2021 G5 Preview: Temple Can't Be Much Worse
I don't think the Owls were quite as bad as their 1-6 record in 2020, but I'm not sold that they can live up to 2019's 8-5, either.
ICYMI: This is a part of The Outside Zone’s full 2021 G5 preview series, which last looked at Miami (Ohio). You can find a master list for all of the previews here.
Generally speaking, I’m not a huge fan of the “hiring the opposite of your last coach” approach that plenty of college football programs take when looking to replace a departed coach. Nebraska famously did it with Mike Riley after firing Bo Pelini, but it happens all over the place, usually when the previous coach leaves in disastrous fashion for the program in question.
Temple’s situation isn’t quite like that, given that it wasn’t a coach leaving that led it to hire Rod Carey back in 2019 - it was the failed hire of then-Miami defensive coordinator Manny Diaz. For those of you that don’t remember, Diaz was hired to replace Geoff Collins at Temple when Collins left for Georgia Tech, but went back on his commitment when Mark Richt retired and the Miami job opened up. Temple scrambled and landed Carey, partially because he had been fairly consistent at NIU and partially because the Owls had just seen Al Golden, Steve Addazio, Matt Rhule and Collins depart for bigger jobs - four coaches in nine years - making the Diaz departure the final straw, of sorts.
So, it went out and got a coach that won’t leave. Unfortunately, that means that it also got a coach without the ability or talent to generate interest from bigger jobs, which happens to be why he stuck around at NIU for so long, despite it being one of the best programs in the MAC when he took over.
I don’t say all this to indicate that Carey is a bad coach. I don’t think he is. He won pretty consistently at NIU, seems to know how to hire a good staff and doesn’t do anything terribly egregious in his actual on-field coaching. He’s limited by very poor recruiting and a lack of creativity in his ideology, but as I said, he isn’t outwardly bad or anything like that, I just think that his ceiling is capped at 8-5 when running a program that he actually built.
In theory, though, his ceiling isn’t the appeal. The idea behind Carey is that he can raise the floor of a program by establishing a solid culture of development and building up that strong staff, even without elite recruiting relative to his conference. His worst season with NIU was a 5-7 campaign in 2016, but the Huskies made a bowl game in every other season that he was there, winning eight games in three of his last four seasons after starting his tenure out strong with Dave Doeren’s players. Generally speaking, Carey won’t be great, but he won’t be terrible either, and Temple seemed to hope that he could help to build out that baseline of “pretty good” so that the next coach would’t be so tempted to jump, in fear of the floor falling out from under him and closing that “bigger job” window.
Of course, when you make a hire thinking like that, the stable pick immediately (well, in year two) goes 1-6 and loses almost 20 players to the draft, graduation or the transfer portal. Whoops!
That loses some context, obviously, but the bright, neon “1-6” sign hanging above this program right now is hard to ignore. Temple was really, really bad last year - probably not truly 1-6 bad but still bad - and that’s a pretty serious problem with the coach known for not being able to recruit at an especially high level. It returns a decent chunk of players to the 2021 team, including some that opted out in 2020 and a huge transfer class, but Temple just doesn’t seem to be in a great spot right now. There are spots of hope and some high potential players, but this looks a lot like a Carey NIU roster, just transplanted into the much more talented AAC.
The high potential players start and maybe peak at the biggest battle on the roster, in the quarterback room. Anthony Russo, last year’s starter, has transferred to Michigan State, leaving a pretty big gap to be filled by either Iowa State transfer Re-al Mitchell, who played a bit at the end of the 2020 season and looked bad or Georgia transfer Dwan Mathis. Russo doesn’t leave huge shoes to fill, but I’m not especially sold on either of these options. My guess is that Mathis will get the nod, because Mitchell’s advantage (knowing the offense) isn’t especially crucial in an offense that has about five plays worth knowing. Mathis is a better athlete and a more gifted passer, and I think that in the long run, he’ll be a valuable piece for this offense, though probably not in year one, given what he did with the Bulldogs in 2020 (see: not much).
Mathis’ ability as a runner is intriguing here, not because of what he’ll be able to do individually but because of what that ability does for the rest of the offense. I’ve written at length before about the value of equating numbers with the quarterback running game, which seems to be Temple’s approach this season with Mathis.
The new quarterback will have a decent receiving corps to throw to, though the loss of Branden Mack hurts the group. Jadan Blue and speedster Randle Jones both return, and Purdue transfer Amad Anderson is set to join the fold as well to make a pretty solid trio of potential options. There’s some young talent here as well, but I’d expect that top three to see the vast majority of the targets, with Blue serving as the point man on RPOs (Temple throws a lot of glance RPOs like the one seen above and will continue that this season as well), Jones as a screen specialist and Anderson as a tweener.
I think that Jones is my favorite of the bunch, primarily because he can do this, and this is a big chunk of the Uremovich offense.
The running game is a bit tricky to project, because it’s going to look almost completely different from what it showed last season. Illinois transfer Ra’Von Bonner projects as the starter with contributions from Florida transfer Iverson Clement, neither of whom suited up for the Owls last year. I would expect a lot of inside zone with quarterback read sells to help out the line, though I do think that running blocking won’t be much of a concern here. If Temple is going to get going on offense in 2021, this is going to be the piece that does it.
I have less hope about the defense, which, like the offense, is going to lean pretty heavily on transfers. The cornerback room should be sparse, in theory, because Kimere Brown, Christian Braswell and Linwood Crump are all gone. Brown only played in three games in 2020, but the latter two were crucial and both hit the transfer portal.
However, Temple added Northwestern transfer Cameron Ruiz and UConn transfer Keyshawn Paul, so I’m really not all that worried about it, I think those two can slot into the starting roles pretty easily. Ty Mason, Freddie Johnson and Elijah Clark are back too to fill out the secondary, with Jalen Ware leading a pretty strong safety group, joined by West Virginia transfer Kwantel Raines, who will debut this season.
I will note, briefly, that this wasn’t a well-coached group last season. They struggled athletically to keep up in man coverage, but didn’t seem to understand assignments when they switched to zone. My guess is that they’ll shift back into man a little more this season to avoid plays like this one, but if not, this has to get cleaned up.
The front seven is… a concern. Tackles Dan Archibong, Ifeanyi Maiheg and Khris Banks and defensive end Arnold Ebiketie are all gone, as is linebacker Isaiah Graham-Mobley. Linebackers William Kwenkeu, Jordan Magee and Audley Isaacs return, as does tackle Kevin Robertson, but this group was bad last year and didn’t get much better this offseason, at least not on paper. I like North Carolina transfers Lancine Turay and Zach Gill and Washington State transfer Will Rodgers up front, and I think they’ll help bolster the group, but I’m concerned about pass rush and linebacker play. This secondary isn’t good enough to survive without a good pass rush, and I think that walked out the door with Ebiketie. Temple could generate some pressure with designed blitz packages, but made way too many mistakes in those situations last season.
In total, I do think that Temple improves from last season, but not necessarily as a reflection of improvement in the program, and more because that 1-6 record probably wasn’t representative of the true ability on the roster, due to any number of factors, starting with injuries and continuing through weird, COVID-related issues. The offense has decent potential because of its returning linemen and skill players, but I fear that either pick at QB will hold it back this season (but Mathis will be good down the road). The defense lacks the elite playmakers needed to return to Rhule or even Collins levels, but should be improved in run defense and within the secondary, though I think those improvements are marginal. This probably isn’t a bowl contender, but it won’t be at the bottom of the AAC, either.