By Jack Kerwin  |  ydkjack1@gmail.com

Panic.

Unfiltered. Unabridged. Uncontrollable.

That, if anything, would have been the correct response for anyone associated with Temple University football when Dr. Neil Theobald got shown the door by the school’s board of trustees a year ago.

As president, he’d overseen everything at the North Broad campus for four years, but nowhere was his presence felt more than within the grid program, which experienced unprecedented growth, exposure and success during his tenure.

Oh, there is no denying the impact Matt Rhule had as well then, but Baylor University’s new head coach can thank Theobald in large part for that Big 12 gig and paycheck to match he now has. The latter gave the former not only his break at Temple, but the support required to turn an absolute dumpster fire into a viable, entertaining FBS operation – one good enough to make back-to-back American Athletic Conference championship games, including a victory in the second go-’round.

Put it this way, no one – not even Rhule or All-American linebacker Tyler Matakevich or 2017 first-round draft pick Haason Reddick – influenced the road the Owls traveled from 2012 through 2016 more than Theobald did.

Fortunately, his ouster last July occurred too late to derail Temple’s pending fall campaign. But, anything after that … well, fair game.

Which is why anyone with a real investment in the football team had every reason to have a deer-in-headlights appearance with matching vibes inside for months following that, even while Rhule’s final edition of Owls was piecing together a conference title-winning season.

Temple did so with nary a sniff of attention from the Philly media and area fans – which was a far cry from the apex of awesomeness it reached the previous year while beating Penn State, hosting Notre Dame and recording its first double-digit-win campaign in almost 40 years.

Any hopes that the program would continue its upward trend despite Theobald’s departure seemed to rest with Rhule. Then he left, barely seconds after securing that AAC crown.

Panic, say hello to Dread.

Seriously. All things considered, with the never-ending string of obstacles Temple football has faced for decades, ranging anywhere from lousy facilities to no respect to bad luck, a self-imposed death penalty wouldn’t have been such a bad option. Just think about the release from frustration …

But it has kept plugging away. Under new administrative authority, with yet another first-time head coach, and, amazingly, with the 2017 season little more than a month away, it – gulp – has stabilized.

At least it appears to have stabilized.

Not for nothing, but Geoff Collins has almost reprised Rhule’s savior role … only with a more folksy, even friendlier, gotta-get-me-some-cheesesteaks approach. But he’s just as hard-ass on the field as his predecessor, just as demanding on what he expects of his players, both those already on campus and those he is, and will be, recruiting for the Cherry and White.

Plus, Temple has several players listed on preseason watch lists for awards, it remains recognized as an AAC title contender, and just this week word leaked out that a home-and-home series may be in the works between it and Atlantic Coast Conference member Miami.

None of those are signs of a program that is careening off the tracks, as easily could have been the case once the driving force behind Temple’s commitment to football was forced to leave.

But, here it is, a year after Theobald was 86’d. It’s also seventh months since Rhule split. Yet, the Owls are still sitting with the proverbial big kids at their conference table, still getting some “love” from those in college football circles, and still bringing in quality players.
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Go figure …
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Hard to put a finger on it.

At some point, with following all his activity, seeing how he interacted with people, young and old, players and non-players, watching him work his players, hearing how he was viewed at previous stops, it just clicked for me:

This guy, this new coach for Temple football, well, maybe he ain’t Matt Rhule.

Maybe, for this program, with where it’s going, he may be … ummm, better.

Yep, said it. Still stuns me, too.

The Owls’ former coach was a special kind of salesman, able to light a fire under his players and actually elicit some interest in Philly for a program that, well, has never received much of any in its entire existence.

Rhule was never about Xs and Os. He was all attitude, and he was, pardon the fanspeak, awesome with it. No one with any connection to Temple football has any business viewing him as anything less than the highest regard, as a quality coach, as a program-builder, as a guy who took the Owls to previously unprecedented heights for them.

But, he wanted to go … and, frankly, Collins wanted to come. Apparently as much as Rhule did back in 2012, when he left an assistant’s gig with the New York Giants to return to Broad Street, where he had been Al Golden’s right-hand offensive man for years.
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Collins, frankly, arrived with better credentials. He’d been successful as a defensive coordinator at two Southeastern Conference schools, and actually had been Rhule’s boss at prior stops for both at Albright and Western Carolina.

But Temple, if nothing else, is a tough sell. Any coach at the Owls’ helm will face indifference and disrespect that few, if any, elsewhere ever experience. Rhule handled that like, well, no one else ever has.

Until now.

Oh, it’s early. Way early. Far too early to tell how things will go, long-term. But if the early returns, or examples, are any indication, Collins has matched, if not surpassed, Rhule’s steadfast enthusiasm and energy in not only running the Temple program, but promoting it.

He has sold me. Even faster than Rhule did.

By Jack Kerwin  |  ydkjack1@gmail.com

It's a fade-to-black fact.

For me, at least, it is.

With each passing loss, with each passing excuse for effort, with each passing rationale for waiting on bringing any of the kids up from the farm, the likelihood of the Phillies somehow cashing in on their Sixers-ish state of abyss the past few years with the signing of a big-time free agent or two dims with subtlety of a sledgehammer coming down on a light switch.

Salvation, thy name will not be Bryce Harper nor Mike Trout.

Sorry, peeps, just keeping it real ...

OK, put away the red-striped glasses and “It Hit Me Like a Matt Klentak” tees for a minute and put the reality caps on. Seriously, who the hell would want to join this dumpster fire of a franchise as it muddles through the recovery of nearly a decade's worth of Ruben Amaro's fingerprints all over it.

We're not talking a quick fix here, or a four-year tanking plan unearthed hatched across the street in South Philly that sent the city's NBA franchise plummeting so hard to the ocean floor that it's bounced back almost to the point of being able to tread water with playoff contention.

No, the Phillies are so far down and buried that it's going to take more than making Harper a half-billion-dollar acquisition or convincing Trout to utilize Section 2855 of the California Labor Code as a means to quantum leap themselves out of the grave.

Both superstars know that. Even in their mid-20s.

They ain't about to waste the primes of their professional careers exhausting themselves in futility with trying to make some pipe dream concocted by any sports-talk host and eaten up by a starving fan base come true.

OK, sure, if Scott Kingery really does turn out to be the next Chase Utley, and we're talking the .300-30-100-100 in his prime Utley and the “broken down before his time” Utley post-2009 World Series, if Rhys Hoskins proves to be a Mini-Me version of slugging Yankees rookie sensation Aaron Judge, and if a couple pitchers arrive to place Aaron Nola in his rightful place in the middle of a rotation, then, yes, Harper or Trout or anyone else would not be making the worst decisions of their lives by coming here.

But how likely are the Phillies to go 3-for-3 on those ifs? Hell, a 1-for-3 effort would be wonderful. Just don't count on it.

The runaway leaders to Major League Baseball's basement in 2017, the Phillies' organizational highlights of late include helping to turn their best player, Odubel Herrera, into persona non grata with the fans, making potential 30-homer guy Tommy Joseaph an almost untradeable entity, and providing manager Pete Mackanin with enough excuses to keep him a sympathetic character through the rest of his days at Citizens Bank Park.

This is not a team on the fast track back to respectability – a location they'd probably need to be in the first place before the likes of Harper or Trout would consider a move to Broad Street.

The numbers …

For now, they won’t agree with this side of the debate.

Halfway into a decade of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper vying for “best player in baseball” honors, they weigh heavily in the former’s favor.

But the gut feeling here, not to mention what the contacts-aided eye test says, is that the latter either brings, or will bring, more to the table – offensively and otherwise.

Though both had league MVP awards in their back pockets by the time they were 23, Trout, clearly, has produced the more “wow” statistics overall, and on a more consistent basis.

Your “average” 162 games for Trout: .307 batting average, .408 on-base percentage, .566 slugging percentage, 35 homers, 101 RBIs and 120 runs scored.

Comparatively for Harper: .284, .388, .513, 31, 88 and 106.

Trout also added a second MVP to his trophy case at age 25.

Then again, Harper looks on track to match that this season.

His 2015 season trumps any Trout has posted, too, in terms of Ruthian, “holy crap” stats headlined by .460 on-base and .640 slugging clips.

Plus, for all the hype surrounding Trout’s leaps against the fence, Harper is the superior defensive player with the proverbial cannon for an arm, and, like it or not, he has become “the face” of the sport … and seems incredibly comfortable as such, pressure to perform be damned.
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Of course, if you’re the Phillies or any other team in baseball, you break the bank for either should they ever become available, via free agency or trade.