College football 2011: Addazio takes over Temple

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Temple's new head football coach has been around the block of major college football, just not as a head coach until now. And in a decade and a half on high-major staffs, Steve Addazio has faced some crucibles.

The most telling about his philosophy may have been on Nov. 13, 2004 at the end of a torturous 3-8 season Indiana that would cost his boss Gerry DiNardo and the IU staff their jobs. Addazio was the offensive coordinator when the Hoosiers faced a first-and-goal at the 1, trailing 22-18 late in the fourth quarter against one of the toughest defensive front sevens in Penn State history. Indiana ran four straight times between the tackles from a Jurassic stack-I (three running backs in a vertical row and two tight ends) that was a lighthouse to the Hoosiers' intentions. Four times they were stuffed.

Then there was last year at Florida, the final season of the Urban Meyer regime, the only time in the revered coach's career in which he's lost five games. Handed a package of three incomplete quarterbacks, none of whom fit the dual-threat mold required by Meyer's spread offense, coordinator Addazio was forced to mix-'n-match them to erratic results. He ended up playing all three QBs for much of the season and at least two in most games. It did not go well. He was killed by zealous Gator fans spoiled by two recent national titles.

These were two unfortunate junctures in Addazio's career where he didn't, as he likes to say, have all the right checkers to play the game. At Temple, the board will be smaller and the pieces more limitednot just for the Owls but for everyone on their Mid-American Conference schedule.

That should be to Addazio's advantage. This is a man who gained his chops as an offensive line coach at Syracuse and Notre Dame and this part of the game he knows well. The MAC is a meat-and-taters league where if you block and tackle better than the other guy, you're almost always going to win.

Addazio's predecessor Al Golden (now stuck in the maelstrom that is Miami) proved that in building a revival of the Temple program. Addazio has the background to continue that trendas long as he can manage the unique landscape of often at-risk recruits upon which Golden constructed the Temple renaissance.

You can count on Addazio's no-BS demeanor, his explosive enthusiasm, his Dick Butkus speaking style and a minimum of frills and gadgets. That includes one field leader.

I don't want to play two quarterbacks, OK? Addazio said last week during Temple's media day. We never wanted to before at Florida. To play two guys because they're both kind of doing well? I don't want to do that. I don't think it's productive. Not gonna happen.

I wanna have one guy and if that guy can't get it done when the bright lights are on, then the other guy's gonna get a chance.

Whether the chosen one ends up being junior Mike Gerardi, who started the last five games of 2010 in place of deposed Chester Stewart, or soph Chris Coyer, you can wager he will have one most important job functionhanding the ball to junior running back Bernard Pierce.

He's absolutely as talented or more than any back I've been around, said Addazio. But you have to sustain that throughout the season. Everything I've seen indicates a young man who's grown up and is more mature and wants to attack his work.

And Pierce should get plenty of chances to attack. When the Owls open up Thursday night at Lincoln Financial Field against Villanova (7 p.m.), he will be the one established threat Addazio can deploy with 2,089 rushing yards in his first two seasons. All of them have been collected with an assortment of leg and shoulder maladies that kept him to just 14 combined starts.

How Addazio meshes emotionally with his star relative to Golden will tell a lot about this Temple season. Pierce had his days the last two years when Golden deposited him, if not in his dog house, then on a short chain out front of it. In particular, last season was a frustration after having been hyped for the Heisman by Temple's sports info department, then being banged up and held to a mere 728 yards102 fewer than 5-5 waterbug change-up back Matt Brown.

I was thinking more about what I needed to do for 'the people'my whole crowd, the audienceinstead of fulfilling my goals for the season," Pierce said. "People were calling my phone and texting me with, 'Oh, Bernard, what are you planning to do this year?' And I was getting caught up in it.

So, how is Addazio's bedside manner?

He's straightforward," Pierce said. "He's gonna tell you how it is, when it is. And if you listen, you're gonna understand what he's talking about.

Balance in the offense would complement Pierce. And in offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler, Addazio's former comrade at Florida, Temple has an absolute steal. Overqualified to the gills for this job, Loeffler was mentioned as a possibility for the St. Louis Rams' QB coach spot but had to make a quick choice when a possible lengthy lockout was still looming. He chose a sure paycheck.

Loeffler has prior NFL experience, though it was with the hopeless 0-16 Detroit Lions in 2008 who started the season with journeyman Jon Kitna and descended to the Stoney Case level from there.

His real breeding took place in college with Florida (Tim Tebow in 2009) and Michigan (Chad Henne 2004-07 and John Navarre 2002-03). All three became NFL quarterbacks. Before that was a short stint at Central Michigan (2000-01) and grad assistant work on the 1997-99 Michigan staffs that guided Brian Griese and Tom Brady. In other words, Loeffler knows what an NFL quarterback is and how he's created.

Temple's QB candidates have been even. Though both Gerardi, starter during the 2010 season's second half, and Coyer were listed as even on Monday's depth chart and Addazio reserved the right to make a game-day decision, Coyer seems to have the bigger upside.

His progress was retarded behind the abortive Chester Stewart tenure in 2010 (Stewart's suspension by Addazio for the ever-popular violation of team rules was announced Monday), and he never got much of a chance to show his stuff. But Coyer has a live enough arm and a head for the game that would seem to dovetail with Loeffler's. He's also a decisive and shifty runner and ran a spread in high school that was a close version of Urban Meyer's spread optionrun by Addazio and Loeffler under the master himself at Florida.

Gerardi loves to throw the deep ball and does it well. But his go-for-broke style got him in trouble at times last year as evidenced by eight picks in just 156 attempts. Moreover, as the incumbent, Gerardi had every chance to lock down the job in the springand didn't.

Whoever gets the eventual nod will have ample and visible targets both deep and intermediate. Lots of size across the board. Deep threat and top returnee Rod Streater (30 catches, 4 TDs, 16.0 avg) is 6-4. Two others6-4 juco transfer Malcolm Eugene and 6-5 soph Deon Millershould be deployed to give the Owls a reach advantage over the MAC's short secondaries.

The defense must get one man back into his zonesenior defensive end Adrian Robinson. As a pure speed rusher in 2009, he was all but unblockable, terrorizing among others Penn State's offensive tackles on the way to 13 sacks. Last year, toyed with in zone coverages by Golden's coordinator Mark D'Onofrio, his number plunged to 3.

Who fills the gaping holes left at tackle by departed Muhammad Wilkerson (poised to start at DE for the NFL Jets) and free safety Jaiquawn Jarrett (Eagles) is another question. And linebacker looks like a potential weak spot with only pedestrian pluggers on hand. It won't help the secondary that would-be starter at corner Kee-Ayre Griffin was suspended along with Stewart for the 'Nova game.

None of that will matter if the Owls can pull off a shocker two weeks later at the Lincagainst perpetual big brother Penn State.

David Jones is columnist for The Harrisburg Patriot-News. E-mail him at djones8681@verizon.net

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