Sky's the limit for 6-11 walk-on freshman

Devonte Watson's unannounced arrival at the E-O is the biggest sensation of camp so far.

By Mike Gibson
For the rest of his football coaching life, new Temple University football head coach Matt Rhule will probably do a lot of the same things old Temple coach Al Golden did.
Why not?
Look where it got both Temple and Al.

Devonte Watson's Temple '][' gloves had to be specially
ordered and reinforced with extra padding so that he doesn't
sustain a hand injury from blocking so many field goals.

So I was only amused and not surprised when I heard that Rhule is making folks visiting the Edberg-Olson Football Complex to sign a sheet asking "not to report anything football-related" they see at practice.
Golden used to do the same thing.

"What's he doing there, enriching uranium?" I asked when someone told me that Rhule adopted the Golden Rhule regarding secrecy.
Enriching uranium  at football facilities is not a new thing.
Enrico Fermi did the same at the University of Chicago in the early days of World War II.
Well, it turns out that Rhule is enriching uranium (in a football-science way) and the result could be of nuclear proportions in the college football world this fall.
At least in the science of sport according to a report in this morning's Temple Times.
About 150 years ago, Dr. Alexander Graham Bell created a sensation in science with these few words:
"Watson, come here, I need you!"
Thomas Watson was his assistant and Bell had just spilled acid while inventing the phone.
The moment changed the science of communication forever.
Another Watson, this one named Devonte, may have helped change the science of football last week at Temple University's football practice.

This morning's Temple Times broke the news.

A freshman on a basketball scholarship, Watson showed up unannounced at Edberg-Olson Hall, the school's football practice complex, the day after the basketball Owls were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by top-seeded Indiana.
"All I could see was this tall guy ducking under the door," Rhule told The Times. "He shook my hand and said, 'Coach, I'm Devonte Watson, I want to come out for the football team.'
"I mean, he's 6-foot-11, I thought he was a basketball player and I asked him flat out: Are you on a basketball scholarship?' He said he got permission from coach (Fran) Dunphy. So we got him in the biggest uniform we could and told him to get out there."
First off, Rhule said, they tried him at wide receiver.
"He was OK there," Rhule said. "You see he could catch the ball but he wasn't comfortable running routes. He's 6-11, got a wingspan of 97 inches, and we figured we could use him on red zone offense but then some of our other coaches had other ideas."

"We're all about giving youngsters college experiences they'll never forget and Devonte won't forget this. Look, I didn't bring him here with the intention of blocking field goals for our football team but that's where his road led. He obviously has a gift."
_ Fran Dunphy

Special teams coach Allen Mogridge had the best suggestion, Rhule said.
"Allen asked Devonte what he was known for best as a high school player," Rhule said. "Devonte said, "Blocking field goals.'
"That's it, Allen said. Allen suggested that we put Devonte on the special teams, blocking field goals."
For the better part of all last week, that's what Watson did.
Block field goals.
Boy, did he ever.
When one of the Temple kickers launched a field goal attempt, the freshman with a vertical leap of 39 inches stuck his big paw out and blocked it almost every time. Kick thud, followed by block thud.
"He's amazing," Rhule said. "Nothing gets by him. He's not only 6-11 but he's got these incredible instincts to block field goals. He just stands there behind the nose guard and jumps up and the kicker has got no chance. Think about it. In basketball, all of these great athletes are driving in a full speed and he still blocks their shots. In football, all he's got to do is stand behind the nose guard and time a kick. It's easy by comparison.
"We tried all three of our kickers and he must have blocked 10, 11, 12 field goals in a row. He's like Bernie Parent was with the Flyers. Nothing gets by this guy. I don't want to jinx him, but it's really going to be hard to kick field goals against Temple this season."
When asked about Watson going out for the football team, Temple basketball coach Fran Dunphy told the Temple Times he gave his OK.
"We're all about giving youngsters college experiences they'll never forget and Devonte won't forget this," Dunphy said. "Look, I didn't bring him here with the intention of blocking field goals for our football team but that's where his road led. He obviously has a gift. All I asked Matt was not to get him hurt and Matt said he'd do his best. Matt won't let him catch passes. He won't allow him on the kickoff return or receiving teams. He just wants Devonte to block field goals. That's good enough for me."
Err, one more thing.
Happy April Fool's Day everyone.


Some notable guys who have started in both sports for Temple:

Player	Basketball position	Football Position	Coaches
Lamond Adams	Point guard	Cornerback	Ron Dickerson/John Chaney
Nehemiah Ingram	Forward	Offensive tackle	Bobby Wallace/John Chaney
James Harris	Forward	Defensive end	Bruce Arians/John Chaney
James Spears	Forward	Defensive end	Bruce Arians/John Chaney

The League Of Blogs 2013 Is Here!

League of Blogs, League of Blogs, riding through the glen!
League of Blogs, League of Blogs, here we go again!

Loathed by the bored, loved by the awesome!
League of Blogs, League of Blogs, League of Blogs!

Aaaaaand relax!

Yes all, it's that time again! It's League of Blogs 2013! Wooooooooooh!!!!

For those of you who were involved last time, the League of Blogs will need no introduction. For those who weren't, this little lot here should give you some background.

In short, what started as an attempt to create a Subbuteo-style wallchart for bloggers soon developed into a much larger project... and now it's back!

As with everything in life, things change and the first change here is that there will be no wallchart! What? Nooooo!!!! Yes! Why? Well, it's a lot easier to keep adding people to something that doesn't have a fixed size, for one thing. We may well do a wallchart once it's finished, but we won't be creating one as we go. Instead, we'll be resurrecting the Paninified version of your submissions and presenting things in the style you'll see below.

And what do I mean by 'submissions'? Well, you may recall we asked if you wanted kits or badges this time out, and in the end we decided 'why not do both'?

So here's what you need to do:

1. Create a 'club badge' for your blog or podcast. You may have a logo already, but if you want to create a new one anyway, that's fine.
2. Create a kit. You can create an 'away' one as well if you wish... we've made room for one. No '3rds' this time though :)
3. Create a tagline for your blog. This should be a single sentence explaining what your blog or pod is or what it aims to achieve.

For the kits:

Choose a template to download by clicking on the JPG or GIF images below. When the full-size version opens up on your screen, save it to your computer.

If you'd like a template in Adobe Illustrator (.AI) format, drop us a line to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com and we'll send one out to you.

.GIF template

.JPG template

Get colouring! You can design your strip digitally with a graphics package like Adobe Photoshop or you could print the template out, colour it in with your felt-tip pens and scan the finished article. Either way, you should have a .JPG or .GIF file at the end of the process for each strip you're designing.

Send your .JPGs or .GIFs to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com along with your website's name and URL. Once we've got your design(s), we'll put them together with everyone else's and present them as a final product once it's done... more details on that below!

Oh and if you're not much of a designer or you don't own any felt-tip pens, why not tell us what you'd like your kit to look like? Email us at the address shown above with as much detail as possible and we'll try to turn your ideas into reality!

For the badge:

Freestyle is the name of the game here! :)  You can create a traditional coat of arms/shield-based badge or you can create a modern-style logo. Of course if you already have a logo for your website or podcast, you can submit that as your 'club badge.' If you need any help creating anything, just give us a shout and we'll see what we can do.

Once you've done that, we'll present them in the following style:

Badge

Home Kit

Home & Away Kits

Finally, you may recall that last time we created an actual sticker book out of these and we'd very much like to do so again - especially as we now have FOIL STICKERS! :-)

We'll see what we can do on that front though... no promises at this stage ;-)

Right... over to you then!!! 

England v Scotland programme, 1969

The final crucial game in the 1969 Home International Championship saw the holders and world champions England facing the only team that could top the table in their stead - Scotland.

The match was played at Wembley and for the first time in decades the Home International competition was played at the end of the season. Rather than having all matches scattered from October to February, the Home Internationals were now played over the course of one week in early May. It was physically more demanding for all the players involved and also less significant than the previous tournament that had acted as a qualifying contest for the 1968 European Championships.

Nonetheless, the old rivalries still remained and England fancied their chances of retaining their title. A 3-1 win over Ireland and a 2-1 win over Wales meant England needed only a draw against the Scots who knew they had to win. Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Kent was the invited Royal guest, and she, along with 90,000 or so others would ultimately witness a high-scoring and enjoyable match.

Inside the programme, Brian Glanville set the scene by reminding us that this was all part of England’s preparation for the 1970 World Cup Finals as well as being a much welcomed annual grudge match. Only the right sort of players would be included in the Mexico '70 squad and the feint-hearted need not apply:

“The question of ‘big match temperament’ becomes increasingly vital” said Glanville. “It is risky to make quick judgements on whether or not a player has this temperament. In 1934, after Stanley Matthews, in his second international against Italy, had had a poor match, a columnist wrote in the Daily Mail that he’d shown ‘the same faults of slowness and hesitation’ as in his first match, against Wales. ‘Perhaps’ wrote the columnist ‘he has not got the big match temperament.’”  That’s the Daily Mail for you, Brian…

The England team was in the early stages of transition after the success of 1966 and, as Glanville had pointed out, Ray Wilson and George Cohen were no longer among the squad players listed at Sir Alf Ramsey’s disposal. Instead, new faces were emerging including Everton defender Gordon West, Blackburn full back Keith Newton and a promising young Leicester striker called Allan Clarke.

On the visiting side’s roster were numerous quality players, many of whom had stopped England from beating Scotland at Wembley since 1961. With Celtic's Tommy Gemmell at the back, captain Billy Bremner of Leeds United in midfield and Rangers striker Colin Stein up front, the Scots had more than a fighting chance of winning.

The England manager, however, was focused on the longer term plan of retaining the World Cup the following year. In ‘Sir Alf Speaks’, Ramsey explained the preparations already well underway in the lead up to the competition: “You are probably aware that in a few weeks the senior squad of players, most of whom I trust will be in the World Cup party next year, leave to play two matches in Mexico. Then we go on to play Uruguay in Montevideo and Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. While in Mexico I intend to finalise accommodation and training arrangements for our stay there next year. I am reasonably aware of the problems facing us, particularly from a climatic and altitude viewpoint.”

Aside from match practice and accommodation, however, Sir Alf was also looking at the clothing his players would be wearing at the World Cup, and here we were given something of an exclusive: “We have been testing light-weight shirts, boots and equipment for some time. In the World Cup, we shall play in an all-white strip, which affords maximum advantage and comfort under the conditions. Our change strip will be all sky-blue.” Nice…

Back at Wembley, the fans had everything they needed in their programme to feel the sense of occasion alright. There was a quiz featuring ten questions that only the most die-hard fans could have answered, and there were trivia facts galore about the match to come.

One surrounded the fact this would be a live match covered by BBC Television – something of a rarity back in the 1960’s. A large audience watching from home was hoped for, and even an all-time record wasn't out of the question: “It will take 27 million, the number which saw the World Cup Final and almost half Britain’s entire population. One million fewer watched Manchester United beat Benfica – also at Wembley – in last year’s European Cup Final.” No pressure then…

The actual figure for that final TV audience sadly remains something of a mystery, but for the England fans witnessing the match in person, there was at least a happy ending. England won the match 4-1 and the Home International championship was there’s once more. A suitable occasion to celebrate with a glass of a well-known brand of Pale Ale, no doubt...

Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.12

Wales (1976):

It's May 1976, the United Kingdom is just weeks away from its hottest summer since records began and the Welsh national football team are battling for a place in the semi-finals of the European Championships. These are bizarre, surreal days.

Despite being 2-0 down from the first leg, Wales were determined to beat Yugoslavia at Ninian Park to reach the finals in... Yugoslavia, of all places. The task was tough, but their preparations were nothing short of perfect due to the tracksuits they were wearing for the big occasion.

Made by Admiral (like most top tracksuits were), this was a red top with a drawstring hood, striped cuffs and waistband plus a big old Admiral logo to balance the fine Welsh badge across the chest.

But in an homage to our first ever 'Great Tracksuit', the detail that really topped off this smart piece of apparel was that most essential thing - a team name writ in large letters across the back. Nothing says "We're so much better than you" more than having your team name written in an unavoidably big typeface on your tracksuit, and this one illustrates that point perfectly.

Sadly this piece of visual bravado was all in vein. Wales battled their way to a 1-1 draw, losing the tie 3-1 on aggregate, but where fashion was concerned, there really was only one winner worth shouting about on the day.

If you liked this tracksuit, you might be interested in all the others in our series so far:

• No.11: Borussia Mönchengladbach (circa 1976)
• No.10: England (1986)
• No.9: Argentina (1978)
• No.8: Derby County (1978)
• No.7: Coventry City (1978)
• No.6: Brighton & Hove Albion (1983)
• No.5: Arsenal (1989)
• No.4: John Bond special
• No.3: Leeds United (1974)
• No.2: Liverpool (1977)
• No.1: Slovan Bratislava (1976)

Videoblog 3: European Football Yearbook 95/96

Chris O plucks another item from his personal football memorabilia collection. This time it's the European Football Yearbook 95/96, a thick, chunky book full of stats, information and most importantly, football kit illustrations...

The depth chart: Who are these guys?

Except for the annoying voice at the opening, this looks like fun.

Life would be a whole lot easier if things always are as they seem to be.
They aren't and today's Exhibit A is the Temple University football depth chart.
The chart was updated two weeks ago and it hasn't been since yet we all know that the starting tight end on that chart, Cody Booth, is now a left tackle.
I'm not too excited about that since I thought Booth is more valuable as a tight end than he is as a tackle.
Put it this way: Not too many guys could catch the ball last year but Booth was a reliable pass receiver.
I don't like to subtract from an area of weakness.
Hopefully, guys like Chris Parthemore and Alex Jackson have shown enough to give new head coach Matt Rhule confidence to try Booth as a tackle.

The Owls were off today but they are back at it tomorrow.

While there are some head-scratching moves (Nate D. Smith a third-team linebacker, really?) and Wyatt Benson from best blocking fullback in Temple history to starting linebacker (without really hitting anybody), what really intrigues me is to see guys appearing on the chart who I really don't know all that much about.
Who are these guys?
NATHAN HAIRSTON, WR _ A 6-foot, 176-pound freshman, Hairston is listed as the second-team X wide receiver to Deon Miller and ahead of more heralded recruits like Romond Deloatch, James Whitfield and Tyron Harris. This is how anonymous Hairston is: I could not find a single story online about   any of his football exploits at Governor Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick, Md. and found hundreds of stories on Deloatch, Whitfield and Harris. That doesn't mean he's not any good, it just means he didn't get any ink. Maybe that makes him hungrier.
THOMAS RUMER, QB _ Listed as the "sixth-team" quarterback (I've never seen a Temple QB depth chart that went lower than four), Rumer had some success as a championship quarterback at Malvern Prep.
JOHN RIZZO, FB _ Rizzo is a pretty well-known recruit who comes into Temple with strong credentials. What is interesting, though, is that he currently is the ONLY fullback on the depth chart. Last year's second-team fullback, Kenny Harper, is listed as No. 1 on the tailback depth chart and you already know about Benson. I expect one or both back at fullback once the season starts. I really like Rizzo, though, because he's a bruising runner, a great blocker and a two-time state champion in wrestling.
JAIMEN NEWMAN _ A former part-time starter on the offensive line, Newman is back in his comfort zone as a pass-rushing defensive end. He's 6-4, 290. As a senior in high school, he had 14 sacks. Temple needs some sacks out of its defensive ends this year and Newman is now at the top of the DE depth chart along with Sean Daniels on the other side.

Bret Niederreiter

BRET NIEDERREITER _ The redshirt freshman has moved ahead of last year's pre-season All Big East nose tackle, Levi Brown, on the depth chart. Niederreiter is 6-3, 265. Brown is 6-2, 300. Got to think part of that is designed to light a fire under the talented Brown.
STEPHAUN MARSHALL _ Shot himself right up the free safety depth chart behind first-teamer Abdul Smith, a former Rutgers' recruit and backup cornerback. Interesting that Nate L. Smith, probably the most heralded recruit of the 2012 signing class and a former first-team all-state safety at Archbishop Wood, is fourth string. Marshall is a former teammate of Khalif Herbin at Montclair (N.J.).

HASSAN DIXON _ Listed as the SIXTH team tailback. As a senior in high school at Germantown (Md.), he had 1,019 yards and 19 touchdowns.
Fourth-team tailback is Spencer Reid out of Harriton. Dixon's dad is former all-time Temple running back great Zach Dixon. His brother is former Owl great tight end and defensive end Raheem Brock. Reid's dad is former BYU great offensive lineman Andy Reid.  Sorry, Andy, I like Hassan's bloodlines better.

Match of the Day Soccer Annual 1979

Mike Channon’s favourite edition of Match of the Day was the one shown on the evening after the 1976 FA Cup Final. He was busy celebrating with his Southampton team-mates but, said Channon, “I cheated a bit and asked a friend to record both the match and the programme in the evening on a video tape recording machine I had just acquired.”

This, friends, was 1978, an era when VCRs were as rare as the hairs on Bruce Forsythe’s head, yet Mick Channon wasn't the only player to watch his favourite MOTD on tape. Colin Lee did likewise in 1977 after Tottenham’s 9-0 win over Bristol Rovers - a match in which Lee scored four:

“I can’t remember a great deal about the game itself, although a supporter taped Match of the Day and gave it me as a souvenir. I don’t have a recording machine myself, but I have a friend who has one and we've watched it a couple of times. It’s unbelievable.”

Ah, did we ever live in a world where VCRs were considered ‘new-fangled technology’...?

Further on in this Match of the Day Annual for 1979 (printed in 1978, stat fans), we find the article ‘Scotland The Brave’. Here, some education is provided for us English types about Sportscene. This was Scotland’s alternative to Match of the Day itself and, presented by Archie MacPherson, it had several differences that we Anglophiles wouldn't have been aware of.

According to the feature, a typical half-hour show would have contained “...fifteen minutes or so from the chosen [Scottish] Premier League fixture of the afternoon... the odd snatch from a rugby international or other non-soccer sporting event that Grandstand cameras might have conveniently collected during the day, and then ten minutes from the preferred English match out of Match of the Day’s clutch for the night.”

There were also technical limitations that restricted Sportscene’s ability to provide quality programming: “Slow-motion replays - such a feature of Match of the Day talk-ins - are as yet unknown in the north - for the simple reason that the BBC’s only slow-motion replay unit is safely locked up in London!”  Probably best to nip round to Mick Channon’s house: he’s got a VCR with a slow-motion function on it...

‘Goals of the Season’ needed no introduction and didn’t get one either - it was a feature that diagrammatically described all the winning goals in MOTD’s history up to that point, along with some incidental text to flesh the piece out. Another feature was ‘Short Passes’ in which we’re presented with interesting and amusing facts about BBC’s longest-running football show. Here’s an example:

“It was a woman who was responsible for Match of the Day including the manager’s name in their pre-match team line-up. Mrs Lillian Bruce from Harrow, Middlesex, wrote asking the production team to do it - and they latched onto her suggestion.” Tell that to your mates down at the pub the next time the conversation goes quiet....

After the sort of quiz that cropped up in virtually every football annual ever made, there was a feature called ‘Switched on Fans’ about celebrities that supported football clubs. Surely the biggest name of all back then was Eric Morecambe, a man who was never happier than when he was referring to his beloved Luton Town while on-screen with Ernie Wise. Right enough, he opened the piece:

“I always watch Match of the Day - every Sunday afternoon!” said Morecambe. “Officially it’s in my ITV contract that I've got to watch Star Soccer or The Big Match - but unofficially I sneak a look at Jimmy Hill. The last time I saw anything like that on Jimmy Hill’s chin the whole herd had to be destroyed.”

In ‘It started at Anfield’ we get a two-page article telling the story of how Match of the Day had developed from its early days on BBC2 (“watched by even fewer than had actually attended League club grounds during the afternoon”) to the Jimmy Hill-fronted programme on BBC1 seen on TV when this Annual was published.

Among the self-congratulatory text (“it is television’s most comprehensive football programme”), one small section proves to be of particular interest, namely that surrounding BBC TV’s competition in 1969 to find a new commentator. In a wonderful piece of never-in-this-day-and-age brilliance, the competition was ultimately won by the late Idwal Robling, a Welshman who played for Great Britain’s football team in the 1952 Olympics.

Here we see a picture from the MOTD annual showing all the participants in that search for a new commentator, among them Gerry Harrison (who went on to be ITV’s man behind the mic for the Anglia region), Ed Stewart (BBC Radio 1 disc jockey and Everton fan) and Ian St John, a former Liverpool and Scotland player who went on to be a more than capable co-commentator and front man for shows such as On The Ball and Saint and Greavsie.

After a pictorial palette cleanser showing various players ‘In Focus’, we hear the amazing story of Jimmy Hill’s life, such as it was in 1978. As we mentioned in our recent podcast, there’s much more to Hill than the stereotyped waffle everyone latches onto these days. In ‘My Role - Jimmy Hill’, we learn that the former Fulham player was acting as adviser for the World Soccer Academy in Saudi Arabia, an owner of the NASL franchise Detroit Express and Managing Director at Coventry City - all on top of his role as presenter of Match of the Day.

Some of his better known achievements at Highfield Road - changing the club strip to Sky Blue and giving the club its nickname accordingly - are mentioned, but his work beyond Coventry City was what particularly caught the eye. Running a company that “acted as advisors to the London based Sportsman Club” as well as performing a role as Chairman of Goaldiggers “an organisation that is linked with the National Playing Fields Association" was just the tip of the iceberg for the great man. He also raised money for several charities and wrote books and newspaper columns when time allowed too. To think that all that came about as a result of a serious knee injury as a player is a testament to his determination to succeed in the face of adversity.

In an age when football commentators barely last a minute without spouting one statistic or another, it’s interesting to read how much information Barry Davies compiled in the week leading up to one of his commentaries. Davies, who retired from MOTD in 2004, commented: “I have a newspaper cutting book on each season which goes back eight or nine seasons. I will get out the results sequences of the two teams and will go over their results this season, their scorers, their running league position, the crowds and full teams. I will try to keep it up-to-date myself but if I am not completely accurate I’ll give Jack Rollin a ring. He’s a freelance journalist who keeps a mountain of facts and figures.”

Having pored over all kinds of data from player cards to personal notes, Davies would then get the relevant clubs to send him their last two home programmes to fill any gaps on recent knowledge and would pay a visit early in the week to the managers of the teams he’d be commentating on the following Saturday. The key to Davies using all this information efficiently, however, was keeping it in his head rather than on paper: “Facts should come to you automatically while you are doing the commentary and you should not be trying to force your facts onto the viewer.” Modern-day commentators take note...

Finishing off the Annual was a feature on the footballers who appeared in the BBC’s Superstars series and an article on how Match of the Day is put together every Saturday thanks to the efforts of cameramen, Outside Broadcast teams, presenters and and many more people besides.

But it’s the item called ‘It began with Chairman Mao’ that provides great insight into a memorable piece of football nostalgia, namely the opening title sequence for Match of the Day in the late-1970s. Many of you will remember it for one reason and one reason alone, namely the sight of various pictures being made by a crowd of football fans in the fashion of an Olympic Games opening ceremony (see example below).



The titles were the idea of Pauline Talbot who said: “Whenever I think of crowds I think of China and the magnificent rallies held there. As I considered ideas for Match of the Day, I thought of a picture I had seen in a magazine years ago of 8,000 Chinese children holding up cards to form a picture of Chairman Mao. They call it card flashing.”

Within days, the children of Hammersmith County Girls’ School and Christopher Wren Boys’ School in West London were herded into Queens Park Rangers’ Loftus Road stadium and given numbered cards to form the eight different images seen during the opening title sequence. Over 2,000 separate cards were printed and cut in a “giant warehouse” and the large images were designed on a sheet of graph paper to help identify who was holding up which card.

“If a card representing, say, the tip of Jimmy Hill’s nose was out of position” said Talbot, “I was able to look on my graph, check the number at fault and call out that number through a microphone, asking if the person holding that card could please get it right.”

And so it was that on such meticulous organisation the Communist Party was founded - to say nothing of a fine football annual.

Sports Illustrated sits down with coach Rhule

Ryan Alderman (left) and Jalen Fitzpatrick look like they are having fun
after Fitzpatrick caught game-tying touchdown pass at UConn.

You can forget all of that talk about Temple football becoming the Boise State of the East.
How about the Florida Gulf Coast of the North?
That's essentially the message head coach Matt Rhule imparted to Pete Thamel in today's online edition of Sports Illustrated.
That's OK with me.
The message essentially is this:
If Temple's players have fun, they'll play loose and with confidence and win, just like  those Florida Gulf Coast kids did over the weekend in Philadelphia.
If Temple's players play tight, like Georgetown and even our own Scootie Randall did, they won't perform to their highest level.

Any publicity is good, especially on SI.com

Think Florida Gulf Coast and Khalif Wyatt.
Or the fun Khalif Herbin looks like he's having when he's carrying the ball from scrimmage. When he's running a pass route, Herbin looks out of his comfort/fun element.
That's the kind of confidence and fun levels that Rhule wants to bring to the Edberg-Olson Football Complex every day.
If the Owls can play with that kind of confidence and sense of fun that FGCU and Wyatt always plays with, the results on the field will be Boise State-like.
I once asked Temple football Hall of Fame coach Wayne Hardin about the fun of playing football.
"Mike, the only way you can have fun is to win," coach said.
If the only way to win is to have fun and still do work, I'm all for it.
I think Rhule might be onto something here.
We'll find out for sure in the laboratory environment of September, October and November.

Highfield Road's Last Day

Given what's happening with my club, Coventry City, today, I thought I'd post some pics from a happier time,   when we used to actually own our own ground.

So here are some of my collection from the day we said goodbye to our beloved old home, Highfield Road.