Most times when there is a transition in team sports then you head south before heading north again. I feel really good about our basketball reset and can see a base and structure being built for future success . However in football, I see a chaotic transition and certainly not the same base being built. I might be uncomfortable with what seems to be mediocre recruiting . This year will be a big year for both programs ( post pandemic) but football just seems way behind in the curve . What say you ?

Temple assistant coach Jimmy Fenerty will be joining us again on The Scoop. If you have mailbag questions for him, we're taking them up until 4 p.m. tomorrow.

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@Sam Cohn talked to the class of 2022 guard from The Phelps School.

Hearing this should be announced next week.

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Although we're sad to see @SamNeumann leave us, we're very excited to add Dante Collinelli to our staff. He'll be a big part of our football beat coverage and recruiting coverage, so please give him a follow on Twitter if you haven't already. Dante has done a lot of film study with Blue Chip Scouting and NFL Draft Bible, and he's also covered the Temple football program during his time at The Temple News. Keep an eye out for his byline this summer and for his voice on The Scoop as well!

This would also apply to Temple football in the fall, correct?

Wow, just as our program is set to make gains, the game and institutional control is rapidly changing. If the big boys such as Duke, Kentucky etc. will be diminished in importance, where does that leave us? We need new and innovative people in charge of our athletic department or we are doomed. A program like Temple will be left with scraps that no one, except the 3,000 die hards, will pay money to see and support. The article clearly shows how the viewing taste of today's youth is changing. I am afraid that Temple sports will go the way of Kinko's, Block Buster's, Malls, cursive writing, and letter writing.

We concluded our round of podcast interviews with the Temple basketball staff with a conversation with associate head coach Monté Ross on this week's episode of The Scoop. He spent close to an hour talking to us about the entire 2020 recruiting class, the growth of Tai Strickland, some good insight into what Aaron McKie is like on the bench and before games, the potential impact of the Nike deal with recruiting and much more.

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Hope you're all staying safe. Thank you as always for listening!

Kentucky transfer DT Jerquavion Mahone has signed with Temple, the program announced today.

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Mahone, who will have three years of eligibility left, appeared in five games for the Wildcats this year and recorded 1.5 TFL, including a TFL against eventual national champion Alabama.

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Mahone originally committed to Kentucky over an offer from Tennessee in 2018.

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Mahone has already been admitted into Temple and will be on campus next month.

Our latest podcast is out now.


Delaware Valley Hoops Report Scouting Director Ari Rosenfeld offered detailed scouting reports on several of Temple's 2022 and 2023 recruiting targets, including Daniel Skillings, Christian Fermin, Ernest Udeh, Rahmir Barno, Justin Edwards and DeMajh Salisbury.

And Ari said he's heard from scouts outside Philadelphia when it comes to Jeremiah Williams.

The NCAA's regular recruiting calendar will return as of June 1, and Delaware Valley Hoops Report Scouting Director Ari Rosenfeld will be back with us on The Scoop today to talk about who Temple could be watching on the recruiting trail this summer. He'll have an updated evaluation of incoming recruits Hysier Miller and Zach Hicks, along with his impressions of players Temple head coach Aaron McKie has offered in the 2022 and 2023 classes.

If you have mailbag questions for Ari or for us as a staff, please drop them in here and we'll answer them on the podcast. Thank you as always for listening! We'll take questions up until 2 p.m.

BUBO gets a mention about halfway down the article....

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We're getting you direct access to Aaron McKie on this week's episode of The Scoop! Aaron will be joining us for an exclusive interview tomorrow morning to talk about the Temple program and the current Owls' roster, and we'll also be asking him about the 20th anniversary of the 2001 Sixers team that reached the NBA Finals with Aaron as the league's Sixth Man of the Year.

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From the article:

Memphis led the way in payouts with $8.656 million followed by Cincinnati ($6.2 million), Temple ($5.9 million), SMU ($5.37 million), UCF ($5.35 million), Tulane ($5 million), USF ($4.6 million), East Carolina ($4.59 million), Tulsa ($4.45 million), Houston ($4.43 million), Navy ($3.84 million), and UConn ($1.37 million).

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Hey, look at that. It's that time of the year again. The first National Signing Day is on Wednesday and a lot has happened in the past few days on the recruiting front.

Decommitments

As mentioned elsewhere, Rakim Cooper decommitted from Temple on Friday. You can read about why that happened here.

A few weeks ago, 2-star safety Malichi Lowery decommitted from Temple as well. The Owls immediately filled Lowery's spot with 3-star defensive back Jaylen Martin. From what we heard, Lowery was facing some issues with his transcripts that Temple could not get around. Lowery announced his commitment to Duquesne last week, which lines up with what we heard.

That won't be the last name to leave Temple's commitment list, as OwlScoop.com has learned that Temple will not be signing 3-star RB Johnny Martin on Wednesday. From what we've gathered, Rod Carey, Gabe Infante and the rest of the Temple staff recently made the decision not to bring Martin into the fold. I haven't taken him off the commitment list yet, as I usually prefer to have the kids break that news in the manner in which they prefer.

Early Enrollees

As of right now, Temple is expecting the following high school/prep players to enroll in January:

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In addition to that foursome, UConn transfer CB Keyshawn Paul and llinois RB Ra'von Bonner are also expected to be on campus next month. With Washington State defensive lineman Will Rodgers, it's up in the air as to whether he'll be a January enrollee or a June enrollee. Northern Illinois cornerback Antwain Walker may not sign on Wednesday, as Temple is still figuring things out with his NIU transcript, but he remains a strong possibility to sign in the spring.

What's left?

As of right now, I'm expecting all of the other commitments to sign with Temple on Wednesday. In addition to the current public commitments, I'm also expecting 3-star WR Corey Palmer to ultimately sign with the Owls on Wednesday. Palmer had 504 receiving yards for Camden as a sophomore in 2018 before transferring to IMG Academy in Florida for his junior year. Palmer came back to Camden for his senior year and led Camden with 458 receiving yards in just five games this season. In addition to Temple, Miami (FL), North Carolina, Syracuse and Coastal Carolina rounded out Palmer's Top 5.

So what does that leave for the rest of the class?

This might sound obvious, as Temple saw Anthony Russo, Isaiah Graham-Mobley and Re'Mahn Davis enter the transfer portal in the last few weeks, but things are incredibly fluid in recruiting and roster management nowadays. It's expected that the NCAA will soon vote to allow all players to transfer once without sitting out a year. Players and programs are already working under the assumption that will pass so things are getting more and more like free agency out there. The days of signing a full class of high school kids and expecting 90 percent of them to stay with Temple for four years are over. Period.

Temple has already addressed Davis' departure a bit with the addition of Bonner but I'd expect Temple to still look to add another transfer portal RB. That just might not happen until the spring. Temple is involved with former 4-star RB Iverson Clement, who chose Florida as the No. 9 all-purpose back out of Rancocas Valley as part of the 2018 class, but so are a number of other schools, including Maryland.

At linebacker, IGM's departure makes it more likely that Temple adds a transfer LB but the staff really likes where Kobe Wilson and Jordan Magee are at in their development. This might be a situation where Temple waits until the spring to figure out if it's OK with where that room is at.

So that leaves the biggest elephant in the room. Where does Temple go with its quarterback situation? For the answer to that...stay tuned. There have been some pretty significant rumblings on that front in recent days but we're still fleshing out the reporting. It might not be resolved by Wednesday but the expectation is that Temple will add a new quarterback in the coming weeks to compete with Trad Beatty, Matt Duncan, Mariano Valenti and Justin Lynch for the starting job in 2021.

Nothing super major here but a few roster updates to pass along.

Number changes
D'wan Mathis will now wear No. 11 after wearing No. 18 during the spring.
Kobe Wilson will now wear No. 11 after wearing No. 22 last season.
Ronnie Stevenson will now wear No. 14 after wearing No. 89 last season.
Nate Wyatt will now wear No. 14 after wearing No. 27 last season.
Kamal Gray will now wear No. 15 after wearing No. 18 last season.
Trey Blair will now wear No. 22 after wearing No. 32 last season.
Edward Saydee will now wear No. 23 after wearing No. 36 last season.
Alex Odom will now wearing No. 25 after wearing No. 41 last season.
Tayvon Ruley will now wear No. 28 after wearing No. 29 last season.
Jason Prince will now wear No. 33 after wearing No. 22 last season.
Sam Fraley will now wear No. 46 after wearing No. 95 last season.
James Della Pesca will now wear No. 87 after wearing No. 45 last season.

As a reminder, college football is different than the NFL in that multiple players can have the same number so long as they aren't on the field at the same time.

Departure
Walk-on TE Nick Picozzi has left the program, OwlScoop.com has learned. Picozzi, who is also no longer on the roster, was primarily a special teams contributor in his three seasons at Temple but did start at TE against SMU last season due to injuries. Despite playing more last year, Picozzi would have probably been the fourth TE on the depth chart to start the season. I wouldn't be surprised if he followed his brother to Colorado State as a PWO.

Although this will be a basketball-heavy episode with the Aaron McKie interview, we're still happy to take any football mailbag questions you have. Please feel free to drop them in here and we'll answer them on the podcast. Thank you!

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This interview was on the Rivals front page. Kind of a slap at the Temple staff in there, saying that the coaches hindered him.

Here is the replay from earlier tonight....

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Former Temple stars Mardy Collins and Dustin Salisbery will be with us on The Scoop this Wednesday. They're looking forward to answering your mailbag questions, so please post them here and we'll get to as many as we can on the podcast.

Beyond the countless stories they can tell about their playing days at Temple, overseas and in the NBA, Collins and Salisbery are both graduating and receiving their Temple degrees this Friday, May 7, so we'll be talking about that milestone as well.

And as I'm sure you all know since it's been discussed in this forum, Collins and Saisbery are the fathers of talented basketball players who are now becoming Division-I caliber recruits. DeMajh Salisbery is a class of 2023 point guard who just finished his sophomore season at La Academia, a Lancaster charter school, and he plays his AAU ball with Philly Pride. And class of 2024 guard Madden Collins recently finished his freshman season at South Carolina's Irmo High School and plays his AAU ball with the PCH Nightrydas.

We'll take mailbag questions up until 2 p.m. Wednesday and look forward to hearing from you. And if you have questions for us as a staff about the roster, recruiting or anything else, we're happy to answer them as well.

And if you haven't already, please subscribe to The Scoop on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you access your podcasts. Ratings and reviews help as well and are very much appreciated.

We're looking forward to a great episode this week and very much appreciate your support of the site and the podcast!

We're taking football mailbag questions for this week's podcast up until 3 p.m. tomorrow. If you have one for us, please drop it in here and we'll answer it on the show.

Thanks so much for listening!