The best running back nobody is talking about

My favorite photo of Montel Harris as a Temple Owl, sharing a moment
of respect with Army linebacker and captain Nate Coombs after going for
351 yards and seven touchdowns in a 63-32 win.

My favorite Montel Harris moment this year had nothing to do with what he did during a game, but it had a lot to do with what he did on the field.
After the Army game, both Montel  and Army linebacker Nate Coombs shared a few words after Temple's 63-32 win at Michie Stadium.

Draft expert Matt Waldman was talking about Harris.

After it was over, Montel and Nate shook hands, laughed and walked off the field.
That's what sports is all about. It was a great sportsmanship moment between a future NFL player and a guy who is going to put it all on the line for our country.
We can only imagine what Nate told Montel, but we can guess it went something like this:
"Man, I tried to tackle you, but it was like tackling air out there."
After a fairly good performance in the recent NFL combine, draft expert Matt Waldman called Montel "the best running back nobody is talking about."

The thing the combine can't measure is start/stop ability and Harris is the best I've ever seen 

I think they will be talking about him on draft day.
Last year, I predicted Bernard Pierce would go in the third round. I think Harris goes in the sixth, no lower than the seventh.

How Harris and Pierce compared at the NFL combine:

	40 time	Bench Reps	Vertical Jump
Montel Harris	4.68	19 (at 225 pounds)	32.5 inches
Bernard Pierce	4.49	17 (at 225 pounds)	36.5 inches

How Harris and Pierce did in best single season:

	Carries	Yards	Longest Run
Montel Harris (2009)	308	1,457	72 yards
Bernard Pierce (2011)	273	1,481	69 yards

After watching Harris last year and Pierce the three years before that, the difference is simply this:
Pierce is faster and can do more damage on the outside but Harris is much better between tackles and starting and stopping to get out of trouble.
The only reason Harris drops three or so rounds below Pierce will be his knee injury history, but his knee held up pretty well at Temple despite the workload.
To me, the combine numbers are nowhere near as important as these numbers:

	Career Carries	Career Yards	Average  (2012)	Career Long	Career TDs
Montel Harris	973	4,379	5.7	72	39
Le’Veon Bell	671	3,346	4.7	69	31
Montee Ball	924	5,140	5.1	67	77
Ray Graham	595	3,271	4.1	78	32
Gio Bernard	423	2,481	6.7	68	25
Jawan Jamison	486	1,972	4.2	64	13

To me, what you do on the field is a lot more important than what you can do at the combine and Harris' numbers stack up very well against some of the top running backs in the group above.
Remember, Harris never fumbles while Eagles' seventh-round pick Bryce Brown fumbled a lot. You can gain all the yards in the world and have all the speed and the vertical leap and bench press, but if the ball ends up in the hands of the other team after the play is over you are worthless.

How cool would it be for Montel Harris to introduce himself on Sunday or Monday night football by saying, "Montel Harris, Temple Football Forever"

That's another metric that can't be measured at a combine.

How cool would it be for Montel Harris to introduce himself on Sunday or Monday night football by saying, "Montel Harris, Temple Football Forever."
Heck, if Mo Wilkerson or Bernard Pierce beat him to the punch, that would be cool, too.

Whatever questions that some may have had about his character were answered with a season as a solid citizen and terrific teammate at Temple.
I wish him all the best.
My guess is that Army's Nate Coombs does, too.

Better late than never

Montel Harris (8) needs a lift  to see what is distracting Cody Booth (38) and Wyatt Benson (44).

Two phrases rattled around my head during the fourth quarter of Temple's 63-32 win at Army on Saturday:

• That's more like it.
• Better late than never.

This is the Temple football team I envisioned back in August and September.
No, I'm not crazy enough to think that Montel Harris would have gone for 351 yards and seven touchdowns every Saturday but I thought both Harris and Matty Brown could go near or over 100 yards each game and that their running ability would set up some "explosive plays downfield in the passing game" that head coach Steve Addazio promised in the summer.

Temple football records Saturday:
Most rushing yards game individual: Montel Harris (351)

Most touchdowns game individual: Montel Harris (7)

Most career points individual: Brandon McManus (332).
Most touchdowns game by a Big East team (9).

Whatever the Owls lacked on defense I thought could be made up by an offense turning the Lincoln Financial Field scoreboard into an adding machine.
And, I thought, that would have been good for at least six wins and, maybe, as many as eight.
Now, the best the Owls can do is five because those explosive plays in the passing game never materialized, simply because the Owls stubbornly tried to pound the rock against bigger, more talented, defensive fronts for most of October and November. They might as well have been pounding their heads against a rock with that misguided approach.
The Owls were just as stubborn on Saturday in a 63-32 win over Army, but they could afford to do that against a team ranked near the bottom of the country in rushing defense.
They also helped themselves by eliminating the turnovers which, as Michael Vick can tell you, is the key to winning any football game.
If the Owls can somehow parlay Syracuse's fear of Harris (and Brown) into some, err, explosive plays downfield in the passing game (perhaps off a fake to Harris on an early down), they can make a statement that they are ready to make a run at the top of the Big East ladder next year by rudely sending Syracuse off to the ACC.
The Owls won't have Montel or Matty next year, but Jamie Gilmore and "Montrell" Dobbs figure to have the requisite three-star talent to pick up where those two left off.
And, pretty much, the rest of the team is back although I'd like to see a serious upgrade in the defensive secondary (hint: Kevin Newsome).
Harris' performance was an eclipse that obscured a lot of other good things on Saturday, but it should not go unnoticed that Brandon McManus set the school record for career points by an individual, breaking Bernard Pierce's standard of 324. McManus needed four going into Saturday's game.
Another great kicker, high school All-American Jim Cooper, Jr., arrives for summer classes in July.
Other than that, as Jose from Norristown might say, it was amazing to see how much misinformation is out there.
Twice during the game, CBS Sports announcers said that Harris was the "leading rusher all-time in the history of the ACC' and, later, the "15th-leading rusher all-time in the history of the ACC."
Both were wrong.
In reality, Harris is still the second-leading rusher in the history of the ACC, falling 828 yards short of Ted Brown's record set at North Carolina State. He is only 50 yards away from another 1,000-yard season.
I was privileged to see Paul Palmer's 349-yard game against East Carolina and Saturday's performance by Harris was even better, both on the stat sheet and stylistically.
Harris will have spent only one year here but he will always be remembered by me as a warrior and a great Temple Owl.
So will Brown and McManus and the rest of the seniors.
They deserve to go out in front of a large, appreciative home crowd on Friday.


Tomorrow: You think you've got troubles?
Tuesday: ???
Wednesday: A tribute to the seniors 
Thursday: Throwback Thursday 
Friday: Game Day Preview

Fast Forward Friday: What, Me Worry?

In this, the second installment of "What, Me Worry?" ,  Temple Football Forever is officially worried.
Fortunately, the first installment of worry (The Big East invitation) turned out to be unfounded.
I hope this installment turns out the same way.
Worried  about the outcome of tomorrow's game at Army.
Nothing the Owls have done in the last four weeks have shown me they can beat EVEN Army, and that would be the exclamation mark of a downward trend between this season and last season that is alarming at best.
Look at what Army's has done in recent weeks:

• Beat Boston College, a team that gave Notre Dame a decent game.
• Lost by one point to an outstanding Northern Illinois' team.
• Beat Air Force, a decent team from the West that gave Michigan a good game.

Look at what Temple has done in recent weeks: Lost by 47-17 to a Pitt team that gave Notre Dame a good game.

Even Temple grad Dick Weiss is picking against the Owls.

Lost by 45-17 to  a Louisville team that was given a good game by 0-9 Southern Mississppi and 1-9 Florida International.
Lost by 35-10 to a Rutgers' team that lost to Kent State.
Temple beat Kent State, 34-16, last year.
Temple also beat Army by 42-14 last year.
Temple also beat Ball State by 42-0 last year.
Ball State is one of the best teams in a Mid-American Conference that is outstanding this year.
Listen, I know Temple lost six starters on defense and most of the offensive line to the pros last year but it did not lose SO much talent to have this kind of a downturn in 12 months.
Except for a 16-for-20 performance in the passing game against South Florida, Temple seemed to spend the entire season in an attempt to return college football back to the days of Woody Hayes and "three-yards-in-a-cloud-of-dust" approach. Only it worked for Ohio State, not Temple.
Beating a 2-8 Army team would not be a feather in the Owls' cap, but it would certainly show signs that this program has a pulse and won't take the final game against Syracuse lying down.
Yeah, I'm worried.
I have reason to be.
I hope the football program and team prove my worries as unfounded as the administration did back in March.

Picks:
Last week: Was a good week. I went top-heavy on high-value underdogs. The only loss was the Army game and it was 7-7 in the fourth quarter. I had ARMY getting 18 at Rutgers; MIAMI (FLA.) getting 1 at Virginia (a push); VANDY getting 3 at Mississippi (Vandy won outright); GEORGIA TECH getting 9 at North Carolina (GT blew out UNC  outright); BUFFALO getting 2 1/2 at home vs. Western Michigan (Buffalo won outright). Only liked one favorite: TULSA giving 2 at Houston and Tulsa won, 41-7.
This week: Going the other way, liking three favorites and a dog.  BUFFALO giving 10 at Umass; TULSA giving 2 to visiting UCF and LOUISIANA-LAFAYETTE giving 4 to visiting Western Kentucky. Like one underdog and that's SOUTH FLORIDA getting 7 at Miami.
Records:
Last week: 4-1 overall, 4-1 ATS.
Season: 17-8 overall, 15-11 ATS.

Saturday: No story, but complete analysis of the game on Sunday

Teams to root for today: UB, SMU, Rutgers

Even in this age of instant communication, it's going to be hard to find the score of the Buffalo at Eastern Michigan game.
First off, it's never on KYW-AM (they only give top 10 scores) and it's not on over the air TV (even pay cable) anywhere.
But it is on the internet and, for Temple fans, provides a rooting element.
All these teams would do Temple a big favor by winning:

Hooter is more endearing.

BUFFALO at Eastern Michigan (1 p.m., MAC all-access) _ If the Bulls finish ahead of Bowling Green in the standings, they provide a positive backup tie-breaker for Temple should it finish in a three-way tie with Miami and Ohio. Eastern Michigan is a three-point favorite. The game is on internet only. Buffalo's got a chance. It beat Ohio.

She'd be perfect for me
if she was 20 years older
and I had $1 million

Navy at SMU (3:30, FSN) _ Southern Methodist football players wrote a letter to the school newspapers complaining about the lack of enthusiasm by their own fans in a win over TCU. They must be looking at the coeds and not on the field of play. Navy has to win all three of its remaining games (at SMU, at San Jose State and vs. Army) to qualify for a bowl Temple could be looking at attending (D.C., likely) and SMU is the toughest of the three. SMU is a seven-point favorite.

Cos and Hall and Oates are more famous.

RUTGERS vs. Army (3:30, Yankee Stadium, CBS College Sports) _ Same deal with Navy as Army has to win all three of its remaining games to qualify for a bowl. If Temple LOSES to Army, it still has a chance to qualify for a final bowl slot if Army loses today. Hopefully, both Rutgers and ESPECIALLY Temple beats Army. The Black Knights of the Hudson have proven to be a tough out on occasion this year, losing at Miami (Ohio) by only a touchdown and beating Northwestern, 21-14. Northwestern, you'll recall, won AT Nebraska last week. Rutgers is an eight-point favorite.