Tag Archives: Temple football

09.15.15
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First Test of #LeaveNoDoubt is UMASS

The complete game vs. Cincy. It’s OK for the fans to look back and look ahead. Really.

One of the amusing things about being 2-0 at this point of the season is to read the reaction of Temple fans who keep responding to other Temple fans’ dreams of an unbeaten season or even 7-0 by Notre Dame by saying, “Let’s take one game at a time.”

Like Temple fans thinking ahead is going to have an impact on the team looking ahead.

As they used to say about 100 years ago, Poppycock.

These are heady times to be a Temple player and fan but the first true test of #LeaveNoDoubt is the game at the University of Massachusetts (3 p.m., ESPN3) on Saturday. The whole point of #LeaveNoDoubt is games just like this one. While #LeaveNoDoubt applied a little to the games against Penn State and Cincinnati, it applies a lot to games like the ones this week and the next few gamedays after that. Great things are ahead for the Owls and they are right there for the taking. If the Owls play as hard or harder against UMass, there is a Top 25  ranking waiting for them when they come home … a real one, not one like this:

This from the Washington Post.

This from the Washington Post.

Kenny Harper’s whole point that he wanted to drive home to the team was to leave no doubt because of games just like this one. If the Owls take care of business in games like UMass, Charlotte and Tulane, they will not be sitting home and wondering what could have been like they were at the end of last season. The faux polls are nice recognition of what the team has done in the first two games, but wins over UMass, Charlotte and Tulane mean a steady rise up the real polls and that’s what’s important.

This ranking is from the Oklahoman.

This ranking is from the Oklahoman.

The players and coaches have to take one game at a time, but the fans can take five games at a time. Imagine the Owls coming into the Notre Dame game with a 7-0 record against an Irish team with a 6-0 record. A strong case can be made that it will be tougher for the Irish to keep their end that bargain than the Owls.

For the Owls to do their part, they will have to show that #LeaveNoDoubt  is more than a slogan. This Saturday is the first real test of that.

09.13.15
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Temple Football’s Jahad Thomas Leaves No Doubt

At the end of last season, Temple’s football team was one of six qualifiers left out of a rather large feast where everyone but the poorest of the poor seem to be invited and they call it college football bowl season.

When there are only 126 teams and 76 go to bowls, even the six left out have to look introspectively and figure out what they had to do to join the club.  Even though the Owls qualified for a bowl, they knew they had to do better and it was left for a departing team leader to carve out this year’s rallying cry: “Leave No Doubt.”

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Kenny Harper, a fullback converted to tailback for the 2014 season, made a speech that left an indelible impression on his returning teammates, saying things like that even though 6-6 was good enough for a bowl it was not good enough for Temple and to “leave no doubt” next year.

This year is next year and it fell to Harper’s replacement, the appropriately named Jahad Thomas to be the chief doubt-buster this season. In a 27-10 opening-game win over Penn State, Thomas rushed 29 times for 135 yards and scored a pair of touchdowns. In what could be the marquee game of the season, a 34-26 win over AAC pre-season favorite Cincinnati, Thomas rushed for 197 yards and added a 102-yard kickoff return. Temple led, 34-12, in the fourth quarter before holding off a late rally by the Bearcats.

There is no doubting Thomas’ impact on the Owls’ offense, which was the worst in the AAC a year ago. With a renewed emphasis on the run to set up the pass, the Owls have now soared to near the top of the league in every offensive category. Last year, they tried to spread the field with five wide receivers but that approach never was going to work, but Temple’s coaches tried forcing that square peg into a proverbial round hole. Even after Thomas rushed for a season-high 157 yards in last year’s 35-24 win over Tulsa, the Owls went back to the five wides the next week and Thomas inexplicably joined witness protection and disappeared the rest of the season.

Now that the coaches have figured out they have weapon in Thomas, there can be no doubt that they are going to keep feeding this beast in what could become a very special college football season in Philadelphia.

Will never understand why the coaches went back to five wides last year after Jahad went off against Tulsa, but we are glad the coaches were flexible enough to understand that error and fix it this year.

Will never understand why the coaches went back to five wides last year after Jahad went off against Tulsa, but we are glad the coaches were flexible enough to understand that error and fix it this year.

Tomorrow: Photo Essay

Tuesday: National Reaction

09.08.15
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Arians’ Reaction to Win Was Classy

bruceandanthony1

When Bruce Arians led the Arizona Cardinals to a late-season upset of the Seattle Seahawks two years ago, it was the final loss of the season for the Seahawks on the way to winning the Super Bowl. The question for Arians then was a natural one as someone in the press room asked him if that was his biggest win as a head coach. Arians paused for a second and said, no, his biggest win as a head coach came at Temple when the Owls broke a 39-year losing streak to Pittsburgh in the 1984 season.

So, of all the congratulatory messages pouring into third-year Temple head coach Matt Rhule after a 27-10 upset of Penn State on Saturday, the one posted by Arians on his twitter page was priceless:

Rhule had one-upped Arians in the sense that he broke a longer streak over another in-state rival in Penn State (after a 74-year drought), so the two men have been in the same shoes at the same place. No one knew more what a win over Penn State could do for the Temple program than Arians, who said the first question asked of him at his first Temple press conference was, “Why does Temple even play football?” Like the presser after the Seattle game two years ago, Arians paused before a thoughtful response: “To beat Penn State.” Arians came close twice, losing to nationally-ranked Nittany Lions’ teams, 23-18, in 1983 and 27-25 to what would become an 11-1 PSU team in 1984, but never quite got over the hump.

Now that Rhule did, Arians used both twitter and the phone to express his satisfaction with the result. Rhule took the call and said, “Yes sir, thank you sir.” to a guy who was a young coach at Temple once, too. Rhule said he did not know what else to say to the NFL coach of the year. Then Rhule went out to the parking lot at Lincoln Financial Field and presented the game ball to another former Temple coach, College Football Hall of Fame member Wayne Hardin, who came close a few times against Penn State but, like Arians, could not get over the hump.

In the fraternity of college coaches, and the circle of life, all three coaches will now share a pretty neat memory forever because only those three fully understand the magnitude of the moment.

Tomorrow: Still Not Focusing on Cincinnati (but we are sure the team is)

09.05.15
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Tortured History

There is a LOT more Cherry than blue in this photo and, even if there is more than that today, I expect more than one blind, deaf and dumb nitwit to write it was like a PSU home game. So wear Cherry and be loud.

There is a LOT more Cherry than blue in this photo and, even if there is more than that today, expect a blind, deaf and dumb nitwit to write it was like a PSU home game. So wear Cherry and be loud.

One of those shows on the Comedy Channel that serves as filler programming between the few good offerings on that network is something called “Drunk History” and, from watching about a minute of an episode here and there, the gist of the thing is that a perfectly sober narrator tells a story from history acting like a drunk.

Here is the Infamous quote by Joe Paterno.

Here is the Infamous quote by Joe Paterno.

No thanks.

A better program for that Channel would be something called “Tortured History” and they can narrow that down to the last 40 years of the Temple vs. Penn State football series. The word “drunk” would also apply to this one because that’s how the renewal of the series began in 1975 with then Penn State head coach Joe Paterno saying “the guy who scheduled Temple must have been drunk.”

In effect, he was saying his athletic  director was a drunk.



“Why does Temple
even play football?
To beat Penn State.”
_ Bruce Arians

By the time the teams actually played the game, though, Temple could have said the same thing about Penn State. The Owls doubled up Penn State in yards from scrimmage, 402-201, and were clearly the better team but lost on two long kick returns, one a punt, one a kickoff.

Before the game, head coach Wayne Hardin and then athletic director Ernie Casale placed 30,000 Cherry and White pom-poms on the Franklin Field bleachers.

“I told Ernie we might lose the game, but we were not going to be out-pom-pomed,” Hardin said. The first play of the game was a simple handoff to a world class sprinter named Bob Harris. He put his hand on the back of fullback Tom Duff, who pancaked a PSU linebacker and that left a gaping hole. Seventy-six yards later, Temple led, 7-0. Thirty thousand Cherry and White pom-poms were waving proudly and, to this day, that was the loudest I have ever heard a Temple crowd.

Losing that game 26-25 was sheer torture.

defeats

The last glorious victory. Note the use of the word “rivals” which would have continued to have been used until today had Temple kept up its end of the bargain.

The next year, the Owls went for two and the the pass slipped off the receiver’s hands. More torture, a 31-30 loss.

In 1979, the Owls were 10-2 and went up to State College, led, 7-6, at halftime and lost, 22-7. More torture.

When Bruce Arians took the job at Temple, one of the first questions he was asked in his initial press conference was “Why does Temple even play football?” He repeated the question and gave a great off-the-cuff answer that drew loud applause: “To beat Penn State.”

Arians gave the school its first win over Pitt in 39 years and he probably would have added a Penn State scalp had the school not be so quick to fire him. In his first year, with coach Hardin’s players, he lost, 23-18.

Another year under Arians, Paul Palmer rushed for 226 yards, and scored a pair of touchdowns, but the Owls lost, 27-22. More torture.

In 2010, the Nittany Lions could not stop Bernard Pierce who had 115 yards and two touchdowns at halftime and the owls led, 15-13. A broken ankle stopped Pierce and the Owls lost, 23-15. More torture.

The next year, quarterback Mike Gerardi was managing the game nicely with a 10-7 lead when he was pulled for Chester Stewart, who did nothing. When Gerardi was reinserted, he was either cold or trying to force a play to keep his job. Whatever, he threw an interception that led to a 14-10 loss.

Those were not the only times Penn State teased the Owls before taking victory from the jaws of defeat, but those were the ones I remember most.

Unless, of course, something gloriously different happens today.

09.04.15
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5 Things to Get Excited/Worry About Tomorrow

Watching Temple head coach Matt Rhule address the media one final time before tomorrow’s 3:30 p.m. showdown with Penn State, people in the media had to be struck by one thing he said about being worried the “moment would be too big” for “the kids.” He said he did not think so but just by bringing it up, the thought must have entered his mind. Nowhere in that statement did Rhule express a concern that the moment might be too big for his coaching staff.

The butterflies will be there one way or another tomorrow (3:30) at Lincoln Financial Field and we are both excited and worried about these five things.

sat

  1. Offensive Coaching

Excited About:  Recognition. Both head coach Matt Rhule and OC Marcus Satterfield seemed to say the right things about the fiasco that was the 2014 Temple offense. Rhule said that he would go back to Temple’s offensive brand, which had been running the ball with a high skill level tailback behind a lead-blocking fullback.

Worried About: Backtracking: Nothing that happened the first two years has indicated Satterfield is comfortable calling that kind of offense. It’s not what he ran while winning all of those FCS National Championships at Tennessee-Chattanooga. (Oh wait. He didn’t win any.) Now they are talking about dropping the fullback concept and going back to being “more multiple.” More multiple was the reason they were 126th and last in FBS third-down efficiency.

  1. Defense

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Excited About: Experience. All 11 starters from the nation’s fourth-best scoring defense return and all 11 guys are flat-out ballers who do not back away from anyone.

Worried About: Lack of Praise. We’re not talking about endorsements from the media here, but a guy in No. 50, Praise Martin-Oguike,  who provided the the Owls with a pair dynamite playmakers at DE with Nate D. Smith. Praise might be out and Nate is tough as they come, but will PSU attack the soft underbelly of the Owls’ defense with sweeps to the other side? James Franklin does not get paid $4.4 million a year to overlook those types of things. Also worried about them not rushing Christian Hackenberg, but I do not think they are stupid enough to take that same passive approach two years in a row.

gardner

  1. Running Game

Excited About: Jager Gardner and Ryquell Armstead. Those are two guys who give the Owls what they have not had since Bernard Pierce: A guy with the speed to take it to the house by merely turning the corner. Home run hitters is what they are.

Worried About: Caution. Jahad Thomas, the starter, does not seem to be a home run hitter but a guy who earned the job by having the fewest summer fumbles. Yet we’ve seen both Thomas (Houston game) and Zaire Williams (SMU) caught from behind and a premier Temple running back (Mike Busch, Tommy Sloan, Bobby Harris, Anthony Anderson, Zack Dixon, Kevin Duckett, Paul Palmer, Stacey Mack, Tanardo Sharps, Elmarko Jackson, Bernard Pierce, Matty Brown, and Montel Harris) simply does not get caught from behind. That is not what we do here at Temple. When we break into the open field, we turn it into six. Williams is now a LB. If Thomas breaks free, he must take it to the house to keep his job.

chat

  1. Tight Ends

Excited About: Colin Thompson. When was the last time Temple had a four-star recruit from the SEC (Florida) transfer here? Answer: Never. The guy has a four-star skill set: speed, size, blocking ability, great hands.

Worried About: Witness Protection. Evidently, no one told Rhule he was on the roster last year by the few times he was targeted. Why not use him the same way both Al Golden and Steve Addazio used Evan Rodriguez? Short little 5-yard waggle rollout passes to keep the rush off P.J. Walker, ala Chester Stewart at Maryland. Then toss an occasional jump pass in the back of the end zone, ala Stewart to Steve Manieri at the fake Miami a few years back. Both films are in the can at  the E-O. Rhule might be wise to dust them off one last time tonight.

hands

Even something this innocuous is an automatic 15-yard taunting penalty now.

  1. Robby Anderson

Excited About: Everything. This is a big time player who makes big-time plays against big-time teams. If, say, UCF was not a moment too big for him two years ago, Penn State will not be now. He’s got a 44-inch vertical leap, sub-4.5 speed, great hands and great moves in the open field.

Worried About: Rule changes. We’re not talking about Matt Rhule changes, but Anderson might not be aware of all the hand gestures that he made two years  ago after big catches—even innocent ones—are now automatic 15-yard penalties. He must be schooled to catch the ball, get to the end zone and simply give the ball back to Mr. Official without any histrionics. You would think Matt Rhule would have talked to him about this already, but one team in the TU-PSU game got a critical 15-yard penalty for a throat slash last year.

It was not Penn State.

09.03.15
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Anderson is X-Factor Against PSU

Hopefully, Matt Rhule has sat down with Robby and impressed upon him all those hand gestures that were legal 2 years ago are now 15-yard penalties.

When a school like Penn State regularly attracts over 100,000 fans to each of its home football games, the business of previewing every game both in print and on the internet is a lucrative one.

Newspapers are sold and site counters go out of control with every mention of each matchup with host Temple on Saturday. All of the things written about this game, almost none of them mention a guy that just about everyone will be talking about afterward and that is Temple wide receiver Robby Anderson. Only by Wednesday did Penn Live even mention him and that was a fine piece by a great writer named David Jones.

MEMPHIS, TN - NOVEMBER 30: Robbie Anderson #19 of the Temple Owls catches a touchdown pass against Andrew Gaines #28 of the Memphis Tigers on November 30, 2013 at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee. Temple beat Memphis 41-21. (Photo by Joe Murphy/Getty Images)

MEMPHIS, TN – NOVEMBER 30: Robbie Anderson #19 of the Temple Owls catches a touchdown pass against Andrew Gaines #28 of the Memphis Tigers on November 30, 2013 at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee. Temple beat Memphis 41-21. (Photo by Joe Murphy/Getty Images)

Black Shoe Diaries, one of the best blogs ever, did a 1,000-word story on the matchups and did not even mention Robinson’s name.

The largely Penn State-focused press can certainly be forgiven for overlooking Anderson, since they have never seen him play, but many in Philadelphia have and are anxious to see him in action again. Anderson is the kind of weapon Temple fans are more than content to roll out at kickoff (3:30 EST, ESPN). Almost all of the Penn State-centric previews have focused on a repeat of last year’s matchups.

Anderson, who flunked out of Temple in January of 2014 as Robbie before his current resurrection and change of first-name spelling to Robby, brings a whole different dynamic to this one. When fans last saw him, in the 2013 finale at Memphis, he dominated the game, catching three touchdown passes in a 41-21 win. Memphis would go on to win the AAC last year.  That day, even though the Tigers rolled their coverages over to his side, they could not stop him.

It was the exclamation point on a spectacular 10-game season for the 6-3, 190-pound receiver, who caught 44 passes for 791 yards for nine touchdowns and averaged 18 yards-per-catch—the second highest average among all 126 FBS teams. Anderson has a remarkable skill set which includes a 44-inch vertical leap, sub-4.5-speed in the 40-yard dash and moves of a premier punt returner in the open field. In fact, he is also Temple’s starting punter returner this season.

Anderson’s late start  in 2013 can be chalked up to the fact that he was a defensive back in the spring and had to take care of family matters in Florida before rejoining the team later in the 2013 season. Just before a game at Idaho, Temple coaches tried him out at wide receiver and found that he and then true freshman quarterback P.J. Walker formed a cosmic connection and the rest was history.

Anderson will be on display for the nation to see on Saturday and, afterward, the question Penn State fans will be asking of their media is why they never heard of him.

09.02.15
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Defense is in Good Hands with Coach Phil Snow

Any analytical look at the Penn State vs. Temple game film from a year can see a lot of foul-ups, but few were committed by defensive coordinator Phil Snow.

Sure, the Owls could have been more aggressive than the rushing three, cover eight, approach they used a year ago but does anyone really believe a call like that to be solely the propriety of the defensive coordinator?

I do not.

That’s a head coach’s call or at least probably was last year.

The Owls of this year might have a chance at lowering the 13.2 ppg mark of 2011.

The Owls of this year might have a chance at lowering the 13.92 ppg mark of 2011.

Snow did the best he could under that general game plan. If he has the influence I believe he has on the head coach, he will do his best to change that approach at least this Saturday against that particular quarterback. Expect a more attacking, not passive, Temple defense this Saturday and that is certainly the way to go against a relatively immobile quarterback like Christian Hackenberg.

If the Owls cannot get to Hackenberg with five, they should bring six. If they can’t get to him with six, they should bring seven. The whole defensive game plan should be predicated on putting him down.

Have the Owls learned their lessons from last year’s laid-back approach? Geez, you have to hope so. A clue as to how the team might approach this game plan came in the final moments against Tulane a year ago. This was the same Tulane team that beat Houston and a team that needed a touchdown in the red zone.

takeover

Instead of sitting back, Snow went after the Tulane quarterback with a blitz by linebacker Avery Williams. I’m sure he remembers how successful that approach was. If Temple goes down, it goes down with its guns blazing and not its hands up.

 

That should be the approach Temple takes against the Penn State offense. Snow’s job is to convince Matt Rhule that’s the right way to go on Saturday. He’s got enough street cred established to do it.

When Steve Addazio was here, he said Chuck Heater was the “head coach of the defense” and, for the most part, that worked out well. Giving Snow that kind of leverage on Saturday could not hurt.

top20

08.30.15
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Five One Keys to the Game

The key on Saturday will be the Owls sending MORE guys than the Nits can block, not like last year when PSU could use two lineman to block every rusher

The key on Saturday will be the Owls sending MORE guys than the Nits can block, not like last year when PSU could use roughly two linemen to block every rusher. (Photos by Temple Super Fan Ted DeLapp)

What was reserved for this space originally was at least one person’s opinion of what the five keys to the game would be on Saturday against Penn State.

There were five darn good ideas, cooked up all summer, but I thought, “Geez, who am I kidding?” There really is only one key to the game and that key opens up the other four doors: Put Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg on his backside early and often. Make him uncomfortable, take him down a lot, hit him more, and come at him from all sides. Make him think he’s going to get hit early on every play and he will give the ball up.

The guy is relatively immobile and has a documented history of happy feet and Temple should take advantage of that little bit of intelligence.

IF Owls go to play action, as promised, those 2 safeties in the middle of the field will be much closer to the line of scrimmage, allowing Owl receivers to get the separation they didn't get last year.

IF Owls go to play action, as promised, those 2 safeties in the middle of the field will be much closer to the line of scrimmage, allowing Owl receivers to get the separation they didn’t get last year.

In the six games Penn State lost a year ago, Hackenberg was sacked at least four times in each one. In five of those games, Hackenberg had 14 of his 15 interceptions and seven of his nine lost fumbles. Northwestern, coached superbly by Pat Fitzgerald, figured that out in a 29-6 win at State College, sacking Hackenberg only four times, but hitting him an additional 19. Temple fans would like to have 19 sacks and four hits, but they will gladly have what Northwestern had a year ago. This was the same Northwestern team that lost to Northern Illinois earlier the same season.

The Owls took the opposite approach a  year ago, more times than not dropping eight and rushing three. The Owls cannot afford to play that passively on Saturday.

Fitzpatrick is fighting an uphill battle at the Chicago-area school because the Wildcats have Ivy League type academic restrictions and those have limited his talent pool. What Stanford is to the Pac-12 and Vandy to the SEC, that’s what Northwestern is to the Big 10.  In addition, Northwestern has by far the smallest fan base in the conference. He can coach my team any day of the week, though. Northwestern might have had a losing season, but not because the team is ill-prepared or doesn’t game plan well.

Temple’s coaches could learn a lot from examining the Northwestern film. Let’s hope they dissected it like a frog in biology class.