Tag Archives: Temple football

10.09.23
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Mid-Mortem reads like a post-mortem

Something I thought I’d never see again after Carey was chased out of town. Yikes.

Halfway through the season is about as good a time to gauge how the rest of the season is going to go.

The sample is not small anymore and few can accuse analysts of jumping to conclusions too soon.

Too early to declare the patient dead but early enough to take the temperature and it doesn’t look like this fever is going to break in the next two months. Maybe a miracle will happen and head coach Stan Drayton will say enough is enough on defense, make a coaching change and start turning things around.

Here’s what we know about the first six games of the Temple season:

Temple 24, Akron 21 _ The Owls entered that game double-digit favorites and were lucky to escape Lincoln Financial Field by the skin of their teeth. It was easily their best defensive effort of the season, shutting out the Zips in the second half. Really, though, in light of what’s happened to Akron, how impressive was it? NIU, not exactly a powerhouse (it lost to Southern Illinois) just put up 55 points on Akron, one week after Akron lost to an 0-4 Buffalo team. Verdict: About as unimpressive a win as there is on a FBS team resume.

D.J. Eliot put Layton Jordan in positions where he could have and did make plays like this all last year, a sack of the Rutgers’ quarterback. Too often, Everett Withers has Jordan dropping back in no-man’s-land on pass coverage and not sicking him on the bad guys’ quarterback, where he can cause havoc plays like forced fumbles.

Rutgers 36, Temple 7 _ Owls hung in there as late as the fourth quarter, scoring a touchdown early to make it 13-7 but a huge red flag was that they allowed the nation’s current 110th-ranked offense to run all over them in the final dozen minutes of the game. Another one was the slow start of their own offense, as the coaching staff allowed a quarterback who produced zero points at halftime to take the keys to the offense in the second half. The third quarter fared no better for the Owls’ offense. Verdict: After playing this same team to a 16-14 loss a year ago, improvement to a win was not asking for much considering that head coach Stan Drayton himself said the 2023 version of Temple would be better than the 2022 one.

Temple 41, Norfolk State 9 _ The Owls entered the game as a 32-point favorite and won by that exact amount. Nothing to brag about because Norfolk State had lost to a Division II (not even FCS) team, Virginia State, earlier. Since then, Norfolk State allowed North Carolina A&T to get its first win of the season. Verdict: Owls should never have scheduled this team.

Miami 41, Temple 7 _ The Hurricanes’ recruiting pedigree was on display in this game as their lines overwhelmed the Owls on both sides of the ball. After the game, Drayton said “we hope to one day recruit players like them.” Yet this same Hurricane team lost on Saturday to a Georgia Tech team that lost to Bowling Green and former Owls’ OC Scot Loeffler. After beating Georgia Tech, Loeffler didn’t say “we hope one day to recruit people like them.” He just figured out a way to get his guys to beat those guys. After that game, Georgia Tech coach Brent Key fired his defensive coordinator and was rewarded with a win at Miami. Maybe Drayton will pick up on that clue. All over college football there are examples of less talented teams beating more talented teams. Why hasn’t that happened with Temple since Geoff Collins beat No. 17 Cincinnati? Verdict: Even as 24-point underdogs, the Owls underperformed.

Even “Wager Talk” apparently knows more about hiring than Stan Drayton

Tulsa 48, Temple 26 _ It’s one thing to allow 48 points to a Tulsa team that scored only 10 against Washington and 17 against Oklahoma. It’s another thing to allow 48 points to a Tulsa team that was only able to score 22 on NIU. Hell, even Arkansas Pine-Bluff’s defense allowed fewer points to Tulsa than Temple’s defense. Not “regular Arkansas” or even Arkansas State but Arkansas Freaking Pine-Bluff. Verdict: A complete and utter embarrassment.

UTSA 49, Temple 34 _ The offense for a change played well except for two fumbles that turned into 14 points the other way, but when you put up 34 in a college football game a normal team should expect to win that game. You shouldn’t have to play perfect offensive football to have a chance to win a game but, with Everett Withers in charge, that’s what this season has been reduced to unfortunately. Verdict: Expect more games to come unless a change is made at the top of Temple’s defense.

After a year where the Owls’ defense played like mad crazed dogs in losses to Rutgers and at Navy, there are no mad crazed dogs in sight on defense. Strange, because the same players are out there and the only difference is the defensive leadership.

Friday: North Texas Preview

10.07.23
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Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Defenses

After Saturday’s Homecoming 49-34 loss to UTSA, the math just doesn’t add up for Temple.

With six games left, the football Owls have to win four games just to become bowl eligible. That doesn’t look likely. Hell, Stan Drayton’s stated dream of “winning championships” at the school will have to wait another year.

Or two unless he hits the portal as hard as he should.

Or maybe never with this guy in charge of his defense.

You could make a strong argument that the math didn’t add up all the way back on St. Patrick’s Day when Drayton handed the keys of his defense to long-time friend, Everett Withers, after D.J. Eliot left the same DC position to become a linebackers’ coach with the Eagles.

If Drayton learned anything this season, friends don’t let friends drive defenses.

Were there more qualified people available?

Sure.

The last time a head coach handed the keys to his defense over to Withers was not all that long ago in 2021 and Withers got the head coach, Butch Davis, fired at FIU. Of the 130 FBS teams that year, FIU finished 128th in total defense, giving up just over 496 yards and 39.7 points per game. That’s hard to do on purpose, let alone ostensibly trying to tackle people.

That’s not the kind of resume you take into a job interview.

Yet Drayton probably didn’t vet Withers because he knew the guy and liked him.

When I was sports editor of two daily newspapers, I never hired a guy because I liked or knew him before. I would sort through the resumes and find the best guy for the job. When I was 24, I was given the responsibility of hiring someone for an assistant editor’s position.

Nobody worked out. They were either too slow or too sloppy or too unreliable. That is, until an experienced guy walked in and killed the tryout. Wrote the best headlines, made the best edits, laid out the best-looking pages.

“This is the guy I want to hire,” I told my Editor-In-Chief.

“But he’s 50,” my editor said. “Are you sure?”

“Fifty isn’t old,” I said.

“You’re getting a raise,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m 50.”

Editor was true to his word with the raise and he let me hire the guy, who turned out to be one of the best hires I ever made. I didn’t become his friend until after the hire.

Withers is 60 but he could be 30 and still wouldn’t have been the best person for the job. In his last season at FIU, he allowed 54 to Texas Tech, 31 to Central Michigan, 58 to FAU, 45 to Charlotte, 34 to Western Kentucky, 38 to Marshall, 47 to Old Dominion, 50 to MTSU and 49 to North Texas.

Most not FBS powerhouses but he made them look that way.

I’d rather have a 90-year-old guy who knows how to stop a modern offense than a 60-year-old who appears to be in over his head.

So far at Temple, against FBS opposition, he’s given up 21 points to Akron, 36 to Rutgers, 41 to Miami, 48 to Tulsa and now 49 points to a 2-3 UTSA team.

He has Temple on par to break the dismal record of the 2021 FIU defense.

That’s a shame because an offense that scored 26 points against Tulsa and 34 points against UTSA has done enough to win. E.J. Warner woke from his season-long slumber and became the E.J. we knew and loved at the end of last year. He and the offense deserved better. The defense once again didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

Sometimes you have to take the keys from your friend and tell him he can’t drive anymore. If Stan doesn’t do that to Everett, he’s staring at another 3-9 season.

That’s only if there’s at least one team out there Temple can win a shootout against.

Monday: Post-mortem

10.06.23
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Homecoming Must: Urgency to Win

UTSA coach Jeff Traylor pretty much tells you he’s not concerned with Temple here. Owls should take it as an insult.

Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s something else, but the way the Temple football Owls performed at the end of last season gave me significant hope for this season.

That’s pretty much all gone now.

At the end of the season, I wrote on this site that if the Owls got me a great running back from the portal (Western Michigan’s Sean Ryan and Ball State’s Carson Steele to name two) and two great FCS defensive ends to replace Darian Varner, the Owls were off and running not only to 8-4 but a possible AAC title.

Not having done any of that we recalibrated those expectations down to 6-6.

Stan Drayton needs to have a quick hook if E.J. produces zero or three points at the half again.

Now, with the biggest home game of the season less than 24 hours away (2 p.m., ESPN+), we might have to lower even those expectations.

Why?

The most disappointing thing about this 2-3 season so far is not the loss to Tulsa but the lack of urgency to win from this coaching staff.

I had us 3-2 at this point, not 2-3. Had the losses to RU and Miami but the loss to Tulsa came out of nowhere.

If this coaching staff really, really deep down inside had the urgency to win, they would not have handed the keys to the offense back to the driver who drove them into a ditch in the first half at Rutgers. After giving me 46 against ECU and 35 against Houston, no points there should have been a huge red flag.

If this staff really wanted to win, what was the same guy doing in the game down, 21-3, at half to a team that gave up 66 to Oklahoma and 43 to Washington and why were they allowing that to happen? I don’t get it.

They rolled the same guy out there expecting him to overcome a 21-3 deficit when it’s quite obvious he can’t move the sticks by running if a play breaks down or if he gets any pressure.

As the kids say today, “WTF?”

That cannot be allowed to happen. It just can’t. Next man up.

Our picks this week: Rutgers getting the 13.5 at Wisconsin, and the above four games, Rice blowing out UConn by more than 10, Texas State beating Louisiana, South Florida beating UAB by at least a FG and TCU winning at Iowa State. Season: 20-7 overall, 8-4 against the spread.

If the Owls only had a promising freshman from Ocean City, N.J., I can understand that. But they have a guy in the fold who not only beat North Carolina but engineered 47 points on them. They have a dynamic backup quarterback who can both run and throw.

Nothing would please me more than to see E.J. Warner turn the first-half scoreboard into adding machine against UTSA and, say, give the Owls a 31-14 lead at halftime.

Failing that, though, this staff has to show me inertia is not their middle name and show me another word that hasn’t been in their dictionary all season.

Urgency.

Get him out of there and at least show the fans you are trying to win by getting Quincy Patterson in there to create plays and move the ball not just with his arm but his feet.

Rally the defense and special teams around him.

Don’t wait to win.

Win now.

Or that biggest crowd of the season won’t come back this year or maybe even next.

Sunday: UTSA analysis

10.01.23
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The roster: Grasping at Straws

No doubt Jeff Traylor has seen this film and Tulsa gave him a blueprint of exactly what to do Saturday.

Those running backs on opposing teams who keep running through, past and over defensive linemen against Temple are an indictment of what Stan Drayton and company did this offseason.

Or didn’t do.

“OK, who here wants to switch to the DL?”

Hit the portal hard.

As a 40+ year Temple fan, I’m appalled by the ease of which Tulsa running backs hit the hole and gashed the Owls’ defense. It’s one thing to let Miami do it. It’s another to let Tulsa do it. They were grasping at running backs on Thursday night.

They might as well been grasping at straws.

Those big chunk passes Tulsa made all night were the result of the D-Line not getting to the quarterback. Temple might have to change its scheme and gamble with numerous all-out blitzes, using their most talented room (linebackers) to make plays like sacks, fumbles, fumble recoveries and interceptions. Do anything but sit back and get run over. That’s not Temple TUFF.

Not that we didn’t see this coming a mile away because we advocated many times for the Owls to get running backs from Ball State and Western Michigan and Liberty who remained in the portal and the Ivy League defensive lineman of the year from Harvard as soon as he entered it. You knew Darian Varner was leaving in December. The priority then should have been to get Temple fans two Darian Varners from the FCS ranks.

What did Temple do instead?

Hit the Junior College ranks for an offensive lineman and a cornerback and they’ve been pretty much the only help the Owls have gotten so far that has meant a damn.

Junior college should have been the last place Drayton and his staff looked because every year you see lower-ranked FBS teams knocking off P5 teams (Bowling Green over Georgia Tech on Saturday and Georgia Southern over Nebraska last year are just two of many examples).

Temple should have been able to talk some of those Georgia Southern and Bowling Green guys to come to Philadelphia in the offseason. Got to think one or two of those really good players who made impacts for those teams in those games would have given Temple some consideration.

We will never know.

Failing that, there are some great FCS teams. Albany beat Villanova, 31-10, on Saturday. You think there might have been someone from Albany who can help Temple now and who would rather play for Temple?

I do.

Owls have to put the playmakers they have in a position to make plays. D.J. Elliot did that. So far, Everett Withers has not.

There are great players on FCS teams who end up drafted by the NFL. Temple should go after those guys. Logically, a move up to Temple’s level would improve draft profiles. Instead, Junior College appears to have been their focus.

That’s two steps below where the focus SHOULD have been.

Now the Owls are caught between a rock and a hard place. There is an obvious need for talent especially on the defensive line and the Owls are out of big bodies who can stop the run and get after the passer.

There is no place to find those guys on campus now. They should have been found beating the bushes in the offseason.

Everybody knows what Jeff Traylor, a great head football coach, is going to do on Saturday: Run right at the Owls and dare them to stop him. Some FBS and FCS linemen in the portal last year could have helped them Saturday. Right now, the Owls have no choice to do it with the guys they have in the building. Having Layton Jordan drop five yards into pass coverage does nobody any good when he can create havoc rushing the passer. Increasingly, unless they figure out a gambling scheme that can cause more havoc and turnovers, the Owls need to win battles at the point of attack.

Although they didn’t show it at Tulsa, Owls may have the will to do it. They may not have the means.

Friday: Where’s the Urgency?

09.28.23
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The Indiana Football Curse Strikes Again

Everett Withers could be the greatest friend and the nicest guy in the world but he has been complete garbage as a DC for FIU and now for Temple. He’s killing Stan Drayton. He needs to go like yesterday.

Many things can be true at once.

For Temple, the four truthers in a 48-26 football loss at Tulsa on Thursday night at Tulsa were:

One, defensive coordinator Everett Withers can’t stop a nosebleed. We already knew that.

Two, E.J. Warner’s sophomore slump is official. We “kinda sorta” expected that before this but it is now confirmed.

Three, Temple should avoid hiring buddies as football coaches.

Looks like Pat Kraft hired the wrong Indiana football coach.

Four, and maybe most importantly, The Indiana Football Curse struck again.

A former Indiana football person once again killed Temple.

Kevin Wilson, the Indiana head coach from 2011-2016, coached the pants off Stan Drayton. Wilson joins former Indiana player (and current Indiana quality control coach) Rod Carey as killing any Temple football hopes. Carey’s accomplice was former Temple AD Pat Kraft who could have hired anyone but chose his fellow Indiana alum. He picked the wrong Indiana guy.

The first and third killers are directly related because Withers is a buddy of Drayton and hiring buddies is a proven disaster at Temple. What was that Peter, Paul and Mary song? “When will they ever learn?”

Bill Bradshaw hired his buddy (Fran Dunphy) and that didn’t work out.

Kraft hired his buddy (Rod Carey) and that didn’t work out.

Arthur Johnson hired his buddy (Stan Drayton) and that doesn’t appear to be working out.

Stan Drayton hired his buddy (Everett Withers) and that has definitely not worked out. We saw that coming a mile away if you count St. Patrick’s Day as a mile.

Let’s sift through the resumes and hire the best person for the job and abandon this buddy system. That, unfortunately, is a hard lesson to learn and the Owls’ football program maybe has run out of time. When you have a bean-counting BOT that doesn’t even think painting the field is worth it, can the program itself be that far behind?

Our picks this week. As long as Withers is the DC, it’s money in the bank to pick against Temple.

Very little hiring oversight at Temple and that is showing through on national television.

As a result, a once-proud Temple football program is a national laughingstock. It pains me to say that but the evidence was there on Thursday night for any TV in any bar in America that was tuned into this game. (My guess it was on one TV in the far corner of every one while the NFL game was on every other TV.)

A 2-2 start to a season that started with so much promise pretty much ended on Thursday night. You can’t lose to a team that lost games by 66-17 and 43-10 no matter how good the teams that had the 66 and the 43 were.

This “Waiting for Warner” to be as good as he was last year needs to stop. Anybody who was shut out in the first three quarters by Rutgers and held to three points in the first half by a horrible Tulsa defense is just not good enough for Temple going forward. Stop babying him and worrying about him leaving. If he’s not turning the scoreboard into an adding machine, and he’s not, he needs to sit.

Quincy Patterson needs a shot from the beginning and not just in garbage time. He’s a big guy who, unlike Warner, can see over defenses and, also unlike Warner, can take off and run and do some damage should the play break down.

That’s probably the only thing to look forward to in the future. That, and discovering if Stan Drayton has the gonads to fire a friend for the overall advancement of the organization. That’s what great CEOs are able to do. Unfortunately, I very much doubt it.

For now, the reality is that the Indiana football curse struck Temple again and, ironically, Pat Kraft hired the wrong buddy.

Update on picks: Went 12-3 this weekend. Since they were all on the moneyline, going to keep those separate from my 8-4 against the spread in the previous two weeks.

Season: 20-7 overall

Spread: 8-4

Monday: Tweaking A Recruiting Model

Friday: Sense of Urgency

09.25.23
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Miami-Temple was sign of changing times

Had a conversion with a really good Temple fan in the parking lot on Saturday before the Miami vs. Temple game.

Told him I was really considering entering the fan transfer portal not from my beloved Temple–which I will always be a fan of–but to the NFL.

The reason was this NIL and transfer portal nonsense.

The big schools, who already have all the recruiting advantages, have now taken the sublime to the ridiculous where they not only already have the best recruits but now take away the players who the lesser teams have put sweat and toil into recruiting and coaching up. Players have no loyalty to the school that made them what they were and move on the next best thing. Schools with the wad of cash basically pick and choose who they want when they want. Screw the little guy. Trickle down economics? LOL. Jordan Addison was the national receiver of the year at Pitt and would have still been drafted in the first round if he stayed there but for some reason ($$$$) saw fit to spend his final year at USC. Dillon Gabriel was a perfectly good quarterback at UCF but had wandering eyes for Oklahoma. Most Temple players who leave learn the hard way they left a starting position at Temple to ride the pine elsewhere (see Jadan Blue and Darian Varner).

Tulsa fans were really excited to host rival Oklahoma until they realized they bought all the good players.

It’s really the opposite of the NFL where the organization gives a helping hand to the lowest of its group in the form of the draft with the idea being the entire business model benefits from everyone having an equal chance to succeed.

College football today is like a billionaire walking along skid row and pickpocketing whatever loose change the downtrodden have.

It’s going to get worse.

Mentioned to this gentleman that in past years I would have hopes of Temple springing the upset of Miami but held no such belief this year because the system is stacked against the Temples of the world and all of the G5. Sat next to him in the stands when Temple won at Maryland, 38-7, and that was a really fun day.

I want those days to come back. I’m not sure they ever will.

Unless someone (Congress, Courts, a strong NCAA governing body) can come in and give all 130 FBS schools an equal chance, I could see my interest waning in the so-called “amateur” side of football. The NCAA gave SMU the “death penalty” in 1987 for what pretty much is standard operating procedure in 2023.

The great Temple fan made a very good point.

“I live a mile from Lincoln (College) and I think I’m going to go see them more and forget about this,” he said.

I said I don’t blame him. I’m pretty sure a lot of G5 fans feel the same way.

That got me to thinking.

Why don’t the players from Lincoln get paid? Or West Chester? They put in the same work to be good that the players from Miami do. They play for the love of the game.

It’s a really skewed, unfair system and, because it has become more skewed in the past five years.

Gone are the days when a Temple can upset Virginia Tech and an Appalachian State can beat Michigan and those types of upsets are what made college football great. Those types of upsets still exist in March Madness but who knows for how long?

Now when a big-time P5 team plays a G5 team you pretty much know the outcome.

Temple lost to its P5 foes, 36-7, and 41-7. That didn’t use to be the case all that long ago. Temple beat Penn State, 27-10, one year and the next traveled up to Penn State to lose by one touchdown to the evenutal Big 10 champion. In years past, the Owls beat an SEC team 37-7 (Vanderbilt) and three times beat Maryland (38-7, 35-14 and 20-17). They played the No. 9 team in the country (Notre Dame) to a virtual standoff in 2015 before the largest prime time TV watching crowd in the history of the fourth-largest market.

Are those days over?

Probably.

The team Temple plays on Thursday night, Tulsa, lost to Oklahoma (66-17) and Washington (43-10).

It says something about how the nation views Temple football that TULSA–even after losses like that–is favored by 3 1/2 points over Temple. The Owls should take that as an insult but I’m not all that sure they will.

Temple has to do something to lift itself out of this morass and there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight other than to win as many games as it can playing against a stacked deck.

The fact that Tulsa also has been dealt the same hand is small consolation.

Friday: Tulsa Recap

09.23.23
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Temple Football: Nothing special (yet)

After four games, Temple football is just about what everybody said they were a couple of months ago.

Two and two with the final eight games being the determining factor of the season. If the Owls do well, they could play 10 more games.

Disheartening, yes, because with the way the Owls and E.J. Warner finished a year ago (roughly 500 yards passing in the last couple of games against bowl teams), there was hope for a better start.

If Warner hit the ground running, he would not have gotten shut out in the first three quarters against Rutgers and he would have been able to put more than a score on the board against Miami. He would have put up a 40 burger on Akron.

E.J. Warner is playing more like 157-year-old Pop Warner than the E.J. we saw at the end of last season.

None of that happened.

Instead of hitting the ground running, he’s just hit the ground. Somebody needs to pick him up or Quincy Patterson should be warming up on the sidelines. Championship college football teams have quarterbacks who can run as well as they pass. Temple can get away with being one-dimensional only if the immobile quarterback throws 300+ with about 3-5 TD passes every game.

That hasn’t happened for Temple. Time for a sense of urgency with this program.

Maybe it’s too early to declare sophomore slump but there hasn’t been a natural progression from games 11 and 12 of last year to 1-4 of this one.

That needs to change starting Thursday night.

Nobody expected to beat Miami but a win over a RU team that the Owls lost to 16-14 a year ago would have been tangible proof that this was a better team than the one Temple fielded a year ago.

Now it’s an open question.

Warner gets a Mulligan for the Miami game because this is a team that is capable of winning the national championship. I was invited to go on a Miami fan call-in show Friday night and told them the Canes would probably win 35-21. I really believe that would have been the score if Temple played to its potential. It did not. There is no disgrace for losing to Miami 41-7 yet there is a nagging annoyance that Temple did not play that team significantly better than Bethune-Cookman did. Really annoyed that good guy Jordan Smith was open by 10 yards in the end zone and Warner threw it right to the numbers of the only bad guy the same number of yards away. That said, I would not be surprised if Miami was in the Final Four and won the whole damn thing.

Beating Miami, though, was never the goal of this season.

Winning the AAC championship at the maximum or at least making a bowl game was.

Nothing the Owls have done through four games indicates the former and even Temple homer radio seems to agree. I left the game so disgusted about the Owls being uncompetitive that I sat back in my car to warm up. Holding the steering wheel while reaching for the heater I turned on the radio and heard Temple play-by-play guy Kevin Copp tell analyst Paul Palmer this: “The idea is to get to six wins however you need to do it.”

Huh?

We will find out if those words are flowery platitudes or have substance by late Thursday night.

Now the goal is six freaking wins for a program that used to win eight on a regular basis for the decade between 2009-2019? Yippee. “We’re No. 80!” From playing in consecutive AAC championships, beating Penn State, Maryland (three times, 38-7, 35-14 and 20-17), and Vandy (37-7) to fighting for that No. 80 spot of 130 teams.

No thanks.

That’s not what Stan Drayton has said since the end of last year.

He said the goal is to win the AAC championship. If you can’t beat a Tulsa team that lost to Washington, 43-10, you don’t deserve to win an AAC championship. Guys need to play to the stats they put on the sheet last year, especially at the most important positions on the team.

By 11 p.m. Thursday night, we will find out if Drayton’s goal is within reach or the Owls will have to struggle, scratch, crawl and, yes, SETTLE to reach Copp’s minimalist goal.

Update on picks: Went 5-1 against the spread Saturday with the only loss being Memphis at Missouri. Correctly picked the Oregon blowout of Colorado, Marshall covering the five against VT, and Duke blowing out UConn in the key games.

Week: 5-1

Season: 8-4

Monday: College Football in Nutshell

Friday: Tulsa Recap

09.22.23
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Defying All Logic Would Be a Miracle

Depressed Ginger, an Ohio State fan, is more optimistic about Temple’s chances than I am but he’s done about 21 more hours of film study on the Owls than I have.

About a year or so before I matriculated down the road from Northeast Philadelphia to Temple University, Joanne A. Epps was a teenager working in the bookstore at Temple University.

That was a long damn time ago.

The rain will serve as an appropriate backdrop for the Owls’ first game in a long time without Joanne A. Epps in attendance.

She worked and sweated and studied her way from pretty close to the bottom to the top of the university as the school’s 13th President.

She embodied what Temple was all about. Upward mobility.

I’m sure if she worked in the bookstore two years later I would have talked to her then but I don’t remember. My guess is that she was on to the next thing by then. I didn’t really meet her until one of those alumni pre-game tent functions during the Matt Rhule Era and she asked me a ton of questions about Temple football and I hopefully supplied some answers that made sense. She was particularly interested when I told her I wrote every single member of the Board of Trustees and asked for Bobby Wallace to be fired instead of the nuclear option (dropping the program) they considered back then. I included a letter sent to me from a then current football player, Chris Harris. Temple’s BOT decided to part ways with Wallace, join a new league and hire a real head coach: Al Golden, who proved to be as perfect for Temple as he was imperfect for Miami.

Picks this week. Went 3-3 last week and now 3-3 for the season. Really like a Tulsa team beating an NIU team that lost to FCS Southern Illinois, UConn to be outclassed by Duke and Memphis getting six vs. a Missouri team coming off an emotional win. Oregon will burst Deion’s bubble in a big way.

President Epps was a true Temple football fan, loved the school and even before her death hit the radio and TV the other day my phone text messages blew up with the sad news that she passed away unexpectedly (and shockingly because I assumed she was in great heath).

In my mind, there couldn’t have been better choice to succeed Jason Wingard as President of Temple. She was Temple through and through, loved the school, loved the students, loved the alumni, loved the teams. If you were an alum like me, she wanted to hear your whole story and I’m sure I bored her with mine but she listened. (My advice to the BOT: Ditch the national search nonsense and pick a Temple person as the next President.)

In the Catholic Faith, you need three miracles to become a Saint and Epps must’ve have talked to The Really Big Guy to Provide Miracle No. 1. Tropical Storm 16 is about to pass only 13 miles south of Lincoln Financial Field by tomorrow’s 3:30 p.m. kickoff against the No. 20-ranked Miami Hurricanes.

True story. Before she passed this wasn’t even in the forecast. Every single bettor will tell you there is nothing that erases a talent disadvantage than bad weather.

Second miracle?

An Owls’ win over Miami because as much as I would like to believe the Owls have a chance tomorrow I really don’t and it all stems from the Rutgers’ loss. If this team let Kyle Monangai run over them (and they did) in the fourth quarter of a 36-7 loss, I don’t see them stopping better running backs from Miami. Miami beat Texas A&M and the other Miami and both are probably better teams than Rutgers.

So Temple winning is really out of the question.

Or is it?

Unless The Really Big Guy says “JoAnn that was a really good life. You need a favor?”

“Thanks for the Tropical Storm, God, but could you do one more thing?”

“You got it JE.”

“Make Miami fumble as many times as East Carolina did in 2014.”

This was how many times East Carolina fumbled.

This is what happened the last time it rained really hard at a Temple home game against a ranked foe

God: “I’ll do my best.”

We still don’t know what the third miracle might be but Miami losing only to Temple this season would certainly qualify. Temple losing only to Rutgers would be a bonus miracle. I will be there in the flesh and she will be there in spirit.

We know she’s a Saint and we’re giving her credit for Miracle No. 1.

Nos. 2 and 3 yet to be determined.

Sunday: Game Analysis

09.18.23
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Miami and Temple go way back

For a couple of schools who are separated by over 1,000 miles of prime East Coast real estate, Temple and Miami football have a lot in common.

The Owls and the Hurricanes go way back when Temple was the powerhouse team and Miami was a team lucky to get on the Owls’ schedule back in 1930. The Miami players were so grateful for the game that they brought the Owls coconuts as gifts.

In return, the Owls beat the Coconuts out of Miami, 34-0. That year the Owls finished 7-3 and somehow squeezed in a crowd of 16,000 to see that game at Atlantic City’s Convention Hall.

The Owls haven’t beaten Miami in the 13 subsequent meetings but will take another swing on Saturday (3:30 p.m., ESPN2) at Lincoln Financial Field.

If the Canes bring turnovers this time instead of coconuts, the Owls might have a chance. Miami comes into the game ranked No. 20 and the Owls are unranked but unranked teams have beaten ranked teams before and Group of Five teams have beaten Miami before. The Hurricanes lost to Florida International and Middle Tennessee in recent years and that fact has to give the Owls some hope.

Other things Miami and Temple have in common:

Vinny Testaverde and Paul Palmer with Brian Bosworth. All were wearing Cherry and White.

In 1986, the Hurricanes had the Heisman Trophy winner (Vinny Testaverde). The second-place finisher that year? Temple’s Paul Palmer.

Both teams tried to build on-campus stadiums. The Hurricanes’ proposed 8,000-seat stadium in 1926 was blown down by a literal Hurricane and plans to build it were scrapped. Temple held a meeting with the community to explain its Board of Trustees approved plan to build a 35,000-seat on campus stadium on March 18, 2018 and that was blown down by carbon dioxide emitted from the breaths of protestors at Mitten Hall. Plans to build that stadium apparently have been scrapped as well.

Both teams were originally members of the Big East Football Conference.

Temple’s field goal specialist, Camden Price, used to be Miami’s starting kicker.

Temple defensive lineman, Allan Haye, was once a defensive lineman for Miami.

Miami hired two Temple coaches, Al Golden in 2010 and Manny Diaz in 2018. Temple erected a billboard on Interstate 76 to welcome Diaz as its new head coach. Eighteen days later, Diaz reneged on his Temple contract to take the same job at Miami.

Temple almost hired current Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, who was considered the front-runner for the job in 2012 until he called then athletic director Bill Bradshaw from the Philadelphia International Airport asking “directions to Temple” for his interview. That call caused Bradshaw to pause and take the advice of then assistant AD Al Shrier who said, “Bill, listen to me. Hire Matt Rhule.”

Bradshaw listened and told Cristobal to get back on the plane. Rhule didn’t need directions to Temple and produced consecutive 10-win seasons for the Owls, including Temple hosting ESPN’s College Game Day on Halloween of 2015.

If the Owls beat Miami on Saturday, it will be the most significant thing they’ve done since that day.

If the Canes bring the turnovers, the Owls should return the coconuts. It’s the least they can do.

Friday: Defying All Logic

09.17.23
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Norfolk State: They were what Vegas thought they were

Amazing to me how much Vegas nails the line exactly and probably oddmakers’ best performance came on Saturday in a game it should have known little about.

The line for the Norfolk State at Temple game was not set until Friday when Temple was made a 30.5-point favorite.

By kickoff, the public moved that line up to 32 and that’s where it rested.

Thirty-freaking-two.

Temple won, 41-9.

That’s 32.

Two Super Bowl quarterbacks and one great T-shirt

Good news and bad news because by Sunday No. 22-ranked Miami should be a 30-point favorite over Temple before a much larger crowd. (Temple grad and Miami fan Howard Eskin will probably be there wearing Miami swag, sadly.)

The Owls have some work to do to bring that line down.

Or Miami will probably win 30-0, 40-10 or 50-20.

Maybe too much work.

The 41-9 win over Norfolk State exposed a lot of warts, mostly among the coaching staff.

Put it this way: The other home team that plays in that stadium, the Philadelphia Eagles, opened the season with a heavy dose of Kenny Gainwell on the first series of the year. Since he wasn’t stopped, they kept going to the (Gain)well and ended up with a touchdown.

Temple opened with a similar heavy dose of Florida’s top high school running back last year, Joquez Smith, on Saturday.

He was never stopped and the Owls had a 7-0 lead.

Correctly, head coach Stan Drayton went back to a diet of Joquez on the next drive. When they got down to the Norfolk State 20 or so, Drayton got the “great idea” of putting Edward Saydee back in the game.

Substituting the best high school running back in Florida with someone who wasn’t even the best high school running back in Roxborough is never a good idea and Drayton had to be kicking himself after Saydee fumbled.

Temple could have gone up 14-0 there and 21-0 after Quincy Patterson’s first touchdown. Halftime should have been 35-7, not 28-7.

Football is not rocket science.

If someone is doing the job for you that Joquez was doing for Temple (15 carries, 142 yards), feed the beast. Don’t bring in a pacifist to replace the beast.

No reason to put the failed running backs of the past back into the game.

That’s not the only coaching mistakes Temple made.

Stan Drayton taking Joquez Smith out for Edward Saydee caused Temple to trend nationally.

The kickoff guy they recruited from Purdue is not working out. He had one kickoff out of bounds against Rutgers last week and two more against Norfolk State. He either has a sore leg or a sore head. Either way, he needs to sit.

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me three times shame on everyone. There should be no fooling around next week and field goal kicker Camden Price should get those kickoff duties against Miami.

It’s one thing to be giving short fields to Norfolk State. It’s football suicide to be giving those same short fields to Miami.

The Temple kids–which the exception of stupid penalties–mostly did their jobs well.

The Temple coaching staff not so much.

Football isn’t rocket science. Temple has the best colors in the country (Cherry home, White away) and whoever picked black is a dufus.

It all goes back to decision-making.

If that end doesn’t improve, we will probably be writing about how amazing Vegas is again in this space next week.

It’s up to the coaching meeting room at Temple to change that dynamic. Playing Joquez and getting a new kickoff guy should be priority A and 1A. Not using Saturday to hone Quincy Patterson’s passing skills was also a coaching mistake. Patterson should have been given the opportunity to pass the ball at game speed now because, judging by the number of hits the offensive line is allowing E.J. Warner to take, he will need to do so later.

Even that might not be enough but the kids deserve the coaching staff’s best effort.

Vegas needs to be wrong sometime and next week would be a good place to start.

Monday: Similarities between Temple and Miami