10.26.13
by

One thing is certain: It won’t be a tie

Not my ticket. Two things that struck me about this. The game kicked off at 8:30 p.m. on a Friday night on the East Coast (and I don't think TV had anything to do with it) and 31 seats in one row is a lot of seats.

Not my ticket. Two things that struck me about this. The game kicked off at 8:30 p.m. on a Friday night on the East Coast (and I don’t think TV had anything to do with it) and 31 seats in one row is a lot of seats.

Most people agree that Temple’s football game at SMU today (3 p.m., ESPN3; 97.5, The Fanatic) will be a high-scoring one, very unlike the last two meetings between the teams.

One thing it will not be that the other two games were are ties: SMU and Temple tied, 6-6, in 1942 and 7-7 in 1946. In the 1946 game, SMU was called for offsides on a missed Temple extra point that enabled the Owls to kick a second extra point.

Temple was the only team from the "traditional East" the Mustangs played that year.

Temple was the only team from the “traditional East” the Mustangs played that year.

I’m old enough to remember college football games that were tied and I’ve never really understood them. I became a Temple football fan while sitting through a Temple tie with visiting Villanova, 13-13, in the early days of coach Wayne Hardin.

At the time, I was just a young kid who was a fan of both teams: Villanova, because my dad went there; Temple, because its games were on Philadelphia television (Al Meltzer play-by-play, Charlie Swift color).

The SMU team Temple tied in 1946 played in the Cotton Bowl that same calendar year.

The SMU team Temple tied in 1946 played in the Cotton Bowl in a regular-season game against Texas A&M that same calendar year. Cotton Bowl was SMU’s home field back then.

When Villanova coach Lou Ferry took three knees to avoid a loss deep in his own territory, I saw all I needed to see. I became a Temple fan for life.

Temple, in my mind, was the team that always tried to win. Against Penn State years later, the Owls lost, 31-30, because they eschewed the extra point on the final play of the game. Temple also played a 17-17 tie at Cincinnati. To me, a wasted trip.

I’ve never understood the concept of ties. They didn’t settle for them in basketball and they should not settle for them in football.

While I like the new overtime rules better than the old ties, I’d still prefer to see an extra quarter before going to them. They must have had their reasons, though.

Another theme about today is the back-to-the-future aspect of TV-watching. I thought those days of being in the MAC and watching the game on the computer were over, but they are not. No local TV station chose to pick up the ESPN3 feed, but why not Temple TV (Channel 50 on Comcast)? Today, on Channel 50 between 3:30 and 6:30 is the following programming:  Campbell’s Comedy Show, Jock Joint, The Grog Show, Temple Smash and a rerun of Temple Update. Seems to me like it would not take much to plug in the HDMI feed of ESPN3 and broadcast it over the air, with permission from ESPN. Maybe Cal and Lucille Rudman can look into this for the future. The last two games I watched on computer did not have a good ending: Temple at Bowling Green (2011) and Temple at Idaho (2013).

At least this Temple-SMU game will not end in a tie and hopefully the Owls will have this one wrapped up before they have to play an overtime. If they do, I will take back all of the bad things I said about Matt Rhule.

Err, at least some of them.

Early TV. I think the Rutgers-Houston game will be on Channel 6, even though the current listing says "to be announced."

Early TV. Unfortunately, we get UConn-UCF  on Channel 6 instead of RU-Houston.

25 thoughts on “One thing is certain: It won’t be a tie”

  1. Bradshaw The Visionary, when he cooked up this whole “Big East” thing with Marinatto The Meatball, specifically said one of the big wins for Temple was playing “high exposure” TV markets like Dallas. How is that working out? Basketball was sold out for this crap?

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  2. Basketball will be fine. Without Xavier and Butler, the A-10 is depleted anyway and AAC (Memphis, UConn, Louisville for one year) is a significant step up for hoops. AAC gets more NCAA bids (5) this year than A10 (2) and Temple will be one of the five, but might not have been one of the two. It’s football leadership I’m worried about.

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    • Disagree. Basketball loses big. In A10, you could count on home-and-home each year with LaSalle and SJ, and the maintenance of a longtime rivalry with re-emerging UMass. I also guarantee you VCU is a better draw than UConn. We also lose a nearby conference tournament and will log three times the travel miles to play in empty buildings in Houston, Dallas, Tampa, Tulsa and Greenville. Recruiting will suffer and Dunphy’s replacement will be coming into a bad situation. This is a shit sandwich Bradshaw gave us because he overreacted to winning the magnificent New Mexico Bowl and sniffed BCS bucks. What a joke.

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      • I think for football, after this season it’s a wash competitively between the AAC and the MAC, with the new Miami bowl not even sure if the AAC will have more bowl tie ins as the MAC is part of that bowl. Probably get just as few casual fans for Houston, Tulsa as you would for Kent State and EMU. So if the overall $$$ are more in the AAC the move is a plus. For football, don’t think the travel costs are much greater either now that the AAC no longer has that western tier. I agree with Mike in that my big concern for football is the leadership. Basketball, you make some goods points and for me it’s wait and see. It wouldn’t shock me if at some point in the near future if UMass ends up joining the AAC

      • I would hope we are smart enough to schedule the Big 5/6 schools out of conference every year.

  3. On an unrelated note, that Houston loss isn’t looking so bad now, is it? If not for a couple of drops in that game and the end zone mistake against Fordham, Temple would be 3-4, possibly looking at 6-6, and a good first year for Rhule. Please be patient. Not apologetic. Bad losses (Idaho) happen in every sport.

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  4. So wait, who put what in whose coffee to get us up by two TDs against SMU?

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  5. WTF?! I think that burning PJ’s redshirt was the best decision the coaching staff has made all year, without question.

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  6. And Snow decides to play prevent against this type of offense, ugh

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  7. Another poorly-coached defensive effort. … and the offense should have committed to the run up 28-7 … no doubt in my mind our OL could have knocked that defense off the ball in the run game for Harper and Williams The under-use of Williams and Coyer on offense has been criminal (not borderline criminal, regular criminal). Somebody is stealing money from Temple in the coaching offices at the E-O and it’s more than one coach.

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  8. If you don’t surround P.J. with a good defense and good coaches, he’s going to have a career like Henry Burris. Plenty of yards passing, but way too few wins. That’s where that appears to be headed now unless the administration does something at the end of the season.

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    • Hard to really judge listening on the radio, but it did sound like Satterfield may be developing into a decent FBS OC. At least he’s a young guy who may have an upside. In defense of Rhule, while he made more rookie mistakes, fake punt inside your 30 with 15 minutes left in the game, the team at least seemed well prepared to open the game, same as Cincinnati. Now he needs to learn how to make second half adjustments, finish games. As for Snow, look the guys best years were 1996, 97 and 2001. While a coach isn’t going to make a player faster or bigger he should be able to make a player play smarter, play schemes that try and cover up weaknesses and to quote Andy Reid, put players in position to be more effective.Really don’t see much of that from Snow and don’t think that is going to change, the game is very different then when he had his top defenses.

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  9. The fake punt is something you try from midfield, not from your own 20. The modern offensive game is something that passed Snow by a long time ago. Rhule looks at him like it was the Snow of 2001. He ain’t that.

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    • Aresco is privately telling his media moles — it has some traction in Jersey — that he regrets inheriting Temple and would have preferred an “up-and-coming football-centric” school like UTSA, South Alabama or UAB. Worth keeping eye on.

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      • I actually kind of agree with this, because it is clear that no one in Temple’s athletic department understands who or what is required to win at the FBS level. Why would a commish want us. I understand that Temple has all sorts of potential but we seem to shoot ourselves in the foot any time that potential starts to be demonstrated.

      • Agree, CS. Read a blog recently that had an “AAC insider” noting that Temple never finished above 4th in MAC division play yet its administration showed “unusual arrogance” at AAC league meetings.

      • I am a currently a grad student at Temple. Believe me arrogance is pretty much par for the course with the administration. Of course there are exceptions, but it is like they bought into some weird self-help system that tells you if you act like an arrogant jerk people will believe you are something special.

  10. Don’t know if the Aeresco thing is true or not but don’t forget the at the time Big East needed Temple for the 2012 football schedule. As far as having an up and coming program, we have a good bit of company at the bottom in the AAC, Memphis, UConn, Tulsa coming in next year. Now don;t get me wrong I do agree with CS and VOR about the administration and athletic department with regards to running a winning FBS program. I don’t think UConn will be hiring an inexperienced coach with no HC experience after this season because he’ll stick around and the players like him. For me, I’m getting that feeling of deja vu with regards to the program and this coach, can you say Bobby Wallace, ROn DIckerson……..

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    • JD, have a good source in college admin that said if Temple was patient and won a couple of MACs and kept Dunphy in hoops it would have had “its pick” of conferences in the next wave of realignment, around 2017 or 18. Interesting.

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      • Vor, have to take your word on your inside knowledge but it makes sense. Winning at least the MAC east a couple of times and a MAC title most likely could have put Temple in more of a Rutgers position regarding realignment. As of now, we will basically be in C-USA and we aren’t going anywhere in the next wave of realignment, which I think will be the last. The ACC would be the logical choice and honestly why would they need us, unless heavily raided themselves. I know the TV market is always brought up and Temple games seem to get good ratings but with PSU and even to some extent Rutgers, I think Temple at best may be looked at as third in the pecking order.

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