Click on the photo of Scott Walcoff checking his cell phone messages to see who could replace Robby Anderson.
Five Likely Anderson Replacements
Tag Archives: Temple football
Robby Anderson: The Prodigal Son Returns
One of the great stories in the Bible is when the Prodigal’s Son returns.
Such was the case on Monday at Temple football practice when wide receiver Robby Anderson returned to the school for the second time.
This time all indications are that it will be to stay.
Temple coach Matt Rhule played the role of the dad and welcomed the wide receiver back with open arms.
“We missed you, big guy,” Rhule said as he gave Anderson a hug.
“I messed up, coach,” Anderson said. “I promise I’m here to stay this time.”
The last time Anderson left, he had been playing cornerback on the defensive side of the ball a year ago. He had to take care of a few personal things and came back in September. His scholarship gone, Rhule told him that he would have to earn his spot back on the team as a walk-on.
Anderson did that and more, catching nine touchdowns in the last five games for the Owls, who were a lot more competitive with him than they were without him. He and freshman quarterback P.J. Walker had a special connection, like Sonny Jurgensen to Tommy McDonald and, more recently, Adam DiMichele to Bruce Francis.
When Anderson flunked out of school in January, there appeared to be little hope that he would return for a second go-round, but a story on a North Carolina athlete staying eligible piqued Anderson’s interest to return and maybe get some better counseling on which courses to take. Some phone calls to Temple followed and the school gave him another chance.
“I figured if that North Carolina guy who wrote that paper on Rosa Parks could stay eligible, I could apply myself, too and do the same,” Anderson said.
Anderson was referring to this paper:
This paper got an A- grade.
“We found that Robby’s course load was too ambitious,” Rhule said. “He was taking Nuclear Physics, Aerospace Studies, Russian and Biochemistry. I asked my staff who was the idiot that approved that. They said it was me. My bad.”
In his quest to return to eligibility, Anderson is enrolled in the first summer session taking courses in Art History, Communications Studies, Dance and Film, Sports Business and Media Art. The Sports Business class is being taught by Temple basketball coach Fran Dunphy. If Anderson gets by Summer Sessions I and II, he will be eligible to play football in September.
“Fran owes me a favor, just sayin’,” Rhule said.
When reached for a comment, Dunphy said he was out recruiting and did not know anything about it.
One more thing.
Happy April Fool’s Day everyone.
Related:
https://templefootballforever.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/skys-the-limit-for-6-11-walk-on-freshman/
https://templefootballforever.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/addazios-first-5-star-recruit-urban-meyer/
https://templefootballforever.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/big-10-explores-idea-of-adding-temple/
5 storylines leading up to spring ball
Click on the 2 best Owls (P.J. and Kyle) for 5 important spring football storylines.
Some good Temple football news
Click over Ryan Alderman to read about this prestigious award.
Although there have been more athletic touchdown receptions, this is WITHOUT A DOUBT my favorite Temple touchdown reception of the last few years, maybe dating as far back as Rod Streater catching Chris Coyer’s toss in the New Mexico Bowl. (There is a lot to be said for Jalen Fitzpatrick’s touchdown catch from Coyer in the UConn game two years ago, too.)
Ryan Alderman’s catch was really an outstanding PLAY, even though the catch wasn’t particularly athletic and the best part of it was the look on SMU coach June Jones’ face afterward. Alderman had a more sensation touchdown catch and run at Idaho, but this play was a brilliant one.
Congratulations, Ryan, on the honor.
The kid never dropped the ball once in five years, either on the field or in the classroom.
With a Caveat, I’ll pick up the tab on the new stadium
Hopefully, the new Temple Stadium doesn’t have a track around it like this one does. I want the fans right on top of the action.
We’ve heard this all before about this time two years ago.
“It’s a done deal.”
Back then, the Temple football recruits and their parents (fathers, mostly) were saying that Temple to the Big East was a done deal. Almost one month to the day after signing day 2012, Temple inked a pact to join the Big East for all sports.
The original Temple Stadium at Pickering and Cheltenham Aves.
That lasted one year for football, while the basketball team never got to play in the Big East.
Now many of the new recruits and their parents (again, fathers mostly) are saying (privately) that they have been told a new stadium is a done deal. I will give Matt Rhule a little more credit than Steve Addazio here. He’s keeping a lid on Social Media and none of the recruits are saying publicly that they’ve been told a new stadium is a done deal. We’ve heard, though, that is what they’ve been told.
Temple will have a new football stadium and it will be sooner as well as later.
I don’t know if it’s true but, if I were a betting man, I’d bet there’s at least a 60 percent chance the stadium gets done before the Lincoln Financial Field contract expires before the start of the 2018 season.
Eagles’ owner Jeff Lurie wants the Owls out and he basically wants to use a $521 million stadium for 10 games a season in addition to a concert or a soccer game or two. Since $60 million of that was state money, that doesn’t seem fair to Temple but that’s a story for another day.
The Geasey and old track field complex, rumored site for Temple Stadium
I like playing at Lincoln Financial Field. I think there are significant advantages of playing at a $521 million palace located a 10-minute train ride from the main campus, with dedicated stops at each end. In fact, the university might consider all the alternatives and come to the conclusion that the ransom Lurie is demanding is more cost-effective than sinking $300 million into an on-campus facility likely to be delayed by legal challenges.
I like playing at Lincoln Financial Field.
I think there are significant advantages
to playing at a $521 million palace located
a 10-minute train ride from the main campus,
with dedicated stops at each end. In fact,
the university might consider the alternatives
and come to the conclusion that the ransom
Lurie is demanding is more cost-effective
than sinking $300 million into an on-campus
facility likely to be delayed by legal challenges
All that said, a new on-campus stadium could better simply because the regional rail which has a stop by the Edberg-Olson Practice Facility does not go to South Philadelphia. Any time you can open up more public transportation options to get to a Temple football game you increase the likelihood of a bigger crowd. The rumors are that the stadium will go on the present site of Geasey Field also using the former adjacent track “stadium” at 15th and Montgomery. When I went to Temple, Geasey’s claim to fame was that it was the “largest astroturf field in the World.” Temple had a stadium once–located eight miles away from the campus in Mt. Airy–and I always wondered why it was so far away. I asked one of our distinguished alums about that recently and he said the plan was to move the whole campus up there to Wyncote/Oreland/Erdenheim, lock stock and barrel, but they could not grab sufficient land for the deal and those plans were scraped. Unfortunately, they had the stadium built before finding that out.
Not all that worried about tailgating since the games are on Saturdays when you can close off some student lots used for weekday classes just for those purposes.
New Tulane Stadium will open this fall.
I am worried about where the funding for this will come from. I don’t think the state or city or feds will contribute one dime, so it will have to come from Temple fans. Knowing Temple fans like I do, it won’t take them long to raise the money.
Unless you consider 346 years long.
I’ll tell you what: I’ll pick up the tab. Powerball on Wednesday night is $400 million. If I win, I’ll keep a measly $100 million and donate the balance to the stadium. If 21-22-28-39-58 (06) pop up and nobody else uses those numbers, I will send Temple University a check the day after the presentation ceremony in Harrisburg. The university can consider this post a promissory note. All I want is for them to name it Temple Stadium in perpetuity, without any future sale of naming rights.
Done deal.
Temple 2014 Recruiting Class
Click on bios to read more about the players below … and then the back arrow on your browser to view the next player.
Back when Temple played UCLA, I had an Epiphany.
Watching that game on that brutally cold afternoon, one thought kept occurring to me over and over.
“Geez, their talent level is so much better than ours.”
Because no matter how hard Temple huffed and puffed, things seemed to come relatively easy to the UCLA players even in an environment far away from the friendly Southern California beaches.
Yes, Temple had a 21-10 lead at halftime and, yes, Temple’s top player (Bernard Pierce) left the game with that darn sensitive hamstring of his, but the players UCLA had kept coming in waves.
Hopefully, I thought then, Temple’s talent level will do the same to another overachieving team someday.
Today might have been one of those days.
The Owls filled areas of need in pass rushers and defensive backs. Pass rushing seems to come easy to the Michael Dogbes and Jacob Martins of the world. The same can be said for defending the pass for the top DBs the Owls recruited. The Owls got one four-star offensive lineman, Aaron Ruff of Philadelphia’s Imhotep Prep.
The day Matt Rhule was hired as Temple head coach Donald Hunt of the Philadelphia Tribune asked Rhule if he was going to sign the city kids and Rhule remembered that today at the press conference. Hunt asked the first question. It was about Ruff.
“I could not wait to see you and say I signed Aaron Ruff from the city,” Rhule said. “Not every kid in the city is going to want to come to Temple but I want every young man to feel that Temple is a good place for them.”
Also, for the third-straight year, Temple signed a Newark Star-Ledger New Jersey State player of the year. This year, it’s Dogbe, a 247-pound defensive lineman who benches 415 pounds.
Coaches coach, but players win games and now the Owls have the players.
Hopefully soon, it will be enough to win big bowl games.
Temple Football 2014 Recruiting Class
- Cequan Jefferson | DB | Richmond, Va. – Bio
- Shahid Lovett | DB | Vineland, N.J. – Bio
- Derrek Thomas | WR | Albany, N.Y. –Bio
- Alex Wells | DB | Baltimore, Md.- Bio
- Michael Dogbe | DE | Morris Plains, N.J. – Bio
- James McHale | OL | Dunmore, Pa. – Bio
- Ventell Bryant | WR | Tampa, Fla. – Bio
- Shamir Bearfield | DB | Jersey City, N.J. – Bio
- Lenny Williams | QB | McKees Rocks, Pa. – Bio
- David Hood | RB | Galloway, N.J. – Bio
- Aaron Ruff | OL | Philadelphia, Pa. – Bio
- Frank Nutile | QB | Ramsey, N.J. – Bio
- Sean Chandler | DB | Camden, N.J. – Bio
- Freddie Booth-Lloyd | DL | Cocoa, Fla. – Bio
- Anthony Davis | DB | Monroeville,Pa. – Bio
- Jaelin Robinson | OL | New Haven, Conn. – Bio
- Derrick Ingram | WR | Tampa, Fla. – Bio
- Brodrick Yancy | WR | Bradenton, Fla. – Bio
- Brenon Thrift | DL | Monroeville, Pa. – Bio
- Jyquis Thomas |DB | Plant City, Fla. – Bio
- Jacob Martin | DL | Aurora, Colo. – Bio
- Delvon Randall | WR | Monroeville, Pa. – Bio
- Jared Folks | LB | Harrisburg, Pa. – Bio
- Matt Eaton | WR | Pascagoula, Miss. – Bio
- Khiry Lucas | DB | Cleveland, Miss. – Bio
The company you keep
Rivals.com’s list of Temple commits (above and below)
You are pretty much judged by the company you keep.
So it is with the Temple recruiting class of 2014.
By all accounts, it will be a good class. Will it be ranked by any of the three services (Rivals, Scout or 247) as high as No. 55?
Probably not, but we won’t know for sure until 3 or 4 p.m. Wednesday afternoon when all of the faxes with the LOIs will be received at the E-O.
Click over the black image above for a TV link to coverage of the faxes coming in starting at 7 a.m.
Fifty-five is a magical number, because that’s how high Steve Addazio’s 2012 recruiting class was ranked and that was the highest-ever in the history of Temple. Addazio was able to put that class together even after a few great recruiting classes by Al Golden, who had three straight recruiting classes ranked No. 1 in the MAC.
Of course, current head coach Matt Rhule was part of putting together those classes and now he appears to have put together a good one.
More than whether the class is ranked No. 55 or better is really not as important as how many guys Temple signed who were “offered by” BCS schools and not “received interest by.” When the bios start coming in, that’s a thing to pay special attention to before judging.
If Temple beats out a guy who was offered by say, Stony Brook and Kent State, that’s not as impressive as Penn State and Rutgers.
If Temple gets a late commit who turned down a Sun Belt school to take a Temple scholarship, that’s not as impressive as Temple beating out a Big 12 school (as it did when a West Virginia commit flipped at the last minute two years ago).
There will be those who say “trust the coaches” but I say “trust, by verify.” If more successful coaches than 2-10 coaches like our recruits, I will be impressed.
Let’s hope that’s the case once the faxes start rolling in and Temple gets guys who can play anywhere. We should know by this time Wednesday night.
McNair Would Be A Great Addition to Rhule’s staff
Todd McNair, coaching the Cleveland Browns, has Temple running through his blood.
A little over a year ago, then Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw walked into a room full of Temple football players and told them their head coach at the time, Steve Addazio, was leaving for Boston College.
Partly out of courtesy, partly out of curiosity, Bradshaw asked the team what they thought he should do. The players shouted out one thing: “Hire Matt Rhule.” Bradshaw had other ideas, even mentioning to several fans that it was his desire this time to get a guy with winning head coaching experience.
Paul Darragh finished his first season as head coach at Bloomsburg with a 10-2 record.
As it turned out, though, what the players had to say carried an awful lot of weight when Bradshaw was weeding through the interview process. Like a couple of years before, Rhule interviewed well and was liked by more than just the players. The parents also liked him, as did some key administrators who remembered Rhule’s time as an assistant coach for both Addazio and the guy before him, Al Golden.
In the end, Rhule’s knowledge of the program and the kids and that support won Bradshaw over. That, and the fact at least one other key target was coaching his team in a bowl game and did not want to give that up to get to Temple early enough to secure a shaky recruiting class.
Rhule had a rough first year, going 2-10, but he has secured a couple of decent recruiting classes and one of the only things left for him to do is to hire a guy or two with Temple connections as a key position coach. It’s one thing to have Temple-made guys like former quarterback Adam DiMichele and former safety Kevin Kroboth as grad assistants, but it might be helpful to get a guy from Temple as a position coach as well.
I think the next step for a guy like Matt Rhule is to hire an assistant coach with Temple ties to a winning past, a guy like Paul Darragh or Todd McNair. Darragh finished the season as a 10-2 head coach at Bloomsburg University and McNair was one the offensive coordinator for powerhouse USC under Pete Carroll. McNair, a NFL running back, was also an assistant coach with the Cleveland Browns. Other coaches with Temple backgrounds include (but are not limited to) Dick Beck, the North Penn High School head coach and Rich Drayton, the Central High School head coach.
Even the Florida Gators once feared Todd McNair.
I thought about Todd the other day when he posted that he was happy with the addition of Elijah Robinson to the Temple staff. I thought, “Why not Todd?” Todd is a great guy and a great coach who has a National Championship under his belt at USC and, while at Temple, played in a game against defending national champion BYU in front of 52,945 at Veterans Stadium. (Temple lost that game, 26-24.)
Why not indeed? He would be a great role model for the present-day Temple kids.
You can never have too many good coaches on the staff, especially guys with “Temple-made” stamped on their farheads.
Recruiting: Embrace it or Fail
Arguably, the jewel of this recruiting class is cornerback Anthony Davis of Gateway and probably not arguable is that cornerback is the one position where Temple needs immediate help.
Say what you will about Matt Rhule and we haven’t been shy about saying a few thousand words about him over the last few months, the facts of life in college sports start with a head coach who excels in recruiting.
Sure, you need a little bit on the ball on game day but, if you have better players, you are usually going to make the better plays.
247Sports’ AAC recruiting rankings.
Back to Rhule, though. The guy’s most positive trait is that he’s embraced recruiting pretty much like Al Golden did and that’s a very good development for Temple football going forward. Kids like him and he seems to like hopping aboard airplanes and trains to solidify relationships. He’s also good on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter and that’s just part of the recruiting game these days. For all of those reasons, I think Rhule will hold together a pretty good recruiting class and have Temple ranked No. 3 or No. 4 in the AAC in recruiting this season. That’s outstanding coming off a 2-10 season because a belief system that would have been there for 10-2 doesn’t exist at 2-10. At 2-10, you are asking kids to come to your school based on blind faith.
One of the reasons Bill O’Brien left Penn State was that I don’t think a whole lot of guys who spend extended time in the NFL have a zeal for recruiting. Reading between the lines of O’Brien’s comments today, it looks like he saw it as a necessary but not exciting part of the job. O’Brien also seemed miffed with the “Joe Paterno” faction of the Penn State fans.
Now he just has to concentrate on football and I think he will do a good job as head coach of the Texans.
Matt Rhule has got to get better on game day and I thought one step in that direction would have been hiring part-time CBS Sports Analyst Tom Bradley to be his new full-time defensive coordinator. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, but Penn State defensive line coach (and great recruiter) Larry Johnson is out there and probably will be looking for a job soon and Temple so happens to have an opening for a defensive line coach. (Unless, of course, Johnson goes to the pros.)
Seems like a no-brainer to me but a lot of things seemed like no-brainers this season that turned into brainers.
Junior Galette’s Return to Philadelphia
Click on photo of Eagles’ fans to find five keys to the game, one involving former Temple player Junior Galette.
Just like about six million other people in the tri-state area on Saturday night, I’ll be watching the Eagles vs. Saints playoff game on Saturday night.
I also hold no hopes for New Orleans’ starting defensive end Junior Galette to say “Junior Galette, Temple Owls” when he does his own introduction on NBC. That honor will be probably reserved for Spellman College, which recently eliminated all intercollegiate sports.
Damn.
Galette is returning to Philadelphia, but not “coming home.” He had to be dismissed from the team by then head coach Al Golden for a discipline issue we won’t get into here, but I’m always sad to see great talent exit Temple for any reason.
Galette’s return does make you wonder about what happened to the one vaunted Temple pass rush, though. Consider the guys who have been through here: Galette, Muhammad Wilkerson and Adrian Robinson. Of the three, although “Big Mo” is the all-pro, Robinson was the best pass rusher in college. I always told his dad he was playing out of position (I thought the Owls should have used him as an OLB with pass-rushing responsibilities, ala Lawrence Taylor with the Giants) but I could see Golden’s point in that the Owls needed to play him as a down lineman.
Hopefully, Matt Rhule brings in Galette, Wilkerson and Robinson type talent in with this class. Pass defense becomes a lot easier when the bad guy’s quarterback is on his ass all the time.
Greatest Punt Block Ever:
