Baylor hires Matt Rhule: The revolving door of Temple football head coaches
First it was Al Golden, then Steve Addazio and now to the chagrin of many Temple University football fans, Baylor University announced the hiring of Temple coach Matt Rhule as their new head coach on Tuesday.
The Temple football head coaching vacancy has arguably become the hottest perquisite “stepping stone” in the Football Bowl Subdivision as a way for coaches to hone their craft before taking their talents to more prestigious endeavors.
Rhule who had a septic 2-10 start in his first year as the Owls head coach in 2013 made vast improvements from a 6-6 record in 2014 before leading the Owls to back to back 10-win seasons, and an American Athletic Conference title this year.
Rhule started to gained momentum when Temple beat his alma mater Penn State for the first time in 74 years.
Temple fans will never forget that game where Rhule’s defense BBQ chicken wrapped Christian Hackenberg into Christian Sackenberg for 10 sacks, en route to a 27-10 victory at Lincoln Financial Field in 2015.
The program then gained national exposure for hosting ESPN’s GameDay Live at Independence Mall for the first time in school history.
Temple was ranked in the top 25 in both the Associated Press (AP) Poll and the USA Today Coaches Poll that season for the first time in 36 years.
Despite Rhule signing a contract extension in 2015 that ran through 2021, it was inevitable that he would quickly find a more desirable coaching vacancy.
I figured that Rhule was going to replace Penn State coach James Franklin if the Nittany Lions had another pedestrian season this year.
In fact, Temple football has held a stigma attached to their program of being much less than “pedestrian” for years.
However, Temple has always been respected as a basketball school that Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame coaches Harry Litwack and John Chaney built.
The Owls didn’t start having success on the gridiron in the last decade until coach Golden (2006-10) turned a virtually non-existent 0-11 program that was a mere Independent to two winning season and their first bowl appearance (EagleBank Bowl 2009) since 1979.
The success of Golden after five season at Temple earned him the head coaching position at the University Miami, attracting Steve Addazio (2011-12) to the coaching vacancy, who prior to becoming the Temple coach was the offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer at the University of Florida.
Addazio traded in his cherry and white after only two seasons before departing to Boston College.
Overall, Temple went from being an Independent to the Mid-Athletic Conference, Big East Conference and now the AAC in a seven year span.
After four seasons, Rhule certainly cemented his fingerprints on Temple’s football program, so it will be intriguing to see who will be walking through the revolving doors of Edberg-Olson Hall next.
Ed Foley, who is on the Temple coaching staff as a tight end and special teams coach will be the interim head coach for the Owls (10-3) against Wake Forest (6-6) in the Military Bowl in Annapolis, Maryland on Dec. 27, 2016.