Tag Archives: Villanova football

10.15.21
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Coping without Temple football

More smiles on the Temple sideline than I ever want to see with the Owls down 52-3

If I had my druthers, Temple football would start the first week of September and end the first week of January with no interruptions in the first three months.

This week is one of the interruptions.

The Owls are on a bye week and, instead of watching a game I have already seen in person on TV, I go to the DVR and review some games I’ve haven’t yet checked out.

One of them was Villanova at Penn State, a somewhat respectable 38-17 loss for the Wildcats.

Carey gave up, it’s no wonder his players followed his lead.

After just finishing watching the entire three hours of that game, my anger issues kicked into play.

“How in the hell can Villanova, a team with 20 less scholarships, give Penn State a much better game than Temple gave Cincinnati?”

Villanova had to play in arguably a more hostile environment against arguably a similar team yet was not embarrassed.

Temple was last Friday night and it was on national television for all to see.

Temple was mocked nationally once again as it has been many times under Rod Carey and, if it made me mad, I’m sure I’m not the only Temple fan who felt that way.

Gabe Infante’s burner account (just kidding; I agree with this guy)

The answer was simple: Coaching and determination.

Villanova’s players actually chased down Penn State receivers and backs running through its secondary, several times catching them.

On othe other hand, Temple defenders waved half-heartedly and watched as the Bearcats went on by for long scores.

This is what happens when you have players committed to a coach (Mark Ferrante) and a prorgram and players who do not believe in a head coach (Rod Carey) and that said head coach has to hire mercenaries to replace guys who were committed to Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins.

Forget Temple fans, though.

Impartial football observers like former unbeaten Tulane quarterback Shaun King have also shaken their heads about Carey’s in-game decisions.

People are noticing. Not just Temple people but smart football people around the country. Already, Arthur Johnson is calling on big-time Temple donors and asking their opinions. I’m just a Joe Schmoe one lottery ticket away from being a big-time donor but if Mr. Johnson called me, I’d tell him the problem with Temple football is as clear as the nose on Jimmy Durante’s face and the difference between the effort of Mark Ferrante’s players versus the effort of Rod Carey’s. If you don’t notice that, you do not have two eyes.

It won’t matter unless Jason Wingard and Arthur Johnson start to notice.

This week’s picks: All undervalued favorites this week: Like Nebraska -4 at a Minnesota team that got beat by Bowling Green; also home Buffalo -8 against a truly horrific Ohio squad and Ball State -1.5 at Eastern Michigan and Fresno State -3.5 at Wyoming.

Latest update: Lost on Nebraska and Buffalo, won on Fresno State and Ball State. The 2-2 mark ATS brings us to 17-11-1 on the season.

Monday: The Difference between USF and Temple

09.03.18
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Fizzy’s Corner: Breaking Down A Bad Loss

Adventures in Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda Land

 

Editor’s Note: Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub is a former Temple player and later a coach and educator. His recaps are a staple during the season.

                                            By Dave (Fizzy) Weinraub

Well, it’s the day after… and I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am with the Temple coaching staff.  But first, kudos to the excellently coached Villanova team, and especially their offensive line, which kicked the crap out of our defense.

weinraub

Part of the reason their offensive line was so effective is that, once again, we didn’t adjust or do anything different than mostly stay in the basic four-man down line, that we always do.  Their traps and mis-direction plays consistently killed us. Our guys were always positioned exactly where Villanova knew they’d be.

As far as our offense is concerned, I could take any write-up I did last year, and plug it directly into yesterday’s game. The 2018 version of the 2017, junior high, “Broad-Street Offense,” was exactly the same. No mis-direction, no reverses, no bootlegs, no throw-backs to the QB, no halfback passes, and no screens. It was straight down Broad Street crap.

Oh yeah, I know you’ll say if Frankie didn’t throw the interceptions, we’d have won. Maybe so, but that’s not the problem. The coaching staff is the problem.  With all our talent, just the same old vanilla nonsense – never inventive plays to put the ball in the hands of our big play guys.  Let’s give just one lack of recognition on either side of the ball.

On defense, the giant Villanova left tackle (No. 73), would be the only protector when Nova would go strong right.  All we had to do to get to the QB, was put our defensive tackle head-up, and take an inside route.  Out linebacker to that side could then just loop around.  Didn’t our coaches see that?

On offense in the first quarter, Frankie handed off a sweep to Armstead and carried out the fake to the left side.  There was absolutely no Nova defenders on that side of the field.  So I figured they saw that upstairs, and would come back with a bootleg sometime soon.  Wrong!  The last true bootleg was when Joe Morelli ran it in 1960.

How about the lack of guts of the offensive coordinator.  In the beginning of the second quarter, we moved the ball out to our forty-two, where we had a third and three situation.  Of all the plays in all the gin joints in the world, we ran that deceptive Armstead up-the-gut for a one yard gain.  Now it’s fourth and two.  You know we punted the ball.

In the last quarter with another fourth and two, but at their thirty-something, again a chicken-out and a field goal try.  OMG, should we take a chance and see if we can ignite the offense and put the game out of reach?

Now we get to the timeouts at the end of the game.  With two minutes and thirty-two seconds left in the game, Nova has a third and ten around our forty.  I’m going nuts screaming timeout (we had two left), but it didn’t happen.  Collins let seventy (70) seconds run off before we got the ball back.  May I remind everyone, the offense can stop the clock whenever they want, but not the defense.  He then so muddled the timeout calls after that, I didn’t know what he did.

Well sports fans, this kind of muddled coaching is now into it’s second year.  I’m pissed beyond description.  I was going to hire an airplane to fly a trailer over the Eagles game on September 23, which read, “JEFF – LOWER TEMPLE RENT.”  It’s going to cost $1750, and I was going to ask everyone to contribute what they can.  Now, I don’t know.  Is anyone a shrink?  How do I get over this depression?  This coaching staff is stealing money on game day.

Wednesday: Ancillary Impact 

Friday: Buffalo Preview

09.02.18
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TU Offense and Geoff Collins: Sockless

 

Someone needs to show this film to Geoff Collins

The routine practice here is not to post about a game until a full day has passed so as not to let emotion get in the way of calm and rational thinking.

It usually works.

Not this time.

performance

It’s one thing to put up ugly numbers against USF; it’s quite another to fail against a team that lost to Rhode Island and Elon … that’s right, Elon… last season

No matter how many hours pass, nothing will change what we witnessed on Saturday, an Epic Coaching Fail that will rank with some of the worst days of The Unholy Trinity of Temple head coaches (Jerry Berndt, Ron Dickerson and Bobby Wallace). Don’t blame offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude or defensive Andrew Thacker, either.

This one falls squarely at the sockless feet of Geoff Collins, who is the CEO of this football operation and the buck clearly stops on his desk. He certainly either does not know how to utilize the talents of his best tailback or simply refuses to do so. Rob Ritrovato can pick up where Nick Sharga left off and lead the way for a successful running game, which will be the key to opening everything else up.

Collins hired Patenaude to run an offense ill-suited to the personnel recruited by Matt Rhule, the previous coach. Rhule said that the Owls did not experience the kind of success he envisioned until he went with his instincts, which were power I with a fullback to clear the way for a running back, bring the safeties and linebackers up to the line of scrimmage, and use play-action fakes to pass over their heads. In that kind of offense, Temple wide receivers were so open that quarterback P.J. Walker often had a hard time choosing which one would be on the receiving ends of his passes. In this offense, nobody fears the run and, as a consequence, nobody gets open in the passing lanes.

Clearly, Patenaude stubbornly wants to force this square peg into a round hole and it’s not working nor probably ever will.

This is what we said in our preview two weeks ago:

tome

Yesterday, guess how many opportunities Ryquell Armstead—a downhill back recruited to run behind a fullback—got to run the ball behind a fullback?

Zero.

As in none.

Instead, Armstead got limited chances in an empty backfield and that’s a recipe for disaster.

Someone—maybe Ed Foley, maybe Adam DiMichele—who understands the meaning of Temple TUFF and how it applies to offensive football, should take the film at the top of this post into Collins’ office this week.

Defensively, this is what we wrote about the Villanova game plan on Aug. 8, meaning roughly that the Owls had one full month (really, nine full months) to get ready for this:

“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” _ TFF, Aug. 8

What did Villanova do?

Throw the ball to the tight end a lot and also gained the majority of its 405 yards total offense on crossing patterns to the running backs.

Then there is the matter of defensive ends or lack of them. That stuck out like a sore thumb when the “above the line” depth chart was released a few days ago. It’s not that the Owls lack defensive ends, it’s just that they have two really good ones—Dan Archibong and Karamo Dioubate—playing on the interior of the line where they are already set with tackles Michael Dogbe and Freddy Booth-Lloyd.

nitro

Nitro, Temple Nation Turns its lonely eyes to you (but as an every-down fullback, not as a tailback).

The Owls got pressure from only one end, Quincy Roche, when they could have both Roche and Dioubate meeting at the quarterback on a regular basis. So to get to the quarterback, they had to blitz, which resulted in a game-winning touchdown on 4th and 9.

When you don’t have to blitz, you can move your other defensive resources elsewhere and stop some of that crossing pattern bleeding. Plenty of questions, very few answers, on that backbreaking play. The first is what idiot  forced a lefty quarterback to run to his left–and most comfortable–side, when the rush could have been set up to flush him to his right make the more difficult throw across his body? Could that have been none other than The Minister of Mayhem?

If that all of those errors weren’t grievous enough, Collins proved that he was very bad at math.

With Temple up, 17-13, with 6:52 left and a 4th and 2, he went for a field goal that was missed. Forget the fact that it was missed. Remember that, up four, a field goal does you absolutely no good because a Villanova touchdown wins the game either way because it sends a deflated Temple into overtime in a game the Owls knew they frittered away. Conversely, a Temple touchdown there probably wins the game. A FG missed or made does zero good. Simple math. People in the stands were saying that before the kick. If Joe Blow knows it, a guy who is paid $2 million per year to make those decisions should know it, too.

Steve Addazio

“At least I beat Nova 42-7 and 41-10”

Collins needs to get better in a whole lot of areas but going back to Temple TUFF power football with a fullback and a tailback would be a good place to start. If Patenaude doesn’t like it, he can go back to Coastal Carolina. We hear they like that brand of football there.

Rhule did not have success here until he had that kind of an Epiphany. Collins won’t until he does the same.

Monday: Fizzy’s Corner

Wednesday: Ancillary Impact of the Villanova Loss

Friday: Buffalo Preview

Sunday: Game Analysis

08.31.18
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What’s Wrong With This Picture?

atlphoto

Move Archibong or Dioubate to DE and you’ve solved this problem.

For a program that prides itself on “position flexibility” it boggles the mind that one position in particular sticks out like a sore thumb on the “above the line” so-called depth chart:

Defensive end.

footballseason

The weird thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way and there is a fix right under the coach’s noses. You’ve got to wonder if they are so close to the trees they can’t see the forest.

Or vice-versa.

What’s that, you say? “Mike, the coaches are around these guys all the time. They know what they are doing.”

Err, you mean the same guys who said at this time last year that Nick Sharga was “the best fullback in the country” and did not use Nick Sharga as a fullback? Those guys? The same guys who thought Logan Marchi was the best quarterback on the team for the first seven games when every fan who watched the Army game would tell you Frank Nutile was 10x better? Those guys? Yeah, I thought so. Not buying the excuse by the Collins’ apologists that Sharga was “hurt” because the same guy led the nation in special teams’ tackles in 2017. You don’t lead the nation in special teams’ tackles by being a cripple.

But back to this year’s sore thumb problem, though.

The Owls have only one proven defensive end—last  year’s sack leader, Quincy Roche—but an overabundance of flexible above the line talent in the interior of the defensive line.

All they have to do is move an All-American defensive end (that’s right, defensive end)  in high school, Karamo Dioubate, to one end and the problem is solved. Dan Archibong, another outstanding tackle, can also play end. Meanwhile, Michael Dogbe and Freddy Booth-Lloyd are two of the better interior tackles in the American Athletic Conference. There simply just aren’t enough snaps to get all of those guys the reps they need inside but there is plenty of opportunity outside the tackles.

If I was Dioubate or Archibong, I’d walk into Geoff Collins’ office today and tell him I think I can help the team better by rushing the passer and stringing out running plays from sideline to sideline.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe the defensive coaches don’t see that for themselves.

If there is a subplot to watch in tomorrow’s opener against Villanova (noon, Lincoln Financial Field), it is finding out whether the coaches are as flexible in their thinking as they hope the players are in their positioning.

Putting players in the best position to win is the definition of good coaching. In less than 24 hours, we will find out a lot about both.

Sunday: Game Analysis

Tuesday: What We’ve Learned After Week One

Thursday: Buffalo Preview

 

08.29.18
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Playing Villanova: Coach Hardin Had The Right Idea

dogsofwar

Temple appears to have the talent to put a hurting on Villanova

On or about the time Temple was flirting with the Top 10 in the 1979 season, a reporter once asked Wayne Hardin why the Owls were still playing teams like Delaware and Villanova.

“I believe in playing Delaware and Villanova and beating the crap out of them,” Hardin said.

It wasn’t very politically correct and probably didn’t play well with large groups of local fans, but it was his mantra and it was Temple-centric.

Usually, he did.

clouds

Hopefully, the shower part will be after 3 p.m.

It helped having a Mensa IQ of 159 that translated to outsmarting just about every coach he ever played, but having the talent advantage helped even more.

Hardin won seven of his last nine games against legendary Delaware coach Tubby Raymond—father of the first Phillie Phanatic—and beat Villanova, 42-10, that year on the Main Line.

I thought about coach Hardin when reading a large sentiment on social media of current Temple fans’ opinions on this series.

“We have nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing Villanova.”

“It’s a no-win situation.”

“If you win, meh, but, if you lose, it’s a disaster.”

Around and around that goes and where it stops defeatism knows.


Last year’s 16-13 game
was a complete disgrace
and hopefully put as bad
a taste in the players’
and coaches’ mouths as
it did with the Temple fans

 

Coach Hardin was right. Temple SHOULD be playing Villanova and Temple SHOULD be beating the crap out of them. First, even though Villanova has contributed only about 2-3,000 fans to the last three games (all over 30,000), the game does get Temple fans motivated to put down the remote and potato chips and get to a game in person. Temple should never be “scared” to play Villanova in football.

If you are scared get a dog.

Fortunately, head coach Geoff Collins—who is a little more politically correct than Hardin was—has the dogs of war to beat the crap out of this team.

Do you think Villanova basketball goes around worried about playing Temple?

No. Villanova basketball is, for all intents and purposes, a Power 5 team now playing Temple, a mid-major basketball name.

They just go out and beat the crap out of them.

The roles are reversed in football with Temple being the FBS school and Villanova a FCS school.

It is high time Temple football fans got the same level of satisfaction out of this meeting the Villanova basketball fans routinely get. They got that during Hardin’s years and during the two Daz years (42-7 and 41-10). Last year’s 16-13 game was a complete disgrace and hopefully put as bad a taste in the players’ and coaches’ mouths as it did with the fans.

Now it’s just a matter of restoring the normal order of things.

Friday: Seeing The Forest Through The Trees

Sunday: Game Analysis

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  

09.11.17
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Fizzy’s Corner: Nova Game

fizz

Editor’s Note: Occasionally, we give a former Owl player, Fizzy Weinraub, a chance to give his analysis. Fizzy and I have been spoiled by watching coach Hardin, but that does not keep us from hoping that some of Hardin’s innovation and at least a sliver of his genius can be absorbed by this new coaching staff. Here is Fizzy’s take on the Nova game.

By Dave “Fizzy” Weinraub

Offense

What did I ever do to piss-off the football gods?  Will I never see an outstanding offensive coordinator at Temple, or just year-after-year be forced to watch the same unimaginative baby pap of play calling.  

No deception – Horrible goal line calls – No roll outs – No QB runs – No reverses – No bootlegs – No screens – No shovel passes –  No fakes and passes to the FB – No play-action – No throwbacks to the QB

All this offense does is hand-off straight ahead, and drop straight back to throw.

At the end of this horrendous game, Why would you voluntarily stop your offense, leave time on the clock, and force a 50-yard field goal instead of:

 

  1.  Going for one more first down which would have enabled to use the remainder of the clock before kicking a field goal.

 

  1.  Keep going for a touchdown until you’re stopped.

 

OFFENSIVE GRADE – F

Defense

 

The defense mostly stopped their running game, and mostly did not stop their passing game because:

 

  1.  They did not blitz enough

 

  1.  They stayed in the same basic defense the whole game, which enabled Villanova to make half-time adjustments to their passing routes, which were not countered.  

 

One possible solution would have been to go into a tight prevent and play zone to stop the crossing patterns underneath which absolutely killed us. There’s no way, playing man-to-man, a deep defensive back can close the gap and cover a receiver running short, across the field. Also, I’m so tired of watching our defensive backs trail the receivers down-field and have no idea of where the ball is.

DEFENSIVE GRADE – D

This coaching staff has to stop playing not to lose, and start playing to win, or we will get killed by the good teams in our conference.

Tuesday: What Happened To Mayhem?

Thursday: UMass Preview

 

09.07.17
by

Throwback Thursday: Half-Full Or Half-Empty?

novaone

Temple won this before 6,734 fans at Veterans Stadium.

When the fans pour a few pre-game brewskis at the first home tailgate of the year, roughly 50 percent of them will be seeing that cup as half-full and the other group has half-empty.

That’s the short view coming after a shocking, at least to me, 49-16, loss to Notre Dame in the opener.

Ordinarily, Temple losing 49-16 to Notre Dame is not shocking but count me with the half-empty group after the opening week of the season. The logic is indisputable: Notre Dame was coming off a 4-8 season and Temple was coming off a 10-4 season. During that season, Notre Dame had lost to a Navy team that Temple clocked, 34-10. Notre Dame, last we checked, did not get a significant influx of transfers in from Alabama or Ohio State. Temple, last we checked, had plenty of guys who were significant players on their championship team returning.

Temple SHOULD have given Notre Dame a much better game. Maybe not my prediction of 17-13, but, say, 28-16. Forty-nine to 16 was unacceptable and has shaken a lot of fans’ confidence in this new coaching staff. Not the players, because guys like Ryquell Armstead and Adonis Jennings and Nick Sharga were as key to the success of last year’s Owls as any of the NFL departed stars on offense and guys like Michael Dogbe, Delvon Randall and Sean Chandler were just as important on defense as anyone not named Haason Reddick.

projectmayhem

Not impressed with Project Mayhem’s debut Saturday. Hopefully, the sequel is better.

The coaches changed, mostly, for both teams one group of coaches over-performed and the other under-performed. That’s why a number of fans see what has happened so far as alarming, appalling and shocking. Perhaps just as appalling to me was the fact that Collins, in his AAC media day interview, went down a list of defensive players and every single name (at least a half-dozen players, maybe more) were players who he said “played well” or “played at a high level.”

I immediately went to the toilet and puked. (Just kidding, but no one plays well on defense giving up 49 points. Three points, yes. Six points, yes. Forty-freaking-nine points, no.)

Hopefully, like another SEC coordinator Temple hired, Steve Addazio, Collins understands our intense hatred of Villanova and coaches accordingly on Saturday. Daz “got” the rivalry and he produced 42-7 and 41-10 wins over that team. That’s what I’m hoping for Collins to produce on Saturday for this Temple fan base so bitterly disappointed by the first week.

That’s the short view, though.

Long view, over several decades, is how far Temple football has come.

One of the greatest Temple fans, Ted DeLapp, posted this remarkable headline from the 1975 Temple-Villanova game, a 41-3 win before 6,734 fans at Veterans Stadium.

That was not a misprint.

Six-thousand, seven hundred and thirty-four. Archbishop Ryan and Father Judge drew 11,000 fans to their game that same year. North Catholic and Frankford drew roughly the same amount.

One fan commented that it “was pouring rain that day” but DeLapp looked up the NWS forecast data from that day in Philadelphia and said only 0.03 inches of rain that day fell at the airport, which is only a couple of miles from the Vet. Amazing how people’s memories fail them.

On Saturday, upwards of 32,000 (or thereabouts) will see Temple host Villanova. The Wildcats are a top 10 FCS program and the Owls, while not the Top 25 program new coach Geoff Collins claims they are in the FBS, certainly flirted with the Top 25 in the last two seasons before being stood up in the last two bowl games.

Short view, for Temple at least, glass is half-empty.

Long view, half-full, especially considering that thousands of more people are both interested and invested in Temple football than 40 or so years ago.

Saturday around 6:30 p.m. or so if what’s in that cup taste like sewer water, it’s going to be a long season. Collins gets a Mulligan on the first week, but there will be no Mulligans going forward.

Sunday: Game Analysis