Tag Archives: Stan Drayton

01.10.22
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Now it’s more about the Jimmies and Joes

Even though Stan Drayton is the shortest guy in this photo, he stood tall for honoring Spencer Prescott’s Temple legacy last week.

Hard to believe it was more than 15 years ago, after attending a press conference that featured a Joe Klecko introduction, I dashed off a congratulatory email to a new Temple head coach.

It took only a couple of hours for Al Golden to respond.

“Thanks, Mike,” he said. “I’m going up to St. Peter’s today to recruit a guy who could be a game-changer. Wish me luck.”

One of Golden’s first recruits, the late Kee-Ayre Griffin, wasn’t a game-changer but he was a more than solid contributor to Temple’s turnaround. Griffin was holding offers from BC and Pitt, but something Golden said to him that day convinced him to attend Temple.

When I asked Al what he said a couple of weeks later at the signing day ceremony, Golden smiled and said, “that’s a professional secret” before telling me what his recruiting philosophy was. “We’ve got 46 percent of the nation’s population a five-hour drive from Temple. Not many schools can say that. We can’t get them all but we should be able to get enough really good players to turn this thing around.”

The rest was college football history.

In that first class, Golden recruited 18 team captains from either state or league championship high school teams.

The number on the helmet makes zero sense.

“They weren’t necessarily the most recruited guys in those teams,” he said, “but they were leaders of championship teams and I wanted to bring that mentality here. You bring five guys Power 5 schools want, mix in a bunch of leaders and guys you can develop and you can win.”

Drayton has put together the X’s and O’s part of the job. Now it’s time to get the Jimmies and Joes.

That’s pretty much the challenge Drayton faces now.

He’s not going to out-recruit Penn State or Maryland but, in the new AAC, he doesn’t have to. Get five guys holding P5 offers and 20 guys in the leader/development area and Temple can win that league. Really, all he has to do is out-recruit Memphis, UAB and USF and the Owls can challenge for the title every year.

Drayton might have the personality to do it.

Like Golden (and unlike Rod Carey), he’s already connected with Temple football alumni. Instead of sending a representative to former Owl coach Spencer Prescott’s funeral last week, Drayton showed up himself. Carey was pretty standoffish with Temple football alums by comparison. It was a super classy move by Drayton. Golden was also good at networking with Temple football alums, as was Matt Rhule. Golden brought back TEMPLE on the helmets, because it reminded him of the Temple TUFF teams he faced while at Penn State. Maybe Drayton will put his own imprint on the program by bringing back TEMPLE on one side of the helmet and keeping the T on the other side. Getting rid of the number (which is already on the jersey and was a Carey move) makes the most sense.

That’s cosmetic, though. The substantive change is getting back to the Temple TUFF culture re-established under Golden.

The template for Temple football success has been established. All Drayton has to do is follow it and success will follow.

Wish him luck.

Friday: Navigating the new paradigm

Monday: The Tie That Binds

01.07.22
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Staff hires: Almost done, and a mixed bag

The first month of the Stan Drayton stewardship of the Temple University football program has gone according to plan.

It’s his plan, not the plan of many Temple football fans, and that’s his prerogative because he will ultimately bear the blame or the applause.

Still, an objective observer can still step back and judge.

Getting good vibes out of the strength hires, one of whom looks a little like former great Owl lineman Kevin Jones.

If that observer says it’s a mixed bag, it probably will be closer to the truth than otherwise.

While the Villanova defense under Ola Adams was a formidable one against the opponents it played, no one can say that any defense under the other defensive coordinator, D.J. Eliot, was ever formidable. Another guy with Texas in his past (an assistant at Texas State and Houston), Eliot was never a part of a defense that shut out anyone. (For comparison, former Temple DC Chuck Heater recorded consecutive shutouts in the 2011 season for the Owls.)

In fact, according to college football guru Pete Thamel, Eliot’s main claim to fame was “simulated pressures” when he was DC at both Colorado and Kansas. Simulated pressures are simply this: A lot of linebackers and safeties running up to the line at the point of attack, then backing off, and allowing the quarterback a good five to six seconds to survey the field and pick out an open receiver.

That’s not going to work with Temple fans, who were used to a more attacking style of defense in consecutive 10-win seasons under head coach Matt Rhule and DC Phil Snow. In those days, simulated pressures were actual pressures and the bad guy’s quarterback ended up on his ass more often than not.

That’s Temple football. That’s Temple TUFF.

Adams is more in sync with the Rhule/Snow way of doing things so it should be interesting to see what happens when he gets in the same room with complete stranger Eliot. Since the talented Adams is listed as a “co-DC” with the sole job going to the less accomplished Eliot, that could be a problem.

I’ve thought about it and I’m not Drayton.

Just imagine late August, 2022……

D.J. Eliot gave up 36 points a game as a DC at two Power 5 schools.

Eliot: “Luca Diamont is the Duke starting quarterback. Here’s how we’re going to attack him: Run a couple of safeties and linebackers at him and then back off at the last minute, putting everyone in coverage and trying to confuse him.”

Adams: “How about putting the m-fer on his ass by sending more players than they can block, knocking that thing out of his hand and having one of own guys taking it to the house?”

Eliot: “Too risky.”

Adams: “C’mon, man. Former Temple coach Bruce Arians said it best: No risky, no bisky.”

Eliot: “We never did that at Kansas and Colorado.”

Adams: “That’s why you guys never won shit.”

Eliot: “That’s why you were at Villanova and I was at Kansas and Colorado.”

Adams: “You want to go? Let’s go. You and me on 10th Street. If I win, we blitz the hell out of Duke. If you win, we sit back and play prevent.”

Eliot: “Stan, help me out here… “

Is that the kind of headache Drayton wants right away?

I don’t think so but I don’t know if he has thought this dynamic out. If the two start arguing in the coach’s room at the E-O, I hope Drayton puts his foot down.

Does Drayton have the gonads to get rid of Eliot if he brings that 36 ppg career average as a DC to Temple and give the job completely to Adams, whose Villanova defenses allowed 15.7 ppg? We will see.

That’s the part of the bag with holes in it.

Ola Adams was a key member of the Villanova defensive staff, holding Geoff Collins to 17 points.

Now to the more sturdy part of this mixed bag.

The additions of Chris Wiesehan (offensive line) and Adam Schier (special teams) certainly balance the bag. Wiesehan was credited with the development with two of the best centers in Temple history (Kyle Friend and Matt Hennessy) and a terrific versatile guard/center in Vince Picozzi. Schier made the Rutgers’ special teams the best of the Scarlet Knights’ three units and, if the Owls start blocking kicks and returning them to the house like they used to in the pre-Rod Carey days, it’s a home run hire. Vince wants to come back and let’s hope Chris brings him back.

On the plus side of this mixed bag also are the strength coaches, Chris Fenelon (Ohio State), Andrew Broocks and Bruce Johnson. Carey’s strength coach is still being investigated for mental and physical abuse of players by an internal Temple probe. Hopefully, these new guys earn the trust and love of the Temple players, who were completely pushed around in a 3-9 season.

If any FBS program needed a complete overall of its strength department, it was Temple.

So far, the support staff looks as Texas-centric as the Carey staff looked NIU-centric. On-field guys like Preston Brown and Wiesehan might be bones to throw to Temple fans, as Carey did when he initially kept Fran Brown, Gabe Infante, Ed Foley and Adam DiMichele. Everett Withers, who will be off the field, was a former head coach at Texas State. Another off-the-field employee, Tory Teykl, was at both Houston and Texas. Johnson was an assistant strength coach at Texas from 2001-2007. My guess is that there will be more hires with some experience in Texas, which is a vastly different experience than Temple.

When Carey got rid of the three Temple guys to keep the NIU guys, all doubt about Carey’s future here was removed.

Drayton needs to lean on the Temple guys to turn Temple around. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Monday: The Jimmies


 

01.03.22
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The AAC: Temple should be the new Cincy

In any other season, AAC commissioner Mike Aresco should be thrilled.

Before Cincinnati lost to Alabama in the National semifinals, the league was 5-0 (two wins, three forfeits) and 2-0 in actual games against the vaunted SEC.

This year was a little different, though.

Owners of two of those wins, UCF and Houston, will be gone soon but probably hang around next season. So will Cincy.

Bragging about being a Power 6 conference is probably out of the question now.

Temple should not expect to compete for the title this year, but there is no reason the Owls should not expect or demand to be on top in the new AAC that begins next year. In other words, the administration should demand no less than being the new Cincinnati. Temple beat Cincy four-straight years before losing to the Bearcats the last couple of times.

Temple, like Cincy, is located in a big city and should be vying with another large city school, Memphis, the title every year. Even USTA and UAB are ahead of the Owls right now but, with judicious use of the transfer portal, the Owls should be able to overtake those schools.

Should be and will be are two different things.

The task for new head coach Stan Drayton is to right the ship this year. If he learns anything from the failures of Rod Carey, it’s that dipping into the portal for just six players when your roster is speed, depth and strength challenged is simply not enough.

The Owls have to get a dozen potential starters out of the portal to just be competitive right away, say, 6-6, and then take the next step toward contending for the title in 2023.

The portal has mostly taketh away from Temple in the Carey years but Temple needs to do some innovative things to benefit from it.

The Owls really need to get a quarterback who can challenge Dwan Mathis for the starting role. Justin Lynch and Mario Valenti were just not good enough.

They may need to dip into the FCS ranks and nab a quarterback. Look at how Western Kentucky quarterback Bailey Zappe put his team on the map after transferring from tiny Houston Baptist. The Owls need to find another Bailey Zappe. Watching the FCS playoffs, there are plenty of quarterbacks out there even better than Mathis and the competition might be good for Dwan, too.

Other than that, getting some of the lost Temple players back would help, too. Vince Picozzi was the second-best offensive lineman on the team for two-straight eight-win seasons and would solidify the line. Cornerback Linwood Crump has always been positive about Temple in his tweets and would be welcome back.

They are the kind of leaders the rest of the team both remembers and respects and would take no BS in the locker room and accept no less than maximum effort, something we did not see in either 2020 or 2021.

Drayton can set the tone by hiring a terrific staff and a strength coach the players relate to (David Feeley is available), but he needs more Jimmy and Joes than X’s and O’s and he needs them now.

Without Houston, UCF and Cincy, there is a void at the top of the AAC.

The Owls better have a plan to fill it.

01.01.22
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Happy New Year From Temple Football Forever

May the Temple Owls figure out a way to win double-digit games in 2022

Since our picking season is over, this is what we wrote on Christmas Eve:

“Final college football picks of the year: Would love to pick Cincy getting the 13.5 against Bama but, like all G5 football fans, will watch that with a rooting interest only. Only three games jumped out to me:

EAST CAROLINA getting 3 against BC in the Military Bowl. ECU beat Temple, 45-3 and BC beat Temple, 28-3; MICHIGAN STATE laying the 2.5 against Pitt without former Temple commit Kenny Pickett (opting-out) in the Peach Bowl (hell, freaking WESTERN Michigan beat Pitt with Kenny); UTAH getting 6.5 against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Utah has been a completely different team since losing to BYU in the Holy War.

Record for the season: 28-25-1. Hopefully, we will hit the 30-win mark by the New Year.”

Final record for the season: Won on Utah covering and Michigan State laying the points and wish ECU would have had the chance to beat BC in the Military Bowl. Finished 30-25-2 (push in one game, cancellation in the other) for the season. So betting $50 on 30 wins=$1,500. Losing $55 on 25 losses=$1,375, ending with us $125 on the plus side.

12.31.21
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Drayton hiring: Maybe logic doesn’t apply

Stan Drayton will always be a Texas guy hired by another Texas guy until he starts hiring TEMPLE guys.

There is no doubt that a significant portion of the Temple football fan base believes Temple made the right call by hiring Stan Drayton as a head coach but what he has done the first couple of weeks certainly has defied conventional wisdom.

First, he recruited a defensive lineman (no names, please, he’s just a kid) who had exactly one sack in his last full season as a high school player.

Then, he supposedly hired a co-defensive coordinator from Villanova without (officially, at least) hiring the other co-defensive coordinator.

That struck me as odd because the “other” rumored guy is someone who hemorrhaged points as a DC at various stops on the FBS level and might (err, probably doesn’t) even know or is sympatico with the philosophy of the Villanova guy. They might not butt heads once they get in the same room but what if they don’t get along?

That’s a headache Drayton doesn’t need.

No doubt in my mind Ed Foley would come back to fix Temple’s putrid special teams if Stan Drayton makes a phone call to Matt Rhule. That would put a lot of anxious Temple fans’ minds at ease.

You are allowed to question whether this guy knows what he’s doing, at least on the CEO level.

Put it this way: Drayton was a position coach all of his life and had limited responsibility. Now, he’s overseeing the entire operation and is a little like a guy fumbling around for the light to a room he first entered.

Excuse me for having the feeling that, say, Al Golden would have had this CEO part of the job locked down. If he liked the Villanova defensive guy, he would have named him sole DC and handed off the keys to that third of the team to him. He would have put the other third of the team, specials, on autopilot by adding old buddy and Temple lifer Ed Foley before tackling the final third.

Instead of a DL guy who had only one sack, Golden might have been able to recruit a Pennsylvania Big 33 sackmeister MVP like Adrian Robinson. Oh wait. He already did and Arob made a huge impact at Temple (rest in peace). Somewhere in that Al Golden binder of Mid-Atlantic recruits, I have to believe he already had the second coming of AR in mind and that kid might have produced double-digit sacks in a good high school league.

Golden would have known all the nooks and crannies of every room at the E-O without having to turn on a single light.

For now, at least in this space, Drayton will remain a Texas guy hired by a Texas guy until he starts hiring Temple guys and that hasn’t happened. Even Miami’s Manny Diaz hired four Temple guys right off the bat.

Maybe, though, that approach is wrong. Only time will tell.

Watching the Pitt-Michigan State game last night, I was able to give Drayton (and by extension President Jason Wingard and new athletic director Arthur Johnson) the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe the game has evolved (err, devolved) to the point that logic no longer matters.

Follow me here: Michigan State ONLY beat Pitt in the Peach Bowl because former Temple commit Kenny Pickett opted out. The teams that win league championships and bring home great bowl game trophies in the future might be coached by guys who get the PLAYERS to buy into his system and not the logic CEO guys. Drayton could overcome a lot of these early miscues by proving to be the player’s guy Rod Carey wasn’t. Because MSU coach Mel Tucker got his players to buy in and Pat Narducci didn’t get all of his players to do the same, the MSU fans came home happy and the Pitt fans were crying.

It’s a short straw, but it’s the only one I’ve got so far.

Fortunately, most of my fellow Temple fans are buying into the hire. For this shaky initial start, my body is in Pennsylvania but my mind has moved to Missouri.

Show me.

Unfortunately, those results won’t be in for another 11 months.

Winning the great majority of football games, getting AAC championships, AND not going 6-6, not chasing greatness, is the only barometer that really matters. You have to demand greatness and be great, not just chase it.

Just win. It’s that simple and that hard.

Monday: The AAC

Friday: The Quick Fix

12.26.21
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Drayton seems to have won half the battle

Chuck Heater was so popular with Temple players he received this post-game Gatoraid shower after leading the Owls to their first bowl win in 30 years.

There are plenty of battles ahead for a team that finished 1-6 and 3-9 in consecutive shocking seasons, but new Temple football coach Stan Drayton seems to have won half the battle in just two short weeks.

He applied the tourniquet and seems to have stopped the transfer portal bleeding. No significant players have announced they are leaving and that’s something that couldn’t be said in this same two-week period a year ago.

That’s something that cannot be minimized because former head coach Rod Carey took a figurative knife to work every day and there was more bleeding at the E-O than in the movie Psycho.

The players didn’t like him, and their dislike for him never seemed to bother Carey. In the era of the transfer portal, that kind of indifference is a death sentence.

Not surprising that you needed a bucket to clean up all of the bleeding of the players who went out the door.

The other half of the battle is assembling a good staff. Without mentioning names, there is some discussion of bringing in a guy from Kansas and Colorado who allowed more than 30 ppgs in high-profile DC jobs.

Drayton promised at his opening-day press conference to attempt to bring in staff members with ties to Temple and Philadelphia but, so far, the new DL coach has a tie to Lafayette and a recent job at Colorado State. Bringing in Chuck Heater as DC would seem to me to be a no-brainer since Heater was the new CSU guy’s boss AND was the last DC at Temple to post back-to-back shutouts (2011). Math was never my best subject, but I’ll take a guy who allowed zero points in consecutive games AT TEMPLE over one who averaged 30ppg any day of the week and Heater is available, seemed to enjoy his time at Temple (biking to practice every day from Center City) and understands Temple TUFF as well as any outsider.

Chuck Heater went over to Marshall and had success after leaving Temple

The staff evaluation will have to wait until Drayton’s full Gang of 10 on-field assistants are assembled, but the early returns in that area are not good.

Most of the staff remains to be picked so, if Drayton has as good a second half this week as the Eagles had yesterday, everybody in “Temple Philadelphia” and not “Lafayette Philadelphia” will be happy.

Drayton’s first message to the team indicated a good sense of evaluating the film and this quote was particularly telling:

“The little bit of film that I did see, I saw some quit show up,” Drayton said.  “And we talked about what greatness is.  Greatness has no quit in it at all.  And that showed up.  And that bothers me.  However, if as a football team we can face that as a reality, accept it for what it is, then I know we can move forward.”

That’s something just about every Temple fan noticed post the Memphis game and even some players alluded to it.

It appears he will be moving forward with the bulk of this year’s roster buying in and the first step toward program health is stopping that bleeding and maybe as much as half the battle. Don’t know if choosing assistants can be called the other half, but it’s at least the first quarter.

Friday: Areas of Need

12.24.21
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Temple’s Drayton trying to buck history

The best Jeopardy question ever.

If Temple football ever had a question on Wheel of Fortune, the letters might fill in something like this:

What school had a football team that no head coach from there ever won here?

Temple University.

Technically, yes, at least in the last 20 or so years, although the “from here” part is loosely up for debate.

Al Golden,, from Colts Neck N.J. with a binder of Mid-Atlantic area recruits?

Close enough, especially when you throw in the only Temple player of the year from its short time in the Big East was Colts Neck native Dan Klecko.

Matt Rhule?

Anyone who was born in New York City (a short 90 miles away) and played at rival Penn State AND drove up from Western Carolina to knock on Golden’s door begging for a job at Temple?

Definitely from here.

So the two guys who were credited for a) performing CPR on a dead patient and b) getting that patient from the rehab center to winning track meets? Definitely from here.

Jerry Berndt, Ron Dickerson, Bobby Wallace?

Definitely not from here and it showed in their abysmal Temple numbers.

Stan Drayton?

Not so sure.

Does coaching at Penn and Villanova qualify from here?

Not to me, sorry. Having lived in Philadelphia all of my life, I’m 100 percent convinced that both Penn and Villanova are as Philly as Cal Berkely and Boston College, in that order.

Temple is Philadelphia.

Bringing back Ed Foley would immediately fix Temple’s broken special teams.

So Stan starts from behind the eight ball.

Love the endorsements from all of Stan’s ex-players and other coaches who worked with him about Stan but, to me, the best indicator of his future success is the amount of “Temple” guys he surrounds himself with. We’re not talking Penn guys or Villanova guys, but Temple guys. Temple is a special place, much more special than Villanova or Penn.

If Stan’s moves prove to the fans that he understands that, he will hit the ground running.

Losing Gabe Infante was a negative that could be offset by bringing back Ed Foley to hand the keys of the special teams. Bringing in the Texas recruiting coordinator would be nice but adding a defensive coordinator like former Temple LB coach Mike Siravo would be nicer.

I don’t know what Stan Drayton will decide in the next few days but being from there and trying to win here was something Rod Carey tried to do.

He fell flat on his face but, in doing so, gave Stan Drayton a blueprint for success. Stan only needs to follow it. Keep the outside guys outta here and concentrate on how the Temple guys can help.

That’s a much faster way to re-establish the “Temple TUFF” culture than bringing an all-star staff from Texas and Ohio State.

That other way has been tried and failed. The Temple Way is tried and true.

Final college football picks of the year: Would love to pick Cincy getting the 13.5 against Bama but, like all G5 football fans, will watch that with a rooting interest only. Only three games jumped out to me:

EAST CAROLINA getting 3 against BC in the Military Bowl. ECU beat Temple, 45-3 and BC beat Temple, 28-3; MICHIGAN STATE laying the 2.5 against Pitt without former Temple commit Kenny Pickett (opting-out) in the Peach Bowl (hell, freaking WESTERN Michigan beat Pitt with Kenny); UTAH getting 6.5 against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Utah has been a completely different team since losing to BYU in the Holy War.

Record for the season: 28-25-1. Hopefully, we will hit the 30-win mark by the New Year.

Tomorrow: The Log

Monday: Upgrading the roster

12.20.21
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Now Drayton starts the hard work

Getty Images

There were plenty of things to like about Stan Drayton’s opening press conference and what he said.

What he did not say was how hard the work he starts this week will be so what happened on Sunday night added some context.

Props to Scott Grayson of Fox29 for the kind of sit-down interview on Sunday night with a new Temple head football coach we used to see the night of the hire.

Channel 6’s Ducis Rodgers did more of a “stand-up” interview at 11:45.

Better late than never.

The Sunday night show on the other two major Philadelphia channels featured a rehashing of the NFL’s decision to postpone the Eagles’ game with Washington.

Yawn.

Temple legends Ed Foley, Matt Rhule, and P.J. Walker.

At least Philadelphia fans were exposed to Temple, which is also a good thing.

What Drayton didn’t say at the press conference, he touched on in the interviews–which was how tough the task will be to clean up the mess left by Rod Carey, without mentioning either the mess or Carey’s name.

“I’m in the process of interviewing coaches; I’m in the process of recruiting players and talking to my own players,” Drayton told Grayson. “Recruiting will be the lifeblood of any program.

“We’re sitting in a hotbed of talent … there is a pool of talent. There is enough for more than just Temple. Temple has to build that culture right here in that backyard.”

At the press conference, Drayton used the term “chasing greatness.” Geez, since everyone “chases” greatness, I wish he said something more definitive like “we’re going to win championships and bowl games.”

Matt Rhule mentioned that in his presser. Steve Addazio promised “multiple bowls wins” even though he delivered just one.

That’s nit-picking, though, compared to the work ahead.

To me, the first thing should he should do is what Manny Diaz did in his short 18 days–commit to a Temple-centric staff that then included Ed Foley, Adam DiMichele and Fran Brown. Diaz was credited with hiring Gabe Infante. Now Drayton can shore up a lot of recruiting by keeping Infante to lock down the Pennsylvania side of the river and Preston Brown the New Jersey side.

Carey’s biggest mistake was bringing an entire Northern Illinois staff to Temple, and easing out Temple guys like DiMichele, Foley and Fran Brown. He did hire Preston Brown, but it was too little, too late.

It’s a positive that in the Sunday interviews Brown reiterated his desire to bring in “Philadelphia” coaching connections but hopefully, that emphasis is on “Temple Philadelphia” and not “Villanova Philadelphia” or “Penn Philadelphia.”

The first move would be to bring Foley back. Matt Rhule is in trouble and rumors are that he will be fired. Getting the best college special teams coach in the country would be a major coup for Drayton who, if he watched the film over the last two years, knows that Temple’s special teams have been a joke. Foley would also help with local recruiting.

Other than that, you can expect Drayton to build a staff based on his 28 years of contacts at several schools. Let’s hope he keeps his promise about Philadelphia connections and, specifically, knowledge of and appreciation for Temple itself.

Friday: Quick Turnaround

12.17.21
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Drayton Presser: Hope for the best …

Another five or so years pass another Temple football incoming head coach presser.

Those of us Temple football fans approaching the half-century mark of these (meekly raising my hand here) know the drill.

Hope for the best, expect the worst.

Jerry Berndt on his signing day in 1989.

It’s a hard lesson taught by Father Time.

Stan Drayton seems like a very nice guy and he, like so many first-time Temple head coaches, said all of the right things.

Yet I can’t get out of my head that this was another crony hire and neither of the past two cronies worked.

If former Texas Director of Football Operations Arthur Johnson hired anyone else other than a Texas assistant coach for the Temple job, I would have felt a little better today because the past two Temple ADs who tried the same thing fell on their faces.

This is what we wrote here a couple of days after Rod Carey was fired.

LaSalle University second baseman Bill Bradshaw hired his old shortstop, Fran Dunphy, to follow John Chaney, tossing underhanded the storied basketball franchise. Dunphy pivoted and threw that ball over the dugout for a run-scoring error.

Indiana football player and 2000 grad Pat Kraft hired another Indiana former football player and 1995 grad Rod Carey and that was a fumble picked up by the bad guys and run the other way for six.

Now you tell me that of the dozens of qualified people who applied for this job, Drayton was hired NOT because he knew Johnson at Texas but because he was the best man for the job?

Hard to believe, Harry.

Pretty much the day after Carey was fired, I wrote in this space that I had the “sinking feeling” that Drayton would get the job because of the proclivity of Temple ADs to go for comfort level rather than getting the best guy for the job.

This was our blog post on the day Temple hired Manny Diaz. We were off only about 348 days.

That was three years after and BEFORE Manny Diaz got the Temple job that I had a “sinking feeling” that Diaz would get it because I knew Pat Kraft was enamored with the “hot coordinator” hire. Then, when Kraft was dumped by the hot chick, he went to the comfortable 2 a.m. drunk option: Carey. Before Kraft could turn on the lights and see the ugly person he was sleeping with, he put on his pants and headed off to Boston College.

Thanks for the visual, Pat.

Now, like with Jerry Berndt, Ron Dickerson, and Bobby Wallace, we can only hope for the best with Drayton.

Geez, I hope the guy wins a national championship–or at least an AAC one–but I’ve seen this rodeo before.

When Peter J. Liacouras hired Dickerson in 1992, Ron said: “I think I can do for Temple football what coach (John) Chaney has done for Temple basketball. We want to be nationally prominent.” Dickerson finished 8-47 at Temple.

When Jerry Berndt was hired in 1989, he said at his presser: “The potential here is too good to pass up.” Berndt finished 11-33 at Temple.

Our comment post SIX DAYS before Diaz was hired. We were right about Manny then, we hope to hell we’re wrong about Stan now.

All of you who follow this space know I was for the “sure thing” hire and, to me, that was Al Golden.

I was not a big proponent of Fran Brown but seeing the support for him from recent Temple alumni (and almost all of the guys currently in the NFL from Temple), I thought getting those guys behind the program was more important than satisfying the new AD’s comfort level. Drayton’s hiring was panned pretty much by every current Temple NFL player who chimed in on Twitter Thursday. All-time quarterback P.J. Walker tweeted simply: “Temple coach, LOL!” Numerous area high school coaches, like the current one at Northeast High in Philadelphia and the current one at Lakewood (N.J.) tweeted that Temple blew it with this hire, knowing that Brown wanted the job.

I’d rather have P.J.’s support than not. You can toss in Sean Chandler, Haason Reddick and pretty much every prominent ex-Owl. I’d rather have local high school coaches screaming their support of this hire on both sides of the river. Instead, opposition or stone-cold silence was the pervasive reaction on Thursday.

Call me crazy, but that’s the logic.

Drayton will be swimming upstream against all that but he will have Johnson pushing him in a motorboat against the initial tide.

For all Temple football fans, let’s pray to God that’s enough.

Monday: What Stan did not say

Friday: Quick Turnaround

Monday (12/28): Stopping the bleeding