere.

Who knows if Carey even reached out to these guys, but he would have been derelict in his duty if he did not. Nobody can really believe a Big 10 player would have signed at LIU if Temple was an option, especially considering that Big 10 player saw what Temple did for former Don Bosco teammate Matt Hennessy, who will be entering the NFL draft.

If Carey did not reach out to Maietti and will can now assume he did not, he probably didn’t reach out to Slade or Patchan. Manny Emmanuel, a DE who did sign with Temple, was much less productive at Wake Forest than Patchan was at The U.

Would Al Golden, a Penn State grad and former Miami head coach who probably knows of Slade and Patchan and who can walk into Don Bosco and everyone knows who he is, have done his homework on these guys? Probably.

Would a Midwestern-based staff without those kinds of New Jersey and Pennsylvania recruiting connections be so inclined? Probably not.

Temple doesn’t need wide receivers or quarterbacks or defensive backs, but it certainly needs centers, tight ends, defensive ends, and running backs. The fact that this coaching staff addressed non-issues and ignored real issues should be setting off all kinds of alarms.

Friday: Spring Practice

Monday (2/24): How Others View Temple