Best of TFF: Streak No. 1 (20)

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I sat it the upper deck to watch this one with Doogie Hoops, Sal The Owl, Doc and a few others. The 20-game losing streak was over.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We take only one week vacation the entire year from this blog and it starts today so we will be running at least three Best Ofs. This year, the theme will be streaks, mostly bad, and ending them with something good. Deadspin.com featured this post way back in October of 2006 and it got over 1,000,000 page views. The streak was a 20-game losing streak that ended something bad and began something good. The story is so old that the links don’t work, but the memories are still good.

Watching Travis Shelton show his backside to the entire Bowling Green kickoff team, I thought about a lot of people.
Most of all, I thought about Karl Smith.
And all of the other small-minded narrow-thinkers like him.
Smith is the executive editor of PhillyBurbs.com.
You need only read a few excerpts from this piece of crap he wrote about Bowling Green putting up 70 on the Owls.
Things have changed a little since then, Karl.

…”how nice to have an extended scrimmage every year …against an overmatched opponent that actually counts in the standings,” Smith wrote …

A brief synopsis is in order. He went on to thank Temple for this and thank Temple for that and then concluded by thanking Temple for accepting an invitation to the MAC so that the Owls can be Bowling Green’s whipping boy for the next few years.
“… how nice to have an extended scrimmage against an overmatched opponent every year that actually counts in the standings,” Smith wrote.
Hmmm.

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This mention in Deadspin put TFF on the map with a 1 million page view day.

I guess he doesn’t know collegefootballnews.com named the Owls 2006 freshman recruiting class at the top incoming class among MAC schools, current or future.
I guess he doesn’t care many of those recruits, as many as 18, are seeing significant playing time for the Owls this season or that these same players pushed around Bowling Green’s sophomore- and junior-dominated lineup.
He might not know that the 2007 recruiting class is ranked significantly higher than that one and that it might dwarf any recruiting class of any MAC team in recent memory.
Or maybe he doesn’t care.
And, if he can count, he knows that this same Owls will be around for the next three years. Yes, the same Owls that beat his beloved Bowling Green by two touchdowns yesterday.
We won’t assume that Bowling Green will be Temple’s whipping boy for the next few years, as he assumed the other way.
The evidence is there.
Temple is getting better.
Bowling Green is getting worse.
Get used to watching Shelton’s backside. You’ve got two more years of watching that 4.27-40 speed.
We have six players coming in with that kind of speed and the evidence suggests that Temple could literally leave Bowling Green looking permanently in its rear view mirror.
Al Golden is a young, charismatic, recruiter who kids identify with and will rally behind. He came to Temple with a deserved reputation of being a recruiter without peer and he has only enhanced that reputation so far in his year on the job.
Thank you, Karl Smith.
Thank you very much.

Monday: Streak No. 2  (49)

Wednesday; Streak No. 3 (74)

Friday: Streak No. 4 (30)

Monday, Aug. 3: Regular Programming Resumes

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6 thoughts on “Best of TFF: Streak No. 1 (20)

  1. Yup, were at that game, were at all the Al Golden games in fact. Oh it was a stupid time also in year 1and 2 then. We thought Golden was just another (dumb) useless coach.
    By year end of year two there were several hot heads leading the crowd into ‘Fire Snow’.
    I used to yell out; ‘go for the field goal ! ‘ , when I learned his coach decisions as to key 3rd down plays. Most of them did little good as I recall.
    FFG’s were us, it often happened too. TD’s not so much back then.
    That was a stupid first 2 years under Golden also, lets be honest.
    After that we saw Phil Snow built a damn ‘ blitz krieg ‘ defense, he was great .
    I sorta feel bad we mistreated him so much….

  2. Way back when, I remember Temple played Bowling Green and Akron fairly often. When I moved to Ohio in the late 90s the Owls came here to play BGU and I drove cross-state to see the game. Turns out Urban Meyer was their coach at that time (later winning nat’l championships at FL and Ohio State) but then he was an unknown. Half time we were down by 3 and I was sitting there thinking we’ll get these guys in the 2nd half, but it never happened. We lost and I was in quasi-shock. I thought we were better than that. And since then? Never take MAC teams lightly is my motto. Temple more recently lost a couple times to Ohio U and Al Golden never beat a MAC team with a winning record.

  3. People complaining today about TU coaches who have winning records did not live through the dark decades when just keeping the score close was considered a victory. Golden does deserve kudos for turning the program around. Winning at TU was considered impossible and he proved them wrong. No one could have predicted the success the program has had the last several years and people would have given you 100 to 1 odds that TU would one day be good enough to earn trips to bowl games in successive years. Hope Carey recognizes the thin line between and losing and understands that one or two lapses could send TU back into those dark times.

    • John, if you’re referring to my statement about Golden never beating a winning MAC team, I wasn’t complaining just pointing out that the MAC can be pretty darn competitive – and by the way, I’m a ’68 TU graduate so I lived thru all the bad old days of TU football. I’ve stated here before that I loved Golden for essentially saving the program and his recruiting abilities but he was not a good game-day coach. Also, now-a-days going bowling really doesn’t mean much with the plethora of bowl games and if you don’t go to one it means you’re team is pretty bad. But for Temple it at least means we’re pretty good now and far better than we were for decades. Being competitive in the AAC is a huge improvement. Let’s hope Carey can keep things going.

  4. I was there! Back then we had to be extra loud and try to stir up the crowd.

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