Goal Line Stand
The Greatest Turnaround
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Goal Line Stands
USC's
new superstar |
A
revamped Michigan
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The QB
you need to know |
The
BCS's biggest problem
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Alabama's Focus |
The
Notre Dame hype machine
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The Hot
Bearcats |
The
emergence of Mark Ingram
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Pulling
a Bradford
By Michael Bradley
Back in the mid-1990s, I was charged with writing an investigative piece for a local sports magazine about Temple football. On the surface, there wasn’t much need for a magnifying glass and double-billed hat. The Owls stunk, and that was easy to see (and smell) from all directions. Ever since Temple had played in the ’79 Garden State Bowl, the program had slid into a nasty pit of failure. In a pro city like Philadelphia, the program didn’t stand a chance of attracting any interest.
The high times of the Wayne Hardin era gave way to Bruce Arians’ tenure, which featured the embarrassment of an 0-for-’86 campaign, brought on by the use of an ineligible player. Jerry Berndt led the Owls to a 7-4 record in 1990 but departed after four years and a .250 winning percentage. Temple somehow found its way into the Big East’s football confederation, but the Owls didn’t win a league game until their fifth year of play. The only saving grace in the conference mess was the presence of Rutgers, which was – believe it or not – actually worse than Temple.
So, when I started to look at Ron Dickerson’s program, it wasn’t hard to forecast the results. A faculty member who served on the school’s athletic advisory committee showed me that attendance figures had been badly inflated. The team was recruiting talent that was better suited for the I-AA ranks. There were constant debates about why the team even fielded a football team, despite the school’s 100-plus year history of sponsoring the sport. The picture was bleak, and that’s how I portrayed it in the piece.
After the magazine had hit the stands, I received a call from Dickerson, a true gentleman but not necessarily a great head football coach and certainly not the man who should have been trying to rescue Temple.
“Mike,” he asked, “why did you do it?”
“I had to, Ron. I just told the truth.”
Dickerson sighed. “I guess you were just doing your job. I respect that. But you sure made things harder for me.”
We journalists are supposed to be a hard-boiled lot. Report the facts. Interpret the evidence. Draw conclusions, no matter how grim they might be. But Dickerson’s comments made me sad. Here was a good man trying to do an impossible job. After the ’97 season, he was gone, replaced by Bobby Wallace, who had achieved big things at North Alabama. Eight years later, he was gone, Temple was out of the Big East, and the program was on shaky ground. Roster numbers were down. The players who were in the fold were awful on the field and in the classrooms. The NCAA had docked Temple several scholarships, making it practically impossible for the Owls to field a competitive team. In Wallace’s last year, Temple surrendered 70 points to Bowling Green, 65 to Wisconsin and 63 to Arizona State. Five other rivals scored at least 38.
The history lesson is necessary to describe the situation facing Al Golden when he took over the team in late ’05. Even though the Owls were moving into the Mid-American Conference and would be facing a much more manageable slate, the idea that Temple could threaten .500, much less challenge for a league championship, was laughable. If you needed a fast, cheap punch line for a college football joke, you went to Temple. It was the only time the Owls could be counted on to deliver.
But Golden was a different coach. Not that Wallace or Berndt or Dickerson were incapable. They just didn’t understand how to make Temple a winner. Berndt had won at I-AA Penn, but that wasn’t analogous to the Owls’ situation. Winning in Division II is different than in the I-A ranks, as Wallace quickly found.
Instead of doing the same things, Golden put together a smart, successful plan. First, he cleaned up the academic mess. Players either went to class and did their work, or they were gone. Within two seasons, the Owls were regaining scholarships, and numbers were going up. So was the team’s collective GPA. He then set about creating a regional recruiting plan that focused on areas in all directions within a three-hour drive of the school’s campus. Assistants would pile up the mileage going to New York, Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and Virginia. And anybody in the Philadelphia area was pitched hard. To entice the nearby kids further, Temple started scheduling non-conference games against teams close by, like Army, Navy, Connecticut.
At first, progress was slow. Temple won just one game in 2006. But last year, the Owls went 5-7. Coaches around the MAC were taking notice of the progress. “They have the best talent in the league,” one said in last ’08. Last Saturday, that talent combined to produce the team’s sixth straight win, a 27-24 decision at Navy that made the Owls bowl eligible. There’s no guarantee Temple will play in a post-season game, because with four games remaining, there are ample opportunities for trouble. But the triumph showed just how far Temple had come under Golden. Instead of needing a late-season charge to reach 6-6, the Owls had hit the magic six-win mark on Halloween. Big things are possible, especially since the combined record of their next two opponents – Miami (OH) and Akron – is 2-15. Long-suffering (and these people have suffered) Temple fans are able to wear their colors proudly, safe from ridicule. It has been a long trip, and the Owls haven’t really arrived yet, because anything short of a bowl berth now would be just another disappointment. So, Golden and his team move on, happy to have accomplished what they have but looking for more.
This time, they might actually get it.
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GAME OF THE WEEK: Alabama at LSU, 3:30 p.m. (EST) CBS. Since their desultory loss to Florida, the Tigers have looked more ferocious, especially on offense. QB Jordan Jefferson appears more comfortable, particularly in the passing game. Meanwhile, the once invincible Tide seems somewhat vulnerable, thanks to its troubles moving the ball. If quarterback Greg McElroy doesn’t get it going, it won’t matter how many Heisman voters like RB Mark Ingram. LSU gets a boost from the home crowd, but that won’t mean much against the stingy Bama defense, which has allowed its last six rivals an average of 8.8 ppg. Alabama 23, LSU 14.
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BUMPS AND RUNS: Heisman voters who focus on the usual suspects and even Bama’s Ingram had better pay more attention to Houston QB Case Keenum, who has been consistently excellent all year. The junior has big numbers, to be sure, but his ability to lead the Cougars back from behind to victory (see wins over Texas Tech and Southern Mississippi) set him apart…If you’re looking for a possible successor to Florida State defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews, who announced his resignation Nov. 3, consider ECU defensive boss Greg Hudson, who has done a great job with the Pirate D and has a strong relationship with Seminoles’ coach-in-waiting Jimbo Fisher…It might seem like a done deal that Virginia’s Al Groh will be out after this year, particularly following the Cavs’ loss to Duke last weekend, but Groh’s buyout is $4.5 million (the last two years of his contract), and in this economic climate, that isn’t an easy check to write…Another coach on the hot seat, Illinois’ Ron Zook, has some cards left to play himself. He dropped the first last Saturday, beating Rich Rodriguez’s staggering Michigan outfit. More importantly, Zook’s contract runs through the 2013 season and is worth $1.5 million annually, or $6 million total. Finally, the resignations of the school chancellor and president, due to scandal, leave a leadership vacuum that might make it hard to pull the trigger on whacking the football coach.