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Game Week: Temple

Temple football doesn't get enough credit for being the success story that it is.

It's a testament to the Owls' success that the old days are largely forgotten. Temple was once college football's punchline. From 1930-2008, the Owls went to a grand total of two bowl games. There were appeals from faculty to drop the program. Coaches had to rely on junior college transfers in recruiting because nobody else wanted to go there. This is a team that was actually kicked out of the Big East for being so uninterested in football.

That feels like a long time ago, doesn't it? Today, Temple is in the most prosperous period in its history. They haven't had a losing season since 2013, and they've only had two in the last decade. They've gone to five straight bowl games and won a conference championship in 2016. They've built a reputation for toughness and solid defense in a conference best known for high-scoring offenses.

Most importantly, they've done it under five different head coaches. Well, six if you count Manny Diaz. Regardless, the ability to maintain that success shows that Temple was never about one guy leading the way. They've built themselves a program.

Temple’s change of fortune made their coaches a popular choice for big-money programs looking for leadership; every Temple coach since Al Golden has been plucked away by an ACC or Big 12 school. While nobody wants the “stepping stone” label, it’s a good thing when in-demand coaches feel confident that they can advance their careers with you. The latest up-and-comer to land in Philadelphia is former Northern Illinois head coach Rod Carey.

Carey is a departure from his predecessors in that he cut his teeth coaching offenses, while other Temple head coaches were known for their work on the other side of the ball. His NIU teams made waves with four wins over Big Ten opponents, including a 21-17 victory at Nebraska in 2017. What likely put Carey on Temple’s radar, though, was his success against his conference peers. The Huskies were 38-10 against the MAC with Carey at the helm, including two league championships and four division titles. It was more of the same in his first season with Temple; the Owls’ eight wins in 2019 included Maryland, Georgia Tech, and Memphis.

There is some reason to be concerned about the future, though. Carey’s overall record is superb, but there was a distinct downward trend over his NIU tenure. The Huskies went to the Orange Bowl in 2012 after a 12-1 regular season. Carey was the offensive coordinator of that 2012 team, and the Huskies were 13th in the nation in scoring (38.6 ppg) and 20th in total offense (469.6 ypg) that season. Maintaining that offensive identity was undoubtedly a primary reason why Carey got the head coaching job after Dave Doeren was hired away by NC State. However, that identity eroded over time. In 2013, NIU’s offense was even better, leading the MAC with an eye-popping 513.8 yards per game. However, by 2018, NIU’s offense was only tenth in the league at 322.3 ypg. They were 127th nationally in yards per play.

It would be unfair to judge Carey’s record against that once-in-a-lifetime 2012 season, especially considering that his team won the MAC in his final year at 8-6. However, the NIU offense's decline is still a concern if you’re considering the prospects for long-term success at Temple. Why did production fall off so drastically? Were Carey’s offensive coordinators, Bob Cole and Mike Uremovich, just not on the same page as the head coach? Considering that the latter now has the same job at Temple, that’s probably not the case.

If it’s not Xs & Os, then there’s a good chance it’s the Jimmies and Joes. Quarterback Jordan Lynch led NIU during their best seasons. Lynch was a statistical monster. In 2012, he became the first quarterback in NCAA history to reach 3,000 passing yards and 1,500 rushing yards in a season. In 2013, he finished third in Heisman Trophy voting after setting the NCAA single-season record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,920 (since broken, obviously). NIU was never able to replace that kind of production, not that replacing an all-time great should be expected. However, if you’re almost 200 ypg worse without it, you’ve got yourself a problem.

The downward trend of Carey’s offenses is important because there is a good chance that Temple will need to reverse that trend if they want to maintain their winning ways in 2020. The Owls were typically stout on defense in 2019, averaging 377.8 ypg and finishing second in the league (and 22nd nationally) at 4.93 yards per play. However, that defense returns only four starters, with the biggest loss being defensive end Quincy Roche, last season’s Defensive Player of the Year in the American. If the unproven pieces in the Temple defense aren’t able to match the 2019 squad's performance, it’ll be up to the offense to pick up the slack.

Fortunately for the Owls, the offense appears up to the task. Temple was only eighth in the conference in total offense last season, but the unit returns eight starters, including all the top skill position players. Quarterback Anthony Russo is a three-year starter who threw for 2,861 yards and 21 TDs last year. He wasn’t the most consistent passer, completing less than 60 percent of his throws and giving up 12 interceptions. However, the returning talent around him should make things a little easier in his senior season. Running back Re’Mahn Davis ran for 936 yards in his freshman campaign. Wide receiver Jadan Blue had 95 catches for 1,067 yards (both school records) and adds some zip on kick returns. Fellow receiver Branden Mack is a matchup nightmare at 6’5” and added 904 yards of his own. There are questions along the offensive line, but Uremovich has a very good reputation as an OL coach. Navy’s defense will have its hands full.

What the Mids will face on offense is a little harder to figure. Neither Carey nor defensive coordinator Jeff Knowles has much experience against option teams. There is one coach on the staff that does, though. Brett Diersen is Temple’s outside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator. He coached with Carey at Northern Illinois, but he also faced Navy in stints as the defensive line coach at Florida Atlantic in 2012 and SMU in 2018. Looking at those two games is probably the best guess for what we’ll see tomorrow.

FAU, you might recall, lined up in a variation of the old Bears 46 defense. In that look, you’d normally bring a safety up to the line of scrimmage as a hybrid linebacker. Instead, FAU left the safety at linebacker depth, creating something that could almost be described as a 5-3-3 look. This allowed the FAU defense to bring two safeties in run support on every play. The playside slotback could only block one of them, leaving the other safety free to make the tackle. FAU was able to bring more defenders to the outside than Navy could block.

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This also allowed the defense to employ a few different stunts, such as this one where #1 gives the quarterback a “give” read, but the safety plays the fullback. Because the tackle releases outside the DE, he can’t block the DB stunting inside.

Coach Jasper eventually settled on a couple of different plays to get the Navy offense going, with the most effective being the outside zone. Outside zone plays work well here because they’re designed to allow multiple linemen to get to the second and third levels to make their blocks. That negated the advantage the defense had with the extra DB outside. The Mids ran their first outside zone play on their fourth drive, and it went for 48 yards. Coach Jasper caught the OLB on an inside stunt, which took him out of the play when Keenan ran outside:

That wasn’t the only adjustment that Jasper made, but it was the most effective. They also ran a lot of midline and midline triple.

SMU, on the other hand, was a little more conventional when they faced Navy in 2018. The Mustangs made heavy use of the squeeze and scrape, with the defensive end squeezing the playside tackle to allow the middle linebacker to make his way outside. The focus of the offense, then, was dealing with that linebacker, and they did so in two ways. The first was by attacking the middle of the field; if the MLB was scraping outside, that meant the middle was abandoned. The primary means of attacking the middle of the field was with the inside zone.

The second way that Navy dealt with the middle linebacker is with misdirection, and their most successful misdirection play was the counter option.

This combination of inside running and misdirection dictated Jasper's playcalling for most of the game, and when the Mids weren’t shooting themselves in the foot, it worked.

I’m not confident that Temple’s defense will emulate either of these schemes, but if I had to guess which one is more likely, I’d say SMU’s. Temple’s base 4-3 defense aligns better with what the Mustangs did. The Owls are also strong up the middle, with both of last year’s starting defensive tackles coming back this season. They may feel that they are stout enough inside to limit the fullback and make the Mids more one-dimensional. Then again, these are just guesses; if Temple cooks up something different, the Mids will have to adjust on the fly.

Regardless of how anyone lines up, there are a few wild cards in this game as well. For Navy, there is the obvious question of how well the team will execute. Outside of the second half of the Tulane game, the Mids have looked sloppy on both sides of the ball. Can they improve? They also have several players on defense whose status is unclear after suffering injuries last week. Stopping an experienced Temple offense becomes a lot harder if your own experienced players aren’t on the field.

Temple has a few concerns of their own. Much has been made of Navy’s preseason practice, but the Owls’ practice situation was also less than ideal. Temple hasn’t scrimmaged as much as they normally would, and early practices were limited to small group workouts because of the city of Philadelphia’s COVID-19 guidelines. Several players have missed time due to contact tracing quarantines. The game is being played tomorrow because the Owls wouldn’t have been ready on the originally scheduled 9/26 date. They’ve reportedly made the most of the delay, though, and Carey has stated that the last few weeks of practice have been fairly normal. Until they take the field, though, there’s no way to tell if there will be any hangover from the early hiccups.

Navy is eager to put the past behind them. Temple is eager to get started. It should make for a spirited matchup.

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