"T"o"T"al Domination

"You think I'm going to miss playing in our first win over Penn State next year? No way
The pros can always wait. I'm having too much fun right now," The Franchise seems to be saying.

There was one defining moment for me in today's 37-15 Temple win over Wyoming and it is probably not one you will guess right away.
It was just a little picture, not the big one.
The Owls hoisting that New Mexico Bowl Clay Pot Trophy?
Yeah, good guess, but try again.

Rod Streater's touchdown catch of Chris Coyer's pass right before the half to make it 28-7?
Again, nice try.
Give up?
Ok.
I'll tell you.
It was head coach Steve Addazio grabbing Matty Brown in a bear hug in the first half.
That said it all for me.
If every Owl had a heart as big as the one in Matty Brown's body, Temple would be playing for the national championship on the second week of January instead of coming home with a New Mexico Bowl Trophy in the middle of December.
Brown was so upset coming out of the game after one play that he made it known.
Instead of yelling at him, Addazio took the moment to console him and tell him how much he was loved. Addazio wrapped him in a hug and walked him away, saying something gently in his ear that seemed to resonate with him.
That was an important moment for me and it should have been an important moment to every Owl fan.

A sweet T-shirt headed my way.

It was for this Owl fan.
We have the right guy leading this program and I for one hopes he stays for a long, long time and does not have the same kind of wandering eye the last guy had.
If  you are a Temple fan like me, this is one of the two greatest days of your life.
The other day came in 1979 when a fullback named Mark Bright ran over and through California for a 28-17 win in the Garden State Bowl.
This time, Total Domination came in the form of a 100-yard day by Bernard "The Franchise" Pierce and an offensive MVP trophy from quarterback Chris Coyer.
Of course, there was Chuck Heater's defense.
It was there all year and it will be there next year as well.
This is just the start of something big at Temple and, if The Franchise stays next year, it will be a very big and fun season for not only him but for all of us and maybe, just maybe, a January bowl win to cap it.
Meanwhile, we know we have a coach who is so tuned in he knows little picture can be just as important as the big one.

New Mexico Bowl: Final exam for Daz

Dave "Owlified" Gerson's excellent senior highlight video. If there is a "techie" out there who can remix the background music of this from the classical format to D.J. Khaled's "All I Do Is Win" on a loop than get back to me. Love the Ed Benkin call of Joe Jones' touchdown catch and don't love the Harry Donahue call on the Kee-ayre Griffin blocked field goal "running with it is Robinson. Johnson, rather" (which is pretty much a typical Harry Donahue call).

This is going to look awfully good at the E-O.

My good friend Fizzy and I were talking about Steve Addazio's first year as Temple's head coach after the final game of the regular season.
"I'm going to have to give him a C," Fiz said. "Not excellent. Not good. Satisfactory."
Fizzy is a former Temple football great and someone who spent the rest of his life giving out grades for a living as an esteemed educator.
I thought his grade of Daz was a fair one until that point.
I gave him an incomplete because you really can't give Steve Addazio a grade until he completes his finals.
That comes tomorrow (2 p.m., ESPN) in the New Mexico Bowl.
If Temple beats Wyoming to a pulp, 31-14, something on the order I expect it to, Addazio's grade improves to a B+, which is very good. If it's a 28-27 win, it drops to a B.
I could not in fairness give Addazio a B or an A on the basis of his first regular season because I thought he made some key errors in judgment that could have cost the Owls at least a couple of games:

Some that come to mind:

• Removing Mike Gerardi with a lead in the Penn State game. I thought Gerardi was following the "plan to win" until he was removed. The plan to beat Penn State was to avoid turnovers and make plays in the play-action passing game. Gerardi even threw the ball into the ground in the first half of the Penn State game, rather than make a turnover. When Chester Stewart was ineffective, Gerardi was reinserted and I really felt that the pressure went back to Gerardi to make a play in order to keep his job. The result was that he forced the ball into tight windows and Penn State picked him off twice.
• The failure to remove Stewart in the Toledo or Bowling Green games. Stewart was never held to the same high standard Gerardi was and he was allowed to remain in the game Toledo despite throwing two picks. Against Bowling Green, it was painfully apparent he could not move the team. As a result, two games got away from the Owls.
• Not recognizing the talent he had in Chris Coyer. Daz said he was "thisclose" to starting Coyer against Villanova. Had he done that, it's much more likely Temple would have gone 10-2 instead of 8-4. Heck, Villanova was the perfect game to get Coyer's feet wet. Owls would have beaten that sorry ass team, 42-7, with Stewart (suspended for that game), Gerardi, Coyer or Clinton Granger.

Now come the finals on Saturday before an ESPN national television audience.
Daz will ace his final with a 31-14 win and earn my B plus. He can't get an A because I really feel this is the most talented team of the last three years and Al Golden reached a minimum eight with slightly lesser talent.
If he wins this game, though, Daz will accomplish one of the big things he said he would do (see sidebar of this blog) which is to get the team in a bowl game and win it.
That's very good in my book and something Golden never did.
Heck, even a tough marker like Fizzy might be forced to redo his grade as well.

Ceefax Football

‘England through after dramatic penalty win’ was the headline writ large on ITV’s Oracle Teletext service. It was the evening of June 30th 1998 and David Batty had just seen his penalty saved by the Argentinian goalkeeper Carlos Roa in a Round of 16 World Cup match. England had been defeated 4-3 on penalties after a 2-2 draw, and this was soon reflected in the hastily corrected headline that appeared only seconds later: ‘England out of World Cup after penalty miss’.

Teletext always tried to be first with the breaking news headlines and even if it did so by wrongly pre-empting imminent events, at least its heart was in the right place. This was, after all, old technology – an Information Single-Carriageway bringing pages of news and facts by the dozen to ordinary TV screens throughout the UK.

Though many favoured Oracle, it was the BBC’s Ceefax service that most people preferred. At least it seems that way; you only have to utter the word ‘Ceefax’ to a football fan of a certain age and the chances are they’ll respond with a simple number: 302.

Ceefax page 302 was a gateway to enlightenment, aspiration and fulfilment for every follower of football hungry to know more. Who were United about to sign? Who’d picked up a serious injury and wouldn’t be playing for Liverpool?  Had Arsenal won their League Cup match the night before? These questions and many more were inevitably answered among Ceefax’s neatly regimented pages.

Very useful they were too, but for many, Ceefax really came into its own around 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. It was at this moment that thousands of British football fans pressed the ‘Text’ button on their remote controls and blanked out Grandstand to see the latest scores. Some aficionados with excellent eyesight preferred the ‘Mix’ button to get the double hit of football scores and UK Snooker from the Guild Hall in Preston displayed simultaneously, but they were clearly in the minority. As for those pressing 316 to get the latest two scores appearing on the bottom of their screens while they watched their regular programmes, they were among the absolute elite.

Keying in 303 on your remote got you the latest scores from Division One. With ten matches to cover and any number of goalscorers and sending offs to account for, Ceefax partitioned the scores onto three or four sub-pages that were displayed on rotation for around ten seconds at a time.

Once kick-off was out of the way, we viewers entered into a game of memory and observation. It was all very simple at first; with every score set to ‘0-0’, it wasn’t difficult to spot the name of a goalscorer suddenly appearing below an updated 1-0 scoreline. As more and more goals went in however, the screen gradually filled with player names and times (‘Sterland 26’, ‘Strachan 34’…) By half time, you were trying to remember whether you’d already acknowledged one score or another, but shoot – that was all part of the fun.

Admittedly there were occasional frustrations to be had with monitoring the latest scores on Ceefax. For a start, there was the aforementioned ten-second delay. Knowing that your team’s scoreline was on page 1 of 3, it seemed like an eternity to wait before it rolled around again through page 2 and eventually page 3.

Not only that - every so often Ceefax would also play its trump card by skipping the page you wanted and going on to the next one – never good on a day when a glut of goals caused a fourth page to appear in the sequence.

Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon to employ mitigating actions to reduce the inconvenience caused by the long wait. There was the ‘Number Re-Entry’ method: here the holder of the remote control would type in the same three-figure page number already being viewed in an attempt to make Ceefax update the text. More often than not, this old alternative to an F5 Refresh was not successful.

Others would use the ‘Short Walk’ method where it was preferable to go off and view another page for a few short seconds before jumping back to the original one. This called for a cool head and immaculate timing; get it wrong by a second or two and you could find yourself waiting another lifetime for the pages to go round in sequence once more.

At the other end of the scale, pages sometimes refreshed too quickly. Regular visitors to page 312 - ‘News in Brief’ - would sometimes be greeted by the sight of 10 or more sub pages of text. A wondrous thing, but you had to be quick. Those that dwelled too long on the latest news from the South American championships could easily find themselves dumped onto the next page in sequence before they’d had the chance to finish reading the previous one. Efficient use of the ‘Hold’ button was key in such situations.

But what are we saying... All these time issues were actually what gave Ceefax its old-world appeal. The sense of growing expectation as you waited for one page to be replaced by another only added to the thrill of it all, if indeed ‘thrill’ is the appropriate word here.

How strange, then, to suddenly find ourselves in an era where Jeff Stelling appears on Sky Sports every Saturday, his head and shoulders entrapped by manifold results, news tickers and videprinters. None of us could ever have dreamed of having so much information at our fingertips all those years ago, but there’s no harm in dreaming about the old days every once in a while too. Where Ceefax’s football pages were concerned, less was definitely more.

TFF's Bowl Party Special

Although I prefer Fight Temple Fight, my guess is that T for Temple U will be sung a few times at just about every bar in the Philadelphia area (and a few outside of it) this Saturday.

The Owls listen to some local hospitality in New Mexico.

If you are like me and your beloved Temple Owls are a little geographically west of your price range, you can do one of two things:
1) Stay at home, pace around the room, yell at the TV set and talk to yourself for three hours;
Or ...
2) Find a place where you can do the same with fellow Owl fans.
I chose the latter.
Instead of spending more than $1,000 on a road trip, I'm headed to Center City to spend about $980 less on Saturday afternoon.
I get a little bit of the experience of cheering for the Owls with fellow Temple fans, but none of the bills afterward. Heck, because it is a Saturday in December, even the metered parking is free.
I'd prefer to be at the stadium sharing the experience with my great fellow Owl fans, like I did in Section 121 all year, but Albuquerque is way above my pay scale.
I have a feeling, in this economy, a lot of my fellow Owl fans are in the same predicament. Temple vs. Wyoming football at 2 p.m. on Saturday on one TV (ESPN), followed by Temple vs. Texas in hoops at 2:30 on ESPN2. The plan now is to watch hoops during the football commercials.
As a service to those fans, we offer Temple Football Forever's Bowl party special today.
There are plenty of great places in the Philadelphia area to watch the game and we're going to offer you a few of our favorites today.
The key thing is that if there is one other Temple fan there, it's better than watching the game alone.
Philadelphia Center City:

A lot nicer inside than it looks from here.

Kelliann's, 15th and Spring Garden _ The first time I ever walked into this cozy little bar at my jaw dropped and it was not just because of the stunningly beautiful female patrons (there are plenty of those, by the way). It was after work and the Phillies were in the playoffs and the 56-inch HDTV offered the most spectacular picture I had ever seen to that point. (Since then, Parx Casino's cluster of 10 same-size TVs together behind one bar have beaten that. I don't like Parx because there's a guilty feeling being in a room with 10 spectacular TVs behind one bar when living in a world where kids are dying of hunger. Maybe it's just me.) At Kelliann's, Scott the bartender will turn the Temple game up as loud as you want. To say the men's room is a little small is an understatement. A regular-size phone booth is larger. Seriously. Don't go there is you plan to do No. 2. Otherwise, a great place to watch a Temple game.



The Field House, 12th and Filbert

Field House, 12th and Filbert _ This is the official Temple Bowl Party and I'm sorry I can't recommend it. The one time I went in there, I asked for the sound to be turned up to a Temple football game. I got flat-out turned down. Blasting in the background was the sound of a Wisconsin vs. Northwestern football game. It hissed me off so much some midwestern football game had sound and the hometown Temple Owls didn't, so I walked out as a matter of principle. Still, a good place to go because this will be one of the largest Temple crowds around and the open bar is only $15. If you don't mind not being able to hear the game (the sound is on for private parties, but the cheering and other background noise prevents you from hearing the announcers), this is the place to go.

South Philly Tap Room

The South Philadelphia Tap Room, 15th and Mifflin _ I've never been there, but I've heard nothing but good things about this place and the TVs there. From what I've been told, hearing the sound is no problem and the HDTVs are of very good quality. The place also gets rave reviews for its excellent selection of beers and quality of food. This would be like going to the Field House, but also having the added bonus of hearing the game. This one block west of Broad Street, next to St. Agnes Hospital so if the Owls give you a heart attack, you have a very good chance of surviving.
The Bishop's Collar, 23d and Fairmount _ A very Temple-friendly bar with good TVs and an old-time Temple football helmet behind the bar. Good chance there will be a lot of Temple students there.
Suburbs
If you are in Blue Bell, P.J. Whelihan's has hosted Temple parties in the past and most who went there walked away impressed. There is a new Chickie and Pete's on Route 611 in Warrington and that is always a good place to watch a game, as are the ones in South Philadelphia and the Far Northeast. Calloway's in Huntingdon Valley (County Line and Shoemaker Roads) has two outstanding HDTVs at the bar.
New Jersey
Don't know much about this state because, to me, the Delaware River might as well be the Atlantic Ocean. I know I was at the Pennsville, N.J. Applebee's once and asked for the sound of a Temple basketball game to be turned up (just enough to hear) and another waitress walked by and asked the bartender "what is that noise?" and made her turn it down. I never went back. If you have specific places you like in New Jersey, add them in the comment section below.

The Panache Restaurant in D.C.
is in the Golden Triangle downtown,
directly across from the Mayflower Hotel.

Other parties
D.C. _ There is a big FREE party scheduled for the Panache Restaurant, Downtown
1725 DeSales Street Northwest; Washington, DC 20036-4406; (Near Connecticut/Road Avenue NW).
Enjoy complementary heavy hors d'oeuvres and one free drink ticket (21 and over) courtesy of the Temple University Alumni Club of Washington D.C. Don't forget to wear your cherry and white and enter the free raffle. There is no need to pre-register.
Pittsburgh _ There will at least be two Owl fans at Pomodoro's in Wexford/Franklin Park. Ask for either Steel Owl or Pennsyltucky Owl. The place has lots of good beers and enough TVs to devote two to Temple (one for the football game and one for the hoops' game).

There are at least two cops on every corner in NYC. Love it.

New York City
Duke's Murray Hill (560 3d Street, between 37th and 38th Streets) will be the New York City party of choice for Temple fans. This is within easy stumbling distance of Penn Station, so you can take a train from Philly or Trenton, get totally blasted, get back on the same train and be sober by the time you arrive in Philadelphia. Just a thought. I love taking the train to New York City. I auditioned twice for "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and just missed the cut both times. I recommend the train ride and the city, which has at least two cops on every corner, which is a very good thing.

Unstoppable force vs. very movable object

Wyoming has never seen anybody like Matty Brown, the Owls' No. 2 back.

And I'm sure Wyoming has never seen anything like No. 30.

Math professors would have a field day crunching the numbers produced by Wyoming and Temple this season.
Both teams finished 8-4.
Both teams had one marquee home game against a traditional  BCS powerhouse, with Wyoming getting blown out by Nebraska, 38-14, and Temple losing a heartbreaker against Penn State, 14-10.
Temple is ranked No. 7 in rushing offense and Wyoming No. 115 in rushing defense.
You can talk about all of those numbers all you want, but the numbers that strike me the most are 63-19 and 25-17.
Utah State, a team I feel has comparable talent to Temple (and I really think Temple has more talent) was able to beat Wyoming, 63-19. Air Force, a team locked in a life-and-death struggle with Army (before winning, 24-14), played a competitive game with Wyoming, losing, 25-17. Temple blew out Army, 42-14.
Of course, Wyoming fans can point to two numbers, 28-27, and 13-10.
Wyoming was able to beat Bowling Green, 28-27, and Temple lost to Bowling Green, 13-10.

Warmest TU Bowl
since 1934
Game-time temps:
1934: 62 degrees
1979: 40 degrees
2009: 11 degrees
2011: 43 degrees*
*forecasted

However, Temple was in the middle of a nighmarish quarterback situation at the time, when head coach Steve Addazio refused to remove Chester Stewart in that game despite a whole lot of three-and-outs and two injured running backs. Temple needed a quarterback who could make a play and finally found one in Chris Coyer, who can make a whole lot of plays. Stewart played admirably in relief vs. Kent State, but Coyer is a horse of a whole different fire department (to borrow a Bum Phillips' phrase).
With Coyer, Temple is able to maximize its running game by making explosive plays down the field on play-action passes.
To me, Saturday's game is quite simply Temple's unstoppable force (run game) vs. Wyoming's movable object (run defense).
The forecast right now calls for 43 degrees, snow showers possible but no storm, and that's good running weather.
I've crunched all of those numbers and variables and have come up with a sum total of 45.
Temple 31, Wyoming 14.
The over-under is 46.
I'd lay the 6 1/2 before taking the under.
I just hope none of the Owls drop the Native American Clay Pot, which is the very fragile trophy that goes to the winner and one I'm sure they'll be reaching for, ohh, about 5 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday.
Maybe they should put the hands' team in for the trophy-hoisting ceremony.

Wyoming-TU: The view from out West

Some interesting comments from the TV guys.

Todd Bowles is believed to be the first Temple grad ever named a head coach in the NFL and that came late this afternoon. Congratulations to Todd, the new head coach of the Miami Dolphins.

Chad Smith runs Wyoming Football Forever, a Temple Football Forever equivalent in a parallel universe.
Only kidding about the name, though.
Smith's blog is here, the 7220 report, and it covers all things Cowboy football.
With the Wyoming vs. Temple game only a few days away, we thought this would be a good time for a question exchange.
My questions are in white type and his answers are yellow below:

1) I wonder if you heard any more from Wyoming fans watching ESPN and noticed them laughing when our bowl came up and what was the reaction there?


Wyoming fans surely took notice of this and thought it was a slap in the face to both the Wyoming and Temple football programs. This type of reaction just reinforces the ESPN-ization of college football; that being if you are not a BCS school you basically no longer matter in college football. What makes this reaction even more bizarre is the fact that ESPN actually owns the New Mexico Bowl! So they were in fact mocking their own product. Great work “world wide leader”!



2) Sum up your personal off-the-field experiences from the New Mexico Bowl two years ago, both highlights and lowlights?



The New Mexico Bowl may be only five years old but I can assure you it is a first class operation. They know that they are low in the pecking order in terms of bowl prestige and history but have a goal of being the most hospitable bowl out there. They put on some great events with luncheons, dinners, a pep rally (with fireworks!) and the pre-game fan party outside the stadium. The activities and the southwestern food are all top class and made for an enjoyable experience. There weren’t really any lowlights in terms of experience the only negative thing is out of the Bowl’s control as the weather in Albuquerque isn’t all that warm this time of year.

This clay pot is the trophy the Owls hope to hoist Saturday.

3) What is it about Albuquerque, the town itself, that surprised you the most in 2009?



There wasn’t much that surprised me in 2009 because with the University of New Mexico being in the Mountain West, I’ve been to Albuquerque more than a few times for both football and basketball. The first time I went there I was surprised by two things. First, I thought the city was a little dirty (in a dusty type of way) but hey what city in the high desert isn’t? Secondly, I found there to be a wide variety of different things to do (shopping, museums, outdoor recreation etc.) and was something I did not expect. Most surprising to me was downtown Albuquerque although not big in size, there are some nice cafes, bars and restaurants along Central street. I think Temple fans will enjoy the city.



4) Is your freshman QB mostly a drop-back passer or a mobile quarterback who can throw?



Brett Smith is definitely not a pure drop back passer and he isn’t a run first type of quarterback either. I would say your moniker of a mobile quarterback who can throw is the best description. That is what has impressed me the most about him in his true freshman season. He is a very good runner but he always looks to throw first before running. Most QB’s with his skill set take off and run right away when things break down but Smith always keeps his head up and is looking for an open wide receiver down field first.



5) Who are the players on the Cowboys will might play on Sundays and who are the other players to watch by the numbers come Saturday?



There aren’t any sure fire NFL prospects on this team but the two players who have the best chance that I know NFL scouts are looking at are defensive back Tashaun Gipson (4) and defensive end Josh Biezuns (44). Gipson is a four year starter who is good at making plays on the ball. He started the first three years at cornerback but switched to safety halfway through this year to help the team. Biezuns is a little undersized at 6-2 and 245 pounds but he has a non-stop motor and is always near the ball which is amazing for a defensive lineman and could be a good fir in a 3-4 defense as a OLB. The two other key players temple fans should watch on defense are linebacker Brian Hendricks (8) who is a tackling machine in the middle and defensive tackle Gabe Knapton(52) who you will see lineup on the inside and outside of the defensive line. Offensively the playmakers are quarterback Brett Smith (16), running back Alvester Alexander (32) who is your classic one cut runner and true freshman wide receiver Josh Doctson (89) who has emerged as a speed threat on the outside.

One week to the New Mexico Bowl



Temple fans' home away from home in Albuquerque is the Owl Cafe, 10 minutes
from the team hotel.

Heck, it's one week to the New Mexico Bowl and back in August I was off in dreamland thinking it might be another month until the Temple Owls got on the field again by the time December rolled around.
You know, beat Penn State, beat Maryland and then run through the entire MAC to finish 12-0.
Then win the MAC title game to go 13-0.

"I ain't lettin' you go to the NFL because we're going
to be 14-0 next year with you," Deon Miller seems to
be telling Datboy Nard.

Then I woke up with a minute to go in the Penn State game.
Temple never found an answer to its quarterback woes until three games remained in the season (too late) so that dream was busted.
The only other things I needed was Penn State to win the Big 10 and Maryland to win the ACC.
Walla, national title game.
When Maryland opened up with a 32-24 win over Miami (Fla.), I thought that just might happen.
Heck, if UConn, a team that lost by two touchdowns to Temple last year, can really make it to the Fiesta Bowl after that, then I can dream of a national title shot for Temple.
Then they tanked it and Penn State got hit by the Jerry Sandusky scandal and that fell apart.
So no national championship game for Temple, shockingly. No cover of Sports Illustrated featuring Bernie and the Bug. No shot of  Steve Addazio giving Florida fans the finger.
There's always next year.
No Temple and LSU.
It'll be LSU and  Alabama instead.

By going 14-0, Addazio could have
given his Florida critics this finger.

Wyoming and Temple (Saturday, Dec. 17, ESPN, 2 p.m.) will kick off the bowl season instead and that game will be pretty much as important as the 34 other non-championship games.
If Temple wins, the Owls get to take a bowl trophy home for the first time in 32 years.
The Owls can win their own little championship before a sizeable crowd in New Mexico and on TV since they will be the only FBS football on television that afternoon.
I'm cautiously optimistic.
I think the Owls can win by following the Addazio plan (play great defense, run the football, make a difference on special teams and use the play-action pass for explosive gains downfield). I think defensive coordinator Chuck Heater will whip up a pass rush scheme that rattles Wyoming freshman quarterback Brett Smith. He won't let him sit back and pick the defense apart.
I think No. 20, Kee-ayre Griffin, will jump one route and get a pick six. He has that kind of athletic ability.
Wyoming, though, is not a team to be taken lightly and I don't think the Owls will.
Seeing the kids celebrate around the Gildan New Mexico Bowl trophy would be a great way to frame this season after starting with a Mayor's Cup trophy.
It wasn't the dream I started with, but it's the one I have now and it is within this team's grasp.
One week and three hours away.

A special message from Hooter follows: