Tag Archives: Stan Drayton

11.06.23
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Last three games: Have fun and play loose

One of the greatest plays in Temple football history, courtesy of Al Golden and Matt Rhule

One day, if it’s not too late, Stan Drayton will stand up and tell his players to have fun and play loose and hard on both sides of the ball.

Maybe he already has.

The Temple football Owls seemed to be playing very tight for the five-straight games they were dominated but, for some reason, they swarmed to the football–particularly on defense–and seemed to have a whole lot of fun in a 32-18 win over Navy on Saturday.

That was fun to see.

Playing tight never seems to work so maybe the attitude will carry over into how the coaches approach the game as well.

I don’t think Temple can finish 6-6–a Memphis team that beat Boise State and hung right at the end with Missouri looks like it is going to come to Philadelphia bent on revenge for losing to both Rod Carey and Geoff Collins in its last two trips to Philadelphia. Beating the Tigers might be a bridge too far for this talent grouping.

I think, though, if Temple can play fast and loose the rest of this season that UAB and USF are beatable. USF and the Owls both beat Navy by two touchdowns and, virtually this same Temple team beat USF, 54-28 a year ago. I’m not taking about being loose with the football as the Owls have to do a much better job with ball security but some imagination in the play calling would not hurt.

That means more “imaginative” plays on offense and more run and pass blitzing on defense.

This season can remotely resemble the 2008 season when the Owls won two of their last three to finish 5-7. In that season, the Owls often showed imagination on offense as a young OC named Matt Rhule would toss in five-to-seven trick plays to keep the Owls interested in practice and the bad guys on their toes.

Maybe a fake kneel down like Adam DiMichele pulled off (top video) would work. Certainly, it would work better than the Owls wasting their offensive timeouts at the end of each half in so many of their games this year.

Speaking of DiMichele, E.J. Warner passed the former Temple and current Nebraska assistant on the all-time yardage list on Saturday. Warner’s flea-flicker touchdown to John Adams against UTSA was this year’s most imaginative Temple play.

More of that please.

If the coaches inserted a few fun plays into every game plan, who knows? Maybe the so-called trick plays open up a run game that had been under lockdown all year.

Anything to keep the bad guys honest and watching the good guys making plays and having fun would be the perfect way to close out the year.

Friday: USF Preview

11.04.23
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Some much-needed respect

Respect is earned, not given, and, honestly, the Temple football Owls didn’t deserve much respect over the first eight games of this rapidly ending season.

When Temple wins, the Owls have more people talking about them than an Insurrection, Tucker Carlson and Trumpers.

It took until Game 9 for the Owls to earn it, though, and earn they did, with a 32-18 win over a Navy team that already did enough to earn respect on the basis of its prior games.

Had not one player fumbled twice on consecutive plays, it probably would have been 39-11 instead of 32-18.

The worst thing, though, about Temple’s five-game losing streak was reading so many of the comments that “Temple should drop football” and “give it up, we’re not good at this” because other schools lose games and don’t have to listen to that garbage.

Nobody on any Navy site is calling for the Middies to drop football and concentrate on basketball after the Temple loss and neither should anybody from Temple overreact the other way when adversity faces the Owls.

It was just seven short years ago that Temple pummeled No. 22-ranked Navy in the AAC championship game, 34-10, proving a couple of things.

Temple can win in this sport and a fan base that has something to cheer for will show up, as 10,000 Owl fans who traveled 120 miles proved that afternoon.

Just win, baby.

This slap made my day.

We’re not going to overreact either way today because the Owls looked so bad in those five games there is a strong argument to be made that the Navy game was an outlier. Even the other two wins were nothing to write home about. Akron hasn’t exactly set the world on fire since losing to the Owls and Norfolk State still has a Division II blemish loss on its record.

Here’s what we do know, though. Temple is a representative team with quarterback E.J. Warner in the lineup. In my mind, UTSA will win this year’s AAC title because it has a seven-year quarterback and a great coach but the Owls were still within shouting distance of that team late in the fourth quarter with Warner. Even coming off a concussion, Warner finished an insane 27 for 33 with 402 yards and four touchdowns against Navy.

For that, he became the first Temple player in history (I wasn’t around in 1934) to be carried by his teammates in the lockeroom.

I’ve never seen a Temple player carried off the field in my lifetime (Dick Beck and other Owls carried Bruce Arians off the field in 1988). If Warner wins four-straight to close out the season, expect him to be carried off the field after a win over visiting Memphis. (Temple has beaten Memphis the last two times it came into Philadelphia.)

As Temple head coach Stan Drayton said after the win over Navy, “You can’t spell Warner without a W” and E.J. slapped that W on the Lincoln Financial Field wall with some added gusto.

Scary, though, because what happens to the Owls without Warner? Obviously, all three backups are light years behind him so let’s enjoy the Owls while we have him.

Navy isn’t great, but is pretty good. The Middies beat both Charlotte (14-0) and North Texas (27-24). They hung with USF (44-30) and a really good Memphis team (28-24). Temple has both USF and Memphis left on the schedule. It will have to win those games plus scratch out a win at UAB to get a bowl bid.

Impossible?

No.

Likely?

Also no.

If the Owls are able to keep Warner clean and avoid fumbles, they have a shot and, at this point, this is all we can ask.

After being a national laughingstock for five-straight weeks, any morsel of respect is both needed and appreciated.

Monday: The Road Forward

10.30.23
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Navy week: Headed for a dubious record

Current Charlotte DC Ryan Osborn explains how to stop the triple option four years ago. He held this Navy team to 14 points.

Say what you will about Everett Withers’ performance in his last two DC jobs.

He’s consistent.

Say what you will about Everett Withers' performance in his last two DC jobs. He's consistent.
Withers in 2023 ….

As the Florida International DC only two short years ago, his team gave up 39.7 points per game in a dozen games for a grand total of 476 points. As DC for Temple in 2023, his unit has given up 38 points a game with four left.

Maddeningly consistent.

He’s on the verge of breaking a dubious mark: With four games left, Owls have to give up “only” 43 points a game for this team to pass that one in futility.

If you think that’s not possible, the trend for Temple has been downward. All talk of a bowl game is out the window. It would take a minor miracle for this team to finish 3-9 for a third-straight year.

Temple TUFF is becoming a distant memory.

The Owls have given up more than 40 points per game in five-straight games and their tackling will be put to the test by Navy this Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field (2 p.m., ESPN+).

This is historically bad territory for Temple. The Owls haven’t given up 40+ points a game in five consecutive games since Ron Dickerson’s 1994 season. That’s hard to do because it also includes Bobby Wallace’s last season (0-11) and Al Golden’s first season (1-11).

…. Withers in 2021

This will be the first time Withers has faced a triple-option service academy team in a long time. He did not face one at FIU nor did he face one in his prior three years as head coach at Texas State (2016-18).

It might help to go over 2016 Temple film for a primer. In the opening game that season, the Owls fell to Army, 29-13, going with their usual 4-3 defense. They left the “A gap” open and the Army fullback gouged them for over 100 yards.

They finished that season with a 34-10 win over an even better Navy team in the AAC championship game, going to a 5-2 taking away the Navy fullback by putting a nose guard over the center and stringing the Navy offense from sideline to sideline where the Owls could use their superior speed. Both Averee Robinson and Freddy Booth-Lloyd alternated at nose guard for the Owls on that glorious championship afternoon.

Phil Snow adjusted from the lesson of the opener and applied a fix to the closing game plan.

Does anyone here think Withers has the knack for defensive adjustments that Snow had? Do you even think he spends the requisite hours in film study in his current and past jobs?

The numbers certainly don’t reflect that.

In fact, they are headed in a historic Southerly direction and head coach Stan Drayton is giving every indication that Withers will be able to do the same damage to Temple that he did to FIU by refusing to fire him.

FIU recovered from the Withers’ Era. It’s not entirely clear that Temple will be able to do the same.

Friday: Navy Preview

Late Saturday Night: Navy Analysis

10.27.23
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Deja Vu All Over Again

SCOTUS judge Potter Stewart said “I know obscenity when when I see it” and this is obscenity.

Like many of my tailgate buddies for many years, I met a couple of future good friends in front of Veterans Stadium one day long before Temple Football Forever was ever conceived or before I even wore Temple swag to the games.

I was wearing an “Upper Bucks YMCA” sweatshirt and they were from Upper Black Eddy, which I only knew as the Upper Bucks’ home of then National League baseball President Bill White. (I knew Bill because he was one of our biggest local celebrities and I worked for the local newspaper at the time.)

My newest friend at that time pointed to the sweatshirt, I explained the connection (I lived in Quakertown at the time), talked a little Bill White and The Riegelsville Inn and we became fast Temple tailgate buddies for maybe 30 years now, if not more.

The last year Temple played at The Vet, both of us would point to the stadium going up across the street and say: “We need to get into that stadium next year.” We did.

I only remember this story because he said his wife said something last week: “This reminds me of the Ron Dickerson Years.”

Hmm, I thought. This season sounds and feels very Ron Dickersonish. She might have had a point. I looked it up and found a gem of a tweet from a guy named Hayden.

I’m sure Hayden means “following the week 3 win, not loss” but his point is well-taken here.

Just by crunching the numbers, a Temple football season hasn’t been THIS BAD since Ron Dickerson was the head coach.

This is even worse than the 20-game losing streak Bobby Wallace left Temple first-year head coach Al Golden, who by some miracle, was able to beat a Bowling Green team in his first year that dropped a 70-burger on Wallace in consecutive years.

Stevie Wonder could see the 1-11 Owls improve in that first year under Golden. Superman with X-ray vision cannot see the 2-6 Owls improve in this second year under Stan Drayton. They were 3-9 last year. It will now take a miracle to achieve a third-straight 3-9 season. You fire a 3-9 coach and pay off $6 million of his contract to go forward and not sideways.

Right now, this is going backward.

This is almost a carbon copy of the 1994 Temple season and that’s historically bad.

Who to blame?

x

Certainly not the players. They returned 15 starters from a team that was competitive in many more games in 2022 than 2023. They hired a defensive coach who has no idea how to stop a modern offense after having a defensive coach who was competent enough to be hired by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Do you think Everett Withers has a chance to be hired by the Philadelphia Eagles next season?

I think even the Rockledge Eagles might pass on his services if he became available.

The 1994 season was one where Dickerson resigned on the spot following a 53-52 loss to Pitt, only to renege on the resignation a couple of days later. Temple had a 4th and 2 at midfield at Pitt Stadium only to go for it, give the Panthers a short field and see them score a last-second touchdown. Had the Owls merely punted there, Pitt would have had to go the length of the field with 52 seconds left no timeouts.

A lot of people are blaming the NIL and transfer portal for Drayton’s failures this season but I’m not buying it. This season is the result of a bad hire in a key spot. Thirty-four points against UTSA and 26 points against Tulsa should have been enough to win if the defense just performed to last year’s level.

That’s flipping a horrid 2-6 to a representative 4-4.

The fact that Drayton hasn’t fired Withers in this off week is a clear signal he’s willing to go down with the ship rather than plug the holes to save it. That message is received loud and clear not only by Temple fans but his players, the staff and the administration who have to be wondering what the hell is going on here.

Unfortunately, that means we all go down with the ship and if it reminds you of the time you spent shivering in a raft looking at an iceberg 29 years ago before being fished out of the sea then you are correct.

Major props to Mrs. Winkel for pointing out that cold hard fact and to a guy named Hayden Bandel for providing the receipts.

Monday: Navy Week

10.22.23
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5 Former TU Coaches Who Are Doing Great Jobs

Not for a hot minute do I think any of the five guys I mention below will ever take the Temple football head coaching job if it became free tomorrow.
I started following Curt Cignetti at the beginning of the year and found it interesting that at least two newer followers are current Temple Owls.

Not for a hot minute do I think any of the five guys I mention below will ever take the Temple football head coaching job if it became free tomorrow.

That’s a shame because for more than a minute anyone of them would have in a yesterday not that long ago. It was a primo G5 once. It is not that anymore.

Desai when at TU

You’ve got to wonder might have been. Temple football’s recent head coaching hires, including this current one, have no history with the school. In the not-so-distant past, Temple could have hired a number of guys who did but, for some reason, looked elsewhere.

Temple’s football history is replete with near-misses and what can’t be argued is the five guys below who once sought the Temple head coaching position are doing great jobs now.

What also can’t be argued is that the current job-holder is not. Stan Drayton’s closest connection to Temple is that he once coached at Villanova and Penn.

Not close enough.

Only a guy who coached at Villanova and Penn could regress the Temple program behind those two at a salary of $2.5 million a year.

Right now, they look like the third-best team in the city and I would take FCS members Penn and Villanova in a head-to-head matchup with the Owls.

I’m serious. It’s that bad. I’m kinda glad I don’t have to make that bet. I would not plunk a penny on Temple and that’s my favorite sports team, way more than the Eagles and Phillies who are distant second and thirds.

The team has regressed this year and it’s pretty much his fault. Depending upon which game participation chart you believe in, the Owls returned anywhere from 15-19 starters from a team that finished 3-9 last year and teased their fans by losing in the last second to a pair of bowl teams at the end of last year.

They haven’t delivered. These five guys have:

Curt Cignetti _ The JMU head coach and former Temple assistant has James Madison 7-0 with wins over Virginia (which won at North Carolina yesterday) and Marshall (which won at Notre Dame last year). Nobody is doing a better job in college football. A quarterbacks’ coach for four years at Temple, Cignetti, 62, went for the Owls’ head job in 2005, 2010 and when Geoff Collins got it in 2016. A compelling argument can be made that no one in college football is doing a worse job than Drayton so with Cignetti and Drayton we have opposite ends of the spectrum. Salary: $425,000 a year.

Scot Loeffler as a TU OC.

Sean Desai _ the 40-year-old former Temple special teams coach applied for the Temple job twice and was turned down twice. He now has the Eagles’ defense as one of the best in the NFL as their coordinator. He has a Temple degree and was a Temple professor as well as a football coach. Sunday night, he held a Miami team that scored 70 points on Denver to just one offensive touchdown. Salary: $1.5 million-a-year.

Mike MacIntyre _ Two years ago, Florida International didn’t even have money for uniforms. Now the Panthers who are led by Macintyre won at UConn and are 4-4 compared to Temple’s 2-5. At Temple, he was the DC when the Owls won at No. 14 Virginia Tech, 28-24. In 2012, as head coach at San Jose State, the Spartans finished No. 23 in the final AP poll. Macintyre beat a North Texas team that embarrassed Drayton. Nobody has less NIL or transfer portal money than FIU. Mcintrye didn’t look for excuses he just found a way to win. He applied for the Temple job in both 2005 and 2010. Salary: $750,000-a-year.

Scot Loeffler _ The former Temple offensive coordinator applied for the Owls’ job immediately after Steve Addazio left for BC and, when it became apparent Temple was going in another direction, decided to join Daz as BC’s offensive coordinator. This year, Loeffler has led Bowling Green–with significantly less resources than Temple–to a win at Georgia Tech. On Saturday, his team pummeled an Akron team, 41-14, that Drayton was only able to beat by the skin of his teeth. Salary: $525,000-a-year.

Al Golden _ Currently Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator, he was “consulted” for his input by Temple athletic director Arthur Johnson before Johnson decided to hire his Texas football buddy Drayton. Hard to believe that Golden would have recommended Drayton considering he never worked with him. Something tells me that if Johnson had asked, “How about you, Al?” he would have said yes. We will never know. I do know this: A secretary that worked with Al Golden was there when Al turned out the lights of his office at Temple for the last time and told me Al shook his head and said, “I love this place.” Those were Al’s final words at Temple before he was inducted into the Hall of Fame there a year ago. I think he would have loved it enough to return if he had been convinced by the powers-that-be that only he could save it. Salary: $1.5 million-a-year.

It only makes sense that someone who knows the 10th and Diamond landscape would do better than the carpetbaggers Temple has brought in since Matt Rhule.

Five forks in the road for Temple football. Making the wrong turn at least a couple times might prove to be its downfall.

Friday: Numbers Comparison

10.20.23
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TU Needs to Have an honest convo about Drayton

In a perfect world, on private jet somewhere, Lew Katz would have watched Temple lose a 55-0 game on national television to SMU, made a call or two and Stan Drayton would be out as the head coach of his favorite university on Saturday morning.

There are Lew Katz’s all over college football. Temple, unfortunately, no longer has one of those guys. Drew Katz, his son, is on the BOT now but, unlike his dad, cares more about keeping that money in his pocket than making Temple great.

Since jet engines are as imperfect as hiring RB coaches to be head coaches, though, Katz is no longer here and Temple has no one in any position of authority who can make a hard and necessary call right now.

Temple, put it simply, is between a rock and a hard place.

Everyone–including me–loves Stan Drayton The Man.

Football world–including me–pretty much already has mind made up on Stan Drayton the head coach.

We need to have an honest conversation about Drayton today.

Temple University has committed way too much money to a lifetime RB coach and expected him to do a completely different job at a high level. He has not. It looks like he never will. He has three years in his contract for $2.5 million a year and a university with more pressing security issues simply cannot afford to eat the money it would take to replace him.

CBS radio host Zach Gelb and Jacksonville kicker Brandon McManus muse about what happened to a once-great program.

Ask yourself this question: Which university is getting the best ROI? Florida Atlantic, which hired Tom Herman as a first-year coach for $700,000 or Temple, which is paying Drayton $2.5 million in his second season?

Katz certainly could and would write a check for whatever it would take to get someone else in here STAT.

Unfortunately for the Owls, there are no Lew Katz’s around anymore.

Nobody cares might be too big a stretch but the 1,000 or so real fans who sat in the seats at the 70,000-seat Lincoln Financial Field is not enough to move the needle.

The Peter Principle certainly is in effect here.

Drayton was a great RB coach wherever he went. Great RB coaches aren’t always cut out to be great head coaches. Drayton certainly has proved that much in his year and a half here.

Our picks this week. We’re a quarter on our way to a $266 payout for four measley games. Thanks, Stan and Everett. (Rather have Temple win and eat the money but this is getting too easy.)

He knew the Owls needed help on both the offensive and defensive lines and failed to replenish both in the offseason. A good CEO would have brought in a dozen great FCS linemen. He knew he needed a great defensive coordinator to replace D.J. Eliot, who left for the Eagles, and replaced him with a “friend” who was not a qualified person.

I’d rather have a great recruiting SOB signal stealer who wins than a nice guy who loses.

For all of these sins, Drayton deserves to be replaced.

Because Lew Katz is not here, we know he won’t.

Rock, meet hard place.

If Temple choses to drop football in a May BOT meeting instead of continuing to pay an unwise contract going forward, don’t blame Drayton.

Blame Temple for hiring a running back coach for what should have been a primo G5 job.

Monday: Five G5 HCs who are doing a great job

10.20.23
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Temple-SMU: Quitting time?

You know the worm has turned when the national broadcasters who used to rave about “Temple TUFF” eight years ago are mentioning another four-letter word about Temple football:

Quit.

While quitting time for the week for most workers usually is 5 p.m. on every Friday, it will be less than three hours later the rest of the nation decides whether the Temple football Owls have punched the clock out for the rest of the season.

With good reason.

Bud Elliott of CBS Sports’ Cover 3 podcast casually stuck in that word at the end of his analysis of tonight’s Temple-SMU game (ESPN2, 7 p.m.).

“Temple might be on quit watch,” Elliott said.

In a tribute to his hometown in New Jersey, Jahad Thomas channels his inner Fred Sanford eight years ago yesterday when the Owls’ made No. 22 in the AP poll.

It’s not a phrase he uses lightly. Unlike most national experts, Elliott has watched a lot of Temple. In fact, the “Cover 3 podcast” really is the only national podcast other than the “College Football Show” (Gary Seagers, Kyle Hunter and Parker Fleming) that ever talks Group of Five football. (Josh Pate, we are looking at you. The next time Pate mentions a G5 team will be his first.)

For the record, I don’t think the Owls have quit yet but NFL fans saw the Philadelphia Eagles “allow” the Jets to score a touchdown on Sunday and the entire defensive effort for Temple looked like that pretty much all year. In reality, the Owls aren’t laying down as much as they are following the schemes of an inept defensive coordinator, Everett Withers, who allowed 39.7 points a game in his last full-time DC job (FIU, 2021) and he’s doing his best to exceed those dismal numbers at Temple this season.

We warned everyone about that in this space back on St. Patty’s Day and we weren’t even drinking then.

Elliott is expecting SMU to put a “50 burger” on the Owls and it’s up to the players to disabuse him of that notion tonight and make it a competitive game.

Mostly the defensive players.

I will grant Bud this point: Last year the defensive side of the football fought like hell. Just think back to the Rutgers’ game when Layton Jordan was sacking Big 10 quarterbacks like it was going out of style and teammate Tre Thomas was the best defensive player on the field that day. Temple’s defense was taking off RU heads, figuratively of course.

I don’t see the same “Temple TUFF” his year. We are running out of days and nights to see that same kind of toughness again. The current Temple players owe it to the past Temple teams to try to shut out SMU. Show some life. Sack the quarterback and strip him of the football. Pick balls off on defense and take them the other way.

That’s what Temple football teams used to do not all that long ago.

The really sad thing about this is Temple was on the opposite of “quit watch” eight years ago this week.

On Oct. 18, 2015 the 7-0 Owls moved up from No. 25 the prior week to No. 22 in the AP ranking. That was the highest the Owls made it in that all-important poll since they finished No. 17 in both the AP and the UPI polls in 1979. By Halloween, they would make it to No. 21 and play a knockdown drag out battle with Notre Dame in the ABC Saturday Night Game of the Week before the largest Philadelphia TV audience that watched any college football game.

Ever.

Temple University as a school could not buy that kind of publicity and the result was a record freshman enrollment for the 2016 scholastic season.

Only four years ago this week Temple also made the Top 25 of the Coaches Poll.

Since then, we’ve seen a Midwestern coach flop his way out of Philadelphia like a fish out of water and the next guy hire a defensive coordinator “friend” with a terrible record of allowing points turning a group of better-than-average players into a team that seemingly doesn’t know where to line up and are tentative when they should be attacking.

Some friend.

Another blowout loss tonight and we know what four-letter word the nation will be uttering about Temple football.

Hint: It won’t be TUFF.

Tomorrow: Game Analysis and Saturday picks

10.16.23
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For Temple, a quick fix is a must

All over college football, Group of Five teams with resources similar to Temple’s are doing big things. The Owls are not.

My much older friend is irritated by my lack of patience in waiting for Temple to stack together some wins this year after teasing us with some close losses last season.

“Stick with us,” he says, “it takes a long time to build a program.”

Ten years or so ago, I might have agreed.

Heck, five years ago a compelling argument could be made for his case.

Not now.

Jon Sumrall was an assistant at Troy in the successful regime under Neal Brown. When he was asked to come back as a HC in 2022, he didn’t have to undergo a learning curve at his new school.

All over college football Group of Five teams are firing head coaches one year and turning things around the next.

Look at Troy, which went up to Army and won, 19-0, on Saturday.

Jon Sumrall turned Troy around in one year, (not two, three or five) last year. He replaced Chip Lindsay, who went 5-7 before getting fired in 2021. In one year, Troy went from 5-7 to 12-2.

Never expected Temple to go from 3-9 to 12-2 but 3-9 to 5-7 should not have been asking too much in 2022 and that should have set the Owls up for a winning season this year.

That’s progress. What we’re seeing is not.

Temple went from 3-9 in Rod Carey’s last season to 3-9 in Stan Drayton’s first season. It’s hard to imagine right now where Temple’s third win will come this season. The product the Owls put on the field this year is a disgrace and much more an indictment of the coach and the overall organization than the players. Last year’s “progress” was linear. This year looks like a regression. You could see the players fighting like hell last year, even in losses. I don’t see that same fight this year. They have a new guy pushing buttons on defense and he’s pushing all the wrong ones. Players who left were not replaced. Depth which could have been built with portal transfers was ignored. Three scholarships that could have gone to established FCS stars were left on the table and given to Temple walk-ons instead.

The overall plan needs to change.

Go on the Troy message boards and you will find the same posts ripping Lindsay’s incompetence that you found on the Temple boards ripping Rod Carey. They accused Lindsay of setting Troy’s program back five years, just like Temple fans did Carey.

Sumrall didn’t want to hear any of that. He rolled up his sleeves and went to work.

How did Troy do it?

They hired someone very familiar with the Troy recruiting base in Sumrall and a guy who hit the portal hard for (mostly) FCS players. That’s a real good level of football, a few steps up from Temple’s stated plan of recruiting JUCOs and high school players. With 19 new starters last year, mostly FCS starters who Sumrall identified in the portal, Troy went 12-2. Sumrall’s familiarity with a successful prior regime cannot be understated. The closest coach at Temple who currently fits that profile is offensive line coach Chris Wiesehan, who was a big part of both Matt Rhule’s and Geoff Collins’ success here.

Troy did not get a 70 burger dropped on it in Sumrall’s first season like Drayton got dropped on his first team.

There is no big bag of NIL cash at Troy to entice those players, just an opportunity for success at a next level up.

Betting against Everett Withers has been money in the bank so far this season, he’s been that predictably bad. I’d rather lose the bet and see Temple win but if I’m going to suffer I want to get paid for it.

Temple does not have time to recruit and develop high school recruits anymore nor should it. The Board of Trustees is watching the school’s athletic reputation dragged through the mud like Drayton is dragging down Temple’s reputation by losing big to no-names like Tulsa and North Texas. You’ve got to think that it is considering cutting its losses if some serious progress isn’t shown on the field soon.

Charlotte hired a new coach in Biff Poggi, who brought in 70 new players and none of them were high school kids. The Charlotte kids play hard and were within a touchdown at SMU in the fourth quarter this season. They lost on Saturday to Navy, 14-0, but they were not embarrassed by either Maryland (38-20) or Florida (22-7). There is progress there this year in his first year that hasn’t been shown at Temple in Drayton’s second.

Last year, G5 schools like Marshall (beating Notre Dame), Georgia Southern (Nebraska) and MTSU (Miami) had big-time wins and this year no less than 11 G5 schools have beaten P5 schools.

Temple isn’t one of them.

Schools like Troy and Charlotte have crafted a blueprint for Drayton to follow. Drayton is old school trying to build a program an old way that won’t work in the transfer portal era. He needs to get with the program fast or we might not have one to follow.

This year might be a wash but next year doesn’t have to be.

Hit the portal hard and get some great players from the FCS level who would appreciate the opportunity to shine. Recruiting high school kids and waiting for them to develop is something Temple does not have time for anymore.

The time to win is now. Last year should have been the developmental year.

Those who think it “takes a long time” to build a program will invariably find out they’ve run out of it.

Friday: SMU Preview

Saturday: SMU analysis

10.14.23
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Temple football: At least one head needs to roll

Just when every Temple football fan thought we’d never sink to the depths of the Rod Carey Error, the Mariana Trench could not hold how far the program sank on Saturday.

Put it this way: Twice this season, Temple’s defense performed on a lower level than that of both Abilene Christian and Arkansas Pine-Bluff.

Much lower.

Lower than whale shit.

The Mariana Trench, near Guam and Saipan, is 36,000 feet under the surface of the earth–the lowest place near the center of the earth.

Temple Football Forever, March 17, 2023

Arguably, Temple’s defense was lower than that in a 45-14 loss at North Texas on Saturday.

You could make an argument that multiple heads need to roll but there can be no argument that one head needs to roll.

Everett Withers.

Withers inherited nine starters from a defense that didn’t wow anyone but did “hold” Navy to 20 points and Navy was a team that beat current Big 12 team UCF.

Withers also inherited the same players who “held” Tulsa to 29 points. That seems like a comical hold but not when you consider Withers took those same players and “held” Tulsa to 48 points less than a year later.

Temple Football Forever on Dec. 3, 2021–a dozen days BEFORE Stan Drayton was hired as head coach here.

How do Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Abilene Christian factor into this?

Well, APB held Tulsa to fewer points (42) than Temple did and Abilene Christian gave up the same number of points Temple did to North Texas.

Temple was a once-proud program. It is not that anymore. It cannot be dragged to the depths of Abilene Christian and Arkansas Pine-Bluff. It needs to rise to respect level of at least Syracuse, Maryland and Pitt.

You have to ask this question: How did Temple devolve from a team that beat Penn State in 2015 and Maryland in consecutive years (2018 and 2019) to a team that is performing on a worse level than Arkansas Pine-Bluff and Abilene Christian?

The answer is bad hires.

Stan Drayton’s hire looks very bad right now. Everett Withers’ hire looks much worse.

Drayton, to his credit, didn’t have a track record for being a head coach and maybe Arthur Johnson deserves a pass for that hire. Still, if you are a Temple person, you have to question a “Texas director of football operations” hiring a “Texas assistant coach” for the top job at 10th and Diamond.

Drayton himself does not deserve a pass for his hire of Everett Withers. Everyone in America knew Withers had a terrible record as a DC before Drayton hired him in March but for some reason nobody understands, Drayton looks at Withers like Travis Kelce looks at Taylor Swift.

Temple was trending nationally at 3:30 Saturday for all the wrong reasons.

Somebody needs an eye exam and it’s not Kelce. It’s not like Drayton doesn’t have good options. Chris Woods is a former USFL defensive coordinator and he’s working at 10th and Diamond now. He could not do worse than Withers and there’s a real good chance he could do much better.

If Drayton doesn’t fire Withers no later than Monday, he is telling you in as many words he cares more about long-term friendships than he does about Temple or his players or even you the fans.

If he tells you that, more than one head will need to roll and the sooner the better.

Monday: The Fix Is In

10.13.23
by

North Texas: The Eclipse Game

Sometime in the middle of the second quarter of Temple’s game at North Texas, a solar eclipse will darken at least 80 percent of the sun for maybe 17-29 minutes of the game.

It will be the first eclipse game in Temple football history. Maybe the eclipse changes the Owls’ fortunes. Maybe not. Think the Eagles at Chicago Bears’ “fog bowl” for a historical perspective.

Of all the games in the country, Temple will be the darkest game in the middle of the second quarter. I’m guessing they have science at North Texas and know this.

Gotta hope the folks at North Texas are aware of that and keep the lights on for the short time day becomes night in Denton.

Around that time, though, the light has to turn on for Temple football or this season is over.

Some people who do not wear Cherry and White glasses (see above video) believe in Temple here. The line has dropped from North Texas being an 8.5-point favorite (Monday) to a five-point favorite (today) and that means the “wise guys” are backing Temple.

The hard reality is that Temple will not be favored in another game this season unless the Owls are able to string two or three wins together.

Our picks this week.Logic is SDSU has much better coaches than Hawaii. Troy is a sneaky good team, the Charlotte kids play incredibly hard and the Iowa State loss at a good Ohio team was as fluky as it comes. For the season we are 8-8 against the spread and 16-8 overall.

This might have been what the “general public” expected but not what I expected listening to the glowing reports coming out of camp from March spring practice until the kickoff of the first game against Akron. We were told this was the best offensive line at Temple in years and all we’ve seen is that Isaac Moore’s blocking has been missed more than we thought and nobody can keep the bad guys away from E.J. Warner on any consistent basis. On top of that, we haven’t seen anything like Edward Saydee’s 254-yard game against USF last year and that’s a big indictment on the offensive line.

Worse, the defense had nine returning starters and a “normal” defensive coordinator replacement for the departed D.J. Eliot (Eagles) should have been able to post a shutout or two.

Instead, we got a friend of the boss (Stan Drayton) with a dismal record of stopping modern offenses coming into the season and he proved that old saying from Bill Parcells “you are what your record says you are.”

Everett Withers’ record screams “I suck” and has since 1985. (When he posted his last shutout as a DC.) Withers strikes me as a guy who punches the clock at 9 a.m. and punches out at 5 p.m. and if additional film study is needed at midnight to help his kids stop any future foes he just says “fuck it. I’m outta here.”

That, apparently, never bothered Drayton and he has reaped what he has sowed. He loves the guy evidently more than he loves Temple because it has not bothered him sufficiently enough to fire him after he gave up 48 points against Tulsa and 49 against UTSA. Blind spots will get you fired as a head coach and Drayton has a blind spot with Everett Withers.

I love Temple and if I was the Temple head coach, I would not have tolerated 48 and 49 point games from any defensive coach. Even given the hiring freeze by Temple, I would have told Withers he was free to go elsewhere and promoted a professional defensive coordinator (Chris Woods, USFL) to the top job.

A North Texas offense that has had success against any defense other than Navy last week figures to feast on Temple tomorrow (noon, ESPNU).

The only hope the Owls have is to outscore the Mean Green.

That is possible only if E.J. Warner’s replicates his five-touchdown, 472-yard performance against UTSA a week ago.

It figures to be a shootout. I’m guessing E.J. Warner has studied more North Texas defensive film than Withers has Mean Green offensive film.

Knowing E.J., I think that is a better bet and that’s sad because he’s not pulling down the half million Withers is stealing from Temple.

Temple 39, North Texas 35.

Let’s hope this is the start of something big. Failing that, something bigger than we’ve seen so far. In a 2-4 season, we’ve had enough of watching the Owls come up small.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis