Tag Archives: Temple football

10.19.20
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Fizzy: An Ode to the Offense

Editor’s Note: A short little diddy from Fizzy today

                            By: The Fizz

On first down in the red zone or at the goal,

running up the gut usually pays the toll

So after those plays are quickly snuffed,

play-action and passes become really tough

And so what’s left is to throw the fade’

but we’re 2 for 8 in the sun or shade

No matter where we are on the field,

a quick-screen will be tried for its yield

And though I may scream and beg,

can you remember the last bootleg

From our fans you can hear the curses,

cause we don’t see any RPO’s or reverses

And when the clock is running down,

we seem to like staying on the ground

So matter how you try and spin it,

Temple’s offense is losing minutes

When you couple that with poor timeouts,

against good teams we may see a route

So we’re one and one and a little proud,

but Ed Foley’s ghost is laughing out loud.

All-time winningest TU QBS by percentages

Friday: Memphis Preview

10.17.20
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TU Fans: Enjoy the win

In the waning days of Andy Reid’s tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles, his team did not look good.

Mostly losses, and even the wins were sloppy.

After the unimpressive wins, Reid would walk into the press room and brush off legitimate questions with one phrase: “Enjoy the win, fellas.”

That’s pretty much the message to Temple fans today.

This is what Temple has looked like on special teams

Enjoy the win because this might be the last one of this strange season.

It’s not hyperbole.

I can’t find a single team remaining on the Temple schedule as bad as USF was and is but the Owls had to struggle mightily to beat the Bulls, 39-37. In fact, they needed the USF quarterback, Jordan McLeod, to inexplicably put the ball on the carpet for a scoop and score that pretty much gave Temple a gift win.

I had to laugh at a few of the exchanges I saw on social media Saturday. After the game, former Owl Barry Jenkins correctly noted these Owls were “soft on defense” and “couldn’t stop the run.”

To that, a familiar face on the sidelines for the last couple of decades responded: “Adam (Klein) was hurt. We’ll be fine.”

My response: “He was talking about the defense. There was nothing about the defense that spelled fine unless you are talking about Larry Fine of The Three Stooges.”

If the defense was the only problem, that would be one thing. Defense is only one-third of the team. Offense is another third and special teams is a third.

That was the Al Golden Mantra. Defense one third, Offense one third, special teams one third. The way Rod Carey has prioritized special teams since his arrival has made it abundantly clear that he considers special teams 1/10th of the team, defense nearly one half and offense nearly one half.

That’s a losing football mentality.

The sad thing was that he had the best special teams coach in the country, Ed Foley, and let him slip through his fingers. If there was anyone who was a Temple lifer it was Foley. Coaches from Al Golden to Steve Addazio to Matt Rhule to Geoff Collins were smart enough to give the keys to the special teams car to Foley and know that he would not wreck it. Foley had that thing shiny and clean and purring like a kitten and he changed the oil and filter every 3,000 miles.

Since Carey let Foley go because he “wanted to get an extra defensive coach on the field” the Owls have looked like the Keystone Cops on special teams. They can’t block kicks (they used to routinely lead the country in that department), they can’t return kicks, they can’t cover kicks, and they can’t even kick it into the damn end zone. They even have a hard time recovering onsides’ kicks. Anthony Russo doesn’t even hold on field goals any more and defenses consequently don’t even have to account for a possible fake, which makes it much easier to block field goals.

Other than that, they are doing great on special teams.

Yet, for some reason, Carey thought getting an extra defensive coach on the field was a higher priority.

How did that extra defensive coach work out against USF on Saturday? He probably had a lot to do with USF, a team that was shut out by Notre Dame, scoring 37 points.

Not good.

Enjoy the win, though, fellas. It might be the last one because two-thirds of the team looks remarkably like all thirds of The Three Stooges.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

10.16.20
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We’ll find out if TU football is fixed soon

Temple’s last loss to USF was this 44-7 black helmet embarrassment two years ago.

That old saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” certainly doesn’t apply to Temple football these days.

Based on one game, Temple football is broke. The evidence certainly was there for all to see in a 31-29 loss to Navy on Saturday night.

For those who don’t have ESPN+ you can watch two guys watching and describing the game by cli
cking on this link

We will find out soon if the season is broken tomorrow, though. There’s no team worse in the AAC than USF and, if the Owls can’t beat the Bulls, there’s serious doubt that they can beat anyone else. That game will be played in front of family and friends (about 500) at Lincoln Financial Field and on TV (ESPN+) with the rest of the Owl fans watching from home.

Consider this: USF is coming off a 44-24 home loss to an ECU team that itself was coming off a 20-point loss to Georgia State. Not Georgia or even Georgia Tech, but Georgia State. Even coming off that loss, ECU was able to post its first win over USF since 2014, the year it was ranked No. 19 nationally (and lost to Temple).

Temple certainly went into the season thinking it was better than both ECU and USF but the Navy performance raised some doubts. The Navy game was the second in a row that the Owls underperformed from the standpoint of national perspective. In the bowl game against North Carolina, they entered as a 6.5-point underdog and lost, 55-13. Against Navy, they were anything from a 3-7-point favorite (depending on the day of the week) and lost, 31-29.

National confidence is still there in the Owls as they entered this one as a 10.5-point favorite but, no matter how much talk there is inside the Edberg Olson Complex about pad level, fans know what they saw with their two eyes:

One, the defense couldn’t stop the run;

Two, they couldn’t make the most obvious of two-point conversion calls in the red zone (a lob to a 6-6 wide receiver against a 5-10 corner).

For those up early Saturday morning, you can hear the excuses by watching 6abc between 9:30-9:50 a.m.

Three, they saw on the film that Navy couldn’t stop a fullback all season but Temple refused to improvise and adjust enough to use one in order to win an important game because, you know, that’s not the way we did things at NIU.

Any one of those adjustments would have probably made Temple 1-0 at this point. Making none of them bordered on coaching malfeasance.

That’s the definition of broken.

Maybe the first part, being overwhelmed physically in the run game, had a lot to do with the second because the scheme to stop that run game was also designed by the same coaching staff that decided on a horrible two-point conversion call.

Whatever, the responsibility for the defeat lies at a well-paid coaching staff that didn’t do its job well enough. Other well-paid coaching staffs, at BYU and Air Force, were able to take similar talent and perform at a higher level against Navy than Temple was.

After the game, that same coaching staff talked more about pad level on the field than the coaching ability off of it.

Right now, as I see it, that’s the broken part. Pad level, schmad level. The braintrust will need to be fixed first. We will find out if they can adjust the head level soon enough.

Late Saturday: Game Analysis

10.12.20
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Fizzy’s Corner: Dissecting The Loss

Editor’s Note: Former Temple football player Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub brings the perspective not only of a player but a lifetime of coaching football, teaching and writing. He breaks down the Navy game here.

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Well, you saw the game. There could have easily been fourteen more points on the board for Temple, and the two-point conversion call at the end was stupefying. That’s not what I want to discuss. 

     Throughout last season and this year’s first game, one consistency stands out. Temple does not adjust during the game, especially on defense. The game plan you come in with is the plan for the entire game. No matter what.

      Saturday was the worst. With over a month to get ready to play Navy’s triple-option, the plan was an overshifted 4-3 with a defender (nose-tackle) head-up on the center. Guess what? It didn’t work, and Navy ran up and down the field because Temple couldn’t stop the fullback. The only time the defense changed was when Navy had third and/or fourth and short.

 My opinion is that if you stop Navy’s fullback, you destroy their offense. So one different alignment might have a middle linebacker stacked in back of the nose-tackle, and they each blitz the gaps on either side of the center. Another might be two defenders lined up in the gaps on either side of the center. You have to remember that Navy’s quarterback couldn’t run well and couldn’t throw deep. There was no risk.

     After the debacle, Inquirer reporter Mike Jensen interviewed head coach Rod Carey. Carey said the problem was, “Our pad level was too high.” Of all the poppycock excuses I ever heard, this takes the cake. What the hell does that mean? Do you have to get shorter defenders? Carey made no mention of coaching deficiencies. 

     With last year’s defensive collapses in the second half and the poorly designed defensive strategy vs. Navy, one thing is abundantly clear. Temple can’t adjust. What a waste of talent.

Friday: USF Preview

10.10.20
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No Defense for that loss

IF Temple fans were allowed at Navy, this would have been their reaction.

In the strangest of strange seasons, The Citadel ended its season two hours before Temple started its season.

The Citadel’s season was over about 4 p.m. on Saturday. Temple started its season a couple of hours later. The Citadel’s defense did a much better job against a much better option offense than Temple’s did.

There are no more games left on The Citadel’s 2020 football schedule. There are seven more left on Temple’s 2020 schedule and, from what we saw on Saturday night, that might not be a good thing.

No one knew that the Owls’ season also would end at about 9 p.m. but effectively it did. We will get to why later in this post.

There was no defense for what Temple did in its opener.

Literally and figuratively.

“I should have given you the ball when I won the opening coin toss. I’m sorry.”

Last week against Air Force, Navy’s perennially vaunted running game amassed only 90 yards in a 40-7 loss.

Saturday at Annapolis, the Midshipmen had 251 rushing yards in a 31-29 win. They came in averaging 157.

What happened?

We knew going in that the Temple offense was the better of its three units–offense, defense and special teams. Yet what did the Owls do? They won the coin toss and deferred to the second half.

I’d rather have won the game than won twitter

Putting the Temple offense on the field could have given the Owls a 3-0 or 7-0 lead and deflated what had been a shaken Navy team even more. If your offense is the best part of your team, you’ve got to give your offense the ball if you win the coin toss.

Did that lose the game for them?

No, but it gave Navy some hope and a defense that had four months to prepare for a triple option acted like it had four days. Sure, the Owls lost their top nine tacklers from last season but they returned players like Dan Archibong and Ifeany Meijeh in the middle. Those two guys should not have been as affected by the fullback dive as they were, but they were.

What does this mean for the rest of the season?

If you can’t beat Navy in a down year, you have no chance of winning the AAC and very little chance of a winning season. Forget about winning season, a championship should be every team’s goal coming into a season and that’s not happening because I don’t see Cincy and UCF losing more than one or two games and Temple HAD to win every game it was favored in to even have a chance.

If you can’t gameplan an effective running game against the worst rushing defense in the country, then there is little chance of gameplanning effectively against teams like Cincinnati and UCF.

Temple had the best freshman running back in the nation last year and a steady dose of Ray Davis behind an experienced and talented offensive line might have taken off 10 minutes of the first quarter and given the Owls momentum the rest of the way.

Instead, the opposite happened and Navy had the ball for the first 10 minutes.

If this is the best the Owls can do with four months to prepare, it does not bode well for what will be weekly preparation the rest of a very short year.

That’s why the season is effectively over. Does finishing 4-4 or 3-5 even remotely resemble the Temple football you know and love? Does making no (zero) impact plays on special teams for the second year in a row give you the warm and fuzzies? Were you excited that a squib kick late in the game that gave Navy the ball on the 40 was the best a Temple kicker can do?

I didn’t think so.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

Friday: USF Preview

10.09.20
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The Longest Wait is Almost Over

The Longest Wait is a book by suburban Philadelphia native Erin Lynne about three Philly friends waiting for love.

Waiting and waiting.

Lynne might have to rip that book up and write a sequel because those three friends have nothing on the thousands of Temple football fans who have been waiting for the 2020 college season to begin.

This is literally the longest wait for a season to start since 1922. From 1918 through 1921, Owl fans had a longer wait because there was no varsity due to World War I. Since the 1922 season, though, this is it.

The first chapter begins tomorrow night (6 p.m., CBS Sports Network) and whether or not it’s a compelling read should be known by, say, halftime. If the Owls use the first half to establish the run behind a veteran offensive line and a terrific running back, they should be coasting by then.

If, on the other hand, they get cute with the RPO and bubble screens and a heavy dose of throwing long bombs, they could be very lonely by the end of the evening. Logic says Navy has had trouble stopping the run all year. So logic will dictate that the Owls attack that weakness.

We shall see but, if we found out something about Rod Carey in his first year as Temple coach, it’s that he does things his way and does not necessarily tailor his game plans around the weakness of the opposition. Good coach, but a little too stubborn. At least in that first season.

When asked about the 26 passes in the first 34 plays from scrimmage at Cincinnati, offensive coordinator Mike Uremovich said “we saw some mismatches with our wide receivers that we thought we could take advantage of and that’s why we emphasized that.”

The mismatches never materialized.

Receipts

When the Owls went to the run with Ray Davis in the second half, the offense started to click but, by then, it was too late. Navy was also the last place we saw the Owls and they got their butt kicked there 55-13 by a North Carolina team that entered the game only a 6.5 favorite.

The Owls started the season by winning 56-12 and ended it by losing 55-13. They beat Bucknell in the opener and then the Tar Heels made Temple look like Bucknell in the finale.

It was not a good look.

Live and learn.

Or maybe not.

BYU beat Navy, 55-3, and Air Force beat Navy, 40-7. Navy beat Tulane, 27-24. My feeling is that the Owls probably are not as good as BYU but there is no reason to believe they are not as good as Air Force.

Does that mean they are going to win 40-7? No, because each football game is a different entity and the Owls are not going to run the fullback against Navy. That doesn’t mean they can’t win 31-14 because the film has given them a blueprint on how to do it.

Run the ball, control the clock, and THEN make explosive plays in the passing game off play fakes to Ray Davis.

It might not be as sexy as Lynne’s book, but it certainly could be the first chapter of a compelling read.

Rod Carey has the pen and paper in his hands. It could be the best of times or the worst of times depending upon what he does.

Sunday: Game Analysis

10.05.20
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1958: The Last October start

The year 1958 was not a good time to be a student who loved sports at Temple University.

The football team did not start until Oct. 4th and played its scheduled eight-game season. The basketball team, a national powerhouse for years before and after, started two months after that and finished 6-19 under legendary coach Harry Litwack.

This year will be the first time since then that Temple football started in October. It finished 0-8. Among those losses were to Muhlenberg and Scranton and a 35-0 loss to Lafayette.

We can only hope and pray that things turn out the opposite way this year. There are several signs that they will, particularly on offense where they have experience at quarterback, offensive line, wide receivers and running backs. The 1958 team had none of that.

Of course, there was no pandemic back then.

Temple football unis 1958

The No. 1 song was “It’s All in the Game” by Tommy Edwards. It was No. 1 for three weeks in October.

Army was No. 1 in the country as late as Oct. 18 and that was the last time Army was ranked No. 1. The next season, a coach named Wayne Hardin took over the head job at Navy and the Midshipmen then beat their rivals five of the last six years.

Army finished third in the final poll, behind eventual winner LSU and No. 2 Iowa.

Temple football unis 2020

Why did Temple start on Oct. 4? We could not find a reason other than the university did not feel football was a good return on the investment. Pete Stevens, a former great player in better days, was the head coach and the season was part of a 21-game losing streak. They started the season even later, Oct. 5, in 1957, and did not play a September game in the late 1950s until the next year, 1959 (Sept. 26).

The Owls face a number of disadvantages starting this late because Navy and the other teams they face have played with game speed and there is no way to duplicate that in practice.

Still, the Owls have to know that virtually the only play Air Force ran in a 40-7 win over Navy was a fullback dive. Can they duplicate that? Doubtful, since they don’t have a fullback but they can simulate it by running Ray Davis left, right and (particularly) up the middle and it may be enough.

Here’s what Navy cornerback Cameron Kinley said about the loss:

That’s pretty much where we stand. Navy did a nice job stopping the more conventional offense that Tulane had. It did a terrible job stopping an offense with a fullback. Maybe Tayvon Ruley (6-0, 216) can step into that role for a few plays this week but Temple under Rod Carey has not shown that it can improvise and adjust to the weakness of the competition.

This week would be a good place to start.

As Tommy Edwards might say, it’s all in the game.

Friday: Our Long Wait Is Over

Sunday: Game Analysis

09.28.20
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5 Temple Newcomers to Watch

It’s pretty hard for a newcomer, where it’s a true freshman, a redshirt freshman or a transfer to make a difference in college football these days.

The culture and the systems are usually so firmly entrenched it takes a year or two to make an impact.

Temple had at least one, running back, Ray Davis, make a big breakthrough last year and this year there could be at least five more. Not many predicted Davis would get more than 900 yards, but that’s the great thing about college football. Someone always breaks through and makes an impact.

At least five could do the same for the 2020 football Owls.

All five of them come in areas of need (kicking game, offensive line, defensive end) so we’ll just concentrate on those areas because guys like Nazir Burnett (wide receiver) and Muheem McCargo (linebacker) probably will need injuries at deep positions to get on the field and show their stuff.

Kicker (both No. 47)

Will Leyland and Rory Bell. Not much to chose between the Wilmington (Ohio) Bell and the Souderton (Pa.) Leyland so this is an interesting battle to watch. Bell was first-team all-Southeast Ohio and Leyland was on the roster of the Big 33 game as the kicker for the East team before that game was canceled. Both have pushed three-year starter Will Mobley for the starting job and, should the Owls need to kick a field goal from distance expect one of the two to get the shot. It’s been a long time since the Owls have been a threat from distance (Boomer, Austin Jones and Brandon McManus come to mind).

Offensive line

C.J. Perez (center) and Michael Niese (guard) are accomplished transfers from Northern Illinois and Dayton who should upgrade an offensive line that was battered in the 55-13 bowl loss to North Carolina. One of the reasons why it was battered was because one of the two most reliable performers, Vince Picozzi, was out with an injury. He’s back and they are here and the Owls should establish a running game that will make Anthony Russo that much more an effective passer. It will also help the passing game if these guys provide Russo with an extra second or two to throw and they should.

Defensive End

When Quincy Roche left for Miami, that meant the Owls had to replace the AAC Defensive Player of the Year and a double-digit sack guy. So the Owls dipped into the P5 and got Manny Walker out of Wake Forest. Will he get double-digit sacks? Doubtful, but if he applies enough pressure on the outside, expect NFL prospects Dan Archibong and Ifeany Maijeh to get better numbers in that area than a year ago. Roche was getting the attention last year. Walker will have to earn some of it this season.

Friday: 5 Improvements We’d Like to See

Monday: The Other October

Friday (Oct. 9): Finally, a Game Day

Sunday (Oct. 11): Game Analysis

09.25.20
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Waiting: The hardest part

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers said it best.

The waiting is indeed the hardest part.

No season has been more anticipated in Temple football history than the 2020 season that will hopefully begin in a couple of weeks.

Saturday’s TV schedule

That’s not because of championship aspirations or unbeaten seasons but simply because everybody else is playing while Temple waits. UCF and Cincy look like tougher outs this season than last but there’s no reason to believe that Temple can’t go 6-2 this regular season and maybe (gasp) even win a bowl game.

At 0-7, Rod Carey is due. Or maybe you are what your record says you are.

I’m still hopeful for unbeaten seasons but I always feel that way before pretty much every year this last decade and it never happens.

The most impressive thing to me about UCF’s 49-21 win at Georgia Tech was not the score itself but the fact that so many of those scores were the result of quarterback Dillon Gabriel squeezing the ball into tight windows to make touchdown passes. One of them, where the Georgia Tech defender was draped all over Marlon Williams, seemed to pass through a needle. It reminded me very much of the time Temple’s Will Hayes covered Notre Dame’s William Fuller well but not good enough for the touchdown that gave the Irish a 24-20 win. Those were five-star players making plays against two-star players.

Can Temple beat guys like that? They deserve another shot to avenge a 62-21 loss but 62-21 losses happen for a reason.

Right now, Temple will be the last team in the AAC kicking off. Houston, which has had a couple of games scheduled and postponed/canceled, kicks off two nights earlier than the Owls.

Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe not, but all of these wasted weeks have put the Owls behind the eight ball. If any of their eight regular-season games are postponed, there is little to no wiggle room to reschedule.

Hopefully, the Owls are playing in the championship game but teams in the league who will not could also be playing postponed games on that date.

Right now, the most important game is Navy and it does not engender a whole lot of confidence knowing Rod Carey has never coached against a triple-option team. He was the offensive line coach for Northern Illinois in 2012 when it allowed 40 points to Army. NIU won, but that was against a 2-10 option team.

A few games later, he became head coach in the Orange Bowl when G5 teams do what G5 teams always seem to do–have great seasons and lose their head coaches to P5 teams for the bowl game.

It would be nice if the Owls could get a tune-up for Navy on Oct. 3 against a triple-option team but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

We can only hope that a professional coaching staff knows the way to stop the triple option is to close the A gaps and string the plays from sideline to sideline, allowing the Owls to use their speed to dominate. Tulane allowed the fullback dive and that set everything else up for Navy, including the occasional surprise pass.

Tulane’s Willie Fritz is a professional coach, too, and he didn’t figure it out. Many don’t, including Matt Rhule and Phil Snow in 2016 and they had nine months to prepare for Army. That loss might have cost the Owls a BCS bowl bid.

Maybe the extra couple of months will be helpful for Temple this time. If the Owls spend it dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s of the option, the wait might even be worth it.

Monday: 5 Under-The-Radar Newcomers

Friday (Oct. 2): 5 Things We’d Like to See This Season

Monday (Oct. 5): The Other October

Friday (Oct. 9): Finally, a Game Day

Sunday (Oct. 11): Game Analysis

09.20.20
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All systems go: Why not The Citadel?

Now that all systems are full go for football practice at Temple University, getting a non-conference replacement to prepare for the AAC opener should be the highest priority.

Navy is going to have plenty of tuneups prior to the most important game on the Temple football schedule.

Temple has really one perfect shot at a tuneup for Oct. 3 and that’s The Citadel. Otherwise, the Owls have a chance to look as rusty as a 1959 Rambler in Annapolis on Oct. 10.

Why take that chance when there is an option to stop the option?

The Citadel plays exactly the same offense Navy does and it would give the Owls a chance to practice against one at game speed.

When we last saw The Citadel on Saturday it lost 49-0 to Clemson. Dabo Sweeney graciously offered to keep the clock running in the second half but Citadel declined.

Citadel’s reasoning was this. They only have four games scheduled and would like more. They wanted to play as many minutes as they could. Citadel’s league game with Mercer, originally scheduled for Oct. 3, has been canceled. Temple isn’t doing anything on Oct. 3, either.

A rusty 1959 Rambler in 2020.

One year ago, Citadel went into Georgia Tech and beat the overly verbose Geoff Collins so a 49-0 loss to basically an NFL team like Clemson cannot be held against them. Temple won’t beat them 49-0 but if Temple is afraid of playing The Citadel it probably should get out of the football playing business.

Citadel wants a game. Temple needs a game. Going into Navy by practicing against an RPO offense is a recipe for disaster. We’ll play there or they can play here. Temple needs the game that much. Plus, since no fans are allowed at the Linc, it would give the Temple kids the treat of playing in front of real fans, many of them wearing Cherry and White.

Someone in the athletic office named Fran at The Star Complex should be making a call to South Carolina today. That’s assuming Fran is showing up for work.

The guy to contact is athletic director Mike Capaccio. His phone number is 843-953-4806. His email is mcapaccio@citadel.edu. There is no time to waste.

Friday: The Hardest Part