"Temple University's football team used to practice this play designed to generate pressure up the middle where the defensive tackles would stunt outside and two linebackers would swarm the open gaps, creating a six-man front.

If a ball carrier still made it past the front line, the Owls funneled a safety toward the middle as the "clean-up guy."

Problem is, too often the clean-up guy made a mess of things.

"He would always go in the wrong gap, and the ball carrier would hit it up in there and get 5 or 6 yards," Paul Williams, former Owls defensive backs coach, recalled.

Then along come safety Jaiquawn Jarrett, the clean-up hitter Owls coaches so desperately needed to make the play worth trying during an actual game.

"He would hit it right in the middle, right on the running backs and make the tackle for no yards every time," Williams said. "Other guys couldn't do it. He's just so natural."

Williams is now the defensive backs coach at the University of Miami, having followed former Owls head coach Al Golden to one of the nation's most storied programs.

You probably can't count with both hands the number of schemes Temple couldn't execute before Golden started to scour the countryside for underrated prospects like Jarrett, the Eagles' second-round draftee who was Golden's last scholarship offer -- only after another player had left the program.

Jarrett isn't a workout warrior -- his 4.54 time in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine aided in his projection as no higher than a third-round pick -- but his coaches marveled at the Brooklyn, N.Y., native's innate feel for where to be and just how hard to knock someone's head off.

"I mean, he just crushes people," Eagles coach Andy Reid said. "And I know that's not the National Football League (style), but I know he did that in high school. I know he transferred that to the college level. And I'd expect him to transfer that to this level. He's a big-time hitter.""