Tag Archives: Temple football

06.01.19
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Temple Football: The Long Game

patkraft

The first step Pat Kraft must do to get Temple a P5 invite would be to rid future schedules of all FCS foes. It may be too late for Bucknell, but not too late for Idaho and the like.

We all know the short-term goals every year for Temple football are winning the AAC title and getting the coveted G5 slot in an NY6 bowl.

It hasn’t happened yet, but one AAC title appearance and one AAC championship in the last five years prove that goal is within reach.

Beyond that, though, what?

As Peggy Lee sang once, “Is that all there is?”

Maybe.

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Nothing would help Temple more than a stadium full of these people

Yet one of the recurring themes of this blog is and has been that Temple belongs with the more regional great schools of the East like Maryland, Syracuse, Boston College, Rutgers, West Virginia and Penn State and not with the Tulsa’s and Memphis’s of the world.

Ideally, getting back into a league with those schools would be preferable but playing the same level of football with them should be the minimum objective.

Every major decision Temple makes should be with that eventual long-term goal in mind.

There’s no easy way there from what I can see.

College football now is a cartel of, really, 64 schools who have made it and another 66 who are on the outside looking in and Temple is in the latter group. The window is closing, though, and many of us believe it is already slammed shut.

If Temple drew 70,000 or even 50,000 to every home game over the last decade or so of relative success, there is no doubt in my mind the Owls would have had an invitation after the last stop of the merry-go-round. The TV market is great but the TV market combined with a rabid fan base is an unbeatable combination.

Sadly, with its “commuter school” roots and 20 years of administrative neglect of the football program, the ceiling of fan support is really about the 35,000 who went to see a 6-0 Owl team play Tulane in 2015.  There were no Green Wave fans there so that is a pretty good indication of the maximum amount of Temple fans who would support a winner.

How to change this?

One, schedule the regional schools who would be of interest to Temple fans (Maryland, Rutgers, ‘Cuse). Two, be a little more flexible with 2-for-1s until Temple is in a position to command 1-for-1s with everybody. It has 1-1s with Maryland, Georgia Tech, Miami, Rutgers and Boston College. Owls need to get Penn State in here every few years or so and, if 2-for-1s is the way to go, they must be flexible enough to do it. Pitt would also be an attractive in-state foe.

Bucknell is not.

If Temple wants to eventually play with the big boys (and this might be a decade or two down the line), it needs to schedule and beat the big boys on about as regular a basis as Northern Illinois has done over the last six years.

That would get the attention of the rest of the country, their own fan base and maybe a conference looking for both a growing fan base and the largest TV market without a P5 team.

That’s the long game and it can only be played within the administrative offices at the Star Complex.

Wednesday: The Bright Side

Saturday: Measuring Up

05.29.19
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Temple’s recruiting reset button

footballs

You’ll be reading a lot about politics (though not here) in the next year and one of those things might be about this political candidate or that one hitting the “reset button.”

That got me to thinking about what all these coaching changes Temple has had in the last half-decade or so has done to recruiting. AMR (after Matt Rhule), both Geoff Collins and even Rod Carey now have had classes where they could at best provide a band-aid here and band-aid there in areas the Owls need immediate help.

That is an apt characterization of the first recruiting classes of both.

Now Carey, with a $10 million buyout that even a Power 5 school would think twice before eating, has an opportunity to hit the recruiting reset button. Let’s hope he takes it because a couple of band-aid-type classes thrown in every few years depletes the roster and a depleted roster eventually shows up on the field. The latest promising addition is running back Jeremiah Nelson and he put a lot of good moves on film, both at Iona Prep and Nassau County Community College.

 

Carey certainly has his own recruiting ideas from six successful seasons at Northern Illinois but Temple needs to aspire to get a higher level of recruit and has the geography to do it. NIU wasn’t located in the middle of 46 percent of the nation’s population, as Temple is, so the formula for the Owls would be 1-5 projects that the staff really likes on film and the rest three- and four-star prospects that not only the Temple staff likes but every paid P5 staff out there likes.

Trust, but verify.

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“My recruiting philosophy is simply this: Recruit an entire team every year. Eleven guys on defense, 11 guys on offense and a couple of specialists and you are never going to leave yourself short.” _ Al Golden

Temple has a lot to sell. Twenty-four current players in the NFL speaks well for the opportunity to play one part of your career in an NFL stadium and finish up the rest of it in another NFL stadium. That, plus the fact that Temple is a proven winner. Since 2015, the Owls have won one AAC title, appeared in another and have won more AAC football games than anyone else, including UCF, USF and Memphis. Plus, the school is nationally known as the sixth-largest educator of professionals so that sheepskin is something to fall back on should a pro football career not be in the offing. It’s in the middle of an exciting city and, unlike, say, Penn State,  not situated in the middle of nowhere. That appeals to “regular students” and it should also appeal to dynamic football players.

Fortunately, Carey has a gem like Fran Brown to head up the recruiting effort. In recruiting, Brown is the starting pitcher and Carey has to be the closer. Brown knows how Al Golden and Rhule build this team from the national bottom 10 to respectability.

“My recruiting philosophy is simply this,” Golden said when he got the Temple job. “Recruit an entire team every year. Eleven guys on defense, 11 guys on offense and a couple of specialists and you are never going to leave yourself short.”

That kind of sound thinking is the Cherry and White reset button Temple recruiting needs to hit now.

Saturday: The Long Game

Wednesday: The Bright Side

05.22.19
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That big-time JUCO

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2017_09_21 Athletics STAR Complex

In the old days before portals and graduate transfers, college football coaches would turn to big-time JUCO players to fill a need for a year or two.

It still should be one of the three options.Screenshot 2019-05-23 at 9.14.48 AM

Temple is pretty well set up in every position this season, save depth on the offensive line and starting running back.

Since Rod Carey seems very reluctant to pull the trigger on making Isaiah Wright a full-time running back, a big-time JUCO seemed to be the way to go earlier in the offseason.

Unfortunately, the latest “big-time JUCO” running back who joined Temple as a preferred walk-on, doesn’t seem to have the credentials (1,000-plus yards, 25-plus touchdowns, 4.5 speed).

Mike Mitchell is the latest JUCO recruit to commit to Temple and his stats are just about the opposite of those above. Playing for ASA Junior College, he put up these numbers:

Screenshot 2019-05-21 at 8.50.42 AM

Going back even further, his most impressive game in high school at Pleasant Valley in Brodheadsville was a two-touchdown performance in a 36-27 loss to Allentown Central Catholic on Sept. 3, 2016. By comparison, the guy who scored five touchdowns in that game, Darnell Ferrell, is at West Chester University.

Ugh.

Looks like a scout team player at worst or a backup cornerback at best.

Still, there is a bigger time JUCO on the Owls’ roster already and he already has a spring practice under his belt at Temple. Tayvon Ruley’s JUCO stats were a little better: 1,028 yards and 13 touchdowns on 120 carries. Before that, he was even better at Penn Wood High in Delaware County.  By most accounts, Ruley had a very good spring with the Owls and forced his way to near the front of the running back room and has a chance for a lot of carries this fall. Tyliek Raynor and Jager Gardner are also in the mix and Jeremy Jennings might be the fastest running back of them all. Still, he doesn’t seem to have the open-field moves that the others have.

Wright, though, is a big-time player way above the JUCO grade and the Owls are lucky to have him.

As a Temple fan, you’ve got to hope a special talent like Wright gets that important job first and make whiffing on a big-time JUCO running back look like a moot point.

Sunday: What the AAC and Temple Can Learn from Boise State

05.20.19
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Tale of the Coaching Tape

wamo

One team will start the season with a head coach who was 3-35 in his previous FBS head coaching job.

Another will start with a coach with 52-30 in his.

In another important game, one coach will be 15-10 as an FBS head coach versus the same kind of record.

With those kinds of numbers, kinda like Temple football’s chances against both Mike Locksley and Geoff Collins of Maryland and Georgia Tech, respectively.

Because no matter how much you love this American Athletic Conference Leauge (and I do), Temple’s success or failure this season will depend on those two September games.

How so?

It is completely unrealistic to expect the Owls to finish on top of the AAC East this season. I certainly hope so, but when I take off my Cherry and White glasses and look at this objectively, that’s a bridge too far.

That’s because of the same Cincy team that Temple was fortunate enough to beat last year brought 35 either redshirt or true freshman on the 55-man travel sqaud to Philly. One of those was a quarterback who blamed “Temple fans” for being loud enough to cause a bad exchange on a center/qb snap that led to the Owls’ win.

Pretty much, there will be no Temple fans in Cincy this year for the rematch.

Also, even though UCF comes to town, hard to imagine the Owls beating a team that was unbeaten in the league in the last two seasons.  If that game were to be played in a 35K campus stadium, not hard to imagine a win. In the cavernous 70K LFF, that’s a loss.

For now.

So, to me, the season rests in a guy who is 52-30 in the FBS against one guy who is 3-35 and another who is 15-10. Two P5 wins in a season and losing only to Cincy and UCF would be not perfect, but successful.

Call me crazy but I like my guy’s record better. Lose to UCF and Cincy and beat everybody else and I’m not necessarily ecstatic, but certainly satisfied.  

05.12.19
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Between a Rock and a Wright Place

All we know from what Rod Carey has said is that Isaiah Wright “will be moved all over the field.”

Judging from what he has privately told some people, including Wright himself, the part of the field he will park himself most at is running back.

That both makes sense and is good news because not many college football teams have a first-team All-America returning and, in Wright, that’s just what the Owls have. Plus, the Owls have plenty of talented wide receivers.

They are a little thin at running back.

He was named first-team All-America kick returner by The Sporting News and, while Owl fans would like to see him in that role again this year, a team that desperately needs a top-tier running back could use Wright lugging the ball at least 15 times a game lined up behind Anthony Russo.

Screenshot 2019-05-11 at 11.43.57 PM

Army head coach Jeff Monken called Wright a “touchdown waiting to happen” before his team’s 2017 game with the Owls and with good reason.

What kind of running back would Wright be? He gave a slight glimpse in a 38-0 win over Stony Brook in 2016 when he carried the ball seven times for 48 yards but Wright was a true freshman playing in his second game. (For comparison, Bernard Pierce’s first game produced 44 yards on six carries as a true freshman.)

Wright would be more of a Pierce-like running back than Ryquell Armstead was. To use a baseball analogy, Armstead was a line-drive hitter who could occasionally hit a home run. Wright, like Pierce, is a home-run hitter who can take it to the house on any given play.

Wright will get a long look at the position at summer practice. Here’s hoping, instead of moving him around, new head coach Rod Carey will make the sound football decision for Temple and leave him right there.

Wednesday: The 2020 NFL Draft and Temple

05.10.19
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The Listerine Bowl: It’s Not Bucknell

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The late great Arthur Ashe once said it best: “You are only as good as your last game.”

I don’t know if Ashe said it first, but some versions of it have been quoted by players and coaches since and I have not found anyone who said it before Ashe.

The last game Temple football played was a 56-27 loss to Duke in the Independence Bowl. That was not Temple football by any means for a number of reasons and left a lingering feeling of bad breath on the mouths of anyone who cares anything about the program.

It’s like having that taste and not being able to find a bottle of Listerine in any store and living with it. The Owls do not play football again until August against Bucknell but does anyone really believe knocking the snot out of the Bison will do anything to eliminate the memory of Duke?

I certainly don’t and you can make that reason No. 1,267 why playing Bucknell is a bad idea for Temple and, really, playing any FCS opponent is a bad idea for a league trying to establish a football identity like the AAC. Temple probably should have scheduled a P5 road game for its opener, but that’s a debate for a different day.

Moving back to the Temple aspect of this argument, that’s why it’ll be a long time to wash out the taste of Duke. Maybe three weeks later.

You can talk “take-this-one-game-at-a-time” thing all you want but that’s for the coaches and the players.

For the fans, it’s different and should be.

That’s why Temple fans have to circle Sept. 14, 2019 on their calendar. A fired-up Maryland team comes to town to try to take revenge on the Owls for suffering a 35-14 embarrassment. Beat a Big 10 team in consecutive seasons and that will show me something. Remember the last time Maryland came to town it was fired up to win after a 38-7 loss to Temple in 2011 (one of the Terps said “we took last year personal”) and beat the Owls, 36-27. So beating a P5 team in revenge mode and we will finally be able to get the taste of Duke out of our mouths.

It was a particularly bitter pill to swallow because Duke’s best player, the highest-rated NFL prospect on both teams, decided to play with his brothers one last time and the two highest-rated Temple players said “nah, I’m good” and were seen more than once laughing on the sidelines as their brothers got pounded.

Not a good look to take into the offseason.

Now, Temple goes forward at full strength and should be back to the Temple football we all know and love by mid-September.

At least that should be the plan.

Listerine shots for all in the post-game tailgate.

Sunday: A Contrast of Styles

Tuesday: The 2020 Draft and Temple

05.07.19
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The Wisdom of Collins’ recruiting

Screenshot 2019-05-06 at 9.16.38 AM

One of the benefits of arriving at Cherry and White Day a couple of weeks ago was the Temple football informational sheet they handed out to every guest.

On one side was the complete roster, broken down alphabetically at the top and numerically below.

On the flip side were the football schedule (Bucknell, ugh), quick facts, coaching staff, pronunciation lists and football recruits.

The recruits–mostly the guys who arrive in July–seemed like a thin list but you could always find a number of guys who could be immediate contributors.

Not this year.

This year we found one: Wisdom Quarshie, who is listed as a 6-foot-3, 310-pound tackle who could play on either side of the ball. Todderick Hunt, the “Ted Silary” of NJ.com wrote this about him: “Senior defensive tackle Wisdom Quarshie is, arguably, the most violent offensive lineman in New Jersey. His highlight tape is a non-stop real of pancake blocks and on-field devastation. And he’ll now bring his lunch pail to Temple, less than 30 minutes away from his home, where his family, friends and all who support him can watch him live his dream.” (Note he called him a defensive tackle but said he was the most violent offensive lineman in NJ.)

Quarshie, a two-time first-team All-State player at St. Joe’s (Hammonton), appears to be ready-made to help but, of the 15 players listed as “recruits” on the info sheet, his sticking out like a sore thumb among those ready to make an impact points out the, err, Wisdom of Collins’ recruiting. Or lack of same. Hard to see anything but redshirts for the other 14 guys on the list of incoming recruits.

Collins had three classes and the only one worth much was unveiled on St. Pete Beach at the Gasparilla Bowl. In that one, he got two immediate offensive line starters and a grad transfer who became a second-round NFL draft choice.

Wayne Hardin once said recruiting was easy at Temple because you could “put a pencil in the middle of Broad Street and draw a 200-mile circle around it and come up with enough players to win.” Collins got away from that formula by concentrating his recruiting in the South. Good for him and his Southern-centric coaches, but bad for Temple.

Now that Fran Brown is back in charge of the important business of Temple recruiting, the Owls should return to their neighborhood roots where the fruits of Brown’s earlier stint here produced a championship roster.

Fran knows what he’s doing and, with him supplying the guys and Rod Carey coaching them up, that should be a productive partnership.

Friday: The Listerine Bowl

 

 

05.05.19
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TFF: Banned by Collins

maymeister

The promised Mayhem was just another Collins’ lie.

In the two years observing Geoff Collins up close, we can sum him up in a few words:

More style than substance.


He always struck me
as Steve Addazio 2.0
with one eye on the
coach’s exit door
the entire two years
he was here

At least that’s my take and, after talking to a lot of former Temple football players who played mostly for substance coaches, that’s pretty much a universal take on him, too.

Now we can add another personality trait to Collins:

Thin-skinned.

I’m not much of a twitter guy. I’m on it only because of the business associated with this blog. I’ve never asked a single person to follow me and I never will but, much to my amazement, I have 378 followers.

Thankful for them all.

I’m a lot more selective in people I follow and only follow 238 but one of the people was Collins because he was a savvy social media guy and I wanted to hear what he had to say.  I never interacted with @CoachCollins on twitter, just followed him. Never said a word to him on twitter or reacted to any of his posts.

So consider my surprise a few days ago when I checked Collins out on twitter for the first time since he quit Temple only to see this:

Screenshot 2019-05-04 at 1.08.45 PM

I can only assume that since I’ve never said anything to Collins on social media that he is blocking Temple Football Forever instead.

Forever.

I’ve been told I’m not the only Temple fan blocked by Collins on twitter but the difference between me and them is that most of those guys have said something to Collins on Twitter so I’ve got to assume that something was written in this space has gotten under Collins’ skin.

To that I say good.

For one, I’m glad he’s gone. He’s a terrible game-day coach and his offensive coordinator was the most ill-fitted coach, assistant or head, in Temple history.  As game day coaches of the last decade go, Matt Rhule was No. 1, Al Golden No. 2, Steve Addazio No. 3 and Collins fourth. When you are a worse game day coach than Al and Steve, that’s not good.

Mostly, though, it’s about credibility.

Really the only time I ever talked to Collins was at the first season ticket-holder party when I asked him to do me one favor.

“What’s that?” he said.

“Make Nick Sharga an every-down fullback.”

“Don’t worry. I’m the fullback coach and we’re going to use him more than they used him last year.”

Since “last year” was the year Sharga pretty much led the team to the AAC championship as a three-down fullback, I was satisfied with that answer.

Collins, of course, lied. Now we know he followed this blog and was upset with its contents. My biggest problem with him in his first year was he pissed away any chance Temple had of repeating its AAC title by abandoning the very offense that its players were recruited to execute. Tailback with a lead fullback blocker, establish the run and make explosive downfield plays in the passing game off play-action fakes. Instead, he eschewed the “best fullback in the nation” (his words) by playing him one down a series, if that. Now he’s going to screw up his first season at Georgia Tech by doing the same thing. Making an entire team recruited to play the triple option run Dave Patenaude’s version (pass first, run second) of the read-option. If that’s not a formula for disaster, I don’t know what is. Georgia Tech fans, you can’t say you have not been warned.

So he’s a certified liar who was more schtick than substance and now we can add the trifecta of being thin-skinned. He always struck me as Steve Addazio 2.0 with one eye on the coach’s exit door the entire two years he was here. In fact, pretty much a year and a month ago we predicted that Collins would be headed to Georgia Tech with this post on March 7, 2018.

From what I’ve seen of Rod Carey so far, he hasn’t displayed any of those negative traits. Temple football is better off with Carey both on Sept. 28 and every other day going forward.

Tuesday: The Newbies

Friday: The Listerine Bowl

04.28.19
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Bulking Up a Forgotten Position

Like fullback, the tight end is becoming an extinct species with college football offenses trying to spread the field.

Still, there are old school coaches like Kurt Ferentz still out there who understand a 100×40-yard field can only be stretched so far and the tight end can still be weaponized for good.

That’s why it was heartening on the first night of the NFL draft to see one school (Iowa) get not just one, but both of its starting tight ends drafted in Round One.

clemson

Tyler Sear gets big gain against national champion Clemson last year.

Rod Carey, being an old school coach, probably took stock of the Temple roster and saw only a pair of tight ends with game experience in Kenny Yeboah and David Martin-Robinson and, when a one-time Temple recruit was looking for a new landing spot, Carey offered a parachute.

Tyler Sear’s transfer from Pitt to Temple should give Owl fans a sense of security in that he was rated the No. 1 tight end in Pennsylvania in his senior year of high school.

He was Pitt’s starting TE this past season but left the team in October. Since two other tight ends left the team, a logical takeaway is that Pitt has de-emphasized the position so much that there was some grumbling in the tight end room.

Not so at Temple, where Yeboah was used in one of the more clever plays last year against Maryland. Quarterback Anthony Russo faked an out to Ventell Byrant (who sold it with a 37-inch vertical leap) and that drew two DBs to Bryant, leaving Yeboah free to run down the sideline for an easy six.

Carey has a history of utilizing the tight ends in pretty much the same manner.

Since waivers are routinely granted by the NCAA now, Sear will probably be eligible for the Owls this fall. The Owls are still waiting on a waiver request from Baylor DB transfer Harrison Hand, but these things routinely are adjudicated in the late summer and not in the spring.

Hopefully, these means more double-tight end sets in a run-oriented goal-line offense this fall.

Tuesday: The Drafted Guys

Friday: Shot Chart

Sunday: The Arrivals

 

04.26.19
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Gauging The Competiton: UCF, USF, Cincy

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Just a small portion of the 33,306 Temple fans whose chant of “DEE-fense!, DEE-fense!” was so loud the Cincy QB could not hear the snap count. Heroes, really.

Gauging is a pretty good word.

Defined as “to determine the exact dimensions, capacity, quantity, or force of; measure. to appraise, estimate, or judge” it is probably first best used after spring football practice to determine the weaknesses and strengths of Temple football opponents.

If I were writing this with cherry-colored glasses now, I would rate Temple as THE favorite.

The Owls have in my mind the best quarterback in the league in Anthony Russo and POTENTIALLY the best running back in the league in Isaiah Wright. Since we’re not sure new head coach Rod Carey will use Wright on more than a handful of plays from scrimmage, we will have to take those glasses off and put on the regular ones with brown rims and a prescription.

(If Carey made the announcement today or in the summer that he’s putting what Army coach Jeff Monken said was a “touchdown waiting to happen” permanently in the backfield, we’d change our minds.)

temple

Looking through those, I’d have to rate Cincinnati as the AAC East favorite, followed by UCF and then Temple. I cannot see USF rated ahead of Temple under any circumstances, but those are the four strongest teams in the East.

Here’s an early look:

(from USA Today)

UCF

UCF’s annual spring football game Saturday gave fans a chance to see just how close the quarterback battle is for the Knights. Head coach Josh Heupel let all four of his available quarterbacks rotate series under center.

Though they each showed flashes of brilliance, it was clear that more work needs to be done for a true starter to emerge.

“Some good and some bad,” Heupel said of his quarterbacks’ play today. “Today was not any of their best days collectively from start to finish. I thought there were some real positive things early when we were pushing the ball down the field. There were some times where we didn’t handle the tempo as well as we needed to.”

Redshirt sophomore Darriel Mack Jr. opened the game with a two-play drive that was capped off by touchdown pass to redshirt senior wide receiver Jacob Harris.

Senior Brandon Wimbush’s best came right before halftime when he led a lengthy drive that resulted in Jacob Harris catching his second touchdown pass in the corner of the end zone with 13 seconds left.

CINCINNATI

Like Carey, Cincinnati coach Luke Fickell does not believe in spring football contact:

He believes full contact special teams in spring are a throwback. Fickell remembered doing them in his days as a player at Ohio State under Jim Tressel.

“It’s not that often that you get to do it,” Fickell said. “Coach Tress used to do it. You kind of get worried. A guy can get rolled up or this, that and the other thing. But as tired as they are by the end of spring, as tired as they are after covering a couple of kicks, the contacts are nearly as high speed.

“It was a great opportunity for our returners, our kickers in those situations were they have to make some decisions.”

The Bearcats are coming off an 11-2 season with a win over Virginia Tech in the Military Bowl.  Quarterback Desmond Ritter, who blamed the Temple fan crowd noise for a key fumble in one of the two losses, looked good but he has lost his top wide receiver Kahil Lewis.

USF
The Bulls might have a new starter at quarterback in Plant City High’s Jordan McCloud, who was 17 for 25 for 228 yards and two touchdowns (and one pick) in the spring game.

The offensive line, though, which was the team’s weak point a year ago, needs “work” according to Charley Strong. It’s hard to make a living in the AAC with an offensive line in a state of flux like this one.

Sunday: Bulking Up a Position

Tuesday: The Drafted Guys

Friday: Shot Chart

Sunday: Blocked by Collins