The unofficial official announcement

“If this helps my old Temple guys, let’s move the
South Florida game,” Al Golden seems to be saying.

This week was the 50th anniversary of the John Glenn orbital space flight, the first by an American.
I’m too young to remember the TV broadcast of that re-entry, but I do remember the replay of what one of the ground crew guys said to Glenn after he successfully re-entered despite a heat shield that was about to burn up.
“Roger, John Glenn,” the man said, “you’ve got a lot of guys on the ground here about to turn blue.”
Well, I’ve been holding my breath for a few days and I’m about to turn blue waiting for another re-entry: Temple back to the Big East.
So is just about every fan who cares about Temple sports.

“Obviously I think Temple’s a great fit for the Big East. I think clearly we began the process of establishing you can recruit, and there’s so many great things that have occurred at Temple University. I think they’re worthy of taking that next step.”
_ Al Golden,
May 24th, 2011

One of the guys covering Miami (Fla.) football I’ve gotten to know after he asked me questions about Al Golden last fall provided a clue this morning.
“Mike, we had to move our game with South Florida to accomodate a Temple game on the Big East schedule,” the man wrote in an email. “Good news for you guys. Congratulations. Al Golden can’t say anything specific, but I assume he’s happy.”
That’s about as official as it gets these days.
I looked on the internet over the last few hours and a half to get this information “sourced” and the best I could come up with was a report in the Tampa Tribune that confirmed the move and mentioned the Temple talks as a possible reason.
That, combined with calls to the Temple ticket office where the man answered “we’re waiting on the Big East” for the schedule to be finalized indicates to be that Temple and the MAC must have reached a settlement of their $2.5 million exit fee and the two years’ notice.
Those two pieces of the puzzle seem to fit nicely. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to come to a conclusion based on that evidence.
Otherwise, it would not be logical to move games to accomodate a Big East schedule about to be released in a few days.
It’s not the official announcement we’ve all been waiting for, but it will have to do for now.

10 thoughts on “The unofficial official announcement

  1. GO OWLS!!!!! second thoughts on the two new offensive coaches. BC ranked 108th last year in total offense and scored 21 points or more in only three games. We ranked 59th in total offense and scored 21 points or greater in 9 games…, heck even Rhule did better than those two guys. Rumor is these two guys were run out of town.

  2. Kevin Rogers' credentials are impeccable. BC did not have the skill players last year like Temple did/does. Rogers' history as a coach is outstanding. Heck, he's the first QB coach in NCAA history to be named assistant head coach which indicates to me the trigger on the Day/Rhule duo is short. Day is going to be the OC and he was an outstanding offensive coach while here at Temple and is more of a George DeLeonne disciple. GDL is the Sid Gillman of college OC's, a wise old guy who got the most of the TU offfense in the lean AG first years.

  3. also indicates that Daz needed to make him ACH to get more money to secure Rogers' services.

  4. You are the man, Mike. That's excellent news. Now I'll wait for someone else to take credit for your work.

  5. I certainly hope we are playing in the Big East this fall!! Any word on who will be our 5th non-conference oppponent?

  6. my guess is that we will have to pay back the MAC to reduce that buyout with at least one non-conference football foe (Ohio or Buffalo, probably) and maintain the four non-conference hoops' games for at least one year. I don't think the MAC will stand in the way of Temple moving to a BCS conference. It's a feather in the MAC camp to have a member move from their conference to the BCS, which has never happened before.

  7. Let us pray that if we do have to play a MAC team, the game will not be officiated by MAC referees!

  8. LOL … good one … unfortunately, I can guarantee you we will get MAC officials and the penalty breakdown will be something like the Bowling Green game (12 Temple penalties to a MAC team's 2).We pretty much screwed them by leaving early and I don't think they will be feeling too bad about screwing us on the field of play.Thank God we graduate Chester Stewart or else I don't think we'd have a chance to overcome the inequity.

  9. I checked all the future schedules of the MAC teams on http://www.fbschedules.com – they all have four non-conference opponents already for 2012. So, if we did enter into some arrangement to play MAC teams on a yearly basis, such arrangement would have to start in 2013. (Even in 2013, the only MAC teams that have less than four non-conference opponents already scheduled are the three directional Michigans and UMass). I hope we get to play in the Big East this fall, and hope we can find an interesting fifth non-conference opponent.

  10. I saw that the Board of Trustees is meeting tomorrow via conference call to supposedly discuss Temple's conference affiliation. Hope this will wrap everything up and we are looking at a BE football schedule in the next few weeks. Speaking to the ticket office I get the feeling if this happesn it will result in a definite increase in attendance.

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