Best of TFF: Streak No. 4 (30)

Editor’s Note: To close out our favorite month of the year and our vacation week, the final installment of this year’s Best of TFF is a tribute to a team that not only broke a 30-year bowl drought but led the Owls from a 20-game losing streak to national prominence in three years. This post chronicles the pure joy of selection night.

Click on above logo to order tickets through Temple.

Owls and Brian Sanford rejoice in one of the  greatest photos ever 

There’s a saying way older than I am that pretty much describes what happened yesterday at the Liacouras Center.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

That might come from an old Chinese Proverb, although some internet sources dispute it.

Until yesterday, I didn’t think much of the phrase.

“Yeah, right,” I always said. “The guy who wrote that never read a Gary Smith story in Sports Illustrated or never enjoyed morning coffee over a Bill Lyon column in the 1980s or never heard the beautiful word pictures as described by Vin Scully or Harry Kalas.”

Then I saw the photo in today’s Daily News by Charles Fox and that changed my mind.

That photo, which is credited to Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC and appears above this story, says it all.

The sheer joy on the faces of the wonderful kids who play football for Temple University is genuine and spontaneous and cannot be conveyed by mere words.

So I publish it here instead with a plea.

Nobody took a photo of us in the parking lot during that 2005 game against Miami, but it would have been a lot uglier than that beautiful shot. There were less than 10 of us left tailgating in the rain but, before we even heard about Al Golden, we had a dream that someone, someday would come and lead us back to a bowl game.

That day and that someone has come.

That’s why it’s important that all 21,046 of you who showed up for the last home game against Kent State purchase tickets for this “home” game in D.C.

All of you and, hopefully, 21,000 more on top of that.

For maximum impact, please purchase your tickets through Temple University by clicking on the logo above. By buying through Temple, the university will be able to show future bowls that this fan base will travel and have concrete figures to back it up.

Please buy as many as you can and give to those who can make the short trip down I-95 and cheer on these great kids. Or you can wait until Monday morning at 10 a.m. and walk up to the Liacouras Center ticket window. The best seats are on the Temple (South) side 200, 300, 400 and 500 levels. Don’t buy the obstructed 100-level seats.

But buy them through Temple and don’t procrastinate like thousands of folks did only to be caught waiting in long lines at the ticket windows at the last home game.

Monday: Resumption of Regular Programming

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12 thoughts on “Best of TFF: Streak No. 4 (30)

  1. Coldest I have ever been in my life. And I go camping in the middle of the winter. It took me a year to warm up and that is not hyperbole.
    We were dominating that game until Bernard got hurt. Also our punter was suspended so we couldn’t flip the field. We had a good party at the hotel after. I am still waiting for my drink. (That is hyperbole) They weren’t expecting so many if us and were short staffed in the restaurant and bar.

  2. Cold as ICE, best description for that day and that game.
    We went, stayed in DC for the night at an official Temple Hotel.
    Excited to being able to see a team like UCLA then, a real treat.
    Somehow temple Lost, oh well.
    It was the beginning of a whole new era a new world for Football.
    We enjoyed it

  3. We always go down to Tallahassee to our daughter and grandkids’s for the holidays and therefore bowl season. That year my son-in-law and I were watching the game and afterwards he, being very knowledgeable about sports and football (he and my daughter are FSU grads) stated emphatically that if that running back (Pierce) hadn’t gotten hurt, Temple would have won. I thought, yeah but he did get hurt – of course that UCLA interception near our goal line and TD didn’t help either. It was a good solid game for the Owls tho.

    • Pierce got hurt at some of the most inopportune times. One of the biggest games he got hurt in was the Ohio game in 2010 at the Linc on a rainy Tuesday night when he went for a long TD early in the game that was called back because of a penalty. That night may be one of the top ten low lights for TU football. The rain, the sparse attendance, the fact that it was a Tuesday night, and the loss all conspired to make it so. I recall that it was so quiet in the stadium that the exhaust fans under the stands could be heard echoing in the stadium.

      • John, it was the first play of the game. He never made it to the end zone, pulling up with a bad hamstring. To add insult to injury we had a holding call.
        I came up from DC in the rain on a Tuesday night.
        I am not sure I could do that now.
        The other time Bernard got hurt at the worst possible time was at Penn State. Must have been 2010. We were dominating them on offense even without a serviceable QB. They were struggling against our defense. He hurt his foot and we couldn’t do anything the rest of the game on offense. It was 13-6 Temple at half. We lost 22-13. We scored 13 in the first 1/4.

    • Solid showing by Temple fans in D.C. Over 20K made the trip down I95. UCLA took their shirts off in the pre-game warmups (well, one or two of them) to show they weren’t afraid of the cold. Solid showing by the Owls as well, leading at halftime but Pierce did not come out in the second half due to injury. One of the few UCLA fans there posted a vlog on Youtube and famously said: “There were so many Temple fans there I hated them.” 🙂

  4. Let’s not forget that Temple also got hosed on a 4th and short call in that bowl game as well. Replays showed that Matt Brown clearly got the first down, but the refs gave Temple a horrible spot and they turned it over on downs deep in UCLA territory. It was definitely one of the coldest games I’ve ever been at, but a fun and memorable day for sure.

    • He slid on the slippery surface with his knees clearly off the ground and ahead of the marker. Infuriating that they got that call wrong.

      • In the past, bad calls and TU always seemed to go together. Think UConn years ago. In the last couple of years that doesn’t seem to be the case. Had the Memphis game last season occurred back then, the call of a catch would not have been overturned even though it was the right thing to do given today’s definition of a catch.

  5. Punter was sent home for raiding the cheerleaders’ rooms on Military Bowl Eve. Temple Owls must learn to party after the win.

    • The late great Kee-Ayre Griffin was also suspended for the game. He stayed on my floor at the team hotel. I left a couple hours after the team bus was supposed to leave and saw him on my floor. “Did you miss the bus?” He replied, “Nah, man, I was suspended.” I didn’t have the heart to ask why because it was none of my business. All I could think to say was, “sorry to hear that. We really need you.” “Thanks.” He went on the metro to the game with us and got to see, unlike the other Owls, an entire train car full of Temple students chant loudly: “Let’s Go TEM-PLE” loudly over and over. The locals were impressed and Kee smiled from ear to ear.

      • The best parties are on game day after a big win. Fred Shero and the 1974 Flyers holed up at the Fort Washington Sheraton the night before they beat the Bruins and won the Stanly Cup. I worked there as a bus boy, and the Bullies all had a good night sleep for a change.

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