Tag Archives: UConn football

02.20.25
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Last on Keeler’s to-do list: Film Study

Temple is blessed to have a great returning quarterback in Evan Simon.

Every new head coach has to have “to-do list” and, frankly I’m surprised by one thing new Temple head coach K.C. Keeler admitted he has not done.

Study game tape on the current Temple team.

The answer I was looking for here was: “Yeah, Shawn, I saw all those against Utah State and Evan Simon is a pretty special QB.“

Not being a College Football Hall of Fame head coach but someone with a solid grasp of Temple football history and a graduate degree in Wayne Hardin University, that’s the first thing I would have done had I gotten the job.

Color me surprised that he told OwlsDaily.com editor-in-chief Shawn Pastor that he had not reviewed any film of the current Temple holdovers.

Some pretty good Torrez Worthy highlights here. Kinda reminds me “a little” of Saquon Barkley.

It’s not too late for Keeler to put the projector in the team meeting room and take a look at a few players he now has under his control.

My first duty as a new Temple head coach would have been to study game film on every single Temple football player.

There is a simple reason for that.

I want to know who I want to keep as a starter and who I want to replace.

Don’t know how Keeler could move forward without that information but it’s not too late to do soon.

I will offer this current bit of advice: Please study the game film of two players in two games against teams that would have fared pretty well against any G5 team, Utah State and UConn.

The first player is Evan Simon. The second is Torrez Worthy.

Simon made five great throws under pressure for touchdowns in a 45-29 win over Utah State.

Torrez Worthy had 95 yards on 12 carries, including a 35-yard run that set up the Owls on the UConn 1 to win the game against a bowl-bound team. Instead of going with the leaping handoff to Worthy on a 4th-and-goal (think “Sam Bam Cunningham” here), the Owls went with a tush push to a 160-pound backup quarterback.

Instead of a 26-23 Temple win (which 99.9 percent of the CBS Sports audience thought they would see), the soaking wet 160-pound QB fumbled the football and it went the other way for a 29-20 loss.

Not the No. 1 reason the old staff got fired, but certainly near the top.

If Keeler is the coach I think he is, he will find out the film doesn’t lie about two of his players.

Both Simon and Worthy are special talents.

Temple can win big with both.

The Owls need to upgrade most of the other 20 positions. (Really, not many because the Owls have a lot of good returning players, particularly on defense.)

Keeler has crossed everything else off his to-do list before the start of spring practice on March 11.

This one last thing should be at the top of his list. Get that damn projector and walk a couple of feet outside of his Temple football coaching office to the film room and take some notes on Simon and Worthy and maybe four or five other returning Temple loyalists.

Then we can move forward to fill his other needs.

10.05.24
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These kids deserve better coaches

This was one of those games where, after watching, had to get into the car and go for a drive to let off some steam.

By some miracle, nobody was killed or even injured by my driving but plenty of thoughts of the train wreck I had just witnessed caused the windows to steam up.

Temple losing to UConn, 29-20, (really, 23-20) on the last play of the game was bad enough but the way was much worse.

Temple was the better team for 59 minutes and 57 seconds and that was because of the kids.

It finished as the second-best team because of the coaches.

The coaches started their bumbling and stumbling early when they didn’t notice a punt went off a UConn helmet in the first quarter and Temple recovered. Any other professional coaching staff has someone watching for that, getting on the headset and telling head coach Stan Drayton to throw the challenge flag.

The nation noticed and so did the CBS Sports TV announcers.

Temple did none of that and gave up early points that would have made the ending moot.

Now what should have been moot but wasn’t. Second-and-goal inside the 1 with two more chances to punch across the win in the last minute and UConn having no time outs.

Should have been easy peasy for any coaching staff in America but the one employed by Temple.

First of all, running back Torrez Worthy was the guy who put you in a spot to win the game getting a second and less than a yard at the goal line. You ride or die with him. You don’t dick around giving the ball to anyone else. At worst, you fake it to him and then do a simple pitch and catch for the winning touchdown to a wide-open receiver in the end zone.

UConn was selling out for the run. It would have been an easy score.

Second, every single time backup quarterback Tyler Douglas came in the game he ran the football. You do not telegraph plays like that on the college level. You don’t do it in the pros. You don’t do it in high school. You don’t do it even do it in Pop Warner Football.

Stan Drayton was essentially telling the Huskies: “Hey guys, heads up, we’re going to run the ball.”

Piece of cake but the Temple coaching staff would rather eat a turd, and that’s exactly what they did.

Is he working for Temple or UConn?

If you are going to have Douglas come into the game, have him make a few throws to cause the defense to think.

There was no thinking involved on Saturday.

There really hasn’t been all season.

Or any of the last three years for that matter.

No doubt in my mind this was the most heartbreaking Temple loss since the Hail Mary that ended the game at Buffalo in 2007.

The difference between that time and this one was that those coaches led by Al Golden put the Owls in a position to win the game and a freak play ended it.

This was the game where the kids put the Owls in position to win and some Rick James-like super freaky play-calling by the coaches robbed them of a deserved celebration.

Inexcusable.

These kids deserve better coaches.

Whether they get them or not is a question only Temple decision-makers at the highest level can answer now.

Monday: Waiting for the Temple administration to do something

10.03.24
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Talking myself into a Temple win

For the better part of a week, you’ve heard all of the reasons why Temple should lose at UConn on Saturday.

The Huskies hammered fellow AAC member FAU, 48-14 and are coming off a 47-3 win over a relatively good Buffalo team.

They also hung with an unbeaten Duke team.

Bleep that.

Stan Drayton owes it to all of these ex-Temple players who owned UConn to deliver with a win on Saturday. Rather roll out Evan Simon with a bad shoulder than Forrest Brock with two good ones.

Trying to talk myself into a Temple win on Saturday (3:30 p.m., CBS Sports TV), there are a few reasons to come to the conclusion that Temple might win this game.

One, Temple beat Utah State, 45-29, a team that traveled to Connecticut and won last year. Two, Temple hung with Coastal Carolina in a 28-20 loss and there’s is no doubt in my mind that Coastal is a better team than UConn and probably a better team than Duke.

Three, UConn lost to Maryland, 50-7, and Maryland “only” beat Temple’s Philadelphia FCS crosstown rival Villanova, 38-20. Got to believe Temple, even with all of its problems, is better than Villanova. In Dante Wright, Antonio Jones and Zae Baines, Temple has three playmaking wide receivers who have NFL skills.

In running back Antwain Littleton, Temple has a guy who can break out at any time if the pass sets up the run. He’s Mr. Inside and Torrez Worthy is Mr. Outside.

In a 17-14 overtime win at 5.5-point favorite UConn in 2012, current ESPN analyst and then Temple head coach Steve Addazio said: “Our intention was to get the ball in the middle of the field for the best kicker in the country to win the game and that’s what happened.”

The “best kicker in the country” then was Brandon McManus and he did just that.

A dozen years later, Temple might again have the best kicker in the country in Maddux Trujillo. It might have to come down to that, maybe in overtime.

Our $10 bet will return $236 if all of the above happens. Looks like we are on our way to two wins so far. Would stay away from the Temple game with a 10-foot pole if the Owls are stupid enough to roll Forrest Brock out there.

Fingers crossed.

All offseason we’ve been told by Temple coaches that this team is a far better team than the 3-9 team Temple fielded last year and there were plenty of reasons to believe them.

Matchup-wise, Temple has a better chance against UConn than it did against Army in that the Huskies like to throw the ball and Temple has good edge pass rushers in Diwan Black and Tre Thomas. Andreas Keaton is a great safety and Torrey Richardson and Jaylen Lewis are good cover corners.

The Owls upgraded not only their depth but arguably 21 of the 22 starters. The one area they failed was quarterback but Evan Simon’s six-touchdown performance against Utah State caused many (raising my hand here) to believe he’s an upgrade over E.J. Warner.

If he plays, and as of right now there is a 50/50 shot, Temple has a good chance to get its first road win under Stan Drayton.

Ever.

If he doesn’t, no shot.

The flip side of this argument is the Temple coaching staff.

Quarterback Forrest Brock and running back E.J. Wilson must be the greatest practice players in history, but they don’t pass the eye test in actual games and the fact that Temple coaches have given both so much playing time in an indictment of their player evaluation skills.

It does cause one to pause over other possible evaluations. Is Tyler Douglas better than first-game starter Brock? Probably. Is Worthy better than Wilson? Definitely.

We need to see more of Worthy, who is definitely a gamer.

My feeling is that if you are going to run all of the RPO stuff offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf wants to run, Douglas is the better quarterback than all three. Put it this way. John Harbaugh wouldn’t run RPO with the Ravens if he had Tom Brady at quarterback. His offense is perfect for Lamar Jackson.

Temple has done a piss/poor job of scheming to the talents of their players so maybe put players in there who fit the scheme.

Better late than never and if Temple figures all of this out in the next 24 hours, it could be a terrific bus ride back from Storrs.

And set up the Owls for a sensational Homecoming.

If not, it’s a Bataan Death March to the end of Stan Drayton’s head coaching career.

He’s too good a guy to deserve that fate and the players love him so it’s time for the coaches to play the right players and those right players to do right by the coaches.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

11.30.19
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TU-UConn: A case of de Ja Vu

If some of the old-timers like me felt a little bit of deja vu on Saturday, it could be understood.

The last time a lot of us remember Temple trailing at halftime and winning, 49-17, it was at Veterans Stadium and the year was 1979.

Head coach Wayne Hardin told me the story then.

“I turned to (defensive coordinator) Vince (Hoch) and said, ‘What do we do?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, coach, what do you think?”

Screenshot 2019-11-30 at 11.30.33 PM

Hardin thought about throwing the ball but instead decided to give the ball to a great running back from Coatesville named Sherman Myers. “Tank” scored five second-half touchdowns, then a Temple record, in a 49-17 win.

The difference between then and now?

That Syracuse team was one of only 30 bowl teams that year. So was Temple. Now there are 80 bowl teams in a watered-down college football landscape.

That Syracuse team had future NFL Hall of Famers Joe Morris and Art Monk.

I doubt that this UConn team will have a single future Hall of Famer and I know for certain that the Huskies are about as far away from a bowl as any program in the country.

The 49-17 score this time was cosmetic but it was pretty good makeup so the current Owls deserve a lot of credit for averting disaster. Call it lipstick on a pig.

Screenshot 2019-12-01 at 12.18.38 AM

When people all over the country see the final, they will think Temple took care of business the way Temple was expected to do so prior to the game as a 29.5-point favorite. What isn’t as noticeable in the boxscore is that UConn led for half of the game and Temple needs to play better if it is going to win a bowl game.

I talked to two former Temple quarterbacks (before the game) who shall remain nameless and mentioned to them that this offense is ill-suited to the talents of the best quarterback on the team, Anthony Russo. Temple needs to run the same offense with Russo it ran in the last two years with P.J. Walker. Ditch the spread and establish a power running game and only then throw off play-action fakes. They both said they are going to sit down with current head coach Rod Carey and take that argument to him.

Good luck with that because that’s really the only way Temple goes from 8-4 this year to 10-2 or better the next. This season went way too fast and Temple had way too much offensive talent to struggle to score 13 on Cincinnati last week.

Carey is going to have to be flexible, but there’s nothing in his history at Northern Illinois that suggests he’s anything but stubborn. Great coaches, though, design an offense that suits their talent and the next few months will tell if Carey is great or just good.

At Temple, just good won’t do.

Tuesday: Season Recap

Thursday: An Ideal Bowl Matchup

11.30.19
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Game Day: Seniors and Sendoffs

Screenshot 2019-11-28 at 9.55.07 PM

By the luck of the draw of scheduling, the American Athletic Conference has given Temple the chore of sending off UConn in style.

The Owls are 29.5-point favorites and for good reasons. Rod Carey can probably run up the score on the Huskies if he chooses to do so and no one in the league offices would blame him.

Throwback Thursday: The infamous call at UConn

Bruce Francis’ TD catch to win the 2007 game was ruled incomplete by MAC refs but replay showed that Francis had a foot down and possession but the Big East replay official (Jack Kramer) refused to overturn the call in perhaps the most controversial ending of a Temple game in modern history.

Nor in the athletic offices over at the Star Complex on the campus of Temple University.

Temple was the team the then Big East decided to kick out of the league and UConn was the team that the league decided to replace the Owls with and, pretty much since then, Temple football has been on the ascent and UConn football pretty much on the decline. The year after Temple was kicked out, the Owls put up 56 on the Huskies in a game at Franklin Field that opened with Mac Fenton taking the kickoff to the house. That game finished 56-7.

Last year, the Owls did it one better, 57-7.

Even in the year the Huskies made the Fiesta Bowl, Temple hung a 30-16 number on the Huskies at Lincoln Financial Field.

UConn has told the league it no longer wants to play basketball in the conference but asked to continue playing football. It took Commissioner Mike Aresco all of about two minutes to essentially say: “We don’t want your crappy football program.”

So the Owls committing a program to the trash heap of college football with a big win today would be more than a fitting sendoff.

There is, though, a much more important chore at hand: Giving the seniors a big win in their final game at Lincoln Financial Field.

The Owls will lose perhaps the best three linebackers they’ve had on the same field in a long time: Shaun Bradley, Chapelle Russell and Sam Franklin. All played with a fierceness that benefited their single digits.

At the season ticket-holder party a couple of years ago, Russell sought me out like he seeks out quarterbacks but, instead of putting me on the ground hard, he extended his hand and said simply: “Thanks for coming.” I told him I thought the team would be a lot better than the projections and he responded: “We know it.”

Three years ago at the same function, Isaiah Wright and Linwood Crump Jr. were among the five people at my table. Wright called me “Mr. Mike” (I like that better than sir and Mr. Gibson) and asked me if I thought the stadium would be built by the time he was a senior. I said, “I don’t think so. Too much politics.” Sadly, it turned out I was right.

I’ll miss my yearly, albeit short, conversations with guys like Wright and Russell and what all of the seniors brought to the field during their careers. These guys deserve to see the Owls score early and often and, if Carey decides to run it up, nobody in the league office will get upset.

Sunday: Game Analysis

Tuesday: Regular Season Roundup

Thursday: Our Dream Bowl Matchup

06.29.19
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Latest hit piece: Keep Temple’s name out of your mouth

Screenshot 2019-06-28 at 4.14.41 PM

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

“Keep my name out of your mouth.”

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

Screenshot 2019-06-28 at 4.25.27 PM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 8: A partnership that works

July 11: Roll call

 

 

06.25.19
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UConn: Bye, Felicia!

bye

My reaction over the weekend when it was leaked that the University of Connecticut would be leaving the AAC for the Big East was not unlike that Ice Cube gif (left).

Bye, Felicia!

Because no matter how much UConn huffed and puffed and tried to resuscitate its failing football program, the patient died as a result of some pretty bad administrative decisions. (Hiring a hot assistant doesn’t always work as Bob Diaco the assistant coach of the year for Notre Dame turned into a nightmare as a head coach for UConn.)

Really, what was the difference between what happened to Temple in 2003 and UConn now? The Big East then kicked Temple out for what it perceived to be (their words) “non-competitiveness” when, in reality, Temple was regularly beating some teams that the Big East decided to keep.

UConn was beating really nobody last year in football and its once dynamite men’s basketball program was in the middle of the league’s pack. (Hell, it’s now hard to pick out Geoff Collins’ worst loss: 2018 Villanova or 2017 UConn. Both times he played arguably the second-best quarterback on the team so it might be a toss-up.)

The AAC probably didn’t have the stones to kick out UConn like the Big East did to Temple back then so, in effect, what the UConn leaders did this week a favor to the AAC. There is no chance the league allows UConn to take out both of its good programs (men’s and women’s basketball) and leave its one crappy program (football).

Good riddance.

Temple, in my mind, belongs in the Power 5 but that doesn’t appear on the horizon soon and, failing that, we have to accept where we are now and UConn leaving the league improves our lot at least a little bit.

Now the American can add a team like BYU (not likely) or Buffalo/Army (more likely). They would have to figure out a way to flip the Army/Navy week and the league championship weeks and that might be an insurmountable hurdle. If so, then the league turns to Buffalo, which more fits the AAC profile of larger TV markets and has a program that is immediately ready to compete in the two highest-profile sports. AAC would have the top G5 market (Philadelphia, 4) plus Dallas-Ft. Worth (5), Washington D.C. (Navy, 9th), Tampa-St. Pete (USF, 13th), Orlando (UCF, 19th), Cincinnati (34th), Memphis (48th) and Buffalo (51) and New Orleans (Tulane, 53). That’s a lot of eyeballs.

Buffalo would be the logical choice, about the same distance away as UConn for Temple fans, and a current upgrade in both sports.

That should and will probably be the successful Northeast school that replaces the unsuccessful departed one.

Saturday: The Latest Hit Piece on Temple football

Monday: A Week of Best of TFFs

 

 

11.25.18
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A Happy Ending

Sometime after Temple did not bother to challenge an obvious touchdown by Isaiah Wright at the end of the half, a long-time Owl fan sent this message on social media:

“This is sad.”

The fan was not referring to Temple eschewing a challenge and taking a field goal there, he was talking about the utter non-competitiveness of UConn.

My response was swift and definitive:

“Happy for me. Any time the good guys have a lot and the bad guys have a little, it is a great game.”

On Saturday afternoon, the good guys wore the white hats and won, 57-7.

makfenton

This now becomes my second-favorite TU-UConn game (by a point).

It was reminiscent of an almost identical score in 2001 when Makonnan Fenton took a kickoff for 94 yards and a touchdown in a 56-7 win over a UConn team that was pegged to replace Temple in the Big East.

Wright went six more yards than Fenton did on his kickoff return, also the pivotal play (if there can be one in a 57-7 win).

You can have all the last-second exciting back-and-forth wins you want, give me a good Temple 57-7 win over that kind of excitement any Saturday of the week.

While the 56-7 win was a vindication that the Big East was getting rid of a far more competitive program for a less-competitive one, the 57-7 win becomes my favorite for reasons that extend far beyond that single point.

aacchart

It vindicates the Owls as one of the premier programs in the stepchild of the Big East, the AAC, and comes at the end of a five-year bowl-eligible run for Temple

Really, since 2001, the odyssey in this space I’ve always wanted for Temple football is respect and the Owls now have that on a global level. Be bowl eligible every year, win a championship every few years, have everyone say what a tough team Temple is and that’s all we has Temple fans can ever hope for on a regular basis.

narducci

In between pounding 90 wpm on the laptop and making a post-game video, Marc Narducci got this capture of Anthony Russo hugging Toddy Centeio after Toddy touchdown scored his first TU touchdown and posted it on his twitter feed.

It certainly beats the 20-game losing streak and (mostly) 20 years of losing seasons that existed between 1989 and 2009. (Only the 7-4 team of 1990 broke what would have been a 20-year losing skein.)

More importantly, a culture of toughness has been established that existed once under Wayne Hardin and Bruce Arians and was only was later given recessitation by Al Golden.

Fair to great hirings by Bill Bradshaw (Golden, Steve Addazio, Matt Rhule) and one by Pat Kraft (Geoff Collins) kept that ball rolling. That ball looks like it will continue to roll for the next two years because the current sophomore and junior classes appear to be at least the equal of any of the best similar groups of the Bradshaw coaches. The Owls have a great quarterback, Anthony Russo, for the next two seasons and seem to have a succession plan in place after he leaves with Toddy Centeio and Trad Beatty waiting in the wings.

It could all blow up if the Owls do something stupid and follow the blueprint of bad coaching hirings established by, say, UConn but having a ex-Big 10 football player like Kraft doing the hiring probably precludes that. Collins seems to fit this school well, even if his offensive coordinator does not.

We learned a lot about the Owls this year. Mostly, that sad beginnings can lead to happy endings if the culture prevails.

There’s one more chapter in this 2018 book to be written and, if the Owls are able to beat a Power 5 foe (I really don’t care where) and hoist another bowl trophy, that would be an even happier ending than the one that closed the regular season.

Baylor in the Armed Forces Bowl would be my heavy lean (negotiate a trade with Army by putting it in the Birmingham Bowl) and hopefully the crafty Kraft is working on that now.

Tuesday: Fizzy’s Corner: Poetic Justice

Thursday: How The West Was Won

Saturday: Temple’s Version of Allen Iverson

Monday: Bowl Selection Analysis

 

 

 

 

10.15.17
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Back to the Bad Old Days

Anyone who has followed this space for the last dozen years of its existence knows where it started and where we left off last December.

From chronicling the depths of a 20-game losing streak to the glorious championship in a great league in December, the Temple program reached the lowest of the lows and pretty darn near the highest of the highs.


This team doesn’t
have a plan on offense,
other than throwing
the ball 54 times
a game. That’s not
the Temple football
we’ve all come to
know and love.
The Temple football
we love is running
Ryquell Armstead and
David Hood behind the
lead blocks of Nick
Sharga, and letting
that set up explosive
results downfield in
the play-action
passing game

Less than a year ago, many of these same Owls were holding and kissing a championship trophy in Annapolis.

Now, after a 28-24 loss to a UConn team that gave up 70 points a week ago, we can officially say we’re back to the bad old days.

Arguably, this is worse than the 20-game losing streak because those teams had no talent. This team has three of five starters returning on the offensive line,  a 900-yard running back, the best fullback in the country, the entire wide receiver corps, pretty much the entire defensive secondary and outstanding defensive linemen like Michael Dogbe, Sharrif Finch, Karamo Dioubate and Greg Webb. Al Golden had a plan and he stuck to it and saw it through to the school’s first appearance in a bowl game in 30 years. This team doesn’t have a plan on offense, other than throwing the ball 54 times a game. That’s not the Temple football we’ve all come to know and love. The Temple football we love is running Ryquell Armstead and David Hood behind the lead blocks of Nick Sharga, and letting that set up explosive results downfield in the play-action passing game.

assistant

Our hiring advice to Dr. Kraft the day Rhule quit.

There is plenty of championship level talent here and it is being squandered.

Whatever Golden lacked in game day acumen, he more than made up in being a brilliant CEO and terrific recruiter and Matt Rhule pretty much took the baton from Golden without fumbling it.

This team has plenty of talent, but has no plan and poor leadership at the top.


Would it absolutely kill
the Owls to start Anthony
Russo for a series or
two or even the first quarter
at Army? Certainly
not as much as the poor
quarterback play is
killing this
team now

Quarterback turnovers are killing this team and the CEO in charge doesn’t have the requisite gonads to make the change that is needed now. Would it absolutely kill the Owls to start Anthony Russo for a series or two or even the first quarter at Army? Certainly not as much as the poor quarterback play is killing this team now.  This offense needs a spark and a quarterback change is the best way to ignite that spark.

Logan Marchi isn’t as much the problem–the kid is trying hard but probably cannot see the field as well as a taller quarterback might–as the stubbornness from head coach Geoff Collins and  offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude of sticking with him when Collins said unequivocally that anyone who turns the ball over would sit.

That rule only applies to non-quarterbacks, evidently.

You have to wonder what Marchi has to do to earn a spot on the bench on this team. On the Pick 6, the ball was tipped ever so slightly and, had the Temple quarterback been 6-4 instead of 6-0, the pick 6 would not have happened.

After the Pick 6, what, exactly, does Collins say to the kid?

“That’s your ninth interception in league play,” Collins might say. “You can have 10, 11 and 12 but I’m drawing the line at 13.”

Ugh.

He probably does not say anything and that’s the even worse.

Collins has one of the best kickers in the country and, instead of using him with five minutes left to kick a field goal and cut it to one, he got greedy. Had Boomer kicked a field goal with five minutes left, it’s 28-27 and all the Owls would have had to do is get into field goal range again for the win. Instead, they put their hopes on the back of an erratic quarterback and asked him to throw the impossible Hail Mary pass.

After Rhule left, we wrote that it was time for Temple to hire a head coach, not an assistant. Temple had too much talent to have another head coach learn in the job and squander this much talent.

Golden was available, and that back to the future path probably should have been the road Dr. Pat Kraft had taken. UConn made the smart hire in Randy Edsall, a guy who knows how to win there.

Golden knows how to win here.

Instead, Kraft rolled the dice with Collins and, in a matter of months, Temple went from the Penthouse to the Outhouse.

Welcome back to the bad old days. We thought they ended roughly a dozen years ago but unless key personnel, philosophical and coaching changes are made on the offensive side of the ball, they are here to stay for a long time.

Tuesday: Fizzy’s Corner

Thursday: Thowback Day

Saturday: Stacking The Box

10.14.17
by

Homecoming: Prodigal Sons and Daughters Day

homecoming

Even an 0-6 Temple team drew this kind of Homecoming crowd in 2013.

Expect to see a lot of new faces today at Homecoming.

It’s the one game of the year where the Temple soft core fan base merges forces with the hard cores like most of us.

homecomingchart

The numbers show that even on bad years, the crowd never falls below the 25,000 range. Even when the Owls of first-year head coach Matt Rhule were 0-6, the game against Army drew in excess of 25,000. The photo above just shows the tailgate row entrance on that day.

Today’s weather should be great, with a temperature 13 degrees above the normal 66-degree day on Oct. 14. I’m expecting a crowd between 27,000 and 29,000, somewhere in that area. Anything above that would be gravy. If the Owls put on a good show on the field, maybe some of the fans will develop a taste for more and come out to the remaining home games.

In the long-term, a stadium on Temple’s campus would bring about an enhanced benefit of attracting more alumni back to the main campus. Homecoming is the one time of the year where thousands of fans who do not normally attend Temple games do come back.

Maybe the on-campus stadium experience will be better for them, maybe not.

Us hard cores will take in the sights as we do every year and wish for the day that these Prodigal Sons and Daughters—especially those who live in the five-country area surrounding the campus—cross over from the dark side to see the light.

Tomorrow: Game Analysis