Skip to content
College Sports
Link copied to clipboard

Penn State's Paterno has good reason to worry about Temple

Penn State fans should know the drill by now. If the Little Sisters of the Poor were scheduled to play the Nittany Lions on a given weekend, coach Joe Paterno would fret about all the potential pitfalls his team was facing and how an upset might be sprung if this or that happened.

"They have a history," Joe Paterno said of his memories of better days in Temple's program. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)
"They have a history," Joe Paterno said of his memories of better days in Temple's program. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)Read more

Penn State fans should know the drill by now. If the Little Sisters of the Poor were scheduled to play the Nittany Lions on a given weekend, coach Joe Paterno would fret about all the potential pitfalls his team was facing and how an upset might be sprung if this or that happened.

Paterno publicly professed to being concerned about how Penn State might fare against monumental underdogs Eastern Illinois in 2009 (a 52-3 blowout), Coastal Carolina in 2008 (66-10) and Florida International in 2007 (59-0).

But maybe the most familiar worrisome tale recited by JoePa deals with the dangers posed by the Nits' cross-state rival, Temple. It was again so yesterday during his weekly question-and-answer session with the media as he recalled all those imaginary cliffhangers with the Owls, who invade Beaver Stadium on Saturday afternoon in an attempt to change a run of rotten luck that has extended through 27 consecutive losing games. The last victory by the North Philadelphia school was in 1941. How long ago was that? Well, the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was still a few months in the future, and Joe Paterno, who turns 84 in December, was a 14-year-old kid in Brooklyn, N.Y.

"They have a history," Paterno said of his memories of better days in Temple's program. "At one time, when I first came to Penn State, Temple was tough. After we were here for a while, when Wayne Hardin was coaching, they were tough. Steve Joachim, a quarterback, had transferred from here to Temple."

But Hardin's last season on North Broad Street was 1982, and Joachim won the Maxwell Football Club Award as the nation's best player in 1974. A lot of losing has happened since then, much of it inflicted by Paterno and even his predecessor as Penn State head coach, Rip Engle. Since former Penn State tight end Al Golden took the Owls' reins in 2006, Temple has gone 0-4 against his alma mater while being outscored by a cumulative margin of 154-9. The score of last year's game was 31-6.

The most telling example of the on-field chasm that has existed between the two schools in recent years was the 2006 game, during Golden's first year of a rebuilding program some had advised him not to take on. Temple received the opening kickoff and returned it to midfield. A little more than 3 hours later, the Owls still had not crossed into Penn State territory in losing, 47-0. They finished the game with two first downs and 74 yards in total offense.

That's history of a sort, all right, but the type a lot of Temple alumni and fans would just as soon forget. It's also just one of the reasons why some believe No. 23 Penn State (1-2) is positioned for an actual upset against maybe the best Temple team (3-0) in decades, one that has won 12 of its last 16 games and is seeking to unleash a load of pent-up payback on its traditional tormentors.

It has been suggested that Golden is trying to transform Temple into Penn State East, which on the surface might appear to be the case. Defensive coordinator Mark D'Onofrio and offensive coordinator Matt Rhule, like Golden, are Penn State alums, whose football backgrounds bear a definite PSU imprint.

Paterno, though, isn't buying the notion that these Owls are succeeding with a playbook that is markedly similar to that being used in Happy Valley.

"I think they're comfortable doing what Al's comfortable doing," Paterno said. "He's a very bright person with good football instincts. He evaluates people well. He's developing the Temple program the way he wants it done, not necessarily the way Penn State does it.

"I'm sure there's some carry-over, but I don't see a lot of it in their schemes. Defensively, they do things a lot differently than we do. Offensively, they do a couple of things better than we're doing.

"Al may have learned some things from us, I don't know. He's pretty much his own man."

So was Ron Dickerson, then Penn State's defensive backfield coach who, against Paterno's advice, took the Temple job in 1993. In five seasons, Dickerson went 8-47 and was fired.

Did Paterno caution Golden, then the defensive coordinator at Virginia, to also take a pass on Temple before he went to the Owls in December of 2005?

"He talked to me about different possibilities," Paterno recalled. "He left for the University of Virginia because he was close to [then-coach] Al Groh. He had a chance to get a little more responsibility down there.

"When the Temple job came up, I can't remember if Al called me or not. We talked a little bit about his future and [the need to have] patience. I think I told him to not be in a hurry and jump at any job that popped up.

"Generally speaking, I think young coaches have a tendency to want to go too fast. I probably said something about waiting for the right opportunity. If he did say something to me about [Temple], I probably would have told him, 'If they're willing to make a commitment, it's probably a good opportunity for you.' But I really don't remember having that conversation."