Temple Makes Moves to Hire New Head Coach

Written by: Chris Kofsky

For the second time in almost a month, Temple Football will be announcing a new head coach. The Owls are set to hire 47-year-old Rod Carey, who has been at the helm of Northern Illinois University (NIU) since 2012. The news was first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday.

The hire comes 11 days after Many Diaz announced he was leaving the Owls to go back to the University of Miami to be the head coach. Prior to Diaz’s departure, Temple was stuck without a coach in early December when Geoff Collins left to be the head coach at Georgia Tech.
    Carey is a Wisconsin native who attended the University of Indiana and played center for the Hoosiers from 1990 to 1993. Carey is an offensive minded coach, who spent five years as an assistant before getting his first coaching position as the co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach for Wisconsin State from 2000 to 2003. Carey was then promoted to offensive coordinator in 2004. Carey also spent 2007 as Illinois State’s offensive line coach and 2008 to 2009 as North Dakota’s offensive line coach, before joining NIU’s staff in 2011, where he started as the offensive line coach. Carey became the offensive coordinator of NIU in 2012, before being promoted to head coach the following year.

As a head coach, Carey had a 52-30 record, four MAC West titles and two MAC Championships. One of the championships came this season, beating the University of Buffalo 30-29.

In his first season as NIU coach, Carey took the Huskies to the Orange Bowl against Florida State, where they were defeated 31-10. Carey had a 0-6 record in bowl games with the Huskies, but only had one losing season in his six years at NIU.

The university has not made the hiring official yet, but ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg tweeted on Thursday, “Agreement between Temple and Rod Carey is done, according to a source. Announcement Friday”.

The hire comes as a surprise as because several sources had reported that the Owls were looking for a defensive minded coach in the first round of interviews.

It was also reported on Twitter Thursday by OwlsDaily24/7 writer, Ryan Wallen, that a source told him, “Temple’s administrator has made it clear that Ed Foley, Fran Brown and Gabe Infante are “must takes” for whomever is named the Owl’s next head football coach. So those out there worrying about their stats: don’t.”

It was reported Friday afternoon, per release, Carey will be introduced as the Owls head coach on Friday at 4pm.