Anyone who followed those great detective shows of the 1960s can relate to this way of solving a crime.

Some police Lieutenant, say Columbo or Kojak, would put the clues together like a puzzle and the final piece would be revealed in the final act pointing to the killer.

Often, but not always, money was involved.

Nobody knows how this Temple football story currently being written by the staff of new head coach Stan Drayton ends but the pieces in the puzzle are pointing in the right direction.

Drayton has upgraded the Owls’ talent by way of the transfer portal in a way not even Matt Rhule was able to, let alone Steve Addazio, Geoff Collins or Rod Carey did.

Definitely, the stock of the franchise is up but, just looking at it from a money perspective, Temple football has appeared to have flatlined over the last decade or so. Does that mean the Owls have peaked? No, because there is more money coming into the program.

Shawn Pastor of Owlsdaily.com did the most impressive digging we’ve seen since the TV series Six Feet Under to come up with how much the football program has made over the last decade.

Not surprisingly, the Owls had a good year in the Big East, raking in $5.3 million in 2012-13. That year was highlighted on the field by a 17-14 win at 5.5-point favorite UConn and not much else.

Since then, though, the numbers have been surprisingly consistent in the American Athletic Conference years:

2013-14: $4.8 Million

2014-15: $3.4 Million

2015-16: $4.6 Million

2016-17: $4.9 Million

2017-18: $5 Million

2018-19: $4.5 Million

2019-20: $5.9 Million

Those above numbers reflect Temple’s cut from the conference alone. Gotta think the 2015 games against Penn State and Notre Dame enriched the coffers even more and, to be fair, the Owls probably lost money by Pat Kraft’s decision to bring Wagner here. Looking forward, though, somehow, with the $54 million settlement the AAC has made with the three departing schools–Houston, Cincinnati and UCF–Temple and the leftovers are in for somewhat of a windfall making this upcoming season the best for football revenue ever.

Now it’s up to the university to spend the money wisely. Spending money to make money probably is the way to go with an aggressive advertising campaign designed to put butts in the seats.

More butts in the seats mean not only more money flowing into the coffers but a signal that the product is worth buying. The best way to put those butts in the seats is to win and, at least so far, all the clues point to Drayton handling that end well.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a detective to figure that out.

Monday: Temple on TV