GAME WEEK: TEMPLE

This isn’t how things were supposed to be this year for the Temple Owls.

As Temple followers see things, they have all the pieces they need for a football renaissance falling into place. No longer do the Owls languish in the Big East, nor do they fight the uncertainty of being independent. No, Temple football is in its second season as a member of the MAC, a conference that they feel gives them a better chance to win. And why not? The competition isn’t as difficult as what they faced in the Big East. Philadelphia offers a big-city experience that’s unique in the conference. The team plays at Lincoln Financial Field, a facility that is not on campus, but is still the finest in the MAC. They have advantages now. To maximize these recruiting advantages, Temple went out and hired a young, energetic head coach in Virginia defensive coordinator Al Golden.

Depending on how much stock you put into recruiting rankings, Golden’s efforts on the recruiting trail have paid off. This is his third campaign with Temple, and after two years of bringing in some of the MAC’s most impressive (supposedly) recruiting classes, this is when it was all supposed to start paying off. Temple was 1-11 in their last year as an independent, but last year’s team went 4-4 in the MAC. Twenty-one starters return from that team, and the roster includes 26 juniors and 20 seniors. The time to realize their great potential has arrived!!!

DiMichele

…or not. Things haven’t turned out quite as expected. After going on the road and beating Army to start the season, Temple lost four straight. Now sitting at 3-5, the Owls have little room for error if they want to fight their way back to at least .500. How did it come to this? Having the country’s 118th-ranked offense sure doesn’t help. The Owls average only 251 yards per game of total offense. They have failed to gain 200 total yards in three games this year. Part of Temple’s offensive misery can be attributed to the loss of starting quarterback Adam DiMichele. After missing the last 5 games of 2007 due to injury, the hard-luck story for DiMichele has spilled into 2008. DiMichele had one of the finest performances of his career against Buffalo, throwing for 285 yards and 3 touchdowns while adding another 51 yards on the ground. But the senior didn’t have a chance to follow up that performance; on the first series of Temple’s next game, DiMichele was sacked by Penn State DE Aaron Maybin and suffered a shoulder injury that sidelined him for the next three weeks. Redshirt freshman Chester Stewart struggled to replace him, throwing seven interceptions in four games.

But let’s not deify DiMichele; Temple hasn’t exactly set the world on fire when he’s started, either. Despite having senior leaders in DiMichele and wide receiver Bruce Francis, the Owls can’t move the ball. The revolving door at running back seems to have stopped on freshman Kee-ayre Griffin, who has taken the bulk of the team’s carries over the last three weeks. Griffin had 22 carries for 85 yards and a TD last week against Ohio; easily the best rushing performance for any Temple RB this year, which should tell you something. The offensive line is anchored by as good a center as Navy will see this season, Alex Derenthal. The rest of the line hasn’t played as well. The Owls start two freshmen and a sophomore up front, and while they are definitely huge– Derenthal is the smallest starter at 298 pounds– they haven’t created many holes to run through. They also give up more than two and a half sacks per game. After a dominant performance last week, Nate, Matt, and Jabaree look like they’ll have some favorable matchups again tomorrow.

Even though Temple’s offense has been terrible, they still have a lot to play for. The best teams in the MAC– Ball State, Central Michigan, a rebounding Northern Illinois, and Western Michigan– are all in the West Division. At 2-3, Temple is still right in the thick of things in the East, trailing division-leading Akron by one game in the loss column. A berth in the MAC title game is still a very realistic goal. If Temple gets there, it’ll be on the back of its defense and special teams. The Owls’ scoring defense is ranked in the top 25 nationally, allowing only 18 points per game. Temple leads the country with 29 yards per kickoff return, and ran one back for a touchdown in the season opener against Army. How good are these units? As bad as their offense has been, the amazing thing is that Temple could easily be 5-3 right now. Buffalo needed a hail mary as time expired to steal a 30-28 win over the Owls. Temple took UConn to overtime, losing 12-9 in a game with questionable officiating that was played in a monsoon. At 3-5, people think “same ol’ Temple.” If they were 5-3, perceptions about this team and this defense would be completely different, and Temple football would be hailed as a cinderella story. What a difference two plays makes.

Temple’s defense is good, but if you asked me if they were better than, say, Wake Forest’s, the answer would be no. However, they did do some interesting things against Navy last year.

Determining who the quarterback reads in the triple option isn’t rocket science. If you & I can figure it out, don’t you think that defensive coaches can? And knowing that, shouldn’t they be able to find a way to confuse the quarterback? Well, they do. On a triple option play, the quarterback’s give key is the first player on the line of scrimmage lined up over or outside the B gap; usually a defensive end. The quarterback’s pitch key is the first player lined up either outside the give key, or within 5 yards behind him; usually a linebacker. Since they’re keys for the quarterback to read, both players go unblocked. So what if a defensive coordinator, knowing that both players wouldn’t be blocked, decided to switch things up? What if he sent the linebacker in to take the fullback, and had the defensive end take the quarterback? That’s called a cross charge, and it’s how Al Golden approached the option last year:

Both the playside and middle linebackers are focused on the fullback. The playside tackle’s assignment is the middle linebacker. If the MLB bites on the dive, then the tackle moves on to the next level to block a safety. The defensive end steps out and plays the quarterback. Kaipo reads the DE and pitches to Shun, who rolls for a 20-yard gain. If you’re thinking to yourself that there’s no way a defensive end would be fast enough to cover Kaipo or an A-back, you’re right. Shun averaged 15 yards per carry and led the team with 122 yards. Kaipo added 102 yards and a touchdown. The Mids ran for 361 yards, 268 of them coming from the quarterback and the slotbacks. With the change of assignments, the cross-charge is one of the more difficult reads for the quarterback to make. It’s what Ball State used to stop Jarod Bryant earlier this year. There’s no guarantee that Temple will do the same thing this year, but if they do then it’s a good time for Kaipo to come back to the starting lineup.

(Maybe the interesting thing is not that Temple used the cross charge, but that they never adjusted away from it.)

One thing about the cross charge is that the defensive end had better be disciplined. It’s hard to go unblocked and not charge into the mesh or take the fullback. But when he does that:

With nobody to take the quarterback, Kaipo runs free. It’s almost exactly like Kaipo’s long run in the Air Force game later in the season.

On what has to be the earlist Senior Day in years, everyone is eagerly anticipating Kaipo’s return. Can he run at full speed? Will he be in good enough shape to finish the game? Who knows. But it’s nice to have the team finally back at something reasonably close to full strength for the first time since the beginning of the Wake Forest game. We’re still waiting to see what they’re capable of.

WTF REDUX

Dammit, now I’m mad. I’m going to be “that grad,” and I don’t want to be. But you’ve forced my hand, David Ausiello. This isn’t exactly the most critical issue in the world, but now I’ve gotta say something.

So I assume everyone’s seen Dave’s piece on “Team Awesome” by now. If not, you can read it here. Go ahead and read that first.

OK, now that you’re back we’ll get down to business. Dave saw my earlier comments about the new Navy version of “Section 8″ and shot me a note saying, “I thought you would like these folks!” I know where he’s coming from. You see, when Dave and I were at the Naval Academy, people who actually cheered for Navy were looked down upon. Fanatics like Dave and I were borderline outcasts. It was pretty sad. I mean, we lived with these guys, we went to class with these guys, we went through the same crap as these guys… But cheering them on? No, that’s not what the cool kids did. So the fact that there are now superfans there warms the heart a little. It was unheard of 10 years ago. But despite my personal history, I just can’t get on board with Navy’s “Blue and Gold Section.” So why?

We’ll start with the genesis of this nonsense. What do you think of when you think of the Air Force Academy? You think of all things fake and contrived, of course. While Army and Navy have mascots born from tradition, Air Force has a mascot deemed most suitable by a focus group. While Army and Navy share the nation’s greatest rivalry, Air Force invented a trophy to create an artificial sensation of rivalry for themselves. And so when the Air Force Academy created “Section 8,” an assembly of cadets intended to act as a forced, imitation student section that you’d find at most normal schools, was anyone surprised? Of course not. Phony is what Air Force does best! So imagine my dismay two weeks ago when I observed the Naval Academy imitating Air Force’s imitation of other school’s student sections. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but after seeing them a second time during the SMU game, it was pretty obvious. Dave’s article confirmed it, complete with a quote from a mid from this group that stole Air Force’s idea… Making fun of Army for stealing one of Navy’s ideas. Oh the irony.

So apparently there’s a bunch of firsties called “Team Awesome” that gets to hand-pick boisterous mids to join this “Blue and Gold section.” These people are plucked from the Brigade, dressed in whatever wacky Navy stuff they have, and put in their own separate group to go crazy. Once upon a time it was the plebe class that served the role of spirit leaders, but apparently that job has now found its way to this group instead. You might be able to tell that I’m not too fond of the concept.

How does it make sense to segregate the mids who actually cheer from the rest of the Brigade? And how does it help to take them out of uniform? Don’t get me wrong– I was never anything close to a model midshipman, and I am as far from HARDCORE HOOYAH JOE NAVY YUT as you can get. But I do appreciate what makes the Naval Academy unique, and I don’t understand why anyone would want to chip into that to make USNA more like any other school. All you do by separating these people is make the Brigade look dead. Maybe I’m the only person that watches films of old games and gets all misty-eyed seeing the Brigade as a whole go nuts for the team. It’s so uniquely Navy. Wearing crazy clothes and trying to get on TV? Dime a dozen.

Color me unimpressed about a bunch of OMG SUPERFANS at a game that they’re required to go to anyway. If they want to make a difference, they should show up for a team that could REALLY use them– like basketball.

WEDNESDAY OPEN THREAD

Because you know there’s something you want to talk about.

TUESDAY POLL: ARMY-NAVY MOVE

Well, it looks like you guys like your Fieldturf. After Saturday, we can all see why.

This week, it’s simple. Army-Navy is being moved to the second weekend of December. What say you?

NAVY 34, SMU 7

Ricky Dobbs stepped up in relief of an injured Jarod Bryant and ran for 224 (!) yards on 42 (!) carries on Saturday as Navy topped SMU, 34-7. Jarod Bryant ran for 50 yards before leaving the game with a shoulder injury. SMU was held to 157 passing yards and -13 yards on the ground.

Conventional wisdom says that Navy doesn’t get the country’s most coveted recruits. But on Saturday, one 5-star recruit– THE HAND OF ALMIGHTY GOD– played his finest game of the season. The weather was Navy’s best weapon on defense, especially the wind. SMU’s biggest threat– the deep ball– was made virtually impossible to execute thanks to 30-35 mph gusts that kept the flags at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium taut and TV cameras shaking. To give you an idea of how big of an effect this had on SMU’s offense, think of Navy’s struggles earlier in the season. When Kaipo went out, Jarod Bryant struggled running the triple option. Without the ability to capitalize on all three options, Navy’s offense wasn’t effective. The same is true in the run & shoot. A receiver runs deep on almost every play, but if the quarterback’s key told him to throw deep, he wasn’t able to take advantage. That meant a lot of short-yardage, pre-determined routes; plays that aren’t the real run & shoot and take SMU’s offense out of its element.

Deep passes weren’t the only thing affected by the wind, either; Bo Levi Mitchell’s shorter throws were also getting knocked down. SMU’s punts were even worse. The Mustangs won the coin toss and decided to take the ball to start the game; they probably should have chosen to defer. Navy made them drive into the wind, and after the Mustangs couldn’t get those drives going, their punts went nowhere and gave Navy fantastic field position for its first three drives. Navy took a 20-0 lead in the first quarter on touchdown drives that had an average starting position of the SMU 39 yard line. The game was over by the second quarter.

While the wind was Navy’s MVP, it was still a team effort. It isn’t as if teams haven’t been able to nickel and dime themselves down the field against the Mids in the past. Buddy Green decided to rely on a 3-man rush for most of the game, dropping 8 into coverage. This hasn’t worked too well for Navy in the past, as opposing quarterbacks had all day to find an open receiver. That wasn’t the case on Saturday. Nate Frazier, Jabaree Tuani, and Matt Nechak controlled the line of scrimmage. They didn’t get immediate pressure on Mitchell, but they closed the pocket quickly enough that the freshman quarterback wasn’t able to camp out and wait for someone to get open. To me the most impressive part of the line’s performance was their ability to make plays all over the field. Nechak had the hit of the game, running outside to plant the wide receiver on a screen play. Nate Frazier got his sack by chasing down Mitchell from behind. Tuani might have had the most impressive play, coming in on a pass rush, then turning around and making a tackle on the wide receiver downfield and stopping him on third down. It was a good performance from a group that needed to rebound after the Pitt game.

But let’s be real here; the weather might have been the biggest factor in the game, but the biggest story is Navy’s ongoing quarterback soap opera. Poor Jarod Bryant just can’t catch a break. After struggling over the first half of the season, he seemingly put it together against Pitt, only to see the team around him get manhandled. This week he picked up right where he left off and moved the ball fairly easily against a bad SMU defense. But apparently Jarod had reached his good vibes quota for the week, and a couple of awkward falls onto his shoulder led to him being knocked out of the game. (WHY CAN’T I ENJOY A BLOWOUT FOR ONCE???) In stepped Ricky Dobbs, who runs like Brian Hampton and apparently prefers not to pitch the ball, like Brian Madden. Dobbs ran like a tank, bulldozing his way to 224 yards and 4 touchdowns. But it’s hard to really get a feel for how well he did because SMU’s defense was really, really bad.

To get an idea of how bad, let’s look at Ricky’s longest run of the day, a 38-yard stampede in the second quarter. SMU had brought a safety up to the line of scrimmage who would end up covering the playside slotback and getting run out of the play. Ricky’s pitch key was the linebacker lined up over the B-gap. He showed a pitch read, but the cornerback had blitzed to cover the pitch man:

This play should have been blown up by the defense. Against Pitt, it would have been. But Ricky just sidestepped the linebacker and ran upfield. You could say it was a good move on Ricky’s part, and it was. Ricky also deserves credit for seeing the blitz and not pitching the ball. But better linebackers aren’t going to miss those tackles the way SMU’s were.

One dimension that Ricky brought to the game was that he was essentially a second fullback. Ricky’s hard running inside made things easier on the offensive line. A lot of times you’ll hear about the importance of “establishing the fullback” from media and coaches alike. Being an astute fan, you might find that odd since in a triple option, you take what the defense gives you. But even when it looks like the option is working well outside, you still see the coaches call a couple of designed handoffs to the B-back. The reason is because it makes linebackers easier to block. Last week against Pitt, we saw how the middle linebacker ignored the dive and ran to the quarterback on the triple option. The Mids just couldn’t get enough of a push inside to force Pitt’s defense to respect the dive play. This week, Eric Kettani became a lead blocker for Ricky Dobbs, who attacked the middle of the field. The success they were having meant that the linebackers had to respect that play, and it kept them from running outside on the snap. That hesitation made it easier for the tackle to make the block:

There’s another play that might not have worked the way Pitt was playing, but was a nice little 5-yard gain against SMU. The linebacker went to meet the fullback, but wound up getting blocked by the tackle.

One thing you’ll notice is that both of those plays are triple option plays. That’s a good sign.

At this point we could have three healthy quarterbacks for Temple, or we could be starting our third string. If Ricky has to start, it’s good to have seen him run some of the offense. And we didn’t even use his biggest strength– his arm. Now we wait.

Postgame Haiku, Vol. 14

I’d like to enjoy
a win without worrying
about injuries.

WTF

OK, I saw it last week but wasn’t sure if it was a one game thing or what. But it looks like we have some stupid “Section 8″ thing in the crowd like Air Force. Someone needs to be fired.

GAME WEEK: SMU

How awkward would this week be if SMU had hired Paul Johnson?

Hey, it could’ve happened. SMU athletic director Steve Orsini was an associate AD at the Naval Academy during Paul Johnson’s first stint in Annapolis. When it came time for him to hire a coach himself, he knew what he was looking for. Orsini flew Johnson to Dallas to take the grand tour of SMU’s new facilities, hoping to show the ambitious Navy coach just how serious he was about turning the long-suffering Mustang program into a winner. The salary that the SMU AD was allegedly offering was also a statement of how serious he was about winning football games. But Orsini couldn’t offer the one thing that Johnson wanted– the BCS. In the end, Johnson went to Georgia Tech, and Orsini moved on to plan B.

And he had one hell of an impressive plan B. Orsini was ridiculed by fans and the media for the length of the SMU coaching search, but he knew what he was doing. Little did everyone else know that the search was taking so long because Orsini’s choice was playing in a BCS game himself. New facilities and a demonstrated commitment to winning might not have been enough to lure Paul Johnson, but it was exactly what one other top coach was missing. Seventy-one days after firing Phil Bennett, Orsini hired Hawaii coach June Jones to take over the SMU program.

Those of you who have known me for a while know that I love June Jones. I began following him when he became interim head coach of the Chargers following the firing of Kevin Gillbride in 1998. At the end of that season, Jones decided to leave the NFL and take the head coaching job at Hawaii, where he inherited a team that went 0-12 under Fred vonAppen in 1998. That just set him up for one of the great turnarounds in college football history. Jones took that winless team to a 9-4 record in 1999, including a share of the WAC championship and a win over Oregon State in the Oahu Bowl. It was Hawaii’s first conference championship and bowl game since a certain former Navy head coach led the Rainbow offense to a Holiday Bowl win in 1992. And that’s no coincidence.

While perhaps not apparent on the surface, there are a lot of parallels between coaching at Hawaii and coaching at the Naval Academy. Both have unique challenges that make winning difficult. Hawaii doesn’t have the academic and military hurdles to jump, obviously, but they have their own obstacles. Money is tight out at Division I’s most isolated outpost thanks to travel costs associated with sending 18 varsity sports to competitions on the mainland. Jones’ recruiting budget was restrictive, and parents aren’t always eager to send their kids to school thousands of miles away. Hawaii’s facilities were so bad that Colt Brennan once went to the media to complain about the lack of soap in the football locker room. Under these conditions, Jones’ 76-41 record, with two conference titles, three 10+ win seasons, 6 bowl games, and a BCS berth, is absolutely astounding. Like we’ve said before, the way to win under adverse conditions is to do things differently than everyone else; if two teams line up against each other doing the same thing, the one with the better talent is going to win every time. Hawaii won under Bob Wagner using Paul Johnson’s spread option offense. Under Jones, the “something different” was another offense: the run & shoot.

Jones learned the offense while playing quarterback for Mouse Davis at Portland State, and he has been its champion at the Division I level. The run & shoot is frequently labeled by fans and the media as a “gimmick” offense, but that’s only true if you think that innovation and smart football is “gimmicky.” The basic concepts of the run & shoot are in fact very similar to Navy’s offenses under Paul Johnson and Ivin Jasper. Navy’s quarterbacks read individual defensive players as their keys for determining who gets the ball when running option plays. Run & shoot quarterbacks do the exact same thing, only their keys tell them where to throw the ball. In fact, there is an added layer of complexity in the run & shoot, since the wide receivers also need to read and react to the same keys as the quarterback to determine what route to run after the snap. It can be complicated, but also extremely effective; just as Navy sits among the top rushing teams each year, Hawaii was consistently a top 5 passing team under Jones. And that isn’t where the similarity ends.

One thing that makes me cringe a little bit is when Paul Johnson’s offense, or its base spread formation, is called the “flexbone.” It isn’t. ”Flexbone” has a specific connotation as a variation of the wishbone. It’s true that when you “break the bone,” sometimes that means lining up in formations like Navy’s base spread:

But when Tiger Ellison created the run & shoot offense 40 years ago, he ran it out of this same spread formation. I doubt anyone called it the “flexbone” back then as they watched Ellison’s Middletown High School teams throw the ball all over the place. Ellison simply called it the “double slot.” And it was a visit paid to run & shoot guru Mouse Davis during Johnson’s first tour at Georgia Southern that led him to the double slot formation. Johnson took those run & shoot concepts and mixed in the inside/outside veer principles he knew from coaching high school. And blammo! Magic. It’s backwards to call this the “flexbone;” Johnson didn’t take the wishbone and “break the bone,” he took the run & shoot formations he learned from Davis and mixed in what he knew of the wishbone. (If you want to see a true “flexbone,” that’s what Army is running now). You could say that the run & shoot and Paul Johnson’s spread option are family.

Nobody relates to you like family, and Navy fans can appreciate what SMU is going through this year. SMU in 2008 is very similar to Navy in 2002. They rack up plenty of yards, but plenty of turnovers, too, and not much defense. It’s no surprise. A first-year quarterback in Navy’s system would have a hard time learning to make the right reads, and it’s no different in the run & shoot. Perhaps knowing that any quarterback would probably struggle is what led Jones to ruffle some feathers and choose a freshman, Bo Levi Mitchell, as his starting quarterback. Mitchell has some admirable numbers; he’s 11th in the country with nearly 285 passing yards per game, and he’s thrown for 21 touchdowns. But he’s also thrown a whopping 18 interceptions; more than two per game, and the most in the country. Despite the tough times with his freshman quarterback, June Jones never seems to get too angry with him on the sideline. He’s always calm, and uses every series as an opportunity to teach his young signal-caller the finer points of the offense. There have been signs lately that maybe the offense is coming around. After back-to-back losses to Texas Tech and TCU in which SMU only scored 7 points in each game, the Mustangs looked headed for a repeat performance against Tulane, trailing 31-7 at the half. But the offense came back in the second half, scoring on its first three posessions and leading the team on a comeback that fell just short at 34-27. Two weeks ago, undefeated Tulsa trailed SMU 31-24 going into the 4th quarter before scoring 13 straight to end the game with a 37-31 win. Mitchell threw for 318 yards, 4 TDs, and only one INT. Last week against Houston, the Mustangs blew a 35-23 4th quarter lead in a 44-38 loss. Mitchell had 365 yards and 4 TDs in that game. The offense is coming around, and is looking for that one breakthrough game.

This is going to put pressure on the Navy offense to score, something I’m a lot more confident about after Jarod Bryant’s performance last week. While it’s true that the rest of the offense looked bad, the defense they lined up against had a lot to do with that. SMU’s defense, to put it mildly, isn’t Pitt. The Mustangs are 109th in rushing defense 116th in scoring defense so far this year. If Jarod plays the way he played last week, Navy will score. That leaves it up to the defense, who will certainly give up some points, but also have the opportunity to make some big plays. SMU gives up more than two sacks per game, which is good news for Nate Frazier and Jabaree Tuani. They will force Mitchell to hurry some throws and hopefully stop a couple drives. If they don’t, it will be a long afternoon for the linebackers and the secondary.

The weather is supposed to be bad this weekend. Rain would be a bigger deal if NMCMS was still a grass surface, but with Fieldturf to run on, it probably won’t be much of a factor. The wind might be, though, not only for SMU but for any deep play-action passes Ivin Jasper might want to call. We’ll have to see. SMU is gaining confidence, and Navy has something to prove to themselves after looking so bad last week. This game could be closer than you think.

ARMY-NAVY GAME: ON THE MOVE

The Army-Navy Game has been on national broadcast television every year for more than hallf a century. That status won’t change for at least another decade, as it was announced today that CBS has extended its contract to televise the game through 2018. That’s not the only newsworthy bit from the announcement, though; as part of the deal, the game will move from the first weekend in December to the second, beginning next year.

I have mixed feelings about the move. This pushes Army-Navy right up against final exams, which sucks eggs through cocktail straws. It also makes bowl games a little complicated. Both the Poinsettia and Eaglebank Bowls are among the first, if not THE first, games of the bowl season. With Navy looking to be a regular in these games, that would mean they could have as little as seven or eight days to play Army, practice, and fly out to San Diego. It will make preparation difficult, especially when the other team wil likely have the full slate of available practices to prepare.

But the reality is that this move is probably necessary. The Army-Navy game and its television contract are the #1 source of revenue for both the West Point and Naval Academy athletic departments. With the advent of conference championship games being played on the same weekend, Army-Navy’s ratings have declined, making it less valuable to broadcasters. The best way to retain the value of the contract and restore the ratings to their former high levels– other than making both teams national championship contenders– would be to make Army-Navy the only game in town again. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make business sense for CBS or other suitors for the game’s broadcast rights to spend the kind of money that USNA and West Point need.

So the move makes sense, but there are still issues to address. Exams and bowl games, of course, but there’s also the issue of what to do with the extra weekend in the schedule. It’s hard to imagine that the team would go three weeks between Army and the previous game on the schedule. Will other games be scheduled for the first weekend of December, leaving only one week to prepare for Army instead of the usual two? Or will Navy start playing games on Thanksgiving weekend now? And does the new contract include Army-Navy basketball like the old one? Inquiring minds want to know.

WEDNESDAY OPEN THREAD

Speak your mind. There’s a chance we won’t laugh at you!