Tag Archives: Stan Drayton

03.02.25
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Temple schedule: Some catching up to do

Temple’s schedule is rated one of the hardest in the AAC.

Anyone who tells you what Temple’s record is at the end of the calendar year is a fool.

A year ago at this time, knowing who Stan Drayton brought in and who he needed to bring in, we took a stab at the 2024 record and came up with 2-10.

We were wrong.

K.C. Keeler needs to take a page out of Howie Roseman’s book and load up on both lines.

The Owls went 3-9 for the third-straight year under Drayton.

No stabs this time because, with the release of the 2025 schedule, it looks pretty daunting for anyone, not to mention a first-year staff.

One thing we do know: Both the gameday coaching and the talent acquisition piece seems to be upgraded even though the schedule is tougher.

So any guess at a final record is a crapshoot.

If Drayton had been retained, we could only see four potential wins on the schedule (UMass, Howard, Tulsa and Charlotte).

Maybe that’s what new head coach K.C. Keeler gets as well. A lot of it will be determined how he uses the available transfer portal scholarships (right now, it stands as nine). If he the Drayton route and gets JUCOs, then he might finish with four wins. If he gets some solid FBS and FCS starters, then he could grab another game or two and reach his stated goal of getting to a bowl game in his first seasons.

Going the “Howie Roseman” route and loading up on both lines probably is the way to go because the Owls seem to have an abundance of skill players and a lack of depth on both the OL and DL. Drayton’s 2023 season fell apart when he didn’t address that depth in the portal and, due to injuries, had to play linebackers at defensive end and safeties at linebacker.

So Keeler has some catching up to do between now and Aug. 30 to achieve his minimum goal. Drayton did this time a year ago. The difference between the two is that one headed to Houston for a two-week vacation while the other probably will focus on upgrading the roster.

Friday: An Old Rival

02.20.25
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Last on Keeler’s to-do list: Film Study

Temple is blessed to have a great returning quarterback in Evan Simon.

Every new head coach has to have “to-do list” and, frankly I’m surprised by one thing new Temple head coach K.C. Keeler admitted he has not done.

Study game tape on the current Temple team.

The answer I was looking for here was: “Yeah, Shawn, I saw all those against Utah State and Evan Simon is a pretty special QB.“

Not being a College Football Hall of Fame head coach but someone with a solid grasp of Temple football history and a graduate degree in Wayne Hardin University, that’s the first thing I would have done had I gotten the job.

Color me surprised that he told OwlsDaily.com editor-in-chief Shawn Pastor that he had not reviewed any film of the current Temple holdovers.

Some pretty good Torrez Worthy highlights here. Kinda reminds me “a little” of Saquon Barkley.

It’s not too late for Keeler to put the projector in the team meeting room and take a look at a few players he now has under his control.

My first duty as a new Temple head coach would have been to study game film on every single Temple football player.

There is a simple reason for that.

I want to know who I want to keep as a starter and who I want to replace.

Don’t know how Keeler could move forward without that information but it’s not too late to do soon.

I will offer this current bit of advice: Please study the game film of two players in two games against teams that would have fared pretty well against any G5 team, Utah State and UConn.

The first player is Evan Simon. The second is Torrez Worthy.

Simon made five great throws under pressure for touchdowns in a 45-29 win over Utah State.

Torrez Worthy had 95 yards on 12 carries, including a 35-yard run that set up the Owls on the UConn 1 to win the game against a bowl-bound team. Instead of going with the leaping handoff to Worthy on a 4th-and-goal (think “Sam Bam Cunningham” here), the Owls went with a tush push to a 160-pound backup quarterback.

Instead of a 26-23 Temple win (which 99.9 percent of the CBS Sports audience thought they would see), the soaking wet 160-pound QB fumbled the football and it went the other way for a 29-20 loss.

Not the No. 1 reason the old staff got fired, but certainly near the top.

If Keeler is the coach I think he is, he will find out the film doesn’t lie about two of his players.

Both Simon and Worthy are special talents.

Temple can win big with both.

The Owls need to upgrade most of the other 20 positions. (Really, not many because the Owls have a lot of good returning players, particularly on defense.)

Keeler has crossed everything else off his to-do list before the start of spring practice on March 11.

This one last thing should be at the top of his list. Get that damn projector and walk a couple of feet outside of his Temple football coaching office to the film room and take some notes on Simon and Worthy and maybe four or five other returning Temple loyalists.

Then we can move forward to fill his other needs.

02.16.25
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Stan Drayton proves the Peter Principle

K.C. Keeler representing Temple at the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl parade.

Hate to say I told you so but I told you so about Stan Drayton.

His hiring as Penn State running backs coach proves what we said in this space in December of 2021. He was a career running backs coach and that’s where his level of competence rested.

Helluva nice guy, heart in the right place and his wife did the best Electric Slide we’ve ever seen at a Cherry and White tailgate but not cut out to be a head coach in either the pre- or current NIL and transfer portal environment.

Temple paid a hefty price by hiring him and I’m not talking about $2.5 million a year. I’m talking about all the pain on the faces of those great Owl fans after suffering three-straight needless 3-9 seasons on the backs of a prior 3-9 season and the 1-6 season before that.

Much more worried about the impact on the Temple fan base than the $8 million Temple gave Drayton for doing basically what a guy like Ed Foley could have done.

That’s OK because it proves The Peter Principle and if Temple learns anything from that, it will be a valuable lesson.

Our post on Dec. 3, 2021 which was 18 days before Stan Drayton was hired. If the Temple brass followed our advice, Temple could have saved the pain of $8 million and 27 subsequent losses.

That Principle says “you rise to your level of incompetence” and that’s exactly what happened with Drayton. He rose to the level of head coach. That’s incompetence. He’s competent as a running backs coach and Penn State should benefit from that.

Already Temple has benefitted from this loveless divorce.

New head coach K.C. Keeler hasn’t immersed himself into the Temple community, it feels like he’s been here forever.

Keeler repped Temple with an Owls’ ski cap at Friday’s Super Bowl parade. Temple as an institution stepped up with a huge banner congratulating the Eagles in the middle of the parade.

Say what you will about Philadelphia Eagles’ fans but Temple needs to woo the “Joe Philly Football Fan” who has been priced out of Eagles’ games. The “average” price a single ticket at the NFC championship game was $1,300. The average price of a ticket at a Temple football game is $10.

Temple showed up in force to congratulate the Eagles.

Nobody is going to pay 10 cents to watch 3-9 but it is realistic to expect a significant number of Philadelphia football fans priced out of the Eagles will watch a 9-3 Temple team every season and have a fun experience, including the tailgating.

National championship is not the goal nor should it be. A bowl right away should be followed by a bunch of 9-3 seasons.

Stan Drayton had an abundance of “want to” but Temple needs the “how to” factor that Keeler brings to the table. If Keeler ever leaves Temple (and we don’t want that to happen), it will not be for a RB coaching job at a Big 10 or an SEC school. He’s already risen to his level of competence and it’s about three levels above running backs coach.

The Peter Principle strikes again.

Friday: Checking The Film

12.03.24
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Temple football has a winner in town

Former FSU All-American QB Danny Kanell nods his head in agreement as Chip, Tom and Bud Elliott compliment Temple on the choice of K.C. Keeler to coach the Owls.

One day after being named one of CBS Sports’ “Coaches of the Week” for Week 14 in college football for a Texas team, K.C. Keeler was standing at a podium 1,000 miles away in Philadelphia talking about leading a Pennsylvania team.

Things move fast when you beat other teams to the hiring punch as Temple seems to have done.

Keeler didn’t open his press conference like Buddy Ryan did with the Eagles in 1986 by saying “you’ve got a winner in town.” He didn’t have to because, as a real winner (Bill Parcells) once said, “you are what your record says you are.”

Unlike 1986, Philadelphia–and most importantly Temple–has a winner in town.

Keeler’s wife, Janice was back in Texas selling their house in Huntsville. They already have another house 40 minutes from Philadelphia that they’ve maintained since leaving for Texas.

Keeler’s opening press conference brought something even the press conferences of Al Golden, Matt Rhule, Steve Addazio, Geoff Collins and Rod Carey never did.

A winning pedigree in post-season football.

Ryan was 0-3 in playoff games as Eagles’ coach. Carey was 0-7 in bowl games both at Northern Illinois and Temple.

Keeler’s post-season exploits are chronicled elsewhere in this post. You don’t have to google him. He’ll get you to the postseason and he will win his fair share there.

That’s kind of where Temple is at now.

K.C. Keeler under the goal post where the best field goal kicker in the nation this year practiced his craft every single day.

The arms’ race is such in college football that really the best the Owls can hope for–barring putting the NIL genie back in the bottle–is playing in great bowl games and winning in the postseason. Maybe grabbing an AAC title every five years, tops.

A great school like Temple should expect to be in the top 80 of college football teams every year when only 134 teams are playing at the FBS level. The Owls should expect to win their share of postseason bowl games.

Do that and the fans come back, especially after four-straight 3-9 seasons. Making Lincoln Financial Field a happening place again requires only consistent winning. Al Golden proved that. So did Matt Rhule.

K.C. Keeler’s postseason record screams winner.

Keeler has a history of doing that, too, even against teams with greater resources. With no NIL, Keeler’s Sam Houston State destroyed a Rice team that beat Navy. That was the same Navy team that beat Temple, 38-11.

He has a history of turning loaves into fishes and he’s going to have to take that approach with Temple.

Keeler’s familiarity with Temple will help as he talked about playing three games in his college career and losing twice to the Owls, including in Delaware’s national championship 13-1 season (1979).

“Then lens through I look at it is Temple was a great program at one time,” Keeler said. “This is a great university. It can even be greater.”

It got greater on a very cold December Tuesday morning in Philadelphia. Now all that remains is to determine how great.

Friday: The Letter Keepers

Monday: The Reaction

12.01.24
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Keeler: A pick Temple fans can get behind

Wherever he’s been, K.C. Keeler has developed great relationships with his players and Temple should be no different. I defy anyone to find a similar photo of Rod Carey or Stan Drayton celebrating like this on the field with their players.

After a couple of head-scratching decisions on its last two football CEOs, Temple University finally went in a more logical direction by picking K.C. Keeler to lead the Owls’ football fortunes today.

More like a head-nodding decision than a head-scratching one.

It’s about time and maybe just in time.

That’s because the last two guys were hired by ADs tied to their picks: Pat Kraft played football at around the same time at Indiana that Rod Carey did–they missed each other by one year but both played the same position at Indiana (center).

Arthur Johnson’s first high-profile pick at Temple was to hire a guy he saw walking around the University of Texas football building every day: Running backs’ coach Stan Drayton.

One was a head coach. The other was an assistant.

Hard to believe that you claim to conduct a national search for a head coach and end up with a guy who worked in the same building you did and that’s exactly what happened with the Johnson/Drayton relationship.

Carey had success in the Midwest with little knowledge of Temple and Philadelphia. Drayton hadn’t coached in Philadelphia since the 1980s but for Penn and Villanova. Neither is Temple or even close. Drayton had to learn to be a head coach while on Temple’s dime and Temple’s time and that rarely works out.

This time, Johnson hired a guy he didn’t know personally but a winner at every place he’s been. That’s important because, before Keeler, no one ever proved they could win at Rowan. At Sam Houston and Delaware, he benefitted from following legends in Willie Fritz and Tubby Raymond. Keeler can take all of those lessons learned to a place where multiple men have proven they can win: Wayne Hardin, Bruce Arians, Al Golden, Matt Rhule and, to a lesser extent, Steve Addazio and Geoff Collins.

The blueprint for winning at Temple is simple: Establish relationships within a great recruiting base (46 percent of the nation’s population is within a five-hour drive of Philadelphia) and recruit the hell out of that base. Establish the run and have explosive plays in the downfield passing game off play/action fakes.

The last three years we’ve pulled our hair out watching Temple teams try to establish the short passing game first. That’s not Temple TUFF. It never was. It never will be. As a result, Temple couldn’t generate anything on the ground or keep its defense off the field.

Temple needs some big offensive linemen who were recruited and developed by P4 schools but find themselves as backups through no fault of their own. It also needs to scour the ranks of FCS schools and get players who should have been recruited at a higher level.

In the transfer portal and NIL era, that means getting disaffected guys who went off for riches at P4 schools only to find themselves riding the pine elsewhere. All of those kids have a chip on their shoulders and Temple football in the past has thrived when giving kids a chance to play against good competition.

Let’s face it: Temple isn’t going win an NIL bidding war for players, but it does offer an opportunity to play right away and, in Keeler, is picking a guy who thrived despite having the lowest NIL in the nation at Sam Houston State.

At Temple, a lot of the rich grads who could have supported football either tragically died in a plane crash (Lew Katz) or got involved in legal troubles (Bill Cosby) or had a dispute with his fellow pop legend (John Oates). Oates likes Temple football, Darryl Hall doesn’t.

Not a whole lot of deep pockets in an alumni base that had to scrouge to find SEPTA tokens to get to school every day.

Keeler is free to concentrate on a quick rebuild at Temple right now.

After beating Liberty last week, Keeler needed only Western Kentucky to lose to earn a spot in the CUSA title game. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for Temple, Western Kentucky won and Keeler can hop on the recruiting trail for Temple.

Already, a number of top Drayton recruits have reaffirmed their commitments to the new staff to play for Temple. There seems to be a renewed enthusiasm in the Edberg-Olson Center. Now all that remains is for Keeler to convince top returning players like Evan Simon and Torrez Worthy to remain on board. Once Keeler grabs Simon at the press conference and tell him he’s going to give him an offensive line that would keep him upright, Simon might stay.

Keeler knows how to navigate the portal without an infusion of NIL money, and while some Saudi billionaire hopping on board would be nice, Temple had to find a guy like that to bridge the gap. Keeler has won with guys who haven’t made money and there’s no reason to expect he can’t do the same in the future.

Keeler would do well to keep certain members of this staff, including OL coach Chris Wiesehan, running backs coach Tyree Foreman and linebackers coach Chris Woods. Wiesehan and Foreman were here with other staffs while Temple was winning and can offer helpful hints to Keeler how things were done then vs. how things have been done over the last three seasons.

Plus, Keeler is very familiar with the Temple brand. He was a linebacker on the 1979 Delaware team that lost to Temple, 31-14. That was the Blue Hens only loss on the way to the Division II (now FCS) championship. Those Owls he lost to were just 16 points from a 12-0 season and a possible mythical national championship of their own.

Keeler can share old war stories with his fellow linebackers of that era on the other side of the ball, Steve Conjar and Mike Curcio and possibly get them on board to drum up alumni NIL support.

After beating Liberty, Keeler went on national TV for an interview and his Philadelphia accent sounded more genuine than the really good one Tina Fey used to mimic on SNL.

This guy knows Philly. He knows Temple. More importantly, he knows how to win.

Temple hasn’t had a guy like that in a long time.

Welcome home.

Wednesday: The Press Conference

11.20.24
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The case against Elijah Robinson

Unlike many Temple fans, I’m going to take Fran Brown at his word.

As someone who recently took up the sport of kings, I learned pretty early in the process to stay away from Maiden Claiming horse races.

Reading the thumbnails on The Daily Racing Forum, some horses got better reviews than others on the basis of their pedigree.

Pretty good return on a $2 investment on Tuesday at Parx because I picked the four horses with the most wins. Arthur Johnson will cash at the Temple football coaching hiring window if he takes the same approach.

You’d never really know if they could win a race until they did.

Some never did.

I didn’t start to consistently finish in the black until I stopped betting Maiden Claimers and stuck to the Graded Stakes and Allowance Optional races.

That’s because I had a “past performance” record to go on and my formula of picking exotics based on how many past first-place finishes put me in the black. Not a perfect formula, but a pretty good one.

That works, too, with college football coaches.

The big-time programs don’t take a chance on career assistant coaches because there isn’t a “past performance” sheet to check and double check.

That’s not the only reason why Temple shouldn’t take a chance on Elijah Robinson (or his Syracuse staff mate, Jeff Nixon), but it is the best one. Robinson, a career assistant, is 1-2 as an “interim” head coach.

With Texas A&M talent. Doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies about what he might be able to do with Temple talent.

We were on record as being against the Manny Diaz and Stan Drayton hires BEFORE THEY WERE HIRED HERE for many of the same reasons we’re against any assistant coach, including Elijah Robinson and Jeff Nixon.

Here’s another: Every single great thing said of Robinson by an ex-player or ex-coach (or current one, even) was also said about Stan Drayton three years ago.

You know how that worked out.

Yes, Temple has had some success with assistants before, like Al Golden and Matt Rhule.

That was a different time and a different place in the college football world.

There was no NIL or transfer portal and an assistant could take the time to build a program from the ground up with high school recruits. Back then, you could recruit a high school guy, get him in the weight room, red shirt him and play him by his second season.

Nobody’s got time for that anymore.

You’ve got to get the transfer portal people to win right away.

An instantly recognizable guy with a winning record as a head coach not only would create the kind of excitement with the fan base that would drive NIL money into the program but might bring some of his own players from a winning team and inject that winning culture into Temple.

A guy like Scot Loeffler might bring players from Bowling Green. A guy like Geoff Collins might bring players from UNC.

Doubt very seriously Robinson (or Nixon) bring players from Syracuse.

Had Temple gone, say, for Jim Mora Jr. three years ago instead of Stan Drayton, do you think the Owls would be better off?

I certainly do.

Mora will have UConn–a team Geoff Collins beat 57-7–in two bowl games in the same three years Drayton had the Owls going 9-25.

Past performance is the best indicator of future performance and, with an assistant, there is really nothing to go on but hope.

Hope doesn’t get me to a bowl game but a guy who has proven he can win as a head coach and has Philly and Temple ties will. Go get a guy like that.

Friday: UTSA Preview

11.16.24
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The most consistent 3-9 team in college football history

In the midst of a long season, then Philadelphia Eagles’ head coach Andy Reid seemed frustrated by the questions of the media after a particularly ugly win and ended the press conference with these words:

“Enjoy the win.”

As Temple fans, we have no choice not to after an 18-15 overtime win over visiting Florida Atlantic that raised numerous red, or in this case, Cherry and White flags. It was the ugliest of ugly wins.

One, Temple struggled against an FAU team that got hammered by UConn, 48-14.

Temple should have won at UConn and was an ill-advised tush push away from doing so.

What happened in between?

You don’t need 12-0 seasons to bring this back to Temple. Just a new coach and a lot of 8-4 ones.

My view simply is this: Temple has been going through the motions since that spirited effort at UConn, knowing that it really wasn’t playing for anything but another 3-9 season.

After Saturday, that’s exactly what happened.

One thing we do know about Temple football: In the post-pandemic, post-NIL and post-transfer portal era, it is the most consistent 3-9 football program in FBS history. No school has ever finished 3-9 in even three-straight seasons without firing a coach and Temple will finish with four-straight 3-9s and the emphasis is on finish.

This is one of about 10 guys who can bring Temple football back to respect on a national scale.

One 3-9 Rod Carey season was followed by three 3-9 Stan Drayton seasons and that’s exactly how this thing is going to finish. Don’t give me any bunk about Temple having a chance against either North Texas or UTSA because it doesn’t.

North Texas and UTSA are only light years ahead of FAU and, by association, Temple.

Those two programs may be comparable to UConn but a Temple team playing out the string now and playing for something like it did in the UConn game are two different things.

Temple president John Fry is on the fly list (in this case, not a “no-Fry” list) to UTSA and he will be in the house for the Owls’ final game against North Texas. What he is likely to see is about a 35-14 loss in San Antonio and a 47-17 loss back in Philadelphia.

After that, the question he will present to the BOT is does Temple want to invest in an arms’ race in college football by paying players exorbitant money or does it want to fold up the tent entirely?

Winning would certainly help restore Temple’s image and bring fans back but it would take not only that investment but another significant one in a head coach who knows what he’s doing. That’s the case I would make to Fry if I had a chance to talk to him because a good football team can energize the entire Temple community (see above video).

I can also understand his point of view as a bean-counter.

That’s a lot of scratch and a school invested in doing other things like campus security and a hospital system that hemorrhages money might say the dollar is stretched too far.

If so, Temple’s football most recent legacy will be a maddening consistent 3-9 Final Four seasons.

Enjoy the win.

It might be the last one.

Monday: Debunking an NIL theory

11.11.24
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Urgency all around except Temple

Current UNC DC Geoff Collins wants to return to Temple as HC. Collins is the only TU head coach to never have a losing season here. The Owls have done much worse with their last two hires.

The “plan” for today was to be at the press conference at the Liacouras Center to cover, say, Chris Wiesehan being named interim Temple head football coach as Temple prepares for a national search.

Not happening and I’m not surprised.

Geoff Collins (center) supervises an Oklahoma drill before a game. This team could use a lot more of those drills.

Those plans came with the assumption that Temple operates with the same urgency of its fellow American Athletic Conference football members.

Three weeks ago, ECU fired Mike Houston and was rewarded with an energized group of athletes under new leadership that led to blowout wins over Temple and FAU.

Two weeks ago, Rice fired Mike Blomgren and, after that, the Owls played both Navy and Memphis tough.

Yesterday, FAU head coach Tom Herman fired his DC and associate head coach.

Geoff Collins had the Owls practicing outside during snowstorms and his teams were Temple TUFF.

Meanwhile, Temple DC Everett Withers still has a job after giving up over 37 points a game last year and over 50 points in his last two games.

None of these schools are satisfied with similar starts to Temple and are taking tangible steps to address problem.

At Temple, the thought process appears to be: “Is something wrong? I don’t see it.”

(Hell, even another Group of Five Owls’ team, Kennesaw State, fired its head coach yesterday.)

All of the above moves illustrated a sense of urgency that Temple does not seem to share. It is a sense of urgency that reflects the current reality of college football and the timeline of the transfer portal.

Gone are the days when a school can afford to wait until the end of the season and assess the progress of a program. Now, schools are hiring interim head coaches during the season for a reason and that reason is to stay ahead of the transfer portal timeline. For example, if Collins returns having his former top Georgia Tech assistant, Wiesehan, already here that puts the Temple Owls ahead of the recruiting curve. Definitely beats starting from scratch in late December.

It also gives them a chance to look at promising members of their current staffs to see how the players react and how the team improves or flatlines, all the while keeping contacts with current recruits and current portal targets.

Other AAC schools realize there is no time to waste. It’s well past time for Temple to not only get with the program but fix it.

Friday: FAU Preview

11.07.24
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Temple-Tulane comes down to a question of trust

This could have been at 12th and Norris had Lewis Katz had not gone way too soon.

Back in 2014 when Temple was beating Vanderbilt on the road, 37-7, fellow AAC member Tulane was opening Yulman Stadium.

It was a 30K on-campus stadium for a school used to playing in a big NFL stadium and it revitalized campus life and the football component.

In Philadelphia at the same time, Temple’s Board of Trustees was going in the same direction, approving a 35K on-campus stadium that had all the same intentions of Yulman Stadium, only bigger and better. Yulman was a big-time donor.

On Memorial Day of that same year, Lewis Katz died in a private jet crash.

What Yulman was to Tulane, Katz was to Temple.

Who knows?

Jon Sumrall is a great head coach. Stan Drayton is not. Temple needs a guy like this.

Maybe the Temple Stadium would have been named Katz Stadium and maybe Temple’s upward trajectory would have continued well past the Matt Rhule years.

Now Katz is gone Temple plays Tulane on Saturday (4 p.m., ESPNU). Katz had a lot to do with both the hiring of Steve Addazio (bowl winner) and Matt Rhule (AAC conference champion) as the head of the athletics committee at Temple both times.

Had Katz lived, do you think he would have hired guys like Geoff Collins, Manny Diaz, Rod Carey and Stan Drayton?

I don’t think so but we will never know.

Saturday’s game comes down to a matter of trust.

Do you trust Temple with Drayton and his sieve-like DC Everett Withers or do you trust a guy who made Troy a national power (Jon Sumrall)?

Not a betting man when it comes to the school I love but, if I was, I would lay the 25.5 points on the Green Wave and not blink an eye.

At Troy, Sumrall was a guy like current Temple OL coach Chris Wiesehan–an assistant who had the blueprint of success at that school drawn up by current West Virginia head coach Neal Brown. Wiesehan has all the secrets of Geoff Collins and Matt Rhule, two guys he worked under, at Temple.

When Brown went to the Moutaineers, Troy said, hey, we have a diamond in our own backyard in Sumrall. We don’t need to go elsewhere.

Sumrall took those receipts and made Troy better.

Now he parlayed that into a better job at Tulane, bringing with him his DC and OC and faces a RB head coach in Drayton and a DC who hasn’t been able to stop anyone in the last two decades. It’s Homecoming there. In a packed on-campus stadium that revitalized Tulane football from a few thousand fans rattling around the New Orleans Superdome to a college experience students will remember the rest of their lives.

Tulane went out and hired a head coach who proved he could get it done.

As a head coach, not a running back coach.

Who would you take?

I’ll be rooting hard for my team but I don’t trust my coaches. Have no doubt that my kids will play hard but I don’t see a DC who has ever believed in putting the other quarterback on his ass to my satisfaction. In fact, he lets every QB Temple faces pick his defense apart. Bruce Arians famously said while head coach at Temple that the best pass defense is putting the other quarterback on his ass. Everett Withers’ philosophy is to drop way to many guys into pass coverage and never risk sending way too many guys to force sacks and fumbles.

That’s a passive defensive philosophy and definitely not Temple TUFF.

Hate to say this, I trust the bad guys’ coaches a lot more.

Tulane 48, Temple 10 is about the right prediction. Praying for Temple to win, 24-23, but God might be saying: “Mike, hey, I’m God, but I can only do so much.”

Late Saturday Night: Tulane game analysis

11.03.24
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Will Temple have a press conference if it finishes 2-10?

Stan talks about the American Conference here but doesn’t make any promises about the bottom line.

Even though Temple football didn’t play over the weekend, the results on the field elsewhere in the American Conference don’t paint a rosy picture for the bottom line.

Tulsa, a team Temple beat, was manhandled by a bad UAB team. UTSA, a team that some thought was a possible win down the line, beat Memphis in the same stadium the Owls have to visit.

So the Tulsa win may have been overvalued and, while the team might have had thoughts of a win at UTSA, that becomes less likely by the way the Roadrunners looked against Memphis.

Two and 10 is a definitely possibility now and you’ve got to wonder if Temple will even do what “normal” schools do when a coach goes 3-9, 3-9, and 2-10: Hold a press conference and bring in another head coach.

That’s not a given.

Drayton was optimistic going into the season as the above video shows but the results are the results.

“I’m excited about this football team,” Drayton said three months ago. “This off-season we were able to put together a roster that enhanced our football team.”

That may be so, but the bottom line is the bottom line. You have to win. Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.

Why is Temple 2-6 if the roster is enhanced? Doesn’t that seem to imply it is the coaching?

“We had some major voids in the defensive line and the offensive line,” Drayton said back in July. “We’ve gotten bigger. We’re not trying to find excuses. We’re setting some standards that are really high.”

The Owls head to Tulane, which has only lost to Oklahoma and Kansas State, as 25.5-point underdogs. Tulane probably is the most physically talented team the Owls will have faced all season, with the possible exception of Oklahoma.

IF … and this is a big IF … the Owls have one win left in them, it looks like maybe a home win against FAU but Tom Herman also is thinking the same thing about Temple.

Drayton can avoid that departing press conference by beating FAU, UTSA and North Texas but now that seems as likely as those teams beating Alabama, Georgia and Texas.

The gap appears to be that large.

A normal school would have a press conference to say something to the effect that Drayton is a great guy but the number on the left hand side of the win column never exceeded the number on the right side and that’s why we have to move on.

It will be impossible to sell any season tickets coming off 1-6, 3-9, 3-9, 3-9, and 2-10 years. The crowds have eroded from respectable to nearly non-existent over those years. This is a fan base that got used to going to bowls on a regular basis between 2009 and 2019. These fans can take one or two years of building, but not five consecutive ones.

You know that. I know that. The question is, “Does Temple know that?”

Or does Temple even care?

While that press conference three months ago was nice, the one at the end of the year appears to be a necessity now.

Friday: Tulane Preview