11.06.14
by

Jeez(y), This Temple Team Deserves a Big Crowd Friday Night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq013xyXUyg

Another slick, short and sweet video by Temple Athletics pumping up the fans for Temple’s Friday Night Lights’ game and there’s plenty to like about it.

The audio part, though, could use a little work. Imagine Dragons?

You’ve got to be kidding me … Young Jeezy must have some more appropriate lyrics for Temple’s epic showdown with visiting Memphis on Friday night. After all, YJ pumped up the team with a pre-game talk that helped the Owls double up East Carolina, 20-10, last week. Jeez is more than an honorary Temple football fan. He’s a real one. A Jeez phone call might close the deal on a five-star someday. Let that thought marinate for a minute. I prefer Mumford and Sons and the Foo Fighters, but I’m not a five-star so I yield to Jeez. Chances are Jeez’s playlist is on most five-star’s headphones.

Looks like Matt Ioannidis has his game-face on, but Tavon Young and Kenny Harper were politely asking for the students to get on the 4:30 buses that leave the main campus for the “free tailgate.” Having been a Temple student once, I was so broke I knew the word “free” back then evoked a Pavlovian response, like “I’m there.” If some on the main campus cannot make the 4:30 buses, there’s a dedicated subway line right in front of the Liacouras Center that takes all of 10 minutes to get to the game.

Time for the alumni to put away the remote, put on a coat, get in a car, bus or train to the Linc and wear out the vocal chords.

Time for the alumni to put away the remote, get off the couch, put on a coat, get in a car, bus or train to the Linc and wear out the vocal chords. I will be there. Will you?

For all of the bitching and moaning of not having an on-campus stadium, it’s hard to imagine a following without an on-campus stadium having easier transportation options than Temple fans have. Heck, Uconn has its own stadium but it’s 27 miles from the main campus.

More importantly, there’s an epic game to be played and how can a student or alumnus miss it? National TV, winner-take-all for a bowl game and the winner gets a bowl, loser gets to bite their fingernails for one or two more weeks or maybe even the rest of the season.

If those stakes don’t cause the fans to stay standing in their seats and yell “Let’s Go Temple” and “DEE-fense, DEE-fense” (both while the Owls are on defense, of course), nothing will. Make no mistake about it. This will be a tough game. Memphis went toe-to-toe with UCLA and destroyed a good Cincinnati team. For Temple, a win here could be just the momentum-generator the Owls need to make a program-changing win over Penn State next week.

There are 12,500 students who live on campus now and 27,000 additional full-time students who commute home. There are 291,000 living alumni, about 180,000 of them live within an hour’s drive of the stadium. There are 6,000 full-time Temple employees. Even if you get half of the 12.5K and 6K and one-quarter of the 180,000, you have pretty close to a full stadium.

A lot of yelling and cheering for these guys could not hurt and no doubt would help. You can just tell by looking at their faces they would appreciate it. They deserve your support and, for the students especially, it costs nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other and walking two more feet to a bus or a subway. They are, after all, representing you and the Linc is our “Hood.”

21 thoughts on “Jeez(y), This Temple Team Deserves a Big Crowd Friday Night”

  1. Nice try Mike, but if they only get their normal 20-25K for this game it just indicates the pathetic fan base at Temple. And, as you point out, since it’s so easy to get to the game for students and plenty of alums just by hoping on the sub, if they can’t be bothered for a game of this magnitude, how can an investment of an on-campus stadium even be considered (except that they face an extremely expensive rental situation at the Linc, and maybe with a few hefty donations and payback in the (very) long run). Maybe I just answered my own question!
    Go Owls. Do a job on Memphis and get this bowl eligibility thing behind you.

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  2. Temple’s fan base has rarely surprised me pleasantly. Bowling Green homecoming in 2009 (26K) and the EBB (23K, 20K Temple) were a couple of notable exceptions but the exceptions have been too few and far between. We have a hardcore fanbase of 20K and a softcore additional fan base of about the same. If we could ever merge the two, we’d have something but the soft underbelly of the fan base likes their remotes, lazy boys and potato chips too much to bother to put a coat on and turn the key in the ignition. Nothing burns me up more than to go to a game and then come home and read comments on a game thread from people who I know live in the city of Philadelphia and watched on TV. Of course, life-changing events like funerals and weddings are good excuses. Cheap potato chips and expensive tickets are not (although Temple tickets are relatively inexpensive).

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  3. “I put on for my city” by YJ should be the true temple anthem. Especially marketed to players like Shareef Miller, Upshir, and all other philly players

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  4. Memphis is stronger and a more complete team than Houston or UCF.
    Temple can only win this game if:
    1. the offense scores 21 points or more
    2. they make all FGAs
    3. finish the game with less than 45 yards in penalties
    4. and turn the ball over no more than two times

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    • I’m inclined to agree. Turnovers and penalites are going to make or break us. ECU had quite a few more yards than we did, we gashed them on turnovers, and they put up penalites.

      It’d be really nice to see our offense hum in sync to get the win. With bowl eligibility on the line I hope our guys dig deep.

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    • 5. control the clock with a running game and roll p.j. out for easy passes to the tight end (ala chester stewart’s 9 for 9 at maryland, mostly to evan rodriguez). we need a few 6-minute drives. memphis offense is better than its defense.

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  5. Part of the problem with the TU fan base is that there is no history of success. Going to games was never a part of their routine because the team has been historically a doormat. It is going to take several (10+) years of modest success to build an alumni base that has a tradition of going to the games.

    The Linc fails to deliver a great college football game atmosphere on top of that. TU needs a 30,000 seat, on campus stadium, that can expand with success. If done correctly, it can be used for other functions as well.

    All that being said, Let’s go out and get this win tomorrow night. I would not mind going to the Bahamas for a bowl game! I will settle for Annapolis, though.

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  6. Mike, you throw out the numbers that we are all familiar with. It is my belief that at least 50% of the 1 hr alumni figure that you quote has never attended a temple sporting event and is completely disaffiliated with the university to the point that you could not get them to go to a game if you pointed a gun at them. The reasons are endless but basically a great deal of alumni came to this school because it was inexpensive or because it was the only school they could get into and were not interested in the college experience. It is sad but true. The improving quality of the current student base is slowly helping to change that but it is definitely slower than any of us would like to see. So really the 180,000 alumni within an hours drive of the stadium are actually 90,000 who are real or casual fans and would or might attend a game. So lets say on any given day we can get a quarter of that total and half of the on campus students, that comes to about 29,000. Maybe you get more than have the students if the stadium is on campus and you get a few people that are more than an hour away and you are just over 30,000. If you can convince a few thousand non temple Philadelphian’s to show up, you are at close to 35,000. Add a couple fans from the other team and you might come close to 40,000, this is the best possible case as i see it and it would require the perfect storm of support. Tomorrow, i expect about 17,000 of the 90,000 potential 1 hr alumni, 1,000 of those living further, 5,000 students, 1,000 memphis fans and another 1,500 interested Philadelphian’s not affiliated with temple but who want to see a good college football game. that totals 25,500. The only chance i see for a bigger crowd is in the last category. I will be thrilled to be wrong.

    The key is understanding that a huge balance of the “180K” strong alumni base do not consider themselves alumni except in name only. We need to forget about them and stop being disappointed when they don’t show up. The current temple student is much more likely to understand and desire the college experience which includes football. I will be really disappointed if the students don’t show tomorrow because then the future is not so bright.

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    • Bob, to your point about not being interested in the college experience in the past Temple also had a lot of working students. People who maybe didn’t take a full course each semester, split day and evening course and/or took course say in TUCC, Main Campus and Ambler all while working a regular job, so Temple was more of a means to an end for those students, but then again providing a accessible college education to that type of student was one of the foundling principals of the university. I agree that the major effort initially needs to be aimed at the current student body and recent grads.

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  7. Bob,
    I just want this amount of students to come back. (Students were way more active and involved five years ago. Don’t know if the student leadership was better then or what. …)

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  8. TU alumni do not donate, never mind attend events. TU has one of the lowest per alumni donation amount across all universities and its reflected in its endowment. I know personally that former athletes don’t return, even those who live in the area. I have no explanation. It’s just a shame that wins like last week are so few and far between. Most of the time, like CFU last year, fans go home disappointed. Attendance at basketball is no better. Other than games against high profile opponents, attendance rarely exceeds 3 thousand.

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  9. we had a little student momentum going in 2011 (where every game was a party like above) but then even with a 2-0 BE record, our students were nowhere to be found against Maryland and RU and I still don’t know why. Love those students in that video above.

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  10. 8 hours to go! Ugh wish work would end already so I can get going. TU TUFF!

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  12. A lot of love for Matt Thule on Twitter. The objective fotball-loving public sees real progress for this program and a coaching star on the rise. This one hurts tonight, but keep the faith. Program is in good hands.

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    • I actually think tonight was the case of 2 evenly matched team with Temple making just enough mistakes (punting game and dropped passes in receivers hands) to beat themselves. As disappointed as I was heading home tonight on the plus side for all the hype that Memphis was getting before the game, I didn’t see a team tonight that was appreciably better than Temple which means you now have 2 of the worst teams in the conference last year now firmly established as the middle tier behind Cincinnati, ECU, Houston and UCF. While I do believe Temple had opportunities this year to have an even better record this year, finishing up with at least a win at Tulane (which I believe they will do) as worst case is a good move forward. After the win last week, will disappointed tonight because the game was there to win, I don’t feel totally down right now. Plus while the offense was erratic, I believe these were 2 of the better, if not top 2 defense in the conference.

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  13. 1. Holding penalty in the red zone lead to PJ’s tip drill interception instead of first and goal.
    2. Missed field goal.
    3. Muffed punt

    Those three plays cost Temple the game. The defense was great. The lack of an O-line really hurt this team. As well as the dropped passes. You have to make those plays. I think Snow and Satterfield called really good games.

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  14. I was a bit surprised our defense kept the game as close as it was. Stuffing the run was paramount to giving us a chance. Won’t over do it with a long response so I’ll kep it short.

    1. PJ needs better blocking. He missed passes on his own; yes, but seriously the two back set worked against a tougher ECU opponent. Didn’t see it once last night.
    2. Variety on plays. Besides a couple I formations and misc. set ups we only played from the 3 wideout single back set. Too predictable and not tremendously effective. We need to have sustained drives and not bank on 3rd down conversions.
    3. Get the TE more active. He had a great catch up the middle. Should have gone there again.
    4. Our defense is Temple Tuff!

    Props to the team for keeping penalties down and fighting hard. Oh and Hairston needs some glue on those hands. Game was within our reach.

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  15. Too many mistakes to include dropped passes missed fg. Special teams gave up six points directly and if you include the bad punt which gave Memphis a short field, special teams gave up 13 points. Memphis had one druge all night, the last one. D was lights out again. Losing Fitzpatrick really hurt too. Time to move on we got three left.

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  16. It looked like Shane Falco throwing to Clifford Franklin last night. Can we not recruit someone who can caught the damn ball?!! Can we not recruit a punter who can punt over 25 yards!?! Our WRs can’t catch, can’t win one-on-one battles, and don’t seem to have football instincts. AT BEST, they should be playing for Lehigh and Lafayette, and some might be back-ups at Cheyney. I don’t care what these players did or averaged in high school, they can’t produce at this level.

    Although there were numerous dropped balls, PJ is regressing. Spare me on the ifs and maybes, he’s regressing. Our offense is anemic and “Sutter-Down” is drowning this team with no imagination and modifications. It was frustrating to watch Temple as a child, play for them in college, and watch them as an alumnus.

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