Tag Archives: Temple football

08.13.18
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Buffalo Shuffle Could Be a Tussle

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The most intriguing thing about the University of Buffalo’s football team is the name of its head coach.

Lance Leipold.

If the name sounds familiar to college football junkies of all levels, it should.

Leipold was 109-6 at  DIII Wisconsin-Whitewater and won six national championships in eight years. He made it to 100 wins in the shortest time of any NCAA coach, any division.

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If that doesn’t tell you the man can flat-out coach, he supplied further evidence when he improved what had been a two-win Buffalo team to six wins last year.

Temple tried hiring a lower division legend in Bobby Wallace without similar success but it appears that the formula is working for the Bulls because the improvement indicates that Leipold is well on his way to having his system in place entering Year No. 4 at Buffalo.

If he’s able to make a similar improvement this season, this could be a very tough second game for Temple. His two top playmakers—quarterback Tyree Jackson and wide receiver Anthony Johnson—return.

Buffalo is dangerous because it was able to beat Lane Kiffin’s 11-3 FAU squad—a team many felt would have given Temple a much tougher bowl game last season than the other Florida alphabet school, Florida.

Jackson and Johnson were instrumental in that win and would like nothing better than performing well in the home stadium of the Super Bowl champions.

All of that said, Temple head coach Geoff Collins is paid very handsomely to hold serve at home against teams like Buffalo and reach up and win a game or two on the road against a team where the Owls are underdogs.

Still, don’t be surprised if it’s a much tighter game than the last time the Bulls visited, a 37-13 Temple win.

Wednesday: Position Flexibility

Friday: Thoughts From the Season-Ticket Holder Party

08.10.18
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They Really Like Us

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Mohamed Toure can wear gray both at Pleasantville and Temple

The late great Vince Hoch explained to me the secret to recruiting once.

“Mike, it’s all about building relationships and chemistry,” Vince said.

Hoch probably is one of the two or three best defensive coordinators I’ve known in my 40 or so years covering Temple who built a relationship with a player named Mike Palys. Bruce Arians, who replaced Wayne Hardin, followed up on the relationship and successfully recruited Palys to Temple.

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Temple’s mostly young staff seems to relate well with the kids

Temple wanted Palys. Penn State wanted Palys.

“We never got a guy Penn State wanted until then,” then head coach Wayne Hardin said. “That was a great job by Bruce, but we established that relationship with him from the time he was a sophomore.”

Some incoming staffs want to establish their own recruits but, at Temple, Arians trusted Hardin, Matt Rhule trusted Al Golden (and to a lesser extent, Steve Addazio) and Collins had a great relationship with Rhule.

It all helped for relatively seamless recruiting.

Palys was an offensive player from a place called Moscow (Pennsylvania, not Russia or Idaho) but back in the early 1980s he built a solid relationship with everyone on the Temple football staff, even the defensive coaches.

When crunch time came, Palys picked Temple because of those relationships first and the fact that he believed Arians when he told the young man Temple would allow Palys to play both baseball and football at Temple.

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Palys excelled in both sports, becoming an All-American in baseball (and starting in centerfield for Team USA) and scoring two touchdowns in Bruce Arians’ final game, a 42-28 win over Boston College.

Relationships are something the current head coach, Geoff Collins, and his staff apparently understand. Whatever this staff lacked in game-day preparation in the first half of the 2017 season, they seem to make up in connecting with the kids. It’s understandable because Collins learned the tricks of the trade as recruiting coordinator at both Georgia Tech and Alabama and he has assembled a young and charismatic staff.

The Owls are close to getting a very good linebacker in Pleasantville (N.J.) High’s  Mohamed Toure, who seems to be favoring them over Rutgers, according to this story on NJ.com. He was supposed to be at Rutgers, skipped an appearance there to show up at Temple instead.

Hoch talked about relationships and those relationships lead to a lot of Jimmies and Joes (and Mohameds) signing on the dotted line.

If Jimmies and Joes and Mohameds can overcome the X’s and O’s, Temple is indeed in very good shape for the next few years.

Monday: An Early Look at Buffalo

08.08.18
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Shining Light on Villanova Game Plan

These days at Temple football practice time has been set aside for things like photo shoots and press conferences but, at some point, work has to be done to win a game.

All you have to do to figure out the Villanova game plan is to pop in a tape of last year’s game.

Villanova is going to throw to the tight end—a lot—and going to try to throw crossing underneath patterns to backs coming out of the backfield. That approach pretty much moved the sticks and shortened the game for the Wildcats, but did not put a whole lot of points on the scoreboard in a 16-13 Temple win.

Villanova: Never forgive, never forget

Daz got one thing right: He beat Nova 42-7 and 41-10

For a FCS team looking to beat a FBS team, that has to be the goal. Shorten the game and keep the ball out of the hands of the more talented team.

Villanova did that well a year ago.

Temple has to counter by using its best defensive player, safety Delvon Randall, to cover the tight end and keep the linebackers from being crossed up by the crossing patterns by defined assignment football.

Will the Owls learn?

Those who do not learn by history are doomed to repeat it. There is a history involving the Owls and nine months to prepare for an opponent that telegraphed their game plan.

For the entire year leading up to the 2016 Army game, we outlined Phil Snow’s shortcomings against triple option teams—both at Temple and his previous stop, Eastern Michigan—and presented a simple plan to stop the triple option.

Nose guard, A gaps covered by tackles, and the play blown up at the point of attack. These were solid precepts covered in Wayne Hardin Football 101.

The Owls had nine months to make those adjustments and made none, instead sticking with their base 4-3 defense.

The outcome was that the Army fullback ran for over 100 yards and two touchdowns in both an embarrassing and costly loss. Had the Owls won that game, they would have had a much better argument for a NY6 playoff game. Snow learned his lesson by the Navy championship game, going with a nose guard and two tackles to stymie Navy’s high-octane offense and come away with a 34-10 win but it was a lesson he chose to ignore for the opener. If anything, the Owls learned that being stubborn and, to use Matt Rhule’s words “do what we do and don’t worry about what the other guy does” is not a good philosophy for winning football. Instead, you’ve got to recognize what the other guy does well and counter your game plan to stop it.

It is a lesson these Owls, too, should not ignore. Somewhere in the fine print of Geoff Collins’ contract is the mandate to pummel this team. He has three weeks to find the Mayhem that disrupts what we all know Villanova will attempt to do.

Friday: They Really Like Us

Monday: A Peak Ahead to Buffalo

Wednesday: The Position Flexibility Canard  

08.06.18
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He Said What?

 

The  crowd gathered on the iconic steps of the Art Museum and some guy with a microphone and a Temple football jersey that read the twitter handle @mikeFox29 uttered these words:

“Bring home that national championship, Temple.”

Or something like that.

The crowd went wild.

At this point it is probably worthwhile noting that the “crowd” consistent entirely of Temple football players doing a photo shoot there.

Still, the words “national championship” and “Temple football” are so rarely uttered together I had to find out who the guy was.

So I messaged photographer Zamani Feelings, who was there for the shoot, and he got right back to me.

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Just about everything would have to break Temple’s way for a national championship

“He’s Mike from Fox 29,” Zamani wrote.

“Gee, thanks.”

The only “Mike From Fox 29” I could find on the list of employees at Fox 29 was Mike Jerrick, the morning anchor.

That “Mike from Fox 29” did not match up with the “Mike from Fox 29” who was holding the microphone in the photo shoot so, while the guy was from Fox 29, he certainly wasn’t Mike from 29. Obviously, he doesn’t know the deck is stacked against teams like Temple having the same goal the 64 teams from the Power 5 conferences have. This is probably the No. 1 thing wrong with college football and UCF was the perfect example of it. UCF can beat a team from the Big 10, Maryland, on the road, 38-10 and beat a team that beat the eventual national champion, win every game on the schedule, and not even be in considered for the four-team play off.

This time, though, the messenger is not as important as the message.

For Temple to win the national championship, the Owls would have to win every game on the schedule and Maryland would have to win the Big 10 and Boston College would have to win the ACC.

Then the Owls probably would get an invite to the Final Four playoff. Camel passing through the eye of a needle chance.

So, to quote Jim Carrey, “So, you’re saying there’s a chance?”

Remember that guy on the steps of the Art Museum if it happens. We’ll try to find out his full name between now and then.

Wednesday: An Early Copy of The Villanova Game Plan

08.03.18
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Silver Linings (Stadium) Playbook

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Color me totally underwhelmed by this projected stadium design.

Sometimes the worst decisions are the impulsive ones.

General Robert E. Lee, holding the advantage pretty much everywhere on the Gettysburg Battlefield on the first day, ordered a charge of General Pickett’s 30,000 troops right into a heavily defended Union position. They pretty much got wiped out.

Had he waited a day and covered both the left and right Union flanks instead of going up the middle, we might all be speaking with a Southern accent right now.

Pretty much that’s the way I feel about the Temple Stadium situation.

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Temple fans would tire fast of a glorified high school stadium like this one at Northeast.

Even the most ardent “shovel-in-the-ground-by-August” guys are believing that this is more a dead deal than a done one.

It’s been what I’ve been writing in this space since the March 6 Mitten Hall meeting fiasco. Nothing has changed since then except the goal posts have been moved from, say, 2018 until 2030 or even later.

The neighbors don’t want this, never have, never will, and Temple is dead set on getting the neighbors’ support before proceeding on this project. Since that’s the case, we might have to wait until the neighborhood becomes fully gentrified before proceeding. That probably won’t be before 2030. That’s a more likely scenario than trying to convince Social Justice Warriors to abandon their platform of the moment.

Russell Conwell, the Temple founder, was on the other side of that Pickett’s charge as a Union captain. He survived and so will his beloved Temple.

There is a Silver Lining in the way this play ended.

Building a 30-35K stadium that looks only a little nicer than Northeast High’s Charlie Martin Memorial Stadium would only make those 200 or so fans who think that having “TEMPLE” and “OWLS” spelled out in the end zones every week would more than make up for the bare-bones cheap stadium they would be forced to sit in six times a year.

Building an Akron or a FAU stadium does Temple no good and probably commits Temple to a life sentence of being as irrelevant on the college football landscape as, err, Akron or FAU are now.

Wait and build something like Houston has now is the perspective Temple should have. Swallowing hard and extending the Linc deal is the only way to go. After all, as Bill Bradshaw once said, Temple plays in the nicest football stadium in America. It’s a pro one, but it’s still the nicest.

Otherwise, the 2018 version of  the 1863 Pickett’s charge is an impulsive decision Temple doesn’t need to or even can make right now.

That’s the only silver lining in this otherwise dark cloud.

Monday: He Said What?

Wednesday: Here’s What Villanova is going to (try to) do …

08.01.18
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Unmasking Temple’s Ambidextrous Punter

waybackthere

Right there, on the far right, is Temple’s ambidextrous punter.

Every year it seems pouring through media day stories for nuggets of interest is about as fruitful as going to Sutter’s Mill near San Francisco and seeing if there is any Gold left.

 


So who is this mystery punter,
or is Collins keeping it a
secret for now?
“Yeah, kinda, sure,” Collins said.

Not this year.

Shawn Pastor, who really does the best job of INDEPENDENTLY reporting Temple sports, came up with this gem on his Owlsdaily.com site the other day talking about the punting:

“Four-year starter Alex Starzyk is gone, and Collins didn’t put the punters on public display in the Cherry and White Game.  So there’s not much for people to judge between walk-ons Conner Bowler, Max Cavallucci, Zach Kirby, Drew Levin, and Will Mobley – except that one of them might be a secret weapon.

“I thought the punters did a good job in the spring,” Collins said.  “And we’ve got a guy that can kick left-footed and right-footed rugby, so that’s really tough to defend.  So I think we’ve got some unique options.”

Starzyk punted straight-on and rugby-style, which gave opponents a different look.  But he was right-footed, and hence didn’t bring the entire field into play when teams came after him

“If the punter is always going to roll to his right, you can overload that,” Collins explained.  “But now we have the ability to go right and left.  He can go right and rugby-punt, he can go left and rugby-punt, and he can kick it fairly decent straight-on.  But he specializes in rugby.”

So who is this mystery punter, or is Collins keeping it a secret for now?

“Yeah, kinda, sure,” Collins said.”

Shawn left that out there hanging like a Hector Neris curveball, but we couldn’t resist the challenge of unmasking him.

It took delving into the past of each one of those names, but we found him and it’s Drew Levin. The dictionary says the word “ambidextrous” refers to only the hands, but it also been used in the past referring to last’s switch-kicker at Texas A&M.

The advantage of having one is dubious at best but it is an advantage. Temple has done the rugby punts in the past but the defense—or special teams—have overloaded the block and protections to the punter’s right side. With a guy who can kick with both feet, they won’t be able to do that.

In this chess game called football, you make the moves you can and this time Temple has control of the board.

My hope is that the Owls do not have to punt at all and score gobs of touchdowns but, if in the unlikely event they do have to punt, it should be at least more interesting this season.

Friday: Silver Linings On Stadium Issue

07.30.18
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The Case For The Defense

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Karamo Dioubate (72) who had a hand in the last title, could have two hands in this one.

The other day I sent a message to a politican columnist I know that said simply this:

“Keep calling balls and strikes as you see them.”

I don’t always agree with her—actually, very rarely do—but I respect the way she approaches her craft and the logic of the arguments she makes.

In this day and age of polarization, it makes sense to hear  both sides rather than look for ones that ratified a pre-existing view.

Later in that message, I mentioned to her that the pitch cast on the Phillies games does a much better job at calling balls and strikes than the humans behind the plate do. That’s because the computer—setting the batter’s box the way it should be (belt to knees)—doesn’t make mistakes.

That brings us to the case Temple quarterback Frank Nutile made at media day.

“We’re loaded,” he said.

His head coach, Geoff Collins, was more cautiously optimistic in that kind of setting but said after the bowl game that he was going to have a “ridiculous” team in 2018.

I interpreted that as ridiculous as in the good kind because of the number of key returning players the Owls have in 2018.

Those are humans, though, and humans, like the umpires, can make mistakes in those types of evaluations.

Setting up the equivalent of the “pitch cast” box to take an objective view is the fact that the Owls have three immovable tackles in the middle of the field in Michael Dogbe, Dan Archibong and Freddy Booth-Lloyd and options at both ends in Quincy Roche and either Nickolas Madourie and Karamo Dioubate. Madourie is a junior college transfer who had 17.5 sacks at that level and Dioubate, who has been in the interior in his first two college seasons but was a high school All-American at defensive end, which got him recruited by schools like Penn State and Alabama. If Madourie’s jump to major college football doesn’t translate, Dioubate should be able to handle the other end position. Hell, Dioubate is more of a defensive end than he is a tackle and the Owls might want to utilize his talents where he can create more Mayhem. Just a thought.

The Owls have really good linebackers and defensive backs.

Put them all together and this should be a much more impressive defense that held eight-win Florida International to just three points.

Nutile has played against that defense every day in the offseason and it might be one of the reasons he used the word “loaded” or Collins used the word “ridiculous.”

Those are subjective words, but there is a lot objective data backing it up. The ultimate arbiter will be the record, not the humans who call the balls and strikes.

Play ball.

Wednesday: That’s Special

Friday: Silver Linings

07.27.18
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Unpacking Media Day

This is the exact moment the great Ventell Bryant checked out of the Dave Patenaude Inn.

In the college football world of haves and have-nots, there is definitely a “have-not” feel among the Group of Five members.

Has been, maybe always will be.

At least for now, it is.

Among those G-fivers, though, the American Conference represents the haves and, among the AAC group, Temple has to be mentioned near the top.

That was clear after AAC Media Day on Tuesday, even though the Owls were picked to finish third in the AAC East for the second-straight year.

Reputation is based more on what you have done than what you are predicted to do and, with that as the criteria, Temple is royalty in this conference.

Only three schools—Houston, Temple and UCF—have won league titles and only two, Houston and Temple, have appeared in two title games.

Last year, the scribes who cover the league were right when they (correctly) predicted the Owls to finish third. This year, the nagging feeling is that they won’t be.

At least that’s the feeling among the Owls themselves.

Ventell Bryant put it best on his twitter feed.

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What does Bryant know that they don’t?

Start with Frank Nutile being the quarterback for five of the last seven Temple games (all wins, except for  losing to the national champions and a debacle we describe below), including a 28-3 thumping of Florida International in the Bad Boy Mowers Bowl. Add in the mix Bryant himself, who after saving Temple’s season with a spectacular circus catch to set up the game-winning field goal in the Villanova game, disappeared for the remainder of the season.

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Doctorate of Offensive Football Philosophy

Partly that was due to injuries, but mostly that was due to checking out and not being a believer in OC Dave Patenaude’s “Coastal Carolina Soft” offense. With Ed Foley being named “head coach of the offense” Bryant has checked back into the Conwell Inn where  the hope is an established running game will create more play-action openings in the second. There can be no debate who was the best Owl receiver in the 2016 championship season and that was Bryant himself, whose heroics basically won the UCF game in Orlando two years ago and could not be contained by Navy in the title game.

The key to Temple repeating the mediocrity of 2017 and becoming great is simply this: Does Collins realize successful Temple football is first establishing the run and THEN faking it into the belly of a great tailback on play-action to open things up for the passing game or does he continue to believe in the failed philosophy of his Coastal Carolina OC, who inexplicably passed on first and goal from the 1 at Army last year when he had the best fullback in the country available to lead block for a tailback who was unstoppable against that squad? Patenaude did similar, OK we’ll be frank, shit all season. Like North Carolina fans said about Dean Smith, only he could stop Michael Jordan. Only another Carolina guy (this time Coastal) could make the “best fullback in the country” disappear for most of the 2017 season.

It’s Common Sense 101 that once Rock Armstead (or Jager Gardner) gauges a defense behind fullback Nitro Ritrovato blocking for big gains to start a game, the linebackers and safeties for the “bad guys” will inch closer to the line of scrimmage to help with run support. Once that happens, it’s much easier to fake the run and find Temple receivers so open in the secondary Nutile will not know which one to pick out. Football is not Rocket Science. It never was and never will be. It took two years for Matt Rhule to figure that out. Will it take two years for Collins or has he learned after one year?

That’s the difference between this 2018 team going 10-2 or better or repeating a 7-6 season.

Ed Foley understands this concept and that might be why the players have bought into the system this season and not last.

Bryant, a Temple grad like most of us reading this blog, could be unstoppable.

With Isaiah Wright on the other side of the field, defensive backs head should be spinning and Nutile will have options.

Given that, and the fact that the UCF head coach will be learning on the job, UCF might not be the slam dunk the AAC writers think it will be. Geoff Collins already made his first-year mistakes.

It’s time for somebody else to do the same.

That might be enough.

They don’t even know.

We don’t, either, but by the time December comes around, do not be surprised if Temple is a three-time visitor to the AAC title game.

It all depends on what the playbook is, the 2016 successful one, or the 2017 failed one.

Monday: The Case for The Defense

07.25.18
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Biggest News From AAC Media Eve: Penn State

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Temple and Houston are the only 2 teams which appeared in at least two AAC title games.

Not much news is ever made on AAC Media Day,  but at least AAC Media Eve gave us this interesting tidbit: Temple is negotiating a home-and-home with Penn State.

This is interesting for at least three reasons.

One, Penn State has never given Temple a home-and-home.

Two, I never thought we’d see PSU again after Temple beat them by two touchdowns and a field goal in 2015 and lost by a measly touchdown the next year.

Three, this confirms my last conversation during a recent tailgate with Dr. Pat Kraft, still the athletic director at Temple University.

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The first Philly special

“We’re not giving anybody 2-and-1s anymore,” Dr. Kraft said.

“Even Penn State?”

“Even Penn State.”

Well, there goes the chance of ever playing Penn State again, I thought.

If Kraft is able to pull this contract off, it’s a major coup for his tenure. Heck, THE major coup for his tenure.

Little do people know another tidbit: Joe Paterno originally wanted to play this game in Philadelphia every year “as a gift to our Philadelphia alumni.”

That all changed after the 1976 renewal of the series (the first game since 1950) when the Owls out-gained the Nittany Lions from scrimmage, 371-120 yards, but lost a 26-25 tilt when the special teams could not cover a kickoff and a punt return. That game was more like a Big 5 basketball game than a college football one, with 30,000 fans waving Cherry and White pom-poms on one side of the field and 30,000 fans waving Blue and White pom-poms on the other. (“After that game, I played my starters on special teams,” head coach Wayne Hardin said a few years ago.)

The opening play from scrimmage–a 76-yard run for a touchdown by a Temple sprinter named Bobby Harris–elicited the loudest cheering I’ve ever heard at a Temple football game, including the 2015 win over PSU. You’ve got to remember that Temple was coming off a couple of years of 9-1 and 8-2 teams and a nation’s-best 14-game winning streak so the Owls had a significant fan base in Philadelphia established.

Afterward, Paterno withdrew the offer of returning to Philadelphia the next season and took the home game and renegotiated a deal that would give PSU 3-2s and 2-1s going forward.

While the ink isn’t dry yet, the news that negotiations are moving along is good news, even if the first game is 2026–two years after the Owls play Oklahoma. Right now, almost too good to be true.

Friday: Unpacking Other Media Day News

07.23.18
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Best of TFF: Breaking a 20-Game Losing Streak

 

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Editor’s Note: This is the third of a three-part Best of TFF series for our vacation week. Thanks to a mention on the popular sports site Deadspin.com, our story on the end of a 20-game losing streak (below), had over a million page views, the most in TFF history. 

Watching Travis Shelton show his backside to the entire Bowling Green kickoff team, I thought about a lot of people.
Most of all, I thought about Karl Smith.
And all of the other small-minded narrow-thinkers like him.
Smith is the executive editor of PhillyBurbs.com.
You need only read a few excerpts from this piece of crap he wrote about Bowling Green putting up 70 on the Owls.
Things have changed a little since then, Karl.

…”how nice to have an extended scrimmage every year …against an overmatched opponent that actually counts in the standings,” Smith wrote …

A brief synopsis is in order. He went on to thank Temple for this and thank Temple for that and then concluded by thanking Temple for accepting an invitation to the MAC so that the Owls can be Bowling Green’s whipping boy for the next few years.
“… how nice to have an extended scrimmage against an overmatched opponent every year that actually counts in the standings,” Smith wrote.
Hmmm.

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I guess he doesn’t know collegefootballnews.com named the Owls 2006 freshman recruiting class at the top incoming class among MAC schools, current or future.
I guess he doesn’t care many of those recruits, as many as 18, are seeing significant playing time for the Owls this season or that these same players pushed around Bowling Green’s sophomore- and junior-dominated lineup.

bowling
He might not know that the 2007 recruiting class is ranked significantly higher than that one and that it might dwarf any recruiting class of any MAC team in recent memory.
Or maybe he doesn’t care.
And, if he can count, he knows that this same Owls will be around for the next three years. Yes, the same Owls that beat his beloved Bowling Green by two touchdowns yesterday.
We won’t assume that Bowling Green will be Temple’s whipping boy for the next few years, as he assumed the other way.
The evidence is there.
Temple is getting better.
Bowling Green is getting worse.
Get used to watching Shelton’s backside. You’ve got two more years of watching that 4.27-40 speed.
We have six players coming in with that kind of speed and the evidence suggests that Temple could literally leave Bowling Green looking permanently in its rear view mirror.
Al Golden is a young, charismatic, recruiter who kids identify with and will rally behind. He came to Temple with a deserved reputation of being a recruiter without peer and he has only enhanced that reputation so far in his year on the job.
Thank you, Karl Smith.
Thank you very much.

Wednesday: Returning to 2018