Tag Archives: Temple football

08.05.19
by

5 Goals Out of Summer Camp

line

You can make up all the mock depth charts you want (as we have today) but the power of moving up the charts rests in what these young men do.

According to The Inquirer’s Marc Narducci, the highlight of the first day of Temple football summer camp was the handing out of single digits.

Count me among those loving Temple’s single-digit tradition–perhaps because it gets mentioned on every national telecast–but more significant highlights should be coming in the next four weeks.

Screenshot 2019-08-04 at 12.04.32 PM (1)

Owls have 2 votes in the coaches poll. Since you are not allowed to vote for your own team, I’m guessing Geoff Collins and Matt Rhule

Temple’s schedule is an odd one in that the Owls have nothing more than a practice game with Bucknell on the schedule on the last day of this month, followed by a too early bye week, then the real schedule.

These should be the 5 goals to accomplish in the next four weeks:

Archibong_Robinson_20180915_Feelings_AAAA1086

Dan Archibong (photo by Zamani Feelings) is a good bet to earn a single digit.

Hitting

Few Cherry and White days were more disappointing than the past one. After watching a few drills that did not involve hitting, the fans left in droves. I was gone right after they practiced punt returns with the return guy catching the ball and running through a line of players who had no interest in touching him. That’s not football. After a 35-0 loss to Pitt in 1983, Bruce Arians brought the team out at 6 a.m. and had them hitting in full pads the next morning. “Dumb mistake by a rookie coach,” Bruce said at the end of that season. “We were out-hit that day. We got into a physical mentality in that practiced and we weren’t outhit the rest of the year.” Owls need to create that mentality early.

Depth

The Owls have a lot of promising players on the second units of both lines but few of those actually saw game action. They need to develop that depth this month.

wright

Solving the Running Back Dilemma

Head coach Rod Carey indicated that he’s open to moving Isaiah Wright into a full-time role at running back should no one emerge as a go-to guy. That beats what he said a week earlier when he indicated going to RB by committee was an option. Running back by committee is like having a baseball closer by committee. It never works. I like Jager Gardner as a backup but I don’t see him as an elite No. 1. Jeremy Jennings is fast, but he doesn’t have great open-field moves. Tyliek Raynor strikes me as a David Meggett-type third-down back. Maybe a true freshman will emerge like Bernard Pierce did in the weeks before the 2007 but, failing that, using Wright (where he has been used in the past) there will give the Owls the best running back in the league without hurting a deep and talented wide receiver corps.

Screenshot 2019-04-14 at 8.01.54 PM

RPO: Blessing or a Curse?

Quarterback Anthony Russo talked about the Owls using more of a run-pass-option this year than in the past couple. That’s a blessing if the run option is to a running back instead of a quarterback. You won’t catch Bill Belichick using Tom Brady as a run option nor should Carey expose Russo to getting killed on similar plays. While Russo is no Tom Brady (yet), he is like Brady in that he’s more valuable as a dropback passer than as a run decoy. A good coach designs schemes to best utilize the talent he has, not the talent he wants and, for Temple this year, the RPOs should be delayed draws and an occasional swing pass out of the backfield and little else.

A place for Franklin

The Owls need to get Sam Franklin on the field and, with a linebacker corps that includes Chapelle Russell, Shaun Bradley, Isaiah Graham-Mobley and William Kenkewu, snaps will be limited there. He has an opportunity to play safety and that’s where he should line up.

Other than that, and getting the timing down, the Owls are all set to build on expectations that have them getting more votes in the coaches poll than Tennessee and Ole Miss.

Saturday: Around The League

Monday: 5 TUFB Headlines We’d Like to See

Saturday (8/17): Depth Chart Thoughts

08.02.19
by

2019 Owls: Less Hype, More Hope

Summer Camp opened yesterday with all of the media stuff being taken care of on Thursday and, I must admit, while I’m always optimistic about the first day of real practice, the anticipation is on steroids this year.

That’s because, for the first time since the 1970 season, a Temple fan can state unequivocally that a new head coach will not have to learn on the job on Temple’s time and Temple’s dime.

Some of us know what happened the last time those circumstances converged.

Screenshot 2019-08-02 at 11.21.00 PM

11 wins could make this the most glorious of the glory years

Highly successful then ex-Navy head coach Wayne Hardin turned a 4-5-1 Temple team from 1969 into a 7-3 team his first season. In fact, he had six winning seasons in his first seven.

Chances are, Temple fans will sign for that from new head coach Rod Carey now.

The theme of this season so far is less hype, more hope. Gone is the swag and money downs replaced by sound fundamentals and speaking by deeds, not words.

The bar is a little higher for Carey this time but, then again, so is the available talent.

The quote of the day from Temple’s own in-house media day was this from Carey when asked if he thought the Owls could win the AAC: “I wouldn’t bet against them.” Carey also said he is open to using Isaiah Wright as the full-time running back should his other 10 options not work out.

He must be reading this blog. We’ll save you some time, Rod. The other guys are nowhere near the running back Wright is and the Owls are knee-deep in pretty damn good wide receivers. Just put Wright behind Anthony Russo and give him the ball 20 times a game and another few on swing passes out of the backfield and let him work his magic in space. He’s not needed at WR. The Owls have so many good ones that Freddie Johnson was switched to cornerback to give him a better chance to get on the field. Johnson made a lot of great plays as a WR for the Owls last year, including catching a touchdown pass on a fake field goal from backup quarterback Toddy Centeio.

As predicted in this space on March 14, both Wright (2) and Branden Mack (1)  and Sam Franklin earned single digits but we thought Zack Mesday and Dan Archibong would also earn the honor.  There are more digits to be awarded and, if I were to guess now, Mesday, Archibong, and Russo would be among the leading candidates. Too bad center Matt Hennessey can’t get one as NCAA rules on offensive linemen prohibit it. The versatile Franklin–who can and has played end, linebacker and safety with the Owls–will be a worthy successor to fullbacks Nick Sharga and Rob Ritrovato, wearing the No. 4.

That’s good news because they need to find a way to keep the tough and talented Franklin on the field and, with a plethora of linemen and linebackers, perhaps his best chance to start is at strong safety. There’s a ton of available, proven, talent on both sides of the ball with maybe the only question mark being the depth of both lines.

Injuries could turn a possible 10-win season into an eight-win one but lack of same could push that number to 11. The Owls cannot possibly afford to lose guys like Isaiah Wright, Anthony Russo, Matt Hennessey, Karamo Dioubate and Dan Archibong but an injury to anyone else and they are about two-deep even below the first team.

Guess what, though?

Every team in the AAC can say that and one, UCF, already had its devastating season-ending injury to quarterback McKenzie Milton, a Heisman candidate if this league ever had one. They are trying to replace him with Notre Dame transfer Brandon Wimbush and it might not be good enough.

The door is wide open for the Owls to walk through and, in Carey, they have a guy who has won multiple FBS championships and not a guy who is fumbling and stumbling around trying to figure out how to be a head coach like so many recent years.

That’s optimism on steroids.

Monday: 5 Goals to Accomplish This Month

07.29.19
by

The handwriting is OFF the E-O Wall

Every coach who has walked through the halls of the $17 million Edberg-Olson Football Complex at Temple has put contributed something to both the architecture and the feel of the place.

Al Golden had the office extended so he could get a good view of the practice field. Steve Addazio put the pool tables in the new wing. Matt Rhule put the study halls next to the cafeteria. Geoff Collins put up legacy posters and fatheads as tributes to guys like Tyler Matakevich and P.J. Walker.

Rod Carey,  from what I’m hearing,  is taking a different approach.

He’s scrubbing the place clean.

All the tributes to the ex-players–except for the Matakevich and P.J. fatheads–have been taken down from the walls.

Not everyone is liking it. A room highlighting Haason Riddick’s ascent from Temple walk-on to first-round NFL draft choice has been removed. A collage featuring a dozen ex-Temple greats, including Heisman Trophy runner-up Paul Palmer and leading tackler for 30 years, linebacker Steve Conjar, is also gone.

One individual who is in and out often said this, one the condition of anonymity: “Everything was taken Down at EO except for the PJ and Tyler things on the windows. Walls are empty, (and they) took down Hassan NFL draft thing too.”

Palmer was less anonymous and expressed his displeasure with it on Facebook recently, more because he was miffed his Temple brothers from all eras were removed than for himself.

We thought it was a story good enough to write about and ask questions about and reached out to Temple beat writer, Marc Narducci, with it. Marc said he would ask Carey privately about it.

I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, but I sure would like to hear Carey’s thinking behind it.

My feeling is as long as he doesn’t put up fatheads of Northern Illinois guys like Jordan Lynch and Garrett Wolfe, he can do pretty much whatever he wants but we would have liked to see those Temple legacy items remain.

Saturday: Camp Opens

Monday: 5 Things to Accomplish

Saturday: UConn Fans React

Monday (8/12): What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Sunday, Sept. 1: Return to the in-season Sunday-Wed-Friday in season schedule

 

07.27.19
by

Carey on Foley: Plausible Deniability

retained

Carey’s litmus test going forward is to protect these other three guys and give them room to thrive.

A few weeks ago we wrote that Rod Carey had some “splaining to do” after the incident that caused Temple football to be jettisoned from a loyal soldier, Ed Foley.

The explanation came in a recent Marc Narducci story where Carey said that he had “too many offensive coaches on the field, including myself” and wanted to put a talented young defensive assistant, Tyler Yelk, on the field.

Narducci has been on fire recently, with a piece stating that Isaiah Wright wants an expanded role and another giving detail on Manny Diaz’s departure from Temple, but his stories detailing both sides of the Foley issue might have been the best of the summer.

Foley said he was leaving to go “with someone I trust and respect” and the implication was that he did not trust and respect Carey.

Then Narducci came back with Carey’s side of the story. 

A lot of fans, this one included, are still irked that Foley is gone but, given Carey’s explanation, it makes sense.

TLNXruN

Pretty much every Temple fan now watching how Carey treats our beloved trio of Adam DiMichele, Fran Brown and Gabe Infante.

One, Foley could have remained in an off-field capacity if he wanted and both men admitted that. Two, Temple did seem to be top-heavy with offensive coaches in a program that, as Carey has said, “hangs its hat on defense.”

Plausible deniability should Foley’s absence be felt this season. By that, I mean deniability that he’s trying to get rid of the Temple holdovers in favor of NIU guys. The litmus test going forward for Carey is to protect the other three guys (Fran Brown, Gabe Infante and Adam DiMichele) and give them a chance to thrive at Temple. Rod, we’re watching you. 

The bottom line is that Temple, which generally never had to worry about special teams, has one more thing to worry about now. That’s why Carey gets paid the big bucks, though, to make sure everything runs smoothly, including special teams.

The Owls have a serviceable kicker in Will Mobley, who did a nice job when Boston College transfer Aaron Boumerhi had a hip flexor last year. Boomer had the range, while Mobley was essentially a solid extra point kicker. They also have the nation’s best returner, Isaiah Wright, so the special teams should be OK.

Where I think Temple fans will really notice Foley gone is in the area of blocked punts, field goals, and extra points. Foley consistently had the Owls in the nation’s top 10 in those categories because he was an aggressive coach who went after kicks. There is little in Carey’s history to suggest NIU was anywhere near as consistent in that area as Temple was.

When Al Golden got here and brought Foley with him, he said special teams were as important as offense and defense and he practiced what he preached. Let’s hope Carey continues that tradition. 

Monday: Up Against The Walls

07.20.19
by

AAC Media Day: Not-so-great expectations

Chris Giannini on 2019 Temple: “That is a really, really good team” .. yet he picks Owls to go 7-5

Anyone arriving at the AAC Football Media Day was greeted with one of those graphic boards usually seen at horse races listing the entrants and their odds.

This time, though, the board read the media preseason polls and the expectations for the season by a poll of so-called experts.

Screenshot 2019-07-20 at 10.33.54 AM

The expectations for Temple, the winningest team in the league in the last four regular-season years (yes, more wins than UCF, USF, Houston and Memphis from 2015-2018) were not so great. The Owls were picked fourth in the AAC East behind UCF, Cincinnati and USF.

The reasoning was simple.

Temple was losing Geoff Collins and gaining Rod Carey was usually the first thing out of their mouths. The second thing was the loss of a NFL fifth-round draft choice at running back, Ryquell Armstead, who former Houston coach Major Applewhite called “the best running back in our league.”

Sound reasoning for outsiders, not so much for insiders.

Losing Collins, long on schtick and short on substance, was the antonym of the new Temple coach, Carey, a guy long on substance and short on schtick.

 

connection

The Owls are only 20-25 handoffs from this guy to that guy away from winning an AAC title.

It’s hard from an insider’s point of view–particularly this one–to see that as anything but a net gain for both the organization and its preseason chances.

The running back conundrum is another story, though.

Carey has promised to give the ball to potentially the best running back in the league, Isaiah Wright, a lot more. If Carey has the kind of substance we think he has, he will figure out the best way to do that is making Wright the full-time replacement for Armstead because, as good as Armstead was, Wright has the kind of moves and speed that could make the rest of the league forget about Armstead. It’s a no-brainer because Temple is extraordinarily deep at wide receiver with Branden Mack, Jaden Blue, Randle Jones and Freddie Johnson, among others. Still, the last two Temple head coaches also promised to get the ball into Wright’s hands more but did not deliver on those promises.

Nothing would achieve that goal more than quarterback Anthony Russo sticking that pigskin into Wright’s belly 20-25 times a game and maybe added a few swing passes out of the backfield to give Wright the space to do his thing.

In the middle of July, that, to me, seems to be the key to the season. Ride that horse and the Owls’ odds of moving from fourth to first improve dramatically.

Monday: Practicing What You Preach

Saturday: Plausible Deniability 

Monday (7/29): Up Against The Walls

Saturday (8/3): Game Month

07.15.19
by

Ed Foley: Gone, but Not Forgotten

In my lifetime which  (unfortunately) is getting to be sadly very long, there have been very few Temple sports lifers.

Sports Information Director Al Shrier, for one. Baseball coach Skip Wilson, for another. Basketball coach Harry Litwack. Fencing coach Dr. Nikki Franke. Athletic director Gavin White.

That’s maybe it.

Even the great John Chaney started somewhere else.

There have been no Temple football lifers and the last possible one, Ed Foley, has just left the Edberg-Olson building for a job at Baylor. Not even the great Wayne Hardin, who stayed here 13 years, could be considered a lifer.


You don’t get rid
of one of the best
special teams coaches
in the country who is
admired and respected
at Temple by everyone,
alumni, fans, current
and ex-players,
without some pushback

Foley did not start at Temple, but I certainly thought he would finish here. After being a 7-15 head coach at Fordham, he arrived at Temple with Al Golden and helped resuscitate a brain dead program by breathing some CPR into it.

On April Fool’s Day, 2017, he filmed the video at the top of this post with Kevin Copp and said: “I don’t want to really be anywhere else.” I believed him then. I believe him now.

As a recruiting coordinator and tight ends coach for Golden, he helped recruit three of the top five MAC classes and that led to Temple getting a promotion to the Big East (now the AAC). As special teams coach for Steve Addazio, Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins, he had the Owls’ consistently rated in the top 10 in blocked punts and field goals.

This guy loved Temple. He loved Philadelphia. He wasn’t my choice to be head coach either time because a 7-15 record in his previous head coaching job does not represent the credentials needed to do the same job at Temple. He was not a great head coach as a 14.5-point favorite in an interim capacity against Wake Forest in 2016. Against Duke, he again proved my point that you can be the best assistant coach in the history of the world and a terrible game-day head coach. In fact, he proved that at Fordham when his 7-15 was sandwiched between two of the most successful head coaches in that school’s history, Dave Clawson and Joe Moorhead.

Still, he did everything that was asked of him at Temple and more. I know for a fact that he turned down an assistant coaching job at Purdue a couple of years ago to stay at Temple and he probably turned down other offers I did not know about.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

So that’s why it was so shocking to hear the news–first reported by Owlscoop.com–that Foley left to join Rhule in an off-the-field capacity at Baylor. He was already in an off-the-field capacity at Temple the last few months so it seemed odd to leave one job at a place he loved for another in a place he was unfamiliar with.

Maybe this quote in Saturday’s Marc Narducci story explained everything: “I don’t have an official title, but will be working with somebody I like and trust,” Foley said about Rhule.

Hmm. Translation: “I don’t like and trust Rod Carey.”

That seems to be abundantly clear. In the same story, Narducci said Carey was “unavailable for comment.” Unavailable for comment? Who is he, Howard Hughes?

Look, I LOVE the Rod Carey hire and I understand that he’s got to live and die with his own hires but this isn’t a good look. Foley has been able to get along with a divergent list of personalties, from Golden to Daz to Rhule to Collins and do it in a professional manner. You don’t get rid of one of the best special teams coaches in the country (face it, giving him a paper-pushing job is getting rid of him), a guy who is admired and respected at Temple by everyone, alumni, fans, current and ex-players, without some pushback. Especially when you bring in a guy from SMU whose special teams weren’t rated as highly as Foley’s. I have never run into a single person who said a negative word about Ed Foley the man. That is a truly rare individual.

Let’s hope Carey is able to explain this in a satisfactory manner sometime in the near future. Right now, it doesn’t pass the smell test.

In fact, it reeks.

Saturday: AAC Media Day

Monday: AAC Head-Scratchers

07.13.19
by

Open Letter to Pat Kraft: Honor TU’s Moon Landing

B5QtD2tCQAIXPq8

Dr. Patrick Kraft

Director of Athletics

Temple University

Broad Street and Montgomery Avenues

Philadelphia, PA 19122

 

Dear Pat,

In the next few days, you are going to be hearing a lot about the 50-year anniversary of the Moon Landing (July 20, 1969).

What you probably won’t be hearing about is Temple football’s Moon Landing, which came in 40 years ago on December 15, 1979, so we will fill you in here.

While it might have been technically harder for man to set foot on the moon, getting Temple to win a bowl game certainly is a feat that needs to be remembered and honored at some home game this season.

B5QtDwkCUAE6150

That’s because while, arguably, the quest for the Moon was really only talked about realistically after the Russians launched the satellite Sputnick (1957), Temple football had a similar quest to win a bowl game since they became a thing in the late 1920s.

Temple came close before, losing the first Sugar Bowl to Tulane (who could have figured that school would ever become a conference foe later?), 20-14, in 1934, the Owls did not even a chance for greatness until 49 years later.

So what took the United States less than a decade to accomplish as outlined in JFK’s 1961 Rice University commencement address, Temple football was looking to do really since 1934–an accomplishment that took about as long as the moon anniversary we are approaching.

belichick

“Even after Hardin landed at Temple, Belichick continued to pay close attention to the coach’s methods. In 1979, when the Owls took on heavily-favored Cal in the Garden State Bowl at Giants Stadium, Belichick was in attendance. The Giants special-teams coach at the time, Belichick sat with then Giants assistant Ernie Adams, who now works alongside Belichick as the football research director for the Patriots. “The pair of young and talented football minds were completely baffled as they watched Hardin toy with Cal’s linebackers, who were taught to read the guards in front of them.” _ Phil Perry, NBC Sports

The Owls did not get a sniff of a bowl after the Sugar until 1979, when they dismantled California, 28-17, before 40,207 fans at the Garden State Bowl. One of those in attendance that day was Bill Belichick, who took copiously detailed notes about how Wayne Hardin outcoached Cal’s Roger Theder.

Yet, as far at least a half-dozen members of that team we’ve contacted know, nothing is planned to commemorate that team this fall.

So far.

Plenty of time to rectify that and plenty of representatives of that team are available, tailgating in the far corner opposite the K Lot and across the main entrance.

By all metrics, the 1979 team has proven to be Temple’s best team ever. The 10-2 Owls finished 17th in both final polls (UPI and AP) and lost only to Pitt (10-2) and Penn State (22-7). Pitt was in the top 10 when it needed a late field goal to beat Temple. Imagine if the Owls were able to scrounge up 17 more points that year and finish 12-0? It would have meant a likely national title.

Temple.

In football.

National champions.

That’s pretty heady stuff and getting some of these guys together again in front of the fans–at least at halftime of the Oct. 12 Homecoming game against Memphis–should be on your end of the summer to-do list. Just roll out the guys at halftime, give them a plaque, and roll the 1979 highlights on the Jumbotron.

It’s the least they deserve.

Monday: Ed Foley is Gone But Not Forgotten

07.08.19
by

Some July 4 Recruiting Fireworks

carey

Coach Carey’s football camps served as a catalyst for an impressive recruiting haul so far.

One of the Temple assistant coaches tweeted out a message indicating that July 4 was a big day for Temple football.

He wasn’t kidding.

The Owls got these two graphic commitments below PLUS Willingboro (N.J.) wide receiver Chris Long.

Screenshot 2019-07-07 at 10.59.22 AM

As one Chris Long leaves his locker room at Lincoln Financial Field, another gets his locker there.  Maybe they can just move the nameplate to the Owls’ permanent lockerroom there.

Two very good players, one for the Eagles, one for the Owls.  Plus, Dyshier Clary and Alex Odom verbaled officially on July 4. It seems that Rod Carey’s football camps have left such a positive impact on a talented group of campers that offers are being accepted at a pretty fast clip.

Something good is happening this recruiting cycle and it appears that the talent is being upgraded–maybe significantly upgraded–over the last two Geoff Collins’ recruiting cycles.

There is always a caveat with recruiting these days because verbals are just that, a promise. Yet, looking over the last 10 classes, it’s a very rare instance that someone who made a promise to Temple flips and goes elsewhere. A couple of the biggest de-commits recently were Harrison Hand and Rob Saulin who Matt Rhule poached for Baylor but at least one of them came back (Hand, who has been approved to play this fall). Another who fits that bill was tight end Tyler Sear, who first committed to Temple only to flip to Pitt and now is back at Temple. Arkum Wadley committed to Temple and became a solid Big 10 running back for Iowa. Temple has benefited from the process as well as Karamo Dioubate committed first to Penn State, but changed his mind before signing day to Temple.

Right now, the Owls have 15 hard commitments, including Long, who turned down numerous Power 5 offers and is just the latest product of the hard work of recruiters extraordinaire Fran Brown. Between Brown and the NIU hires, including defensive line coach Walter Stewart. The Northern Illinois hires were able to bring in a top defensive lineman from Chicago that they were pursuing from a long time ago and Brown has been able to get his top targets.

So far, Scout.com lists Temple as second in the conference in recruiting.

You can say with a bullet because, when others were barbecuing and hitting the shore, the Temple coaches were hard at work. With roughly 10 more scholarships (given variables like attrition), the best might be yet to come.

Saturday: Temple’s Moon Landing

Monday (7/15): Who’s Here and Who’s Not

Saturday (7/21): GT Looks at Temple

(Due to a change in my work schedule at my primary job, posts will be Saturdays and Mondays through the Bucknell game, then we will resume a three-day schedule–Sundays, Wednesdays and Saturdays after the opener)

07.04.19
by

Best of TFF: There are no words

Editor’s Note: Bill Maher takes the entire month of July off. We only take the first week. Our July 4th Best of TFF story is the most-viewed story in the 15-year history of this blog. Thanks to a big boost of traffic from Deadspin redirecting readers here, we had 388,569 unique readers to this story, the most-viewed story in a single day in the history of TFF. Monday, we resume the regular blog.

The morning after arguably the greatest win in Temple football history, there are no words.

Literally no words are coming out of my mouth, at least in the sense of being able to talk this morning.

The throaty and hoarse condition is more than OK because it was the result of cheering for the Owls at beautiful Navy-Marine Corps Stadium as they captured what really is their first-ever major football championship. The 1967 MAC title was admirable, but that was a day when the school played to a level of football that was beneath their status even then as one of America’s great public universities.

So this was it.

ride

Walking out of the stadium and into the concourse, I let out a very loud primal: “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT!!”

Fortunately, I got a few high fives and smiles from my fellow Temple fans and not fitted for a straightjacket. It also put the voice out for 24 hours, maybe more.

When it comes to Temple football today at least, you cannot think in terms of a national championship—the deck is stacked against G5 teams in an unfair system—so what happened yesterday was the pinnacle of Temple football success. Thousands of Temple fans, easily in excess of 10,000 Temple fans, made Navy’s 15-game home winning streak a moot point by turning that stadium into a Temple home field advantage and to get to that mountaintop and look down from it is incredibly satisfying.

Hey, it’s a pretty spectacular pinnacle. The only thing that would have made it better was a G5 slot in a New Year’s Six bowl against Penn State, but that’s not happening for a number of reasons that are not important today. (Objectively, would you take a team for the Cotton Bowl that has won seven straight against this schedule and beat a Navy team, 34-10, over a Western Michigan team that struggled to beat a four-loss Ohio team? I would but I don’t expect the bowl committee to be that objective. I can also grudingly see the WMU argument.)

What is important is that the Owls have gone from being a perennial Bottom 10 team and laughed at nationally to being ranked in the Top 25 for two straight years and going to a title game one year and winning it the next. When you think of the success P.J. Walker and Jahad Thomas have had here, there is a Twilight Zone quality to the parallel between this success and their success at Elizabeth (N.J.). In their freshman year at Elizabeth, they won one game; in their freshman year at Temple they won two games. In their sophomore year at both schools, they won six games. In their junior year at both schools, they reached the title game and lost and, in their senior year at both schools, they lifted the ultimate hardware together.

Truly amazing and I will miss both of those guys.

Back on Cherry and White Day, I wrote that this team will be better than last year’s team while people on other websites—notably, Rutgers and Penn State fan boards—insisted that Temple would take a step back. I was consistent in my belief that this was the STEP FORWARD year, not the step back one, and that belief was rooted in knowledge that both the defense and offense were significantly upgraded despite graduation losses. Only a Temple fan who follows the team closely would know that, not the know-it-alls who make assumptions on subjects they have no idea what they are talking about.

Today at noon, the Owls will know where they will go for a bowl game. They can finish the season in the top 25 and set the record for most wins in Temple football history.

It won’t be the cake because we saw that yesterday, but it will be the Cherry on top of that white cake and it will be delicious even going down past what promises to be a future sore throat.

06.29.19
by

Latest hit piece: Keep Temple’s name out of your mouth

Screenshot 2019-06-28 at 4.14.41 PM

No big fan of Donovan McNabb here, but his take on a controversy with Terrell Owens in 2005 applies to David Jones’ latest hit piece on Temple football almost 15 years later.

“Keep my name out of your mouth.”

Instead of “my” substitute “Temple’s” and it becomes a perfect retort.

Screenshot 2019-06-28 at 4.25.27 PM

Jones, who writes for Penn Live, had a strange take on UConn’s exit to the Big East (and apparent de-emphasis of football). He lumped UConn and Temple together, saying Temple should also de-emphasize football and insinuated that it should rejoin the A-10 at the expense of a football affiliation with the AAC.

That is a weak take on so many levels we’ll just concentrate on some here:

  • One, UConn is coming off a decade of failure in football while Temple has enjoyed a decade of sustained success.
  • Two, Temple is not trying to get into the P5. Sure, it would love a P5 invite but I think even the most optimistic Temple fans are not expecting one in the next decade. G5 football is a significant upgrade over FCS, though, and a proven spot where Temple can thrive. If Dave is saying the entire G5 should give up and drop to FCS, that’s one thing but I don’t think he’s saying that.
  • Three, Temple earned in addition to the millions off its AAC football contract, $6 million with the Manny Diaz buyout and $2.6 million with the Geoff Collins’ buyout. Rod Carey’s buyout is $10 million. Owls are not going to leave that money on the table by dropping to FCS.
  • Four, the AAC as currently constituted, is a better basketball conference than the A10 as currently constituted.

Why would Temple, which enjoys terrific football TV ratings and a steady uptick in football attendance, jeopardize any part of its football franchise to ostensibly prop up its basketball one?

I don’t know what his point was. Should Temple drop out of the G5 and the AAC even though it has the most regular-season league football wins since 2015? (More than UCF, Houston, Memphis and USF). That’s a little like the Dems asking Joe Biden to drop out before the first debate (although maybe he should drop out now after it). G5 is not big-time football but it’s certainly better for Temple than an A10 basketball/FCS football combo. (Good luck drawing flies in FCS football to the Linc.)

Plus, there is absolutely no assurance that investing in basketball at the expense of football would improve that product. Why not pursue excellence in the two marquee sports?

In college athletics, you can both walk and chew gum at the same time.

Temple can and should do both and ignore the haters who keep putting the Owls’ name in their mouths.

Monday: Our one week of vacation a year (and five best-of-TFF columns M-F)

July 8: A partnership that works

July 11: Roll call