Temple Can Learn from Boise State

temple

Boise State opens with Florida State this year.

Temple opens with Bucknell.

Those two sentences are all you need to know about what Temple (and, to a larger extent), the AAC can learn from Boise State.

That’s because, despite all the bombast from Mike Aresco’s home office about the AAC being a Power Conference, the schedules of member schools are littered with FCS opponents.

If Aresco and members are really serious about moving on up to college football’s east side, then they will follow Boise State’s heavy P5 scheduling lean.

The worst non-conference schedule this year, according to rankings of 130 FBS team?

Alabama.

When you are in the SEC, you can do that.

ACC, maybe.

AAC definitely not.

The formula for the AAC to move up is the hard path of making its members schedule teams from the Power 5–or at least fellow FBS schools–exclusively and then go beat them.

If the AAC doesn’t change its policy, Temple certainly should.

Amazingly, there are apologists out there who say “two P5 opponents plus an FCS is the perfect way to schedule” because that’s the way to get to a bowl game every year.

To that, I say: If Temple has to play an FCS game to qualify as a top 80 team in a 130-team group, it should not be playing intercollegiate football.

Temple, it would seem to me, is best-suited for this type of schedule than its fellow AAC foes. The Owls are smack dab in the center of a five-hour drive of 46 percent of the nation’s population. There are enough great high school players within that circle for the Owls to recruit and coach them up to win a significant number of games against P5 schools.

There’s certainly no advancing the Temple brand by beating an FCS school and that’s something that should have been stopped between the last Villanova game and the next Bucknell game.

For now, all Owls’ fans can do is swallow hard and hope this is the last FCS team they will ever see again.

Wednesday: Hitting the Recruit Reset Button

Sunday: The Long Game

Wednesday (6/5): The Case for The Defense

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17 thoughts on “Temple Can Learn from Boise State

  1. The fact that TU still has problems against FCS Nova is maybe the bigger problem.

      • That’s true recently. But the record is about even and not long ago Nova was in the national playoffs and won nat’l championships meaning that they’re nobody to trifle with – a lousy coaching job by Temple (ala Collins) and Nova is good enough to pull off an upset.

      • Daz did the job every Temple coach should have done against Villanova: 42-10 and 42-7. Don’t think Rhule had the chance to play them and Golden had to bring the program back from the APR dead so he gets a pass. Collins sucked with 10x the talent but 1/2 the staff. Overly harsh? No. I would have taken the Villanova staff (just coaches) the last couple of years over the Temple coaches and I think they proved that in both games. Wish Georgia Tech played Kennesaw so GT fans would have the opportunity to have the same empty feeling we had after both games.

  2. I would like to see TU play against 2 P5 and 2 Group of 5 school..As far as P5, a consistent schedule with regional school’s would be great(Rutgers, Maryland, PSU, PITT, BC, CUSE) (shot out to some of the old big East..LOL)

    • Got to give Kraft as much blame for the Diaz hire as praise for the Carey one but, in the area of scheduling, Bradshaw did the far better job. Hard to imagine Bradshaw, who scheduled Notre Dame, agreeing to any series with Bucknell.

    • I also like the Old Big East rivalries. Maybe Diaz will give us a two-game series with Miami. It will fun to see Daz and Diaz again.

      • We have a two-game series set up with Miami already, in 2020 (away) and 2023 (home).

  3. How can we get rid of the Idaho game?

  4. Boise State plays only one P5 school in 2019, FSU. Temple plays two, Maryland and Ga Tech. Bobby Bowden changed the culture at FSU and brought them to national prominence via the John Chaney style of scheduling.

    When was the last time Temple beat two P5 schools in the same year? 17 years ago, 2002.

    There is a chance it might happen in 2019.

    Temple will have to amp up recruiting and the talent level before scheduling more than two P5 opponents on a yearly basis.

    • Good points kj. And that’s why I say the AAC is just right for TU at this time. The fact that we haven’t beaten 2 P5 teams in the same season for 17 years and have had our ass handed to us in bowl games against P5 programs recently indicates we’re not yet ready to get into a P5 conference and do very well.

  5. The problem is, you’re never getting 1 and 1’s. P5 teams are going to ask for 3 for 1’s and the odds of them buying out the 1 return visit are particularly high. Texas just bought out their return trip to S. Florida. I expect FSU to do the same to Boise next year. So, that naturally leaves programs like Temple scrambling to fill out home dates, and FCS programs are always going to be the quick and easy option. Temple scheduling 2 P5’s at the LInc is not the norm and it’s not going to be for the future.

    • Nick Saban is advocating that P-5 schools only play other P-5 schools. I do not believe that his proposal will be implemented because too many P-5 schools need those games to become bowl eligible. Coaches at middle of the pack P-5 schools would surely block it.

    • Texas has the deep pockets in their program to afford canceling the last game of the UCF series.

      Besides, U of Texas knows they’ll make more money playing Alabama, vs UCF.

      Its an easy choice for Texas.

  6. You also have state legislated mandatory games for some programs and the real reason that without these games, a lot of FCS programs could be in serious trouble. That’s not exactly a good thing for the sport overall.

  7. agree w/Mike and the rest, dump the FCS.

    another solution exists. Schedule two P5 schools, and two non-conference G5 schools, like NIU, Boise St, Hawaii, Appalachian St, etc.;

    or two independents, BYU, ND, Army..,

  8. Great idea. A home and home with Hawaii or San Diego state can only help recruiting.

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