Tag Archives: Stan Drayton

03.05.23
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Spring Ball: Necessary work without tangible results

Somebody told the truth about spring football at Temple this week.

We won’t say the name to protect the innocent but he was wearing what looked like the No. 24 and came up with this gem of a quote:

“It feels fake. It’s not the real season. I’ll see y’all in August.”

Honest.

And true.

Really, how much will you or me or even Stan Drayton know about the Owls after April 8th (Cherry and White Day)?

Almost nothing.

To me, the three priorities in the offseason were to improve both lines and the running game.

Two out of three ain’t bad but is it good enough?

I don’t feel like the running game has improved but other areas of the team have, like talent on both sides of the line. Expecting running backs who were not able to break a tackle in 2022 to break them in 2023 might be a bridge too far.

That’s Drayton’s problem, though, and I don’t see him solving it unless some disgruntled back slips through someone else’s cracks this spring.

A “Khalif Battle” of football if you will. Someone with a great deal of talent but maybe someone who might upset team chemistry. Not many boy scouts leave spring practice disgruntled.

Back to No. 24’s original point, though.

Spring ball has always been about the good guys practicing against other good guys with the climax being a game between good guys.

It’s necessary work because big-time college football is a 365-day-a-year business and those who don’t do the work fall behind those who do.

The Owls are doing the work now. They should be better than they were in 2022 but, at least right now, not as good as they should be.

Friday: Some high praise for a Temple guy

03.03.23
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Other schedule storylines: Why not us?

Not a whole lot of respect for Temple from this Miami fan. He didn’t have much respect for MTSU either

Posted the other day on Facebook this simple thought.

“If Middle Tennessee State can beat them in Coral Gables, Temple can beat them in Philadelphia.”

Obviously, I was referring to MTSU’s demolishing Miami, 44-21, in one of the more shocking college football results of 2022.

Was it really, though?

One of my Facebook friends, who shall remain nameless, immediately tried to temper my thought with this response:

“Yeah, but they are a much different team this year.”

Perhaps the most perfect spiral ever in the history of football was thrown by E.J. Warner here in an otherwise routine practice on March 2, 2023. Zamani Feelings captured this image.

I took the bait and turned it into a 360:

“Absolutely right, Temple is a much better team with E.J. having one year under his belt.”

There is a significant defeatist part of the Temple football fan base that we need to defeat this year along with our opponents.

Obviously, my friend was referring to Miami being “different” and “better” but why can’t those adjectives refer to Temple as well as Miami?

Why not us?

Why indeed?

The same people who set the bar as low as 6-6 for Temple in 2023 are already counting games like Miami and Rutgers as losses.

That type of thinking has to end now.

MTSU didn’t think going into spring practice a year ago it would lose to Miami because the Hurricanes were “better” or “different” than the 2021 season due to Mario Cristobal replacing Manny Diaz.

Nor should Temple now.

Cristobal was the guy who applied for the Temple job and was considered the leading front-runner until he called then-athletic director Bill Bradshaw from the airport and asked for directions to Temple. Bradshaw then told other Temple people that was the moment he heard Al Shrier’s voice in his head, “Bill, listen to me. Hire Matt Rhule.”

Bradshaw told Cristobal to cross the Platt Bridge, find Broad Street and head north. In those 45 minutes, he decided to do what Shrier told him to do.

Hire Matt Rhule.

It was a key moment for Temple football.

Nobody thought going into the 2014 season (at least among the Temple fan base) that the Owls were going to win at Vanderbilt. Fortunately, Matt Rhule didn’t let those Owls think that way and Temple came away with a 37-7 road win over an SEC team.

Guaranteed Stan Drayton is taking that same kind of mindset into spring practice currently going on at 10th and Diamond.

One game at a time means Akron is the most important game of the season as it should be.

That’s the job of the coaches and players.

Peaking ahead to the other teams left on the schedule is the job of the fans and not a single Temple fan should be thinking there is not a single Temple opponent the Owls can’t beat.

Not true last year, but certainly this one.

Monday: Spring Practice Thoughts

02.27.23
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How Temple’s offense looks like the Super Bowl winner

The Kansas City passing offense and Temple’s are so similar it’s uncanny.

Everyone has a blind spot.

For me, it’s the rear-view mirror on the driver’s side. There’s about a four-foot gap where I can’t see anything coming up on the left.

I’ve learned to deal with it by not getting into the left lane on a super highway.

For Stan Drayton and Temple football, though, that blind spot apparently is the running game.

The Owls didn’t put a premium on getting a big-time back in here and it MAY cost them at least one game, maybe more, in 2023.

Everyone remembers the 3d-and-1 call at midfield against ECU, which was a pass.

Obviously, Drayton and company had no confidence in a running back getting the first down and the “tush push” quarterback sneak that the Eagles do so well is not in the Temple playbook.

Had the Owls gotten the first down there late in the fourth quarter, they might not have scored–although after scoring 46 points that’s not a given–but they almost certainly would have been able to run out the clock and win the game.

No worries.

Temple and Kansas City don’t run similar passing games, they pretty much run the exact same offense.

We thought Drayton would go out and get a big-time back in the transfer portal and that just hasn’t happened.

With only one open portal window left (after spring football), it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. You are not going to get anyone better than Edward Saydee or Joquez Smith at this point. Let’s hope Saydee takes a leap forward. If Owl fans noticed one thing about recent running backs like Bernard Pierce and Jahad Thomas, they never let the first guy tackle them. Hell, that goes all the way back to Paul Palmer and even before him.

Notice how Paul Palmer never lets the first tackler bring him down in this game against Alabama

Too many times, Saydee let the first guy tackle him.

That needs to change this season if the Owls are going to double their win total.

Imagine if the Owls had the quarterback “tush push” in this playbook with someone like 330-pound Freddy Booth-Lloyd pushing E.J. Warner ahead for a yard.

Obviously, Drayton will go into the 2023 season rolling the dice on the same offense that (mostly) worked in the second half of the 2022 season.

That’s great if you want to put up points but not so great if you need to get a yard on 3d and 1.

We’ll see.

What we do know is that the Temple offense we saw in the second half very much resembled from a schematic standpoint the Kansas City Chiefs’ offense that baffled the Eagles so much in the Super Bowl.

Simply, it’s a short passing game that neutralizes the pass rush.

That was enough to win the Super Bowl.

Will it be enough to get a 3d and 1 at midfield next year at ECU? Or at Rutgers in Game Two? Or really any other game?

That’s a question that will probably be the difference between six and eight wins for the Owls this season.

Friday: Other Schedule Storylines

02.24.23
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A couple of telling storylines in Temple football schedule

The complete AAC schedule

Hard to find a Temple football schedule in recent memory with the number of storylines this recently released one has.

We’ll just cover a couple with this post. There are many more to talk about latter.

For now, we’ll concentrate on the opener–which we hope Stan Drayton’s staff is doing.

Joe Moorhead, the Akron coach, was one of those names floated for in the search for a Temple head coach after Rod Carey was fired.

We don’t know how much interest Temple had in him or Moorhead had in Temple, but we do know this:

Moorhead has experience taking a less talented team and beating a more talented Temple team. He did so in 2013 as head coach at Fordham, which probably was the most disappointing Temple football single outcome in the last 20 years.

On the other hand, a worse Temple coach–Carey–was able to beat a better Akron team, 44-24, on the road with a worse Temple quarterback (Justin Lynch) than the one the Owls have now.

This Akron team, despite last year’s 2-10, is no slouch.

It finished strong, beating a decent Northern Illinois team, 44-12, and losing, 24-22, to a Buffalo team that made a bowl game.

Temple SHOULD win, but we’ve seen too many Temple games in the last few years where Temple hasn’t won the winnable games.

That’s just one storyline.

The next week, at Rutgers, provides another.

E.J. Warner was starting his first game as a college quarterback and looked decent. He was 19-for-32 with 215 yards, adding a touchdown and an interception.

After that game, Temple head coach Stan Drayton said:

“Back in fall camp, I knew he had the potential to be a leader and a really good quarterback.

“He studies the game, he understands the game. He came into our program already knowing our offense. I knew it would be a matter of time, I didn’t know it was going to be this soon. He really earned our trust in fall camp.”

There can be no doubt, though, that Warner improved significantly in every subsequent game and against two arguably better teams than Rutgers (really, inarguably in my mind), Houston and ECU.

Look what Warner did in both of those games:

Warner had the Owls on the precipice of a big win at Houston, grabbing a 36-35 lead with 1:22 left on a touchdown pass to Zae Baines. For the day, he had 42 completions in 59 attempts for 486 yards and three touchdowns.

Against East Carolina two weeks later, he was much better throwing for five touchdowns and 527 yards in a 49-46 loss.

Both of those games, although the outcomes Temple didn’t want, provide a glimpse into the future.

Both of those teams–Houston and ECU–would have blown the doors off of Rutgers in November.

He was a much more poised, confident, quarterback in those games than he was against Rutgers.

The fact that Warner has that year under his belt and that the great majority of the Temple team returns is a clue that the Owls can get off to a 2-0 start.

If they do, the sky’s the limit for this team.

This won’t be the team that opened the season walking on eggshells in a 30-0 loss at Duke and that is the best reason why Temple fans should be excited about the schedule just released.

Monday: Temple’s offensive concepts

02.13.23
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A football end and a possible new beginning

Back then, the NFL champ played a college football all-star team in August. Fixing the pro bowl would make it a game between college all-stars and pro all-stars.

For those who aren’t into basketball as much as football, the sports season is over until April.

Tough loss for the Eagles, but the future is bright for any team that wins a conference championship and still has two No. 1 picks in their back pocket.

https://twitter.com/kylepaganCB/status/1624400361413922817
Diplomatic answer but if it was me I would have said, “No, it’s a football school.”

To me, my No. 1 sports team is the Temple football Owls.

A very distant second is the Temple basketball Owls, only because I don’t find basketball nearly as compelling a sport as football.

The other teams in town,, the Phillies and the Eagles, are tied for a not-so-close third.

The Sixers are fourth and I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the Flyers.

(Sorry, Flyers’ fans)

So, at least to me, the next big sports day is April 8, the date of the Cherry and White football game.

If that game is anything like the past few Cherry and White games, there won’t be much hitting involved.

It is what it is. You don’t have to like it but that’s football in 2023.

Consider yourself lucky, though. I tuned in for the Pro Bowl last week and saw a bunch of drills that reminded me of some of the Rod Carey Cherry and White Days.

Ugh.

Time to tweak a tradition.

I say bring back the College All-Stars vs. an All-Pro team.

One, it would be a “real game” and not a bunch of drills. Two, the pride factor for both the college kids and the pros wanting to teach them a lesson will make it the most competitive all-star game since Pete Rose knocked over Ray Fosse to help the National League win a cage match with the American League in baseball.

It’s worth trying. Hell, it would make that week between the NFL conference championships something to look forward to and not to dread.

I blame the people running these games, not the players,
The way all-star games are set up now, it’s not to simulate real football in the NFL or colleges.



I have proposed a trade that would benefit both organizations.
Play a combined group of the best college all-stars (an East-West Shrine and Senior Bowl combined team, if you will) against a REAL all-pro team (minus Super Bowl participants, of course).
Ditch the pro bowl.
Ditch the East-West Shrine game.
Ditch the Senior Bowl.
A similar game was played up to and including 1977 and the pros dominated, winning 31 and losing nine. There were two ties. The college team won enough games to make it interesting enough to attract viewers, a ratings bonanza in the early days of television.
One of the differences was that most of those games were in August against the defending NFL champs.
Another, more important, one was both teams were actually TRYING to win.
That’s really the name of any game and something that has been lost in recent all-star football years.
My late father and guys from his generation said that the college vs. pro-all-star game was one of the highlights of the football season in those days, right up with big games in college football and NFL playoff games.

The perfect time to do it is the week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. Get the Pro Bowl guys together and get a bunch of college guys who want to up their value in the draft (obviously not the first- and round-round players) and play a real game instead of a bunch of guys trying to throw through tires.
I know the college kids would play hard and I suspect pride alone would make the pros play a real game as well.
I can’t think of a better way for the NFL to break out of its Sunday-before-Super Bowl malaise and  it would certainly be a booster shot for college football.
A win-win for all fans of this wonderful game.

The next football any of us will see is April 8. Let’s hope it’s a slobber knocker but there’s no hope involved if the pro all-stars faced the college ones.

You know it will be.

That’s the way football is made to be played.

Friday: The Klecko Interview

Monday: The AAC schedule

02.03.23
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Second Signing Day: Geraldo’s Vault

A lot of old guys in this photo.

Google “famous duds” and you get only a lot of “famous duos.”

Not quite what I was looking for.

I can think of only a handful of duds, but Geraldo Rivera hosting a two-hour prime-time special in 1986 to open an Al Capone vault was probably the best example.

It was empty.

Geraldo had to do a lot of filler.

Same for Temple head football coach Stan Drayton hosting some Owl Club members at a Wednesday Temple signing day ceremony.

The Temple football Twitter web site posted a photo.

A lot of old guys, presumably moneyed supporters, looking at a screen.

One reaction made me laugh out loud.

“They look old, Rob,” Joe Morgan said.

(Loved Joe when he played for the Phillies but don’t think it’s that Joe Morgan.)

Nothing would please me more than to report here that Drayton went out and got the big-time running back Temple needs, but anyone who has read this site over the last 19 years knows it is not a “rah-rah Temple” one but one who calls balls and strikes as we see them.

There is good news and bad news here. The good news was the December Signing Day when Drayton and company not only brought in a lot of talent but fixed all but one area of need.

The more important December signing day was a triple that caromed off the left-center field scoreboard.

This more traditional February one?

Kind of like a called strike three down the middle of the plate.

A Home Run in recruiting was to get a 1,000-yard proven FBS level back and Temple did not do this.

In December, Temple strengthened the offensive and defensive lines and added some elite speed to the secondary in addition to depth at wide receiver.

In my mind, the Feb. signing day was a time to sign a big-time running back.

The saving grace is that Drayton told Owls Daily.com that he is not done. If he signs just one guy between now and Cherry and White Day, it’s got to be the projected starter at running back.

Or else hire Geraldo to host the next signing day. They will need another guy who has experience with filler.

Monday: An Ad Money Can’t Buy

Friday: Temple Super Bowl Connections

Monday (2/13): A Needed Football Fix

01.30.23
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Back to the Future: A win for perception

Our story in September might have had something to do with Temple’s latest move.

Sometimes we swear the powers that be at Temple University read this website.

The other day we got a receipt in the form of a letter sent to every season ticket holder.

I might be one of the few season ticket holders who have two seats and only need one.

Doesn’t matter.

Arthur Johnson follows us. It was his call to move back to the good side of the field.

I felt that if Temple could pony up the money to buy out a failed contract–something it has seldom done in my lifetime–I could do the same for an extra ticket. (The dilemma only came up because of a new requirement that people with a seat at the end of a row had to buy the seat next to it. Dumb rule but I wanted to keep my 40-year seat and looked at Temple’s commitment to fire Rod Carey and reluctantly thought if Temple could come up with the cash so could I.)

Back to the initial claim.

Back in September, after coming back from a game I attended and watching the TV cameras shoot the visiting side, I wrote it was time for Temple to move back to the side where the cameras shoot at the fans.

Now Temple has seen the light.

I never went back to the other side when Carey made the change–ostensibly because he didn’t like looking into the sun–because I always sat in 121 and was perfectly content with those seats. When my long-time seatmates from the beautiful town of Palmerton told me they were also staying put, I decided to stay.

That caused me to sit in the middle of (mostly) obnoxious Rutgers fans who make Mets fans look like choir boys. It did gave me a better look at the great Temple Homecoming crowd that day, though, so it was one plus.

Temporary inconvenience for permanent improvement.

That’s because Temple has seen the light.

The Owls have had trouble drawing fans since the eight-win season in 2019. Partly because of the Pandemic but mostly because the Owls went from 76-54 over the previous seasons to 6-25 over the last three.

Once you’ve been to Heaven, as Owls fans were, you can’t go back to Hell. Owl fans who suffered through 20 years of losing before that good run, were not having it.

I don’t blame a single fan for rejecting that product.

Not only did the Owls have trouble drawing fans in the 6-25 years, Carey compounded the problem he created by adding to the perception that the product was a failed one by forcing TV cameras to show an empty side of the field.

Now, by putting the fans in front of the camera instead of behind it, the nation will know that Temple does have fans. Probably many more in 2023 than from 20-22.

Now things are in place for the Owls to get back to Heaven From Hell.

Moving the fans to the right side of the field when more are coming is a logical way to go.

If this site had anything to do with that move, we have to thank the powers that be for another terrific decision.

Friday: Signing Day Reaction

Monday: An Ad Money Can’t Buy

01.27.23
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Signing day and must lists for Temple: Running back

Dae Dae Hunter running for Liberty

One of the many tough things about getting older (I refuse to use the word old until about 91) is going to a supermarket with about five items rolling around in my head and realizing while opening the bag when I got home I forgot something.

Had enough of that nonsense sometime during the Pandemic and finally made a list on the “memo” part of my phone before leaving the house.

So far, the system has worked.

Maybe in five more years, I will forget to put something on the phone but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I thought about this during the “first” Temple signing period when the Owls “forgot” to sign a big-time transfer portal running back. Now the second signing period–which used to be THE SIGNING DAY–is approaching on Wednesday and it will be only then that we figure out if 54, the current age of Temple head coach Stan Drayton, is “older.”

Drayton must have left the house with a running back on that list and returned home after the first signing period saying, “Damn. I knew I forgot something.”

Certainly signing E.J. Wilson–someone who had half the yards of Edward Saydee for a worse team (FIU) than Temple–couldn’t have been the answer to upgrading an area of need for Temple.

During the first go-round Temple could have had Mississippi State’s Dillon Johnson (he went to Washington), Ball State’s Carson Steele (now at UCLA) but either wasn’t interested or involved.

Alfonzo Graham

Does Drayton really believe a running game he didn’t trust to get a first down on third-and-1 against ECU is in good shape going into the 2023 season? Does he really trust a guy with half the yards of his best back to be an upgrade?

Maybe Drayton feels that way. Maybe he doesn’t.

What can’t be debated is even with that first wave of running backs gone, there are still guys who have done demonstrably more than what the Owls have now in terms of yards still remaining in the portal.

The highest-rated undecided left is Dae Dae Hunter from Chander, Arizona, who is rated the No. 11 running back in the portal, ahead of L.J. Johnson (who went from Texas A&M to SMU) and Caziah Holmes, who went from Penn State to Florida State. Chandler is a big rival of Brody Prep (Phoenix) and who was the Brody Prep quarterback two years ago?

None other than E.J. Warner.

Even with E.J. Warner setting school passing records, Temple ranked near the bottom of college football in yards per play. The culprit was the running game or lack thereof.

E.J. Wilson might be the best E.J. running back who committed in the portal but he’s not in the same league as Hunter. Another Arizona guy uncommitted is Alfonzo Graham from Yuma, who is rated the No. 2 overall RB still available in the transfer portal.

To win the league in 2023, Drayton needs Hunter or at least a guy with his skill set. There are only a few days left. Maybe Drayton and Warner can tag team to phones and get Hunter.

Or Graham.

Time to put one or both on the memo part of that phone before turning off the lights and leaving the office on that next portal shopping trip.

Monday: Back to the Future

Friday: Post-Signing Day Reaction

Monday: A Temple Football Ad Money Can’t Buy

01.22.23
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The New Guys: Learning about Temple TUFF

Thanks to Joe Tolstoy for this compilation of a historic Temple football time.

Right about now, the myriad of new Temple football players are learning about both the city of Philadelphia and what it means to be a Temple Owl.

As of Monday morning, it has to be a good thing.

Being in Philadelphia a few months after the World Series was here and a few days before the NFC Championship game will be here has to be the definition of being in the right place at the right time. That’s not even including the Sixers, who might be the hottest team in the NBA right now.

More importantly, being at Temple University the day after its storied basketball program took down the No. 1 basketball team in the country.

All good things. All selling points for recruits.

Those things have been built already by clever drafting and solid management.

That’s how this Temple football program is being built, too.

Stan Drayton had a year of a learning curve and put in place a culture first and a plan second.

The culture resulted in a lot of effort and a significant improvement, if not in the bottom line record, in the scores of the games from the year prior.

Except for the Memphis game, the Owls did much better against every single league foe in 2022 than they did in 2021.

For example, the Owls lost to Navy, 38-14, in 2021 but took that team to overtime a few months ago. They lost to Houston, 37-8, in 2021. They lost to Houston, 43-36, this year. They lost to ECU, 44-3, in 2021 and it took a controversial third-down pass to take them down, 49-46 this year. Those are just a few examples.

With the culture changed, now the approach is fixing those areas.

Pretty much, the Owls have done that but stacking both lines with more size, talent and speed than last year.

Arguably, the only area they have not improved is the running game but there is still time to do that with a big-time portal back.

The Phillies and Eagles have ignited the city in the last few months. Maybe in the next couple the Sixers will,, too.

After that, it will be Temple football’s turn.

Maybe even a college gameday will be sometime in these “new guys’ future. If not in 2023, maybe against Oklahoma in 2024.

01.13.23
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Taking down the system might cost nearly a billion dollars

Right about four months ago, just about everybody who knows anything about college football knows this NIL or transfer portal template for the sport is unsustainable.

What is true then is true now.

That light at the end of the tunnel might be an oncoming train but no one is stopping it.

It would truly take something bizarre to take it down.

I’m here for it.

Tonight’s $1.35 billion lottery might present such a scenario.

If I win, I will take the $350 million and donate the billion to Temple University’s new NIL fund with just one stipulation. All the money is spent on football.

You have my word for it.

It’s right here and in writing. I bought three tickets. I have the ticket in my hand, three rows and six numbers, and would publish them here but won’t because I’m worried some Alabama fan might copy them and I’d have to share the winnings with him. If all six numbers win on one line, Temple football cannot be stopped.

I’ve always been a man of my word.

Both my ticket to Florida and Temple’s ticket to the national championship game and, since it didn’t hit three days ago, this COULD probably be the luckiest Friday The 13th in Temple football history.

I’m in a good position only because I have no kids or living parents and nobody is here to say, “Mike, don’t do it.” I don’t even have a lawyer (but hopefully I will after 11 p.m. tonight).

All I need is a new car, a modest home in the middle of Florida and just enough money stashed away in a checking and savings account to survive a rainy day or a hurricane.

That would make me happy on a personal level.

As hardcore fan of really only one team, the Temple University football Owls, nothing would make me happier on any other level than to see a team of 55 Owls making, let’s say, $350,000 a year to kick USC’s butt in a big-time bowl game like my friends from Tulane did. Heck, if every single Temple football player is making $350,000 a year, why not beat Georgia for the national championship in a couple of years?

This the system we have now. The teams with all the resources win all the games.

One billion would buy Temple football a lot of resources. I will have my billion earmarked for just Temple football, no other Temple sports. (Sorry Temple basketball fans who constantly blame the football program for losing to teams like Wagner and Maryland Eastern-Shore. You know who you are.)

Then Temple can buy all of the good players, win the national championship and get ready to hear a lot of people from the big-time schools say, “this is why the system is all screwed up. One guy bought all of the good players.”

Duh.

Good.

Right now, one group of fans (the haves) are buying all of the players so why can’t the have-nots do the same thing?

If I don’t win, I hope some hardcore guy from a school like Akron, Kent State, Fresno State, Ohio (not State) or Buffalo pulls the same stunt I’m planning to do. If it’s Temple, it has to be either me, Winkel or Mrs. Winkel.

Then maybe the NCAA or the Power 5 or whoever the Wizard of Oz behind that curtain calling the shots says, “Err, let’s go back to the old system where everyone gets an equal chance.”

That would be the best $1 billion ever spent. In my modest three- bedroom, two-bath house in a place like The Villages or Sebring or Ocala, I will be sitting back and smiling.

Monday: The Specific Plan

Friday: District Inertia