Temple Football

After Temple's 35-17 loss to Ohio in what was the MAC East Championship game Friday, I've reached one inescapable conclusion: Al Golden is going nowhere.

Or make that Owl Golden.

Let's get this out of the way first: Owl Golden did a fantastic job as head coach at Temple in 2009, the best job since Bruce Arians went 6-5 against the No. 10-ranked schedule in the country back in 1986.

Let's have a little perspective, though. Arians did it against the 10th-best schedule. Golden did it against the 112th best schedule (out of 119). Nothing Owl Golden has said has convinced me he won't be around for the 2010 season.

It's what he's done.

Or not done, in this case.

All season long, I've gotten multiple reports from reliable sources both inside and outside the program that true freshman Chris Coyer was—by far—the best quarterback on the team. Not Joe Schmoes—good, reliable football people both inside and out of the program.

He was making the most plays in practice every day. He was turning the most heads. Yet he wasn't on the field.

Think about it. I've said for 12 months between the end of last season and now, the only thing that separated Temple from a contender and a champion was the lack of a playmaking quarterback. I urged the Owls to go get one. That the Owls have won nine games without a playmaking quarterback is a tribute to Owl Golden and Matt Rhule.

They got this far on two "game managers" in Vaughn Charlton and Chester Stewart. Neither one of them can be described as a playmaker, someone who can win the game on his own, a la Adam DiMichele vs. Eastern Michigan last season. Ohio beat Temple because Theo Scott was a playmaking quarterback and, at best, Stewart is a game manager.

If Owl Golden cared about himself more than he cared about the program, he would have burned the Coyer redshirt at about the time Stewart succeeded Charlton as the Owls' starting quarterback.

What would he have cared if Temple only had three Coyer years left? He sent a very loud message that he cared very much by protecting the redshirt.

We've all seen the chasm between Stewart and Charlton since. It is large, and it is stark. That's about the difference between Coyer and Stewart.

You don't need me to tell you about it. Coyer will win the starting quarterback's job in a three-way battle in spring ball. Remember, if it happens, you read it here first.

In between now and then, Temple will make it to a bowl game. It's a lock not because of what I write here, but because of the NCAA rule that states you cannot take an eight-win team ahead of a nine-win team for an at-large bowl berth. There won't be enough teams left with nine wins, and that's why the Owls will go bowling.

That's why the Owls will report to practice on Monday knowing they have another game left to play, practicing not only for it but for next year as well.

They will complement perhaps the best running back in the nation next year, Bernard Pierce, with a playmaking quarterback in Chris Coyer.

With a solid defense in place back, that's an impossible formula to beat.

That's why Owl Golden will report to work the offseason on North Broad Street, knowing that the Owls will be better equipped to shock the world next year, not this one.

Then he can have his choice of moves, should he chose to go anywhere.

There are three ways to watch the Temple at Ohio game for the MAC East title on Friday (nationally televised at 11 a.m. on ESPU).

One—the most preferable from my point of view—is to be there in Athens, Ohio, giving support the Temple team playing perhaps the most important game in school history.
That might prove problematic for a great majority of Owl fans who have neither the cash nor the time to get there and back. For example, the cheapest fare we could find was $577 round-trip.

You have to have some pretty steep pockets for that kind of coin.

I don't count myself among that group, unfortunately, and that leaves options Nos. 2 and 3.

So I have to settle for a different Black Friday Game Plan.

(All I'll say about Temple's game plan is this: Rush the quarterback relentlessly on defense to force turnovers and use the run to set up the play-action pass on offense, spreading the big plays around evenly to Delano Green, Evan Rodriguez, Joey Jones, Matt Brown, Michael Campbell, James Nixon and Jason Harper.

Do that and Ohio coach's Frank Solich's head will be spinning like Linda Blair's in the Exorcist. It's that simple, but I trust Temple coach Al Golden and assistants Matt Rhule and Mark D'Onofrio have already figured that out.)

So that's the game plan for the team in a neat Temple nutshell. I'll continue to expand on the game plan for us fans below.

Two, I thought about watching from home, but pacing the floor and screaming at the television alone is not my idea of having fun.

Going to a department store and fighting the Black Friday crowds for a spot in front of the TV in the Electronics Department is also out.

So I'm leaning toward a third option: Finding a place to hopefully celebrate the Owls' first football championship of any kind in my lifetime with my fellow Owl fans. Ideally, the best place would be on campus but that's shut down tighter than a drum when the kids are on break.

Fortunately, there are plenty of Temple-friendly establishments around where you can find Temple people at 11 a.m. on a Friday morning.

Forget shopping on Black Friday—I'm spending a large chunk of it bird-watching.

Birds, as in Temple Owls.

I imagine a lot of men in the Philadelphia area will be doing the same thing, saying, "Honey, I'd love to be shopping with you, but Temple is on a nine-game winning streak and I'm going to watch the game with the buds."

And the Millers and the Coorses as well.

If you haven't seen it, I direct your attention to Mike Jensen's fabulous piece in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer on Temple's wonderful long-time football fans.
You can find it by going to Philly.com and doing a search for Temple.

I've said this for years and not just because he's a colleague of mine and a good guy, Mike Jensen is the best college writer in Philadelphia.

He's really really a terrific wordsmith, a craftsman whose effort is to be admired the way you'd look at a beautiful painting.

After reading "Temple of Boom"—a terrific headline, by the way, played off a quote in the story about the bemoaning of 'Temple of Doom' headlines—I looked at Jensen's Mona Lisa and saw a scratch mark.

This line bothered me, Jensen talking about Temple's crowd of 21,046 at the Kent State home finale, a 47-13 win for the Owls:

"The announced attendance of 21,046 seemed slightly high —maybe old habits die hard."

Geez, I thought, when will this stuff ever end?

First of all, Temple hasn't "made up" attendance figures since the old Al Shrier days at Temple Stadium when Al was the sports information director.

A writer would eyeball the crowd, and turn to look at Shrier, who was always standing with his briefcase in hand, behind the back of the press box.

"How many would you say are here, Al?" the guy would ask.

"Ten thousand," Shrier would say.

Then that figure would appear next at the bottom of the box score.

A-10,000.

The next week the same routine would happen and the same figure would appear under the boxscore.

It hasn't been that way since the day of the scanner and they've had them since the stadium was opened in 2003.

My ticket is scanned, your ticket is scanned and that goes into a computer.

The figure generated by the computer, not the Temple AD or SID, is used at the bottom of the boxscore.

Nobody's hacking into the computer.

There's no conspiracy theory.

Current Temple AD Bill Bradshaw isn't running up to the press box and making his guy change the numbers.

It's just not happening.

I asked Bradshaw how this figure was generated yesterday and his response generally was that it's the total number of people who have their ticket scanned coming through the door.

That seemed more than reasonable. There is a terrific photo accompanying this story by Ryan Porter that shows the Temple side of the field. It's packed. It was that way from end zone to end zone at Lincoln Financial Field.

I ran into a few folks in the parking lot postgame and I mentioned I thought the crowd was "about 25,000." One guy said 27,000. Another guy said 26,000. Another guy said 23,000. My friend, Mark, said he didn't know what the crowd was but it "wasn't (as high as) 25,000."

Nobody said as low as 21,046 and none of them were named Al Shrier.

To me, after 30 years of losing, eight straight games isn't going to fill the house.

That's just not realistic to expect.

But Saturday was a HUGE step in the right direction and I was very impressed with Temple's fans and it only bodes well for future attendance.

It takes time to lose a fan base, but judging from Saturday, Temple is on the fast track to rebuilding one.

The hottest ticket in Philadelphia sports today does not get fans into an Eagles or Flyers game.

The hottest ticket in town is Temple football.

Ticketmaster.com reported some very interesting news early this week for Temple's season finale home game against Kent State. At least 10 rows of end zone tickets were sold in a matter of hours on Monday morning alone.

That's more tickets on one day than any other day this fall, and it came on what usually is the slowest day of the week.

That represents more tickets sold in one day this week than for any of the town's pro teams.

Since the Eagles and Flyers are sold out and tickets are way down for Sixers games, Temple's final home game is the hottest ticket in town.

Who knows what moved that many seats in one day? Maybe it's the eight straight wins; maybe it's the head coach's tireless efforts promoting the program.

Probably a little bit of both.

Temple head coach Al Golden went on an Eagles pregame radio show and spread the Owl gospel to a very large listening audience on Sunday afternoon.

I've always been a strong proponent that word of mouth is the best advertising.
It's been that way since the caveman found out that rubbing two sticks together could start a fire.

So Golden's radio appearance on ESPN 97.5 The Fan combined that word of mouth advertising with mass media, and it didn't hurt and may have helped a lot.

The show, hosted by Temple grad Harry Mayes, has roughly 200,000 listeners every Sunday, so Golden spreading the Temple gospel had to have an impact.

All indications are that a large crowd will be seeing off Temple's remarkable senior class for Saturday's 1 p.m. kickoff against Kent State at Lincoln Financial Field.

Temple has a football team that has won eight straight games for the first time since 1973.

It has a team that needs to beat Kent State in order to move a step closer to clinching a MAC East championship. In fact, the Owls might be able to celebrate that title on the field with a Northern Illinois win over Ohio combined with a win over Kent State. 

The Owls have an electrifying running back, Bernard Pierce, who is third in the nation in rushing.

All of these things help put fannies in the seats.

The program has received positive mentions in Sports Illustrated and ESPN in recent weeks.

People are beginning to notice and beginning to literally buy into the hype.

Who knows what the crowd will be, but the school has 33,000 full-time students, 260,000 living alumni (150,000 of those living in a 50-mile radius of the stadium) and 5,000 full-time employees.

Do the math.

If only a small fraction of that number is motivated to attend, it could add up to a big day for Temple football at the box office as well as the field and the league standings.

With a resounding 56-17 victory over Akron, the pride of Philly, aka the Temple Owls, recorded their eighth win of the season and their eighth straight win as well.

Temple moved to 8-2, their best record since 1979’s Garden State Bowl season.

After striking first, Temple committed two consecutive turnovers and faced a 17-7 deficit to the lowly Zips. The Owls resembled the Owls of yesteryears.

A bad bout of nostalgia manifested itself in the form of a lump in the pit of my stomach. Fortunately I was able to battle it off with the help of my newfound friend Bud Light Wheat (surprisingly decent—think Blue Moon on a budget).

However, this Owls team is not your daddy’s.

Coach Al Golden, whose Midas touch has resulted me in dubbing him the Golden Boy, appeared confident and quickly calmed down the Owls. The result—four unanswered touchdowns to cap off an impressive first half. Stellar freshman running back Bernard Pierce’s two-yard touchdown run was his 15th of the season, leaving him just one shy of owning the school’s single-season rushing touchdown record.

Despite a conservative, milk-the-clock second half, the Owls still scored three touchdowns. The offense moved the ball consistently, especially on the ground, where backup running back Matt Brown carried the load. Golden sat Pierce most of the second half, allowing him to rest in a lopsided win.

Offensively, the Owls played their best game of the season, if not the decade. They scored at will, often, and every which way. Nostalgia struck me again. Spring break ’06. But that’s another story for another time, and for another website (Penthouse Forum, I’m available!). Sorry, I digress. The Owls scored 49 unanswered points and enjoyed touchdowns by six different players.

While the offense torched the scoreboard, the Owls defense played phenomenal. Akron failed to score after the first quarter, and 10 of those first quarter points came off Temple turnovers. The defense throttled the Zips offense, limiting them to less than 250 total yards.

Though Akron is a bad team, Temple’s ability to come storming back after an early deficit and play a complete game is a confidence booster as they enter the home stretch of the season. The last two games against Kent State and Ohio will determine the MAC East winners.

With the Owls’ hot streak in full steam, Golden has the team poised for its first MAC title.

The 2008 edition of the Princeton Review ranked Temple University as having the most diverse population in the nation.

There is much to like about that.

Friday night, in a 56-17 win at Akron, the Owls proved that there is even more to like about diversity in an offense.

In what was, undoubtedly, Matt Rhule's finest hour as an offensive coordinator, the Owls found every conceivable way to diversify their offense last night.

They scored on a reverse (twice, one was called back on a penalty), they scored on a long bomb, they scored on an intermediate pass, they scored on running plays.

They even scored on special teams, a terrific punt return by the steady (and now spectacular) Delano Green.

Oh yeah.

They also won their eighth-straight game, and continue to be one of the hottest teams in the country right now.

For almost all of the seven wins prior to this one, running back Bernard Pierce has been carrying the Owls on his broad shoulders.

While it had been fun to watch, you kind of knew that his back would break somewhere along the way if he had to continue carrying those loads all the time.

That would have been an OK plan if the Owls had no other weapons, but almost every Temple fan, plus head coach Al Golden and Rhule, all know that this team is filled with extremely talented players who can do great things with the ball.

Pierce is the best, but he's not the only one.

I've been saying all year that Temple's No. 1 priority on offense should be feature the talents of Pierce, sure, but to also play off the fear of him by throwing the ball to their edge weapons downfield.

They did that on a long touchdown pass from Chester Stewart to Michael Campbell. They did it on long reverse by Jason Harper and 4.3-40-yard-dash sprinter James Nixon.

Now the Owls have planted a needed seed in the minds of their future foes: Load up and try to take away Pierce at your own peril.

It was a great night for Temple, and proof that this team is getting better as crunch time approaches. The defense was great (49-0 over the last three quarters), but it's been that way all season.

The No. 1 concern was inconsistency on offense, and it appears that the Owls have now found a pretty good formula going forward.

They showed that diversity can be a beautiful thing.

As college football fans, it's easy to lock on to the big stories, our favorite teams, and the latest conspiracy theories in our favorite sport.

These are three really big reasons why I love the game.

With that said, as fans of the sport, we do ourselves a great disservice by not widening our veiwership to soak up some these great performances that are just slightly off the radar.

This week's Hidden Hero has brought Temple back to the minds of college football fans, leading the team to a 7-2 start, with a 5-0 record in conference play.

This freshman phenom is among the top rushers in the country, ranking third in the NCAA.

Here's the stats:

                                       att.            yds              td.

Bernard Pierce                   204            1211                14

With his 6ft 212lb frame he has the durability and toughness to get the hard yards and be the workhorse. Pierce has carried the ball 40 times in two games this season.

Add in the fact that he runs a 10.6 in the 100 meters, and you've got a guy that can do it all.

So don't miss out as the Owls try to get one step closer to a MAC championship as they take on Akron at 8:30 et. on ESPN U. Go ahead and get Pierce on your radar, so you can be in the loop next year when this guy is on everyones list.

                    

With a 7-2 record, the inside track on the MAC East Division title and a buzz surrounding the program for the first time in a long time, Temple football truly is in a Golden Age.

But enjoy it, Owls fans, because it may not last long…and it has nothing to do with what you might expect from the Temple program.

Last week’s thrilling victory over Miami (OH) gave the Owls seven wins, assuring them of their first winning season since 1990. Should they defeat Akron on Friday night, they’ll do something they haven’t in three decades—win as many as eight.

That season, Wayne Hardin led the independent Owls to a 10-2 record and a victory in the Garden State Bowl. It was the best campaign in school history. Perhaps, that is, until now.

Four years after taking over the most downtrodden team in the FBS, Al Golden has his Owls riding a seven-game winning streak and thinking bowl for the first time since that fateful 1979 season.

It certainly didn’t look that way at the beginning of the year. After blowing a 14-point fourth quarter lead against FCS foe Villanova and looking listless in a 25-point defeat at Penn State, the Owls looked to be on the road to maintaining the sub-.500 status quo they’ve held for two decades.

And then it happened.

The Owls blew out last season’s MAC darling, Buffalo, and something clicked. A month and change later they’ve won seven straight, including five MAC victories, wins over both Army and Navy—the same Navy team that just beat Notre Dame in South Bend last weekend—and a pair of comebacks that previous Temple teams couldn’t even dream of.

Against Navy, Bernard Pierce carried the offense by running for 267 yards and a pair of scores—the latter one completing a fourth-quarter comeback to give Temple its biggest win of the season. A week later, Temple blew a 31-13 fourth-quarter lead against hapless Miami (OH) before driving for the winning field goal with just a few ticks left on the clock.

Really? Temple football?

Yes, Temple football. And it’s because of head coach Al Golden, who has improved his record each of his four years on Broad Street and at least deserves consideration for Coach of the Year.

The team was a mess when he took over—and for the 15 years before that too.

Since their last winning season in 1990, Temple has been a doormat. The final two years of the Jerry Berndt era netted a 3-19 overall record. Ron Dickerson, his replacement, won eight games…in five years.

Then in came Bobby Wallace, a guru who took Division II North Alabama to three straight national titles. His eight-year tenure yielded 19 wins—including an 0-11 campaign in his swan song—and a boot from the Big East.

Enter Golden, who has already won 17 in three-plus seasons and has the Owls on the right track.

Temple should beat Akron. After that, they get Kent State and then a showdown for the division title against Ohio. From there, they could find themselves in the MAC Championship Game and should almost assuredly earn one of the MAC’s three guaranteed bowl bids.

They could even possibly end 2009 with the most wins in school history.  

Golden has Temple on the right track…and therein lies the problem, because when a coach turns a mid-major rebuilding project into a winner, the big boys come calling.

Look at Steve Kragthorpe, who parlayed four years of success at Tulsa into a gig at Louisville when Bobby Petrino bolted for the NFL. Or Brian Kelly, whose first FBS job was at Central Michigan in 2004; he took the Chippewas from doormat to MAC Champion, jumped to Cincinnati after three years and has his 2009 Bearcats in the hunt for the BCS National Championship.

More recently, there was Brady Hoke, who turned a 12-2 season at Ball State into a job at San Diego State. While that’s not a BCS school, the Mountain West Conference is still a step up the ladder.

And that’s what coaches do; they climb the ladder. Especially in the MAC, a conference that also counts Urban Meyer, Wake Forest boss Jim Grobe, Michigan legend Bo Schembechler and a fella by the name of Heisman among their coaching alumni.

Golden has proven that he can turn a bad team into a winner, and he gets double kudos for doing it in Philadelphia, a city that cares little about college football and sees most of the area’s top recruits end up at Penn State or Rutgers.

It’s only a matter of time before the Vanderbilts, Marylands or Washington States of the world come calling…or at the very least, someone in the MWC or WAC looking to turn it around.

And when they do, Golden might be hard pressed not to go. After all, his entire pre-Temple coaching career was spent at Virginia, Boston College and Penn State.

But until they do, or at least through the rest of this magical season, just enjoy the ride.

I know that as a Temple alum who suffered through 11 wins in four years, I sure will.

Go Owls!

A very wise man (an old Owl, actually), once told me that a good offensive coordinator is like a magician.

"He'll be able to show you three shells and tell you where the ball is at and then lift it up, only to reveal the ball under another shell," the Owl, err, man, said.

Over the last few weeks or so, Temple's offense has been like that shell game.

Only over that time, folks could guess under which shell the ball was pretty much all the time.

It was under the  No. 30 shell, otherwise known as Bernard (The Franchise) Pierce.

We knew it.

They knew it.

They could do nothing about it.

Miami (Ohio), though, was really the first team to figure out how to combat this offense.

Trailing, 31-13, the primary way the RedHawks were able to get back into the game was sending 11 men to the No. 30 shell. That led to a lot of three-and-outs and a lot of opportunities for the RedHawks to get back into the game. They did, and even led, 32-21, with two minutes to go.

Temple won by countering with a pass on first down. Then they ran it. Then they kicked a field goal. Game over.

Seventh-straight win, 34-32.

The Owls travel to Akron (Friday night, 8:30 p.m., ESPNU) and the Zips will be able to read Miami's blueprint to beat Temple by then.

Sell out for the run and dare Temple to pass.

That's why it might behoove Temple head coach Al Golden and offensive coordinator Matt Rhule to come with a new Golden/Rhule, ala a Chinese Proverb: If enemy figures your plan out, go with another plan.

In this case, though, the plan is not all that hard to devise. Temple has a new quarterback, Chester Stewart, who was a winner while playing at DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md. In his senior year there, Stewart threw for 17 touchdowns and showed the kind of rollout ability to hit moving targets on the run that caused defensive coordinators headaches. He was a major reason why DeMatha went 10-0 and won the D.C. City Title his senior year.

If the Owls want to continue this impressive winning streak, they are going to have to incorporate Stewart, with Pierce, as a major part of this new plan.

Stewart can hit talented tight end Evan Rodriguez, who opened some eyes in spring ball with his ability to catch and break tackles, particularly in the soft spot of zones 15, 20, and 30 yards down field.

He can rear back after play-action fakes to Pierce and hit 4.3-40 sprinter James Nixon on a fly pattern deep down the center of the field.

He can throw 15-yard sideline slants to Joey Jones and Michael Campbell and Jason Harper and have those guys use their exceptional speed and talent to juke defenders and make extra RAC (run-after-catch) yards.

He can and he must, but it must be part of a show formulated by Rhule and approved by Golden.

Temple fans know what kind of talent those guys bring to this show, but the rest of the league doesn't. Their talent has been kept under wraps.

So far.

That's the beauty of this plan.

It might not mean 40 carries for Pierce (like two of the last three games), but it will be 25 or so more effective carries for The Franchise and a number of needed touches for the incredible edge weapons this team has.

The most impressive trick in this magic show is making a blueprint to beat Temple disappear.

They were booted from the Big East in 2004.

The Owls were 0-11 in 2005 and that losing streak went a dismal 20 games.

There hasn't been a winning season at Temple since 1990 and the last bowl appearance was in 1979 in The Garden State Bowl.

Temple has become synonymous with losing, but things are changing. 

With a hard fought 27-24 win over Navy the Temple Owls have won six straight and improved to 6-2 and has made themselves bowl eligible and guarantees at least a non losing season.

Even if you live in Philadelphia you probably aren't hearing much about this team. The city of brotherly love is wrapped up in another World Series and the big football draw is of course, The Eagles.

Still, I think it's time for people to take notice of this team. A team for the first time in a long time is getting used to winning.

A lot of folks, including myself, thought last year would be the season in which Temple turned the corner, but they sadly dropped five games by six points or less and finished 5-7. 

This season they are winning those close games and if it wasn't for an opening season hiccup against Villanova this team's only loss would be at Penn State.

Head coach Al Golden has turned this program around and that has been no small feat. Temple was rock bottom and a true laughing stock in the world of college football. Some may still feel that way, but folks in the MAC are taking notice.

Of the four remaining games on Temple's schedule, only two of those teams, Kent State and Ohio, have winning records. In fact, both of those teams sit right behind Temple in the MAC's east division with one loss. Temple is 4-0 in conference play.

All four of these games are ones that Temple can win. They, of course, are games they could lose too. Can you imagine Temple winning 10 games and possibly winning a conference title? 

You always want your team in the hunt when the calender changes from October to November and that's right where the Owls are for the first time in a long time. They deserve to be noticed and Al Golden, if this winning keeps up, needs to be looked at hard for coach of the year honors.