Spring Football looking more likely

Screenshot 2020-04-22 at 11.22.09 PM

The number on my cellphone flashed as unfamiliar the other day so I let it go to voice mail. The guy on the other end said he was from Temple and wanted to tell me that “the deadline for season ticket renewals” had been “extended” until May 1.

What’s the rush, I thought? Has this guy read the news recently?

The biggest Temple football news a year ago at this time was the absence of real hitting in the spring for the first time in memory for a lot of Temple fans.

season

 

In April of 2019, the faithful crammed into the seats–with no social distancing–to watch this drill: Punt returner catches the ball, then runs through a line of players on both sides who hit him gently with pads.

That’s not the Temple TUFF I had come to know and love. It became apparent I wasn’t going to go over a stat sheet and see Jadan Blue with 119 yards and three touchdown catches, as I did after the 2017 game. There was no “Cherry and White” game anymore.

At that point, a lot of us (raising my hand here) got up out of the seats and walked out of the Olympic sports complex.

Now it appears that we will have hitting in the spring, but it will be next spring and in real games, not practices. According to a column in Wednesday’s Forbes, the writer assumes it is pretty much a given that there won’t be football in the fall. His reasoning is that since the students probably won’t be coming back, it doesn’t figure the athletes will, either.

Bummer.

Since the coronavirus has turned the world upside down, it only figures to turn college football upside down as well. Fall becomes spring. Spring becomes fall.

That was the latest in several stories that first started out as speculation, then assumption. Until a few days ago, I thought it was possible that my beloved Temple Owls would be playing this fall. I thought we’d have to wear masks and gloves and they’d sell only every other seat in the 70K stadium but that doesn’t seem plausible now.

If we have to wait a few extra months for Temple football, so be it. I’d rather have all of our fans healthy in the spring than worrying about a recurrence of these quarantines in the fall.

Since I don’t think that the May 1 deadline will be set in stone, that phone call will remain unreturned until some kind of concrete announcement is made.

Monday: Owls and the NFL Draft

Advertisement

10 thoughts on “Spring Football looking more likely

  1. I know we’re not supposed to talk politics on this site but it’s hard to talk about COVID 19 without considering the political whys and wherefores. So, I wonder if Georgia and GT will still have their annual game since Georgia is opening everything up – I say tongue in cheek, but who knows? Boy am I going to miss the games since Temple is on TV for almost every game now. It’s going to be a looong year.

  2. Off topic: Hennessy to Falcons.
    On topic: If games are playeds in second semester, will there be a full schedule or just AAC games?

    • full schedule. if games are played in the fall, I’m guessing only conference games (and not just AAC but everywhere). Eagles’ draft is God-awful. Took a guy who was projected at no higher than 32 over the top stat receiver in the draft (Justin Jefferson) and a QB who figures to hold a clipboard for 4 years. Got to get 2 starters in the first 2 rounds. Jets had a great draft.

      • There are reasons teams are perennial losers and the Eagles just proved why. Taking Hurts when so much talent was on the board is mind boggling especially because they had so many other needs. I understand that Wentz is fragile but did they forget that they won a Super Bowl with a back up QB because of the talent at other positions. They were just average last season because the secondary and receivers were just average if not a little below average and yet they took a QB in the second round. Like I said it’s mind boggling. (Don’t get me started on how may bone-headed moves the Phillies and TU have made through the decades).

  3. Four Owls drafted. Most ever. Does that comment as to game planning?

    Only G-5 school with players drafted five years running. Considering the weak showing by some P-5 leagues, Temple should be looked at seriously. Quite a recruiting advantage.

    • four drafted plus three free agent signings…, Carey DID have the talent, he underwhelmed.

      No vaccine, no football in 2020. Time gives Russo another year to improve footwork?

  4. happy to see Shaun Bradley go to our Eagles.
    It’s about time that ( lousy miser ?) JL owner allowed a temple guy in again.

    I will comment more on Bradly later, BUT last year I saw him as bit too vicious and getting called and then got thrown out for un-sportsman-like conduct.
    (Same with that other – almost dirty guy -Sam Franklin).
    Now if these guys were dirty or jus had bad luck while being called for rough physical play, you tell me. They hurt the team a few games last year.
    Again maybe officials had to enforce new ‘girly ‘ rules ?

    I’ll wonder still if that lead to Bradley going so late in the draft ????

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s