Tag Archives: Temple football coaching staff

01.18.19
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New Staff: Substance Over Flash

 

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From left, Knowles, Rice and Stewart sound like a law firm who are ready to defend the Owls on that side of the field this fall.

The pieces to the puzzle that is Rod Carey’s new staff are mostly there, it’s just a matter of fitting them together.

What we do know is this:

There will be a decidedly FBS flavor for the one taking over compared to the mostly FCS one that left the Edberg Olson Complex for Atlanta over a month ago.

That’s a departure from the previous University of Florida coordinator who took over and represents a trend in a more positive direction for the program as a whole.

When Steve Addazio came from Florida to take over Temple prior to the 2011 season, he brought with him a national champion defensive coordinator (Chuck Heater) and a national champion quarterback coach (Scot Loeffler). When Geoff Collins came from the same school, he bought the Gators’ equipment guy and coordinators from Kennesaw State and Coastal Carolina.

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Pat Kraft promised the players he wanted stability and both he and Rod Carey delivered it with this “Mount Rushmore” of Temple stability, Fran, ADM, Foles and Gabe. This speaks volumes about both Carey and Kraft.

Big difference and it showed in games the Owls had no business of being close in (the first Villanova game) or losing (UConn and Army, 2017) and Villanova and Buffalo (2018). Two years in a row, Collins’ FCS coaches were badly outcoached by Villanova’s FCS coaches.

While you could argue with the results on the field, the equipment was top-notch.

Rod Carey’s additions from Northern Illinois have much more solid football credentials. Mix in the Temple holdovers, including former Baylor assistant head coach Fran Brown, and this has the making of one of the best Temple staffs in a long time.

We don’t know who the offensive coordinator will be, but hopefully it will be a guy who helps the Owls get back to the Temple TUFF style of offensive football that was run under both Al Golden and Matt Rhule, more of a running game mixed in with a play-action passing one.

The addition of Jeff Knowles as defensive coordinator is probably the best get by Carey so far. Knowles had the NIU defense in the top 35 in the country last year and coached three years at North Carolina State. In his first season as defensive coordinator this past fall, the Huskies were second in the FBS in sacks with 50, trailing only national champion Clemson. The Huskies were ranked 11th in the nation in rushing yards allowed per game (109.2), 10th in team tackles for loss per game (7.9) NIU had six all-Mid-American Conference selections on its defense

Melvin Rice, the DB coach, coached last year at NIU and four years at Minnesota and DL coach Walter Stewart played at Cincinnati (so he’s very familiar with Temple) and had one of the best pass-rushing units in the country at NIU last year. Joe Tripodi, who holds a masters from the Harvard of the Big 10 (Northwestern), is the new OL coach. Craig Harmon, who was the QB coach at NIU, also comes over as Carey’s staff meshes with the Temple holdovers.

While Manny Diaz’s poaching of Temple strength coach David Feeley–who he never met before arriving on Temple’s campus one month ago yesterday–was particularly troubling, the Owls get the NIU strength coach Brad Ohrt, who played on the Appalachian State team that beat Michigan and has been with the Miami Dolphins and USC, among other squads. For all that Feeley did with Temple, the Owls were still pushed around in the Buffalo and Nova games and Ohrt did not allow that to happen to NIU against Buffalo.

The Owls should be strong next year.

In more ways than one.

Monday: Red Flag On The Field

 

 

01.16.19
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Getting The Old Gang Back Together

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Now that the official Temple coaching directory lists as many as four holdovers added to the new Rod Carey staff, we can assume that they all either have sat down to debrief Carey or will do so soon.

It’s now official that Gabe Infante, Adam DiMichele, Ed Foley and Fran Brown are on the staff with their titles to be sorted out in less than two weeks.

Who knows what has been said?

 

It could have went or will go down something like this:

Carey: I’d like to welcome you guys. Pat (Kraft) said a lot of great things about you all. Just wanted to get a feel of where the program is at and how you would like to improve it.

Foley: I’ll take that question first. We got killed in the bowl game because we had a 27-14 lead and were not able to close it out with some effective running behind a good offensive line. That was our MO the entire season.

edfoley

Ed Foley has consistently had the Temple special teams near the top of the NCAA stats over the last decade and is expected to continue in that role.

Carey: Missouri?

Foley: No, modus operandi. That’s a particular way of doing things. We had Rock Armstead do that for us and he was injured before the game. I think he tripped over the Elvis status on the way out of the bus. Whatever, we didn’t have that feature back and we want to find one.

Brown: I’m on it. I’m looking at a kid in Florida and another in Jersey who can step right in and maybe take over.

Carey: What are our options from the roster?

DiMichele: We’ve got two, maybe three, NFL potential receivers in Isaiah Wright, Branden Mack and Sean Ryan plus a couple of promising guys behind them in Randle Jones and Freddie Johnson. Only one of those guys, Wright, has played tailback before. He had seven carries in a game there in Matt’s last year. He’s a first-team All-American kickoff and punt returner and, for his entire career here, both Matt and Geoff have talked about getting him the ball more and I can’t think of a better way to get him the ball 20 times a game than putting him behind the quarterback.

infante

Gabe Infante is a legendary high school football coach in Philadelphia.

Carey: I like the idea. Offensively, you guys know the roster. What would you run with this personnel grouping?

Foley: Don’t ask me. I’m 0-2 in bowl games.

Carey: I’ve got you beat there. I’m 0-6.

Infante: I’ll chime in here. Being from the Philadelphia Catholic League, I had the pleasure of watching Anthony Russo …

Carey: Who?

Infante: Our starting quarterback, Anthony Russo.

Carey: Yeah, I saw him on TV. He’s pretty good.

Infante: Yes, but the Georgia Tech cabal had him running a pass-run option. With all due respect, that’s crazy. He’s no more of a RPO guy than Tom Brady is with the Patriots and you didn’t see Bill Belichick running that against the Chargers yesterday. Go with the pro set, put a fullback in front of Wright to clear the way, mix in a lot of play-action fakes to the running backs and Anthony will have Mack and Ryan and tight end Kenny Yeboah running so free he won’t know which one to pick out.

Carey: Cabal. That’s a good word. Did you go to the Prep or just coach there?

Infante: The kids were the ones using the fancy words, so a few rubbed off on me.

Carey: Back to the point: Running the ball with a great tailback following a blocking fullback and then hitting explosive downfield plays in the play-action passing game is just good midwestern-style football, Gabe. What position did Manny Diaz have you coaching?

Infante: Linebackers.

Carey: Forget that, I’m moving you to the offensive side of the ball.

Infante: Thanks, Rod.

Carey: That settles it. We’re running a pro set and putting Wright at tailback and Fran, go find me the Rock Armstead of the future to back him up. Anything else? Meeting adjourned. I’ve got to go to Pat Kraft’s office and see what I can do to get Bucknell off the schedule and get us another Power 5 game instead. We’re going to need another P5 win if we’re going to get into the four-team playoff.

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The official Temple coaching directory as of 1-15-19

Friday: Why This Staff is Already Better Than the One at GT

Monday: Mr. Mayhem is Gone But Not Forgotten