http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...00111.html
Nice article on a verbal from D.C. area (plus another verbal).
Suggests that Al Golden will use his experience at UVa to recruit the D.C. area hard.
We'll see what kind of talent evaluator he is as he's more likely to get hidden gems rather then known prep stars.
Makes sense, DC is close to Philly and has no D1 football team neither does Delaware, how long will it take a MAC team to start harvesting that state as Delaware seems to make the 1AA playoffs almost annually. If Golden gets some out of DC, VA, DEL, NJ and PA he will improve Temple in a couple years instead of 5.
brings in recruits from his old stomping grounds as well as the area near his university.
This may sound obvious, but many new coaches really don't have any kind of recruiting base to start with and many don't develop a good secondary one outside of the area where the university is located.
Golden should do well in the D.C. area (D.C. No. VA, and Maryland) as well as Eastern Pa, Delaware, N.J., etc.
The D.C. area and Delaware should be a good secondary recruiting area (Eastern Pa. and N.J. should be Temple's primary recruiting area).
The ? for us who didn't follow temple in recent years is:
How bad was their recruiting in say '04 and '05?
Temple's recruiting classes? how about an unmitigated disaster....
About 60% of last year's class is already gone. A ludicrous factor was that 6-7 weren't even admitted by Temple. How's that for a vetting process by your recruiting staff?
The previous HC used a flurry of Jucos over 02-03-04 to further demolish the future. Temple apologists will tell you that our former HC had no choice but the truth is every Juco who showed up in 2003 started. What should have been senior starters recruited while in the Big East were instead gaping holes filled by gaping mouths.
MAC fans are free to find my remarks obnoxious and abrasive but a few years ago we were beating poor MAC teams and Rutgers by 40. The same Scarlet Knights who were pasting Buffalo 59-0. I'm not looking for trouble just expressing my utter joy that the Owls finally have a committed, competent and focused Head Football Coach.
The HC & DC are from our area and has been funneling some of the best players to Virginia. Just take a look at some of the last 3-4 CAV recruiting classes, there must be two dozen from E PA & NJ...
MH55, your point seems to be, as a few of us are guessing, that the problem isn't (wasn't) systemic to Temple but that the last coaching administration got tired and stale and 'new blood' was needed.
One of the best cases of that in the MAC was at BG where Gary Blackney's teams got stale and started losing.
BG brought in Urban Meyer and bingo. Success.
Your point is interesting about Al Golden's recruiting success from areas which are now his lifeblood (E. Pa and NJ).
MH55 Wrote:MAC fans are free to find my remarks obnoxious and abrasive but a few years ago we were beating poor MAC teams and Rutgers by 40. The same Scarlet Knights who were pasting Buffalo 59-0. I'm not looking for trouble just expressing my utter joy that the Owls finally have a committed, competent and focused Head Football Coach.
There's nothing obnoxious or abrasive in what you said, but its a bit inaccurate. TU has only played EMU and WMU who have been down lately. The rest of your MAC ooponents were the conferences better teams. I don't want to derail this thread because your position is correct, Golden is doing much better in recruiting, just some minor details might not be. And just a heads up: If you state that TU beat Rutgers who beat UB... someone will post that UB beat so-and-so who beat so-and-so... and therefore should play Texas for the NC. You've been around these boards for a while so you may have already seen that happen.
The Temple team you saw for the last few years isn't indicative of what we'll be bringing to the MAC in 2007. IMO, our former HC accepted our Big East ouster as permission that he no longer was obligated to work. Consequently, we fell to #119 out of 119, deservedly.
In 2000-01, we had the personnel to win. We were not a bottom feeder. We beat teams that we became, namely Rutgers. In 2001, we beat WVA & UConn but 5 of our losses were to Top 25 teams. We could never compete with the upper half of our conference, which usually had 2 teams vying for national championship consideration. We should have competed w/ Pitt, WVA, Syracuse regularly but we had terrible leadership. As bad as we became over the last couple years, we still were in position to beat Pitt, Virginia Tech. We did beat Cuse 2 of 3 games we played them.
If you're still reading, what's my point? We won't bring shame to your conference. We must be a bowl contender within 2 years. People wont support Temple ad infinitum. This is our last chance to field a viable University FB team. So far, we have the man who might be able to do it. We had a good rec class, great considering he started w/ no Temple infrastructure. He has 4 07 commitments already (1 ****), something we never used to see here. Golden took the job w/ a list of things he needed and he's getting them, slowly.
MH55 Wrote:In 2000-01, we had the personnel to win. We were not a bottom feeder. We beat teams that we became, namely Rutgers. In 2001, we beat WVA & UConn but 5 of our losses were to Top 25 teams. We could never compete with the upper half of our conference, which usually had 2 teams vying for national championship consideration. We should have competed w/ Pitt, WVA, Syracuse regularly but we had terrible leadership. As bad as we became over the last couple years, we still were in position to beat Pitt, Virginia Tech. We did beat Cuse 2 of 3 games we played them.
If you're still reading, what's my point? We won't bring shame to your conference. We must be a bowl contender within 2 years. People wont support Temple ad infinitum. This is our last chance to field a viable University FB team. So far, we have the man who might be able to do it. We had a good rec class, great considering he started w/ no Temple infrastructure. He has 4 07 commitments already (1 ****), something we never used to see here. Golden took the job w/ a list of things he needed and he's getting them, slowly.
Good post.
I tried to make a similar post a few weeks ago using my recall of an article in the Sporting News.
I botched the post but I was trying to make the points you did.
The Temple team 5 years ago could beat an occasional big name Big East team and was getting ready to move into the Eagles new stadium but then things went downhill.
They should NOT be where they are today.
As I've said in my posts, I believe what Temple needed was a young HC with endless energies who wants to build a program. I think Al Golden is the man for this job.
As also mentioned, Golden should be a very good recruiter in E. Penn., N.J., Delaware and the D.C. area. If Al does, then he has the best turf to mine of any MAC coach.
I just think the previous coach (Wallace) got tired in the job and basically gave up.
Sometimes fresh blood is needed. Just ask Detroit Tigers' president and GM Dombrowski - Dombrowski brought talent to the team and then brought fresh blood to manage it. It worked.