Tag Archives: Temple football
5 Things Temple Must Do To Beat Penn State
Click on the photo of Chester Stewart rolling out and completely one of many ridiculously easy 5-yard rollout passes to Evan Rodriguez and imagine P.J. opening things up at PSU with the same type of passes to Colin Thompson.
Running The Football Was a Forgotten Promise
Amnesia is a terrible thing to have once, let alone twice in the same week.
Evidently, though, that is just what happened to Temple head football coach Matt Rhule after the glorious 20-10 win over East Carolina, fueled by this promise:
“Last week, we were a little bit shell-shocked on the plane coming home from the loss to Central Florida. As a staff, we made a decision … so, this week we wanted to get back to who and what Temple is: play good defense and special teams and run the football.”
Rhule remembered the good defense part. He forgot the run-the-football part and the special teams part.
Since Matt cannot control what a punter does or does not do, let’s just concentrate on what he can control—the run-the-football part.
Just to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, I got up early this morning to chart all of the Temple offensive plays. Temple ran 71 offensive plays and lined up in three wide receivers on 68 of those. Temple ran the ball 32 times and passed it 39 times. By any definition, that doesn’t jive with “play good defense and special teams and run the football.”
Kenny Harper scores
Against East Carolina, Temple ran 56 offensive plays, lined up in three wides 22 times and ran the ball on 37 of those offensive plays. Of the 37 running plays, Temple lined up with a fullback, Marc Tyson, 20 times. Both Temple offensive touchdowns were a result of a Marc Tyson block off a two-back formation. Tyson, like so many uniquely talented Temple players the last two seasons, joined federal witness protection last night.
You can blame the loss on the drops all you want, but that’s something the coaching staff cannot control. The coaching staff CAN control the commitment to the running game. Not only did the Owls coaching staff forget about it in game-planning this week, it forgot to stick to the running game after Kenny Harper ripped off a 75-yard touchdown run.
Amnesia twice in one week.
Before the game, we wrote this:
“If you decide to pray for anything, please pray that the Owls don’t fall back into their three-wides, no-blocking-back for P.J. Walker approach they had against Houston and UCF. In that scheme, Walker had no time–none–to throw and receivers could get zero separation. So happy to see the Owls get away from that last Saturday.”
Well, with the help of some selective amnesia, they got back to it Friday night and, not surprisingly, they lost. Hopefully, on the bus ride home from LFF, Matt Rhule remembers what he said on the plane ride home from UCF–and, this time, never forgets.
Jeez(y), This Temple Team Deserves a Big Crowd Friday Night
Another slick, short and sweet video by Temple Athletics pumping up the fans for Temple’s Friday Night Lights’ game and there’s plenty to like about it.
The audio part, though, could use a little work. Imagine Dragons?
You’ve got to be kidding me … Young Jeezy must have some more appropriate lyrics for Temple’s epic showdown with visiting Memphis on Friday night. After all, YJ pumped up the team with a pre-game talk that helped the Owls double up East Carolina, 20-10, last week. Jeez is more than an honorary Temple football fan. He’s a real one. A Jeez phone call might close the deal on a five-star someday. Let that thought marinate for a minute. I prefer Mumford and Sons and the Foo Fighters, but I’m not a five-star so I yield to Jeez. Chances are Jeez’s playlist is on most five-star’s headphones.
Looks like Matt Ioannidis has his game-face on, but Tavon Young and Kenny Harper were politely asking for the students to get on the 4:30 buses that leave the main campus for the “free tailgate.” Having been a Temple student once, I was so broke I knew the word “free” back then evoked a Pavlovian response, like “I’m there.” If some on the main campus cannot make the 4:30 buses, there’s a dedicated subway line right in front of the Liacouras Center that takes all of 10 minutes to get to the game.
Time for the alumni to put away the remote, get off the couch, put on a coat, get in a car, bus or train to the Linc and wear out the vocal chords. I will be there. Will you?
For all of the bitching and moaning of not having an on-campus stadium, it’s hard to imagine a following without an on-campus stadium having easier transportation options than Temple fans have. Heck, Uconn has its own stadium but it’s 27 miles from the main campus.
More importantly, there’s an epic game to be played and how can a student or alumnus miss it? National TV, winner-take-all for a bowl game and the winner gets a bowl, loser gets to bite their fingernails for one or two more weeks or maybe even the rest of the season.
If those stakes don’t cause the fans to stay standing in their seats and yell “Let’s Go Temple” and “DEE-fense, DEE-fense” (both while the Owls are on defense, of course), nothing will. Make no mistake about it. This will be a tough game. Memphis went toe-to-toe with UCLA and destroyed a good Cincinnati team. For Temple, a win here could be just the momentum-generator the Owls need to make a program-changing win over Penn State next week.
There are 12,500 students who live on campus now and 27,000 additional full-time students who commute home. There are 291,000 living alumni, about 180,000 of them live within an hour’s drive of the stadium. There are 6,000 full-time Temple employees. Even if you get half of the 12.5K and 6K and one-quarter of the 180,000, you have pretty close to a full stadium.
A lot of yelling and cheering for these guys could not hurt and no doubt would help. You can just tell by looking at their faces they would appreciate it. They deserve your support and, for the students especially, it costs nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other and walking two more feet to a bus or a subway. They are, after all, representing you and the Linc is our “Hood.”
Two-Way Football (Sort of) Returns to TU
If you needed any insight into why Memphis is coming into Lincoln Financial Field a 7-point favorite against a Temple team that just beat No. 23 East Carolina, all you have to do is go straight to the training table at Edberg-Olson Hall. Head coach Matt Rhule calls it the “M*A*S*H unit.”
At least that’s what I got out of watching the latest version of Matt Rhule Weekly. Two-way football, missing since the days of Bill Juzwiak and Bill Cosby, has returned to Temple. (Juzwiak, a former William Tennent coach, used to remind me he played 60 minutes starting for Temple on both the offensive and defensive lines. One of the best high school coaches and funniest guys I’ve ever known when I first started covering high school sports.) Cosby played both fullback and defensive back for Temple in the same games. Juzwiak was just as funny as Cos, just didn’t make any money out of it.
Inquirer’s John Mitchell and “Chip K.” discuss Temple’s new 2-back offense in this morning’s chat. I think Chip meant Walker, not Harper.
Brian Carter, a starter at defensive tackle—and in the preseason a lot of starters at DT were in the preseason mix and Carter was not one of them—against UCF, will be a starter on the offensive line against Memphis.
Ouch.
Double ouch since Shabazz Ahmed—last year’s starter at DE—was forced to the offensive side of the ball before the season. He now appears out.
Also, playing in that Temple game last year were stars like Robbie Anderson and Chris Coyer and some under-rated lunch pail guys like Cody Booth and Evan Regas and they are no longer here.
I guess the loss of Anderson, who scored three touchdowns in that 41-21 Temple win, and Coyer, who scored one, is the reason why Temple has gone from a 20-point winner to a 7-point loser against this same Memphis team. Still, I think Temple has improved the entire team is so many other areas that this one should go down to the wire. Another interesting point: Temple beat Vandy by about the same score ole miss did and ole miss hammered Memphis, 24-3. Best case scenario is Temple wins by the same score. Worse case is Memphis covers the seven. Good reason for all 250,000 TU alumni and 39K full-time TU students to cram into every nook and cranny of LFF Friday night.
But pleading and hoping and praying for Temple fans to make a difference has worked rarely in the past (Eagle Bank Bowl being a notable exception) so this is going to have to be on the players and coaches. If you decide to pray for anything, please pray that the Owls don’t fall back into their three-wides, no-blocking-back for P.J. Walker approach they had against Houston and UCF. In that scheme, Walker had no time–none–to throw and receivers could get zero separation. So happy to see the Owls get away from that last Saturday.
If the Owls can continue with what they did on offense against ECU—using a fullback and play-action passing to buy time for P.J. Walker and spring Jahad Thomas and Kenny Harper at the point of attack—they can run enough minutes off the clock and make enough plays to keep Memphis’ offense off the field.
At least that should be the plan.
Watch coach Fran Dunphy’s message here (so proud that this great man is representing our school):
John Geliebter-USA TODAY Sports’ TU-ECU Photos
The Perfect Owl Storm
People of a certain age will remember a commercial by Julius Erving after the Sixers imploded and lost a playoff series they were favored in and, in an attempt to win fans back the next season, Erving said: “We Owe You One.”
Well, for those of us who have sit in many Gosh-awful storms—and one documented Hurricane–to watch the Temple University’s football team lose heartbreakers, another storm, this time unnamed, came through with big-time payback on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field.
Watching looks of happiness on the faces of long-time great Owls like Steve Conjar and Mark Bresani made this win even more worthwhile.
Pure post-game happiness by the Mulvihills surrounding two of the greatest ex-Owls, Mark Bresani and Steve Conjar, who is putting up the No. 1. I think Steve is saying he’s got the No. 1 tailgate in Lot K.
I don’t think the Owls win this game without the storm, but who cares? They won and that’s the bottom line. Nobody cared when Uconn got several calls at the end of regulation and OT that won a 12-6 game during Hurricane Hanna and years down the line no one will care that East Carolina was a team built for a fast track and a dry ball this year.
What’s important now is that the Owls take this ball and run with it–with the emphasis on the key word “run.”
“We made a decision to get back
to who and what Temple is.
We tried to play good defense
and special teams and
run the football.”
_ Matt Rhule
They know they can beat Memphis on Friday night to become bowl-eligible. Heck, they beat Memphis last year by 20 points with essentially the same offensive players, sans Robbie Anderson and Chris Coyer. Colin Thompson has shown he can become a Coyer; someone is going to have to step up and become a Robbie Anderson. Maybe Keith Kirkwood can. Memphis is better than it was last year, but so, too, is Temple. I don’t think Memphis has improved more than Temple, but that’s something Temple must prove on Friday night.
The Temple defense is light years ahead of last year and, if there is a better linebacker in the country than Tyler Matakevich, I have not seen him. This was Matakevich’s best game yet. We need a nickname for him. Maybe Pac-Man because of the way he eats up ballcarriers but I’m sure someone can come up with something better.
Temple Fun Fact:
Owls held ECU
to 60 fewer points
than North Carolina
did–despite having
to go to class
during the week
The Owls won because they did a better job taking care of the ball and a better job at committing to the run. It was heartening to see the post-game comments by head coach Matt Rhule that Temple had to get back to being Temple—which is running the football. Seeing Marc Tyson back there as a blocking fullback in a two-back set was a big step forward for the Temple run game and, hopefully, Kenny Harper can get some fullback time in, too. Harper’s spin move on one touchdown was a thing of beauty, as was his hesitation to pick up Dion Dawkins’ block on another TD. He’s both smart and tough, though he doesn’t possess high-end tailback speed.
The defense is playing at a big-time level and it’s high time the offense played up to their capabilities. If that happens, this could be the start of a long winning streak. If not, it will be a struggle to get to six. Maybe the renewed commitment to the run will help jump-start the play-action passing game.
Let’s hope so. They owe the defense one.
Good Day for Some Old-Fashioned TU Plays
Feet on the floor and butts out of bed. It’s game day.
Sometimes I wonder if these spread offense guys ever plan for a rainy, windy, muddy day.
We shall find out today. In any endeavor, there should be a Plan A and a Plan B and this is one of those days to go with the Plan B.
Time to get out those old Temple football movies and put some current actors in those roles.
A good organization, like the Diamond Marching Band, has a Plan B. Photo taken this morning.
This would be a good time for some smash-mouth, old-time, Temple plays from way back, say, earlier this decade. Bernard Pierce (played by Jahad Thomas) behind Wyatt Benson (played by Kenny Harper) behind Steve Manieri (played by Colin Thompson).
Grind out those 3, 4, 6-yard runs and put a premium on protecting the football and killing as much of the clock as possible to keep the ball out of the hands of the high-octane East Carolina offense.
Another great ex-Temple play that could work today is the short rollout by Chester Stewart (played by P.J. Walker) where he throws no more than a 5-yard pass to Evan Rodriguez (played by Thompson) and he turns it into a big gain. That play helped even a historically inaccurate quarterback like Stewart go 9 for 9 in a 38-7 win at Maryland in 2011 and could help jump-start the confidence of the way-more-talented Walker today.
In a few hours, we will find out if this Temple coaching staff is capable of improvising and adjusting.
Shaken, But Hopefully Not Stirred
A long time ago a former Temple football father started a music craze with these three simple words:
Shake, rattle and roll.
Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” is widely credited with getting the rock and roll genre started in the 1950s and his son, Scott Haley, was an outstanding tight end for the Owls when the Owls used to throw to tight ends way back in the football stone age of the 1980s.
Scott Haley’s dad. He rarely tailgated.
Now at least a derivative of those three words have entered the Temple football dictionary again as Matt Rhule mentioned his team appeared “shaken” in practice this week. A report in the Philadelphia Daily News about this press conference (above) noted Rhule used the word “fast” three times but his use of shaken has got me rattled and rolled.
Under Al Golden, even when Temple was playing very good BCS-level teams (Uconn, Navy and UCLA come to mind immediately), the Owls always played with a “Temple TUFF” swagger. Golden even noted that coming off the field at halftime in the UCLA game before a national TV audience: “We always play Temple tough,” Golden said, adding, “that’s spelled T-U-F-F.”
Shaken never entered the Temple football vocabulary back then.
It has now. Sure, the Houston and UCF teams the Owls played the last couple of weeks were very good but they were no better than Uconn, Navy and UCLA back then and back then Temple was playing with MAC-level recruits.
High winds: Hopefully, the Owls can move out of the spread and go 2 backs and power football. Failing that, maybe some of those Shane Carden passes will blow into the waiting arms of Tavon Young.
Got to wonder if at least a little part of the shakes has to do with a loss of confidence in the leadership above the captain’s level and reaching to the very top of the program. At least Golden had the good sense to use his breakaway 5-5, 150-pound back from New Jersey, Matty Brown, as a change-of-pace running back and not a slot receiver. At least Golden had the good sense to know if he found a tailback with Jahad Thomas’ elusiveness and explosiveness, he would use him like he used Bernard Pierce, behind a great blocking fullback, to maximize his skills and not as a decoy in a spread offense. Golden never had a five-star tight end recruit transfer in from Florida but my guess is that he would have down something radical like THROWN HIM THE BALL. Just a hunch. Then again Golden never hired an offensive coordinator from Tennessee-Chattanooga. Probably because Golden never had any friends from Tennessee-Chattanooga.
Rhule’s right about one thing: The Owls appear shaken. What he could be wrong about are the reasons for the shakes.
Same S*it, Different Saturday
Phil Snow
If anyone spent some time listening to the AAC coaches conference call on Monday, it’s pretty safe to sum up the Temple game plan against East Carolina in four simple words:
Same S*it, Different Saturday.
That’s because Temple head coach Matt Rhule included in his summary this sentence: “I think we always have to take a step back, catch our breath (and) not listen to anyone on the outside tell us what’s wrong.”
Anyone on the outside …. Temple football should have such problems.
Looks like Kenny Harper will be spending more time on the sidelines watching scenes like this than being P.J.’s protection as a blocking fullback.
Thanks largely to two-straight deflating losses coming off a 2-10 season, there is no “outside” when it comes to Temple football. Despite having three 24-hour sports talk stations, there has not been a single call taken on the air to talk about Temple football this season and probably few ever. Meanwhile, the town dissects every play in every Eagles’ game like it’s a frog in biology class.
The newspapers and internet are not any better. There is no critical coverage of Temple football in the Philadelphia Daily News or Philadelphia Inquirer, no columnist suggesting opinions on why the team was blown out in two-straight games. The coverage is pretty much straight forward game stories and an occasional feature.
The internet sites who follow Temple football, Owlscoop and Owlsdaily, range from being lapdogs for Rhule (Owlscoop) or right down the middle (Owlsdaily). The message boards on both sites seem to clamor for four more years of “patience” even if those four years are all losing ones.
“I think we always have to take
a step back, catch our breath
(and) not listen to anyone on
the outside tell us what’s wrong.”
_ Matt Rhule
Temple football has lapsed into irrelevance in its own city, quickly to be followed by apathy unless something big happens soon like a win over ECU or Penn State—with the emphasis on soon.
“Not to listen to anyone on the outside,” Rhule said.
What outside? There is no “outside” unless he’s talking about this site. If he is, we can assume Temple will be doing the same things this weekend that got it blown out in the last two.
So, as a favor to the fans who cannot bear to watch this train wreck anymore and are skipping the ECU game, we will give you a few of the offensive highlights now:
• Temple will give a half-hearted attempt to establish the run game with Jahad Thomas in the pistol behind P.J. Walker. When he gains one and two yards on his first two carries, it will abandon the run game and blame the blockers. “We have to do a better job blocking,” Rhule will say. “I will talk to them on Monday about it.” Nobody will remind Rhule he said the same thing after the prior two games.
• Temple will throw no less than five (5) two-yard passes on third-and-eight to a slow possession receiver, hoping he can break five tackles before getting to the sticks. None of them will work.
• Temple will not attempt a single toss sweep with Jahad Thomas running behind dynamic blockers in fullback Kenny Harper and tight end Colin Thompson. “I suggested to Marcus that was something we tried and worked to the tune of 268 yards and two touchdowns for Bernard Pierce behind Wyatt Benson and Steve Manieri at Navy,” Rhule would say after the game. “Marcus told me he never ran those kind of plays at Tennessee-Chattanooga and he’s not comfortable calling them and we left it at that.”
• Temple will line up three wides most of the time, but ECU will pick up all three in its nickel package and P.J. Walker will have no blocking back to protect him and one-half second to pick from three well-covered receivers. “P.J. is just going to have to thread the needle better,” Rhule will say afterward.
• The best blocking fullback in the AAC, Kenny Harper, will spend most of the day on the sidelines Saturday, waving a towel and cheering his teammates on as a backup tailback. “I thought Kenny showed great leadership on the sidelines,” Rhule will say afterward. “Even when it got to be 70-21, he was waving that towel higher than ever.”
- Lincoln Financial Field security will mistake Temple defensive coordinator Phil Snow for a homeless man and attempt to remove him from the sidelines before Temple coaches intervene. Meanwhile, the Temple coaches will miss an ECU touchdown.
• Temple will fair catch five punts and start all of its possessions from inside the 20 because Rhule forgets that Temple once had dynamic tackle-avoiding and ankle-breaking punt returners like Delano Green who made that an offensive play.
Yes, keep doing what you are doing. That sounds like a plan. Not a good one, but a plan nonetheless and, when Temple fans begin the long and too familiar death march up the steps at the end of the third quarter, they will be mumbling one thing over and over again:
“Same S*it, Different Saturday.” This time without the asterisk.
Temple Football Forever 