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| Call me naive, but I believe him. |
"I was offered an opportunity to interview for the head coaching job at Rutgers yesterday and I declined. I'm not going anywhere. Temple is where I wanted to be all along and this university is better-positioned to do great things than Rutgers."
Cue the thunderous applause from the 10,006 fans in attendance.
Band breaks out into T for Temple U.
Students storm the court at halftime to slap Daz on the back.
Owls finish up their rout of St. Joe.
As we all know this is not a perfect world and that probably won't happen.
(Don't say I didn't throw the suggestion out there, though.)
Still, Temple fans should calm down.
I have a good friend who I worked with here, now working in North Jersey, who said his paper is earlier today was about to break the story that Florida International University (FIU) coach Mario Cristobal will accept the head coaching job. If that fails, current assistant Kyle Flood would be the fall-back choice.
Now it looks like Cristobal doesn't see the Rutgers' job as the Alabama of the North (only Rutgers' fans are that delusional) and he's going to pass.
That opens up the, err, floodgates for Flood.
Flood would not be the big splash RU fans are looking for but Greg Schiano's leaving for Tampa Bay made the timing bad all around.
Pernetti was given permission to speak with Addazio, but that never made it past the phone call stage according to my source.
The guy is a first-rate reporter and I believe him.
Still, I long for the days when Temple football had coaches like Harry Litwack, John Chaney and Fran Dunphy, guys who see the Owls as a destination not just a step along the way.
I long for the days when Temple football had a guy like Bruce Arians, who did not take the Virginia Tech job when it was flat-out offered to him (not just an interview), saying, "I couldn't leave my Temple kids."
I long for the days when we had a guy like Wayne Hardin, who turned down the offensive coordinators' job with the Dallas Cowboys to stay and do big things at Temple.
Before the game with Wyoming, Steve Addazio said he was that kind of guy, saying that he loved Temple and could see this as his last stop.
I sense that Steve is different than Al Golden in that he is principled and loyal enough not to leave after one year at Temple.
