Tag Archives: Temple football

01.16.19
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Getting The Old Gang Back Together

niu

Now that the official Temple coaching directory lists as many as four holdovers added to the new Rod Carey staff, we can assume that they all either have sat down to debrief Carey or will do so soon.

It’s now official that Gabe Infante, Adam DiMichele, Ed Foley and Fran Brown are on the staff with their titles to be sorted out in less than two weeks.

Who knows what has been said?

 

It could have went or will go down something like this:

Carey: I’d like to welcome you guys. Pat (Kraft) said a lot of great things about you all. Just wanted to get a feel of where the program is at and how you would like to improve it.

Foley: I’ll take that question first. We got killed in the bowl game because we had a 27-14 lead and were not able to close it out with some effective running behind a good offensive line. That was our MO the entire season.

edfoley

Ed Foley has consistently had the Temple special teams near the top of the NCAA stats over the last decade and is expected to continue in that role.

Carey: Missouri?

Foley: No, modus operandi. That’s a particular way of doing things. We had Rock Armstead do that for us and he was injured before the game. I think he tripped over the Elvis status on the way out of the bus. Whatever, we didn’t have that feature back and we want to find one.

Brown: I’m on it. I’m looking at a kid in Florida and another in Jersey who can step right in and maybe take over.

Carey: What are our options from the roster?

DiMichele: We’ve got two, maybe three, NFL potential receivers in Isaiah Wright, Branden Mack and Sean Ryan plus a couple of promising guys behind them in Randle Jones and Freddie Johnson. Only one of those guys, Wright, has played tailback before. He had seven carries in a game there in Matt’s last year. He’s a first-team All-American kickoff and punt returner and, for his entire career here, both Matt and Geoff have talked about getting him the ball more and I can’t think of a better way to get him the ball 20 times a game than putting him behind the quarterback.

infante

Gabe Infante is a legendary high school football coach in Philadelphia.

Carey: I like the idea. Offensively, you guys know the roster. What would you run with this personnel grouping?

Foley: Don’t ask me. I’m 0-2 in bowl games.

Carey: I’ve got you beat there. I’m 0-6.

Infante: I’ll chime in here. Being from the Philadelphia Catholic League, I had the pleasure of watching Anthony Russo …

Carey: Who?

Infante: Our starting quarterback, Anthony Russo.

Carey: Yeah, I saw him on TV. He’s pretty good.

Infante: Yes, but the Georgia Tech cabal had him running a pass-run option. With all due respect, that’s crazy. He’s no more of a RPO guy than Tom Brady is with the Patriots and you didn’t see Bill Belichick running that against the Chargers yesterday. Go with the pro set, put a fullback in front of Wright to clear the way, mix in a lot of play-action fakes to the running backs and Anthony will have Mack and Ryan and tight end Kenny Yeboah running so free he won’t know which one to pick out.

Carey: Cabal. That’s a good word. Did you go to the Prep or just coach there?

Infante: The kids were the ones using the fancy words, so a few rubbed off on me.

Carey: Back to the point: Running the ball with a great tailback following a blocking fullback and then hitting explosive downfield plays in the play-action passing game is just good midwestern-style football, Gabe. What position did Manny Diaz have you coaching?

Infante: Linebackers.

Carey: Forget that, I’m moving you to the offensive side of the ball.

Infante: Thanks, Rod.

Carey: That settles it. We’re running a pro set and putting Wright at tailback and Fran, go find me the Rock Armstead of the future to back him up. Anything else? Meeting adjourned. I’ve got to go to Pat Kraft’s office and see what I can do to get Bucknell off the schedule and get us another Power 5 game instead. We’re going to need another P5 win if we’re going to get into the four-team playoff.

days

The official Temple coaching directory as of 1-15-19

Friday: Why This Staff is Already Better Than the One at GT

Monday: Mr. Mayhem is Gone But Not Forgotten

 

01.14.19
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Temple’s Rod Carey Has Good Company

 

Since the presser started 14 minutes late, advance timestamp to 14:01

The two best coaches I’ve ever known are both gone now but had very similar personalities and approaches to the game of football.

One, Wayne Hardin, was the best college coach I ever knew and the other, Mike Pettine, Sr., was the best high school one. I feel blessed to have known both so well.

Neither was loved by his players during those playing years. Those coaches were more fathers than brothers, who basically said “if you live in my house, you live by my rules.”

Both maintained the only fun in football is winning.

All the players loved, even worshipped,  both years later. The kids then, now adults, realized they were playing for a tough taskmaster whose only goal was to get the most out of their talent and that’s the best love of all.

conjar

Legendary TU linebacker Steve Conjar (left) feared being called into Wayne Hardin’s office as a player, but loved him like a son years later.

I thought about that because a lot of what I heard at the podium in person from Rod Carey on his first day as head coach of Temple University was what I heard from Hardin while covering the Owls for The Temple News and what I heard from Pettine from covering perennial state champion Central Bucks West in the late 1970s through the 1980s.

Both coaches were respected by their players but there was a dash of healthy fear there, too.

Pettine got the most out of 5-10, 170-pound players than any coach I ever saw and coached a school that had no more than 1,000 boys to a 324-26-2 overall record.

Hardin also did the impossible, taking both Navy and Temple high up the national rankings. No coach has had Navy or Temple ranked as high since Hardin and for some pretty good reasons.

petmeister

CB West never jumped offsides or had false starts because Mike Pettine made sure they ran the drill until they got it right.

Hardin and Pettine set the boundaries between player and coach by laying down the law.

Carey did the same on Friday afternoon, repeating, “Do you hear me?” twice and getting a “yes, sir” from the players in the back of the room. I haven’t heard Temple players say yes sir to a coach in a long time.

That was a “wow” moment because it reminded me so much of Hardin and Pettine.

Carey said he would not talk about being tough because tough teams don’t need to talk about it, that they just are tough.

Carey talked about building trust over time because he knew it would be disingenuous to do otherwise.

More than anything, though, is that he promised to be real and that the players would eventually come to appreciate that.

funpart

If this scene is replicated in December at Lincoln Financial Field, all of the hard work in practice will be rewarded. Suggestion to Carey: Make Isaiah Wright the starting tailback and it will be.

For me, at least, the last two Temple coaches attempted to be “buddies” or “friends” of the players a bit too much. Under the last regime, there was too much talk about swag and money downs and too little action and too many times you wondered if they ever even practiced. Two seasons ago, for instance, in a 16-13 win over Villanova, the defensive line was baited into three-straight offsides’ penalties. That simply does not happen if business is taken care in practice during the week. In the prior regime, Temple was called for 148 yards in penalties in a 34-27 loss at Penn State, robbing the Owls of a chance for consecutive victories over that program and similarly robbing a G5 league champion a win over a P5 league champion. Get even under that low bar of 100 yards of penalties and the Owls win that game. Practice is the time to get things cleaned up.

You can be a good coach as a brother figure.

Only father figures make great head coaches.

Carey is showing clear signs as being among the latter group, just like Pettine and Hardin were and, to me, that’s the best compliment a head coach can get. It’s going to be hard for Carey to be as smart as those two guys were because they were true geniuses, but at least the emphasis getting down to work is there.

The hard part will be spring and summer practice. The fun part will winning on Saturdays and that’s the way it should be.

Wednesday: Foley and Brown Debrief Carey

01.09.19
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Bullbleep Meter and The Temple Job

typical

Typical crowd at an Eastern Michigan game, Rynearson Stadium. For Chris Creighton to win there, he must be the best head coach since Vince Lombardi

One of the things that makes me proudest to have my Temple B.A is that you also get an honorary degree in B.S on graduation day.

There’s nothing like going to college and living in the heart of a hard-scrabble (emphasis on scrabble) city to sharpen your bullshit meter.

bestnon

Just about everybody I know who has a Temple degree is able to separate the bullbleep from the regular bleep. For instance, the Bruce Arians’ guys who tailgated on the first Cherry and White Day of the Steve Addazio Era told me that Daz was a phony they could spot a mile away and compared him to Jerry Berndt. They loved Arians. They hated Berndt.

The Steve Conjar tailgate group never warmed up to Geoff Collins for some very good reasons. Collins thought Temple football did not exist prior to Al Golden. Upon being introduced to Paul Palmer, the Minister of Mayhem said this:

“Hey, coach, nice to meet you. What high school do you coach for?”

He had no idea he was talking to arguably the greatest player in Temple football history.

Ugh.

Can’t imagine Nick Saban having the same conversation with Joe Namath.

Have you seen the promised Mayhem yet?

I didn’t think so.

All I got was a lousy cotton T-Shirt that I paid $33 for and a “darkside defense” that allowed far too many points this season. Collins was a big fat blip on the bullbleep radar that should have been shot down by the committee two years ago.

Everybody has that kind of radar except the Temple Football Search Committee, if there is indeed one.

They didn’t spot Steve Addazio.

They didn’t spot Geoff Collins.

They didn’t spot Manny Diaz.

creighton

Chris Creighton is for real

As good a regular artist as Norman Rockwell was, that’s how good a bullbleep artist those three are.

So why was I not surprised that the name “Joe Rudolph” came up on Tuesday and “he was impressive” in the interview?

My first reaction was “are they going to let another assistant coach bullshit his way into the Temple job?”

Geez, I hope not.

The criteria this time should simply be this: Deeds over words.

It’s that simple. Temple is looking for a head coach, not an assistant coach, and this time the university has the big bucks to pay an accomplished guy for the job and not roll the dice on another assistant.

Rudolph, to me, is not an exciting name because no one knows what his responsibilities are/were at Wisconsin. We hear that head coach Paul Chryst called all the plays and he probably did.

If Rudolph shined in an interview process, it was probably because he said what the committee wanted to hear.


One exciting name emerged
yesterday and it wasn’t
Rudolph. It was Eastern
Michigan coach Chris Creighton …
He would fit right in here
and maybe take Temple TUFF
up a notch. He’s that good.

“Will you keep Fran Brown?”

“Yeah, I love the guy.”

“How about Ed Foley?”

“Yeah, me and Ed would work well. Love that speech that went viral.”

“How about Gabe Infante?”

“Who? Yeah, him, too.”

“What about the other assistants?”

“I know some of the best people. Great minds. All FBS coordinators. I’m going to bring those guys in here. No FCS guys like Collins.”

wolverine

“You’re doing great, Joe. What about commitment to Temple? Will you be outta here in two or three years.”

“Nope. If I sign a five-year contract, I’m staying the full five years. When I played with the Eagles, I’d go up and down Broad Street and see those Temple flags and think to myself, ‘I’d love to coach there one day. That’s my dream school.’ ”

The lesson of Daz, Diaz and Collins to take away is to avoid the silver-tongue devil promising the world and gravitate to the better angels who have a track record. This time, Temple should look at what the guy has done not what he tells the school he will do.

One exciting name emerged yesterday and it wasn’t Rudolph.

It was Eastern Michigan coach Chris Creighton. There is no more impossible place to win than EMU. If you have been there, and I have, you know there are literally no more than 1,000 or 2,000 people at any home game. I’ve watched that team and it plays with a toughness level very similar to Temple. He would fit right in here and maybe take Temple TUFF up a notch. He’s that good.

For him to have taken that team to Purdue and win and to two bowl games in three years is more impressive than anything Addazio and Collins did at Temple.

If you are going to make a splash, go get that guy or Lance Leipold. Guys who have done pretty impressive things in the very job Temple is looking to fill. Don’t let another bulls hitter talk his way into a job that should be earned.

You are Temple. Act like it. After Diaz, everyone’s bullbleep radar should be on DEFCON 1.

Friday: Smoking Out The Winner

01.05.19
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TU Coaching Search: Wait and Hurry Up

hurryupandwait

If the prior coaching search at Temple, the one that took place less than a month ago, was all about hurrying up to meet the early December signing period, this one was about waiting.

Then hurrying up.

Since there was only one other high-profile FBS job available, Temple athletic director Dr. Pat Kraft had to wait for what the Power 5 school (West Virginia) did and then move on after that. Kraft didn’t only have egg on his face after the Manny Diaz Fiasco, he had a whole Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast. No use hiring a guy on Thursday, only to have him move on to West Virginia on Friday.

We are exaggerating for effect. We think. 

fastnarducci

slownarducci

Seven hours between these two tweets

First, the waiting part.

Since West Virginia hired Troy’s Neal Brown–arguably the most accomplished proven FBS head coach out there–yesterday, Temple has a smorgasbord of pretty decent candidates to choose from and about $8.5 million to spend on a head coach  ($6.5 million in buyouts and Geoff Collins‘ regular $2 million salary) to spread over the next five years.

This time none of the candidates have a place to jump to after 17 days. One or two years maybe, but not 17 days.

pophead

Temple’s depression-era offer of $12,500K per year lured Pop Warner away from Stanford. The second splash hire, Wayne Hardin, arguably turned out to be a better one.

The Owls can pay Dana Holgorsen money for a superstar like current Buffalo head coach Lance Leipold or national coach of the year Jeff Monken (Army) or they can dig back deep into the coordinator churn pile for someone like Texas DC Todd Orlando. Leipold is probably out because he has shown no interest in the Temple job (not everyone is), although the concept of hiring a guy who kicked Geoff Collins’ ass with Buffalo talent is more than intriguing. Temple produces NFL players so Monken and his triple-option is probably out and hiring another team’s coordinator after Diaz probably would probably not be received well by the Temple fan base demanding a splash with the newfound money. Eastern Michigan’s Chris Creighton pulled a minor miracle in an impossible place to win this year, but he hasn’t shown he can sustain it like Leipold and Monken.

Now Temple has money for a “splash” hire and one opportunity to spend it.

Really, a solid argument can now be made with Neal Brown gone that Leipold is the only “splash” candidate out there. Seven National championships plus an FBS division championship sets him apart from the rest. The only two times Temple went for a “splash” candidate, Wayne Hardin and Pop Warner, it turned out pretty well.


The only two times
Temple went for a
“splash” candidate,
Wayne Hardin and
Pop Warner, it turned
out pretty well

Popular hirings among a certain segment of Temple fans would be Al Golden and Todd Bowles. Golden gave Temple five great years–a lot longer than 17 days–and still has a tremendous relationship with many long-time Temple fans. He probably saved the program and turned a 0-11 season before he got here into a nine- and an eight-win season before he left. He still has terrific recruiting contacts up and the East Coast and good relationships with Ed Foley and Adam DiMichele. He probably has the competitive instincts to prove was better for Temple than Rhule or Collins. Kraft could not go wrong in bringing him back but we don’t know if he’s even interested. Bowles would be popular with players of the Bruce Arians’ Era but he would be a much harder sell in that he hasn’t really won anywhere.

donbrown

Don Brown in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. Note the words “not on anybody else’s terms.” Kraft could be demanding Brown keep Fran Brown, Ed Foley, Gabe Infante and Adam DiMichele, none of whom Brown knows. This problem would be solved by hiring another guy working in Michigan, Al Golden.

Now the hurrying up part.

When Diaz left, Kraft issued a statement that emphasized two words: Excellence and stability.

Fran Brown, the current interim coach, represents “stability” and is well-liked by the players. Still, since he was seen not as a guy who could take over the Temple head coaching job 23 days ago, it’s hard to sell excellence and Fran Brown. Mike Elko, Don Brown and Manny Diaz were by reports the final three in the first search. Elko pulled out of the first search and used it as leverage to sign a new deal at Texas A&M.

That leads us to Don Brown. Of those mentioned so far, he brings both stability and excellence. He has all the big-time coordinator experience (BC, UConn, Maryland, Michigan) of the other coordinator churn pile guys but a 95-45 record as a head coach at three schools. That’s excellence. At 63, Temple would be his last rodeo and he can say with a straight face at the press conference that he’s not going anywhere. Another plus is that this will enable Fran Brown to learn how to be DC (not co-DC) under Don Brown’s watch and make him a more attractive candidate for the Temple job when Don decides to retire.

The narrow criteria of “excellence” and “stability” could make this hurry up phase of the second search go pretty fast and that’s what one Brown can do for Kraft that the other one cannot.

Monday: The special circumstance now

01.03.19
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Fizzy’s Corner: Follow-Up and Search

 

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

After I sent out my piece, “The Green Flu,” I was contacted by someone very close to the situation at Temple.  He informed me that one of the two Temple players I mentioned as “quitters,” was indeed ill.  So to that player, I offer my sincere apology. As far as the other player who took himself out of the game, I guess it’s your point of view.   You know that my view is you play every game you can with your brothers. Every football player knows there’s a chance of injury whenever you step on the field, but you probably put it out of your mind way back in ninth grade. There were some senior players who had been selected to play in further bowl games didn’t play, and some who did.  Trace McSorley played last night until his leg almost fell off. (Of course, when I finished at Temple, the only organization interested in drafting me was the U.S. Army.)

patenaude

There are two other factors.  The first is the way the situation was handled. No one knew anything until game time.  (At least that’s when I found out the guys weren’t playing.)  If someone was taking himself out of the game, it should have been announced, not camouflaged.   The second factor is that if coaches quit, then players should start looking out for themselves. I have no problem with that. Just tell us.

Selection Committee

Our selection committee has a difficult task.  After five defections, do they go for the best coach they can find, or hire someone who hasn’t yet proven himself but might stay longer?  Just as you never know what high school player is going to succeed in college, you don’t know what assistant is going to make the grade as a head coach.  Of course, even if you select the guy who hasn’t proven himself yet, who says he’s going to stay if he is successful?  How about a pro coach who has already done it all?  It’s a conundrum if there ever was one.

Another way to handle the situation is, at the hiring meeting, have Guido sit in the corner with his hands folded.  (You all know Guido, he’s from South Philly. He looks like Michael Corleone’s guy who dressed in black and went after Hyman Roth.)

patenaudebox

Praise The Lord Department

It has now been confirmed that Dave Patenaude is the offensive coordinator at Georgia Tech.  Therefore, the Broad Street Offense is no more.  It’s now the Peachtree Street Offense. The Georgia Tech fans have been waiting for a new offense, just wait till they get a load of this.  The under/over on reverses for the 2019 season is “2.”  For bootlegs, at the goal line it’s “1.”

The $6.5 Million Windfall

Last, I think Temple should take the $6.5 M, split it up and give it to all us Temple football alums with bad knees, bad backs and concussions.

Saturday: The Slower Pace

 

12.31.18
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Comical If Not So Sad

leipold

Lance Leipold is probably the best available head coach out there, but does Kraft know that?

Mulligans are usually associated with the game of golf, but Temple athletic director  Pat Kraft now has a chance to have that kind of do-over in football coaching searches.

He missed this most recent two-foot putt by a mile but this is a chance to correct his mistake.

worstthing

This is what we wrote 20 days ago and Kraft did exactly the worst thing–bring in another team’s coordinator.

The $6.5 million question now is whether he admits his hiring model was a flawed one or does he take this as an opportunity to create a new model?

Manny Diaz lasted all of 17 days as Temple football’s head coach and, frankly, I’m glad he’s gone. He was never a fit for Temple. The guy never coached North of Jacksonville, had no recruiting ties to the area and probably doesn’t even own an overcoat. Temple was going to train him to be Mark Richt’s successor for one year and he would move on to his “dream” job, Miami. He would make all the mistakes first-year head coaches make–all the ones that Matt Rhule made in a 2-10 season and Collins did in a 7-6 one–and the Temple fans and players would be the ones paying for it.

interstate

A busy day ahead for the Interstate sign company

Now Kraft will have to juggle several balls in the air with the $6.5 million buyout money ($2.5 million for Geoff Collins and $4 million for Diaz) and hope he can catch them all:

    • No more carpetbaggers. Kraft, in his message to the players last night, finally used the word “stability.”  That word has never appeared in his vocabulary before and it is a concession to the fact that this revolving door is getting comical if it wasn’t so sad. Is there someone out there who has not lost to Duke and Wake Forest by a combined score of 101-53 who feels that TEMPLE is his dream job? Surely that man exists.
    • Keep contractual obligations. Another ball that is difficult to catch. Temple has the names of Fran Brown and Gabe Infante (and probably Ed Foley) signed on the dotted line and the university has a moral duty to keep them onboard and find a next guy who can work with both. Moral duty may mean nothing to Diaz, but it should mean something to Temple.
    • Forget coordinators.  Both Foley, who lost to Wake and Duke by the above-mentioned 101-53, and Fran Brown are good men who may consider Temple their “dream job” but neither has won a single game as an FBS head coach and probably are not ready for prime time. Nonetheless, we don’t want to learn the hard way.

It is time for Temple to finally bring in an established head coach and not another coordinator to have to learn on the job, someone who will bring some stability to the program and has loyalty to Temple.

stability

Al Golden said on national TV Temple TUFF is spelled T-U-F-F (and it is)

 

That would probably rule out a terrific head coach like FIU’s Butch Davis, who will probably spend his entire year here looking out the window. Buffalo’s Lance Leipold parlayed a 108-6 record at Wisconsin-Whitewater and six national championships (real ones, not fake ones like they have in FBS) into a 10-4 record with the Bulls and is ridiculously underpaid at $325K. Can he be talked into keeping Foley, Brown and Infante, guys who he never met? Waving a couple of million at a guy like that can be convincing. Nothing would scare the shit out of Geoff Collins more than facing the guy who kicked his ass last September at Lincoln Financial Field this September at LFF. He’s a perfect geographical fit for Temple in that Buffalo is a major Northeastern city like Philadelphia. He probably owns several overcoats.

disclosure

… and this is what we wrote 18 days ago

Al Golden is a guy who knows Temple and loves Temple and HAS PROVEN HE CAN WIN AS A HEAD COACH AT TEMPLE and would get along with Foley, Brown, and Infante and deserves a hard pursuit by Kraft. He gave Temple five terrific years, is still young and probably knows more than anyone else that the grass is not greener on the other side of the 10th and Diamond fence.

Todd Bowles would be a good co-defensive coordinator for Fran Brown to learn from but I’m told his lack of a Temple (or any other) college degree ruled him out of the coaching search in 2010.

The worst thing, though, would be for Kraft to go back and churn the coordinator pile of guys like Mike Elko and Don Brown and come up with a guy whose dream job is elsewhere.

Other people’s dreams are Temple’s nightmares.

New Year’s Day: The Cleanup Begins

Friday: The Pace

12.30.18
by

Fizzy’s Corner: The Green Monster

weinraub

Fizzy here at the Boca Raton Bowl, where 6,000-plus Temple fans attended and because of this Independence Bowl fiasco that might be the last time where Temple has more than a hundred fans at any bowl game.

Editor’s Note: Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub, a former Temple player, brings up the interesting concept in this piece that can simply be boiled down to this: If you are going to have a bowl game with no Temple head coach, no Temple star players, then get ready for no Temple fans in the future. 

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Our two best players quit. Our best offensive player, Ryquell Armstead, and our best cornerback, Rock Ya-Sin, who was supposed to cover Duke’s best receiver, both quit and didn’t play in the bowl game.  Instead of coming clean, coach Ed Foley came up with some claptrap about this was a medical staff decision.  If you believed that, then you must also believe that the Eagles’ Jim Schwartz is a great defensive coordinator.

Why?

nothappy

Temple fans were not happy with the two Rocks

Both players accepted invitations to the Senior Bowl on January 26th, and Rock will also play in the East/West game on January 19th. That’s why they declined to play; it’s called the green flu.  I sure it’s because they thought they might get hurt and ruin their chances to be highly drafted by the NFL.  Two tough as nails football players let their brothers down after fighting with them through thick and thin. If you don’t think that had a major effect on the outcome of the game, you’re just naive.

I was at a friend’s house watching the game ( I left after the third quarter.), and when I got home I told my wife what happened.  My wife knows very little about college football, but Cheryl’s first words were, “Why does that surprise you?  Their coach quit.”  Yes indeed, their coach did quit as did the previous three before him. Is it any wonder it was only a matter of time before this, me first – screw you, attitude filtered down to the players.  Thinking back to the guys I played with, it’s unimaginable to me that a teammate would do this.  But then again, I’m now sure I’m the one who’s naive.

As far as the coaching, well, I’m so pissed right now that the coaching seems relatively unimportant.  The butchering of the last sequence of plays right before the end of the first half with three timeouts left should go down in the hall of shame. Slowing down the blitzing in the second half only allowed a great pro prospect QB all the time in the world to catch fire.  Of course, we dropped untold passes.

So in college football, the coaches quit on their teams, and now seniors quit on their teams.  When is it our turn?  It’s been sixty years of Temple football for me now. Maybe it’s time I say, “Fer who, fer what?”  How about those who spent a few grand to travel to the game, only to see a half-assed effort?  What about the undecided recruits? Major college football is now as much “pay to play” as the NFL.  I wanna go back to the last century.

P.S. The only good news, was great news. Marc Narducci reports unsubstantiated sources say that Temple’s offensive coordinator, Dave Patenaude, is going to Georgia Tech with Geoff Collins.  Thank you, oh great omnipotent being.  Maybe our Broad Street Offense can become the Philly Soft Pretzel Offense, under the new guy. (You want some mustard on that?)

Wednesday: The Cleanup Begins

 

12.28.18
by

Winning Is the Only Thing

ultimate

TU played like walk-ons, Duke like scholarship players

In a far-off, long-ago era of football, Vince Lombardi probably had the best quote in the history of the sport:

“Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

The great ex-Green Bay Packers’ head coach, if he were still alive, probably would have repeated his second most famous quote during Temple’s meltdown in a 56-27 loss to Duke yesterday:

“What the hell is going on out there?”

fifteen

Good words, Vince, that perfectly described an Independence Bowl where the wheels came off for a 3.5-point favorite.

The quotes are reminders to me of a conversation the other day I had with an otherwise sane and rational Temple fan on my decision not to attend this bowl.

“C’mon, down, Mike,” he said, “bowls are about the pageantry and the band, not really about the game itself.”

“Huh? If I’m going down, I’m going down to win. I don’t give a whit (minus the W) about the pageantry. The only reason I go down is to see Temple win and there’s too much uncertainty and I would be way too pissed off if I spent that much money to see a loss.”

All that said, the night before the game I wrote this nugget:

“If Temple controls the clock behind Ryquell Armstead and Russo is effective in the short passing game, (Duke quarterback) Jones won’t be able to do too much damage.”

To me, there was no doubt Armstead would play. He was quoted as saying on Dec. 17 that he was excited to play “one last time with my brothers” and participated in every practice, several of them full contact. He was listed as “probable.” What did he do in the minutes before the game, trip over the Elvis Pressley statue? This news completely came out of the blue.

downmoney

Both cornerback Rock Ya-Sin and Armstead did not play and interim head coach Ed Foley said those were for “medical reasons.” Photos, though, of the two showed them smiling (not grimacing) before the game, so who the hell knows? All I know is that Armstead was a warrior who wanted to come back into the ECU game (and did) despite a sprained ankle and he looked a helluva lot better walking around the sidelines yesterday than he did that day in October.

Jones, the Duke quarterback who is a far better prospect than Armstead or Ya-Sin, did play “one last game” with his brothers and that set the tone for the entire day.

Do I think Temple would have benefited from having Armstead in there to run the ball with a 27-14 lead in the second quarter? Hell yes. Do I think he would have scored the six touchdowns that he did against Houston? Hell no, but three would have done the job and 30 carries would have kept the ball away from Jones for 30 plays. Play-action would have aided quarterback Anthony Russo if he had Armstead to put the ball in the belly of and pull it out.

Do I think Ya-Sin would have batted down a couple of those Jones’ touchdown passes?

Hell yes.

Football is a team game and the next man should step up but Temple had no “next man” nearly as capable as those two. Maybe part of their decision had to do with coaches coming and going at Temple, but it still sucks.  Ed Foley is now 0-2. He talks a good game but I’d rather see actions than words. I always have.

This is what bowl season at Temple has come to, though. Maybe forever. Maybe just for the foreseeable future:  Decide to go down to see the band, go to pre-game events and walk around a small town in the middle of nowheresville but don’t be upset if Temple losses the game.

No thanks.

I feel most sorry for all of those Temple fans who paid their hard-earned money thinking they would see the full Temple team for one more time.

Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing. My good Temple friend can go down for the pageantry and the sightseeing next year, but it will be a hard pass for me unless it’s an NY6 game and everyone from Temple from the head coach to the waterboy is 100 percent committed to winning.

Sunday: Fizzy on The Green Flu

Wednesday: Some New Year’s Resolutions for Manny Diaz

Friday: Infante Impact

Sunday: Comparing First Years

Tuesday: (1/9): Pressing Needs

Thursday (1/11): Impact of Bowl Loss on Future

12.26.18
by

Bowl Game: Keeping Up With The Joneses

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The closest thing Philadelphia drive-time sports talk radio got around to talking about the Temple’s impending bowl game tomorrow was on the Mike Missanelli Show two days ago.

Missanelli was making a point about trading Carson Wentz for a No. 1 and keeping Nick Foles to run the show and mentioned the name of the Duke quarterback as a draft possibility should the Eagles designate Foles as a placeholder for the next couple of years.

“They could even draft a guy this year,” he said. “Let’s look at the list of projected No. 1 NFL quarterbacks. How about that Daniel Jones of Duke? If you reject the notion that Wentz is the last franchise quarterback the NFL draft will ever produce, and I do, then now is the time to get rid of Wentz and get something for him. You can draft a guy like Daniel Jones, have him learn from Foles for a couple of years and then he could turn out to be as good as Wentz. You never know.”

Silly me.

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My 40-year-old Temple News jersey did not survive as well as Mr. Russo’s 40-year-old Bishop Egan jersey

I thought that was a lead-in to talking about the Temple-Duke game, but Missanelli beat about 20 other Eagles’ topics to death and left Daniel Jones floating out there. Philly talk show hosts probably don’t even know Temple is playing in the Independence Bowl against Duke (1:30 p.m., ESPN) tomorrow but the Owls can certainly open some eyes with a big win.

First, there will be a lot of draftniks watching Jones to form their own opinion of him and, second, there is another very talented quarterback on the field named Anthony Russo who can establish a reputation of his own with a good game. There was a terrific story by Marc Narducci on Russo’s wearing a 40-year-old Bishop Egan jersey that his dad wore as a QB there. I also have a jersey over 40-years old–my game jersey for The Temple News’ intramural basketball team–but it has not survived as well so I don’t know how he preserved it.

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Shreveport’s Channel 3 is calling for an 80 percent chance of AM rain and 70 degrees by the afternoon.

Jones still has a year of eligibility but it would be crazy for a projected first-round pick to come back to college. Jones checks all of the boxes. Like Wentz, he’s 6-foot-5 and, like Wentz, he can do damage with his feet. He had two runs in excess of 60 yards in a 42-35 win over North Carolina. Jones will be looking to move up the draft board with a strong game against Temple because he hurt his prospects some in a 59-7 loss to Wake Forest in his last game. He was 17-of-36 for 145 yards and a Pick 6.

He’ll be motivated but facing a Temple secondary with two NFL hopefuls in safety Delvon Randall and corner Rock Ya-Sin. Since Duke coach David Cutcliffe is adept at breaking down film, expect Jones to try to attack Linwood Crump Jr.’s side of the field. Crump has been pretty solid as well, but sliding over Randall in help is probably the way interim coach Ed Foley is leaning.

Temple is a four-point favorite, but there’s very little to base that upon since there are no common foes. Interestingly enough, this fall Duke owns wins over both the incoming Temple coach (20-12 at Miami) and the team the outgoing Temple coach (28-14 at Georgia Tech) is taking over so there will be bragging rights to be had for the Owls. Another twist is that Duke beat Baylor and Matt Rhule, for what that’s worth.  If the Owls can pull this off, it will be their most prestigious bowl win since beating California, 28-17, in the 1979 Garden State Bowl so there is plenty at stake.

If Temple controls the clock behind Ryquell Armstead and Russo is effective in the short passing game, Jones won’t be able to do too much damage.

Friday: Game Analysis

Monday: Infante Impact