Dr. Jason Wingard played on this Stanford team in 1992.

Temple University football fans and Dr. Jason Wingard already have at least one thing in common:

Experiencing the sheer joy of celebrating a dominating football win over Penn State in a 10-win season.

Wingard’s win, a 24-3 bowl game trophy, came in the 1992 season. Temple fans, of course, will always remember 9/5/15, a 27-10 season-opening win over Penn State. The Cardinal finished 10-3 in 1992, the Owls 10-4 in 2015.

Wingard’s career football stats were modest–a catch for five yards in that 1992 season–but he’s listed as playing on all 12 games that season. My best guess is that he was an offensive lineman because, despite being a track star at West Chester Henderson, he also has no interception or tackle stats at Stanford. He was listed as a 1992 pre-season All-American and pre-season All-Americans usually have stats on college football reference’s site (unless they are offensive linemen).

Whatever, he’s one great catch as the next Temple University president.

That’s because going into the search I thought having a football guy would be important for the school’s search for national excellence. That’s because if you’ve ever put on a uniform, you are a competitive guy and want to win. Since his dad graduated from Temple, he’s a legacy pick. He’s from the suburbs, lives in Philadelphia now (Chestnut Hill) and probably knows the political lay of the land. If there’s a guy who can pull off a stadium, it’s him.

From Wingard’s first press conference, he mentioned a desire for Temple to be excellent in both academics and athletics.

As past President Peter J. Liacouras noted, the two are not mutually exclusive. You can be great in both.

Stanford is and, from all indications, Temple will be.

If he refuses to accept one-win seasons going forward, he has my support.

One of the interesting articles Dr. Wingard wrote as entitled “Want Millenials to Stay? Invest in Corporate Learning.”

Maybe he will be able to write a future piece on getting Gen Z’s to stay in a certain G5 college football program.

“How to succeed in college football’s transfer portal? Hire a winning charismatic head coach who not only wins but relates well to the players.”

That’s the kind of one catch Temple needs most now. The clock is ticking.

Monday: Oyster Crackers