Q&A With Temple Football Forever

Back in the grand old days when blogspot sports blogs roamed the earth Bull Run started up and there were already a few established MAC sites out there. Among them was Temple Football Forever.

Run by Mike Gibson it has been around, well, forever. Since the days when temple even having an FBS football program was in question. The Big East kicked them out and they were a doormat in the MAC.

Patience paid off as the owls climbed to an average MAC team and then parlayed the Big East fire sale into an invite into what would become the American Athletic Conference. They are now a very solid team year over year.

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BR - New coach, solid start, is there anything in Temple land right now that seems concerning to you?

TFF - Dr. Pat Kraft, the AD, seems to get it with hitting a home run on this hire. The day after Temple hired Manny Diaz, I wrote it was the wrong hire because the guy’s dad was the Mayor of Miami and he’d be back there in a year. I didn’t figure on 17 days. That day, I also wrote that Temple would be better off with a guy who has done it before as a HC. Diaz left and Kraft listened. What concerns me is that the school is being held hostage on its already BOT approved plans to build a 35K stadium on campus by no more than 20 neighbors and the BOT doesn’t seem to have the stomach to fight them or Philadelphia city council.

2 - Buffalo has really suffered against the passing game, how does Temple fare in that area of the game.

TFF - I covered Matt Ryan (Penn Charter, Boston College, Falcons) and another NFL MVP (RIch Gannon, St. Joe Prep, Delaware, Oakland Raiders) and the current Temple quarterback (Anthony Russo, Archbishop Wood, Temple, ???) and there is no doubt in my mind at the high school level the state champion (and Elite 11 quarterback) Russo was the best of the three. Whether that translates to the NFL is yet to be seen but at Temple he’s got a very talented and productive group in Isaiah Wright (a Sporting News first-team All-American last year as a returner), 6-foot-5 Branden Mack and a 4.4 sprinter on the outside in Jadan Blue so the passing game is in good hands.

3 - UB’s primary offense at this point seems to be the running game, have you seen anything this season with Temple that give you some concern about this weeks matching?

TFF - Temple’s defensive line seems to get penetration and all three linebackers are single-digit tough guys and they have a better run defense scheme than Geoff Collins did so no.

4 - Temple has already had a couple of nice wins on the year, where do you see their biggest challenge coming from on the remaining schedule.

TFF - UCF at home. I think Maryland will prove to be better Cincy and Memphis, not quite as good as UCF.

5 - Predictions?

TFF - This week. I think the game will be similar to Penn State where Buffalo hangs at halftime but Temple pulls away at the half. I don’t think it will 45-13 pulling away but more like 34-17.

If you pop over to TFF you can see my responses to Mike