He has been involved, either with or without pads, in all the practices and is looking forward to training camp this summer. Spring practices continue through the April 19 Cherry & White intrasquad game.

The Owls won four of their eight Mid-American Conference games last season. DiMichele said last week that the players feel they can do much better this season.

"We have a good recruiting class coming in as well as experience in winning and losing," he said. "I think that eight or nine wins is a realistic goal, as is a MAC championship."

Last year, DiMichele passed for 1,595 yards and 12 touchdowns, connecting on 138 of 223 passes in eight games. His season ended against Miami (Ohio) on Oct. 20, on a quarterback bootleg that wound up putting a boot . . . ahem . . . on DiMichele's leg.

"I was rolling out on a naked [a quarterback rollout or bootleg] to the left," he recalled. "I made a move on the end, came back around and the linebacker grabbed my shirt. As I was trying to spin out of the tackle, my foot was stuck and somebody fell on it."

The Owls won that game, their third straight, but went 1-3 the rest of the way.

"At the time, everyone was really disappointed because we were progressing the most that people had seen in years," he said. "We had won three games in a row. But injuries happen, and we still fought hard the rest of the season, with or without me."

Even when he's off the field, DiMichele is always working and learning. This spring he has been attentively following the direction of new offensive coordinator Matt Rhule. A 4-year player under Joe Paterno at Penn State, Rhule has been a college football coach for the past nine seasons, including two at Temple. The former quarterbacks coach was promoted in late January to replace George DeLeone, who left to be the tight end coach with the Miami Dolphins.

Rhule, the players say, is a fiery yet personable coach with tons of ideas they can relate to. He admits that his new role is vastly different.

"It's a new responsibility, but it is exciting," Rhule said. "It took about a year of learning to finally be in this position. I am just taking over where DeLeone left off. It's the same offense. The only thing that changes is the players in these roles. We will have to take advantage of the new guys we will have in these spots."

One new addition that could be helpful is the switch of outside linebacker Lamar McPherson to fullback. McPherson, a Syracuse transfer in the fall of 2006 and a former star at Bishop McDevitt High, played all 12 games last season and started three times at outside linebacker.

He will be a key asset out of the backfield, being able to block, catch and run in this West Coast offense.

"Lamar will be a key role in the offense," Rhule said. "He is a hard-nosed Philly kid that brings that toughness to the offensive side that we need. He is one of the starting pieces to the culture of Temple football toughness that we are trying to bring back. We're looking for him and five tenacious linemen to give us that extra push that we need." *