In about a year, only the fan bases from Florida, Temple and BC will understand this video.
In an effort to keep my blood pressure from elevating to dangerous levels, I've avoided the final word on Steve Addazio until now.
Before Matt Rhule takes over on the first day of spring practice (it's now three weeks away), though, I think it's a useful exercise to put the Steve Addazio Era to rest.
Although he wasn't my first choice then (Bruce Arians was), I liked Steve Addazio when I got to know him at Temple.
I had a long talk with him in New York City and he gave me some good stuff and asked me not to use it and I kept both my mouth and laptop shut. In any meeting with Temple alumni, he had us all ready to strap on the pads. Vitamin A was that addictive. There was much to like.
He was 51, but had the vim and vigor of a 21-year-old.
Matt Rhule in today's Morning Call
Keith Groller of The Morning Call wrote this great story on Matt Rhule that appeared in today's paper. For this cool bumper sticker above and to support Temple Football Forever, anyone who contributes at least $20 via the pay pal donation option on the sidebar (in the Support TFF section) or $20 to the address (in the help TFF afford a pair of shoes section) gets it exactly as it appears above (3 inches high, 11 inches wide). Please allow two weeks for pay pal orders and one month for postal orders. Thanks.
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He was "National Recruiter of the Year" not once but three times and I thought this was just the kind of guy Temple needed. I could easily envision a recruit putting down Penn State hat, an Alabama hat and putting on a Temple one on ESPNU under Addazio's watch (if you don't think that's possible, the same thing happened for a New Mexico football recruit two years ago).
On the day Addazio was hired, a Florida fan emailed me the video above and warned me about Addazio. He told me the firesteveaddazio.com website was available if I wanted it.
I dismissed it as poppycock.
I'd like to apologize to that fan today.
Everything Hitler, err that Florida fan, said about Addazio's one-dimensional, hare-brained, offensive scheme turned out to be true in 2012.
He turned an explosive, otherwise productive, quarterback in the 2011 season into a caretaker of a Woody Hayes'-type, run-first, scheme. Chris Coyer was limited to handing off on almost all first and second downs and that's an offensive recipe for disaster. After pounding his head against a brick wall for most of four quarters against UConn, Addazio was forced to unleash Coyer in a two-minute drill that won the game.
Did he learn a lesson that would carry over to the rest of the year?
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| Not surprisingly, confidence in Daz's future waning. |
No.
Truth is, Addazio is a stubborn former offensive lineman who always wants to run the ball. He was that way at Florida and (sans Scot Loeffler's one year as OC) was that way at Temple and probably will be that way at BC.
After that UConn win, he went back to pounding his head against the wall and about 20,000 of my fellow Temple fans joined him.
Now we can get back to watching football.
There's a lot we don't know about Matt Rhule but he does believe in making defenses defend the whole field and, for that alone, we know he will do a better job that Daz did.
My blood pressure will be better off now that Daz is gone and hopefully that means my life expectancy has just been extended by a couple of years.
