Temple’s new head coach Geoff Collins is keeping most of Temple’s football traditions in tact. Photo from Temple Athletic Department.

Haason Reddick said he was a first-round draft pick because he was Temple TUFF. On the night of the NFL Draft, he told ESPN’s Suzy Kolber, all those fans on the Ben Franklin Parkway and football fans everywhere what Temple TUFF was.

“It’s the most elite, toughest, hard working people on the planet,” he said moments after being selected No. 13 overall by the Arizona Cardinals.

“Temple TUFF” is something the school’s legendary basketball coach John Chaney came up with but the football program has embraced it and new head coach Geoff Collins has gone all in on making sure the Owls he coaches are Temple TUFF if nothing else.

Collins has mentioned that the toughness of the Broad Street Bullies drew him to the Philadelphia Flyers as a kid and that his father, a middle school basketball coach, was a great admirer of coach Chaney.

One of the first things Collins did at the start of spring practice was bring Chaney in to speak to the team.

“He is the person, the foundation for everything we say at this university as far as Temple TUFF,” Collins told his team as he introduced the hall of fame coach.

Even at 85 years old, Chaney can still hold the attention of a room full of college athletes.
“The Temple that’s on your chest, that T stands for TUFF, not t-o-u-g-h, it stands for T-U-F-F.”

Chaney told the team that being TUFF includes doing your job well and putting the team ahead of individual goals. When Chaney was coaching the Owls basketball team, just about the fastest way to the bench was to turn the ball over and he tried to impress that upon the young Owls football players.

“[If] you turn that ball over, you reduce yourselves to a very minimum chance of winning.”

Something else that Collins knew about when he took the job is the Temple tradition to award the single digit number to the toughest players on the roster. Those coveted jersey numbers go to players who display leadership on and off the field and have the highest character.

“It means a lot,” said safety Delvon Randall who was awarded No. 2 at the Owls Champions Diner which was the night before the spring football game. “For Avery Williams (who wore No. 2 for the last three seasons) to come to our diner and pass the torch to me it means a lot. The single digit means you’re tough so I look as myself as one of the tough guys on the team now.”

Collins and his staff set up the off-season workout program to be grueling both physically and mentally so players would reveal themselves in tough circumstances.

“The advantage that I had coming in here,” Collins said on the American Athletic Conference spring teleconference, “was that I had intimate knowledge of this place. I’m great friends with a lot of the members of the previous coaching staff. So, I had a really good handle of the philosophy and culture that was in place. [I] came in here and accentuated the positives and added some of the things I’ve learned at some of the great places I’ve been fortunate to coach at and brought that knowledge to these kids. They see themselves, as well they should, as a top 25, championship program. Our job is to add to that foundation and work toward building a better product.”

He even talked about how the staff follows recruits social media to make sure they’re bring in the right kind of student-athlete.

“We monitor all the kids we recruit,” he said. “What they’re putting out there, the things they’re drawn to whether it’s music or graphics, whatever the case may be so we are in tuned with how these kids are thinking and who they truly are. We’re a tough, physical brand of football here and we really want to know character wise about the recruits. So social media helps us really learn that, its not just learning from word of mouth from other people. We get to see these kids interact on a daily basis with their peers. You get a clear perspective, for the most part, of what these kids think, how they approach football, how they approach their life and what their mindset is and – in most cases – do they fit into our program, what our philosophies our and what our culture is.”

Temple TUFF was part of the culture before coach Collins, he wants to make sure it is in the future as well.

Email Rock Hoffman at Rock@footballstories.com