After firing head coach Stan Drayton near the end of his third season at Temple, director of athletics Arthur Johnson made an optimistic statement in a press release about Temple’s potential as a football program.
“With the changing landscape of college football and the playoff format, the opportunity for Temple football has never been greater,” he said. “Our expectation is to compete for American Athletic Conference titles, appear in bowl games consistently and build a program that our fans, alumni and students can be proud of in the classroom and the field.”
Drayton was a man who was known for bringing class and dignity to the program, but the Owls were 9-25 during his tenure. As seen by the slew of coach firings in the AAC alone, we don’t live in a very patient society, especially concerning college football.
While Johnson’s opinion of the program may have seemed overly optimistic, it wasn’t that long ago that Temple was indeed competing for AAC titles.
The Owls lost to Houston in the 2015 AAC title game, and then in coach Matt Rhule’s fourth season won the championship with a 34-10 victory over Navy.
Before Temple could celebrate the win for long, Rhule was off to Baylor, not even sticking around for Temple’s bowl game that season.
Rhule took over a Temple team that was 4-7 the previous season, and after going 2-10 his first year, showed tremendous improvement. The Owls were 6-6, 10-4, and 10-4 in his last three seasons there.
Even after Rhule left, Geoff Collins went 7-6 and 8-5, going to bowl games each year. Collins then departed for the Georgia Tech head coaching job.
Temple then hired Manny Diaz as head coach, but he only stayed three weeks before taking the same position at Miami.
Rod Carey replaced Diaz and was 8-5 during his first year in 2019, losing in the Military Bowl 55-13 to North Carolina.
That loss to North Carolina was the beginning of the swift descent for the program. Carey went 1-6 in the shortened COVID season in 2020 and then 3-9 in 2021. Then he was out and was replaced by Drayton.
Rhule’s tenure showed a coach could win at Temple, a college team playing in a town dominated by professional sports teams. Remember in 2015 when Temple beat Penn State 27-10 in its opener and almost beat Notre Dame, losing 24-20 in a game that was so big that ESPN’s College GameDay came to Philadelphia.
Rhule had a successful three-year stint at Baylor and a forgettable two-plus seasons with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. He’s now in his second season at Nebraska. The Cornhuskers are bowl-eligible for the first time since 2016.
From 2015 through 2019, Temple went to five straight bowl games. Before that, Temple had been to four bowl games in its history, beginning with its first bowl game in 1934 when legendary Pop Warner coached the Owls in the Sugar Bowl.
The point is, 2019 doesn’t seem that long ago, but in college football years, it isn’t that short, either.
It also goes to show how hiring the right coach has such an impact on college football (and really all sports in general).
Case in point is Fran Brown.
Now the head coach at Syracuse, Brown served two different stints as a Temple assistant. He interviewed for the Temple head coaching job before Carey was hired and stayed on the Temple staff one season before departing for Rutgers, where he served two seasons as an assistant coach. When Carey was fired, Brown was again available. He had played high school football across the river in Camden, New Jersey, and knew the ins and outs of the program and wanted badly to be a head coach near his hometown.
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Temple instead chose Drayton, who has a long resume as a college assistant and was most recently the associate head coach/running backs coach at Texas.
After Brown’s second year at Rutgers, he then went to Georgia where he served two seasons as an assistant and was part of the 2022 national championship team. He was then hired by Syracuse after last season.
Known as an accomplished recruiter, Brown was named the No. 1 national recruiter by 247 Sports in 2023.
This is not to suggest that Temple would be a championship contender had the Owls hired Brown, but one gets the feeling the program would have greatly benefited from his presence.
This year, the 42-year-old Brown has led Syracuse to an 8-3 record in his first season coaching the Orange.
The bottom line is that if Temple can hit the jackpot with the right coaching staff, anything is possible.
Make no mistake, whoever takes over this job has a ton of work to do.
Five straight losing seasons is a lot to bounce back from.
Yet, programs can be turned around.
It just is very difficult. For now, Temple will continue to look for the next Rhule.
At this point, it seems like a tough task, but anything is possible in the constantly changing world of college football.
