09.25.23
by

Miami-Temple was sign of changing times

Had a conversion with a really good Temple fan in the parking lot on Saturday before the Miami vs. Temple game.

Told him I was really considering entering the fan transfer portal not from my beloved Temple–which I will always be a fan of–but to the NFL.

The reason was this NIL and transfer portal nonsense.

The big schools, who already have all the recruiting advantages, have now taken the sublime to the ridiculous where they not only already have the best recruits but now take away the players who the lesser teams have put sweat and toil into recruiting and coaching up. Players have no loyalty to the school that made them what they were and move on the next best thing. Schools with the wad of cash basically pick and choose who they want when they want. Screw the little guy. Trickle down economics? LOL. Jordan Addison was the national receiver of the year at Pitt and would have still been drafted in the first round if he stayed there but for some reason ($$$$) saw fit to spend his final year at USC. Dillon Gabriel was a perfectly good quarterback at UCF but had wandering eyes for Oklahoma. Most Temple players who leave learn the hard way they left a starting position at Temple to ride the pine elsewhere (see Jadan Blue and Darian Varner).

Tulsa fans were really excited to host rival Oklahoma until they realized they bought all the good players.

It’s really the opposite of the NFL where the organization gives a helping hand to the lowest of its group in the form of the draft with the idea being the entire business model benefits from everyone having an equal chance to succeed.

College football today is like a billionaire walking along skid row and pickpocketing whatever loose change the downtrodden have.

It’s going to get worse.

Mentioned to this gentleman that in past years I would have hopes of Temple springing the upset of Miami but held no such belief this year because the system is stacked against the Temples of the world and all of the G5. Sat next to him in the stands when Temple won at Maryland, 38-7, and that was a really fun day.

I want those days to come back. I’m not sure they ever will.

Unless someone (Congress, Courts, a strong NCAA governing body) can come in and give all 130 FBS schools an equal chance, I could see my interest waning in the so-called “amateur” side of football. The NCAA gave SMU the “death penalty” in 1987 for what pretty much is standard operating procedure in 2023.

The great Temple fan made a very good point.

“I live a mile from Lincoln (College) and I think I’m going to go see them more and forget about this,” he said.

I said I don’t blame him. I’m pretty sure a lot of G5 fans feel the same way.

That got me to thinking.

Why don’t the players from Lincoln get paid? Or West Chester? They put in the same work to be good that the players from Miami do. They play for the love of the game.

It’s a really skewed, unfair system and, because it has become more skewed in the past five years.

Gone are the days when a Temple can upset Virginia Tech and an Appalachian State can beat Michigan and those types of upsets are what made college football great. Those types of upsets still exist in March Madness but who knows for how long?

Now when a big-time P5 team plays a G5 team you pretty much know the outcome.

Temple lost to its P5 foes, 36-7, and 41-7. That didn’t use to be the case all that long ago. Temple beat Penn State, 27-10, one year and the next traveled up to Penn State to lose by one touchdown to the evenutal Big 10 champion. In years past, the Owls beat an SEC team 37-7 (Vanderbilt) and three times beat Maryland (38-7, 35-14 and 20-17). They played the No. 9 team in the country (Notre Dame) to a virtual standoff in 2015 before the largest prime time TV watching crowd in the history of the fourth-largest market.

Are those days over?

Probably.

The team Temple plays on Thursday night, Tulsa, lost to Oklahoma (66-17) and Washington (43-10).

It says something about how the nation views Temple football that TULSA–even after losses like that–is favored by 3 1/2 points over Temple. The Owls should take that as an insult but I’m not all that sure they will.

Temple has to do something to lift itself out of this morass and there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight other than to win as many games as it can playing against a stacked deck.

The fact that Tulsa also has been dealt the same hand is small consolation.

Friday: Tulsa Recap

14 thoughts on “Miami-Temple was sign of changing times”

  1. Portal & NIL has destroyed college football. Zero loyalty, school spirit. Throw in a horrifying NCAA body and the excitement for rooting your team on has diminished.

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  2. One of the reasons I like Drayton despite evidence he isn’t a great coach is that he’s building a community. That’s the only way to combat this new era. It’s seemingly worked so far. He stopped the bleeding only losing a couple of key players last off season. The problem is if they keep losing and the fan base doesn’t show up I don’t know how much longer he can keep it up. The bandaid might fall off soon and the bleeding resumes. That and Drayton hasn’t shown he can be a good football coach. Keeping my fingers crossed he can figure it out but it’s looking like tougher times ahead.

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    • Disheartening press conference today by Stan who said “Miami recruits at a whole different level than us” (no shit) but followed that up with “one day we hope to recruit like them” but is still offering guys only the Old Dominions and Monmouths want. Hell, we’re playing Oklahoma next year, not 10 years from now. Let’s go recruit and get some people at least Syracuse and BC want. Temple used to win those recruiting battles consistently.

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  3. Mike,

    My idea, for a few years, has been to see the upper crust of Division 1 or Power 5 to pull away from the rest and establish a completely separate league. You can see it coming with the expansion of the Big 10 and SEC. Perhaps the Big 12 has worked hard enough to get included too.

    I say take those three Conferences and let them go at it. They can have their own championship and the majority of the television money.

    The remaining, what 70-75, teams can go back to strictly regional football. There absolutely will be interest and probably even TV deals to be had.

    Can you not look far enough ahead and see a Northeast league with Temple, Syracuse, Army and Navy, Boston College, UConn, and a few others…James Madison now maybe Virginia Tech.

    I’d much rather hope for that than to pray that the Owls somehow get an invite to a bastardized ACC once Clemson, FSU, and Miami all roll out.

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    • Mike, you mentioned the NCAA governing body being a possible solution to this morass. I say forget that since the NCAA is part of the problem – its all about the money and greediness. Period. The out-of-control American way. If The G5 ends up being its own island in the college football scene after the P5 sucks all the best programs into one or two conferences, so be it. I for one could still enjoy watching Temple play at the level we’re already seeing – just like 1AA or division 2 or whatever. Temple’s never going to be part of the big boys situation and its partly, largely, its own fault. But let’s just watch the Tulsa game and see how we do. Hell, dropping down or becoming an independent or staying were we are, does it really matter?

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      • We tried being independent. It didn’t work. Unless you are Notre Dame and have a lifetime deal with NBC it’s not going to work. I would like the idea of breaking off if there was a relegation element like they have in British soccer. The G5 champion moves up and the P5 last-place team moves down. Also if you can’t protect the G5 players from being poached it doesn’t solve Temple’s problem (or really any G5 school).

  4. You nailed it Mike! I’ve been saying all along that the player transfer portal and the NIL will end up destroying many programs like Temple’s. Like you, I am a longtime ardent fan of TU football. I fondly recall those glory years 2015/16. It was mostly downhill after that. Sadly, I no longer hold out much hope for Owl football ever returning to that level of competitiveness. On top of that there is the stadium issue.

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    • If you’re talking about competing at a P5 level I agree with you. But if we’re talking about simply having a football program at some level, even staying Div 1 in the AAC, would be ok. TV showing games and G5 programs benefiting financially is pretty darn good at present. Why Temple fans still think we can compete at a P5 level is unrealistic considering Temple’s overall situation. Yes, it would be nice to be more competitive where we are now but Temple is just not primed to move up – and past history and present conditions proves it.

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  5. Jim, have to agree with what you and Joefa104 are saying. 2015/16 did show what could be done at Temple hut it’s hard work and more importantly it costs $$$ which apparently the University doesn’t have. Nor do we have the deep pocket boosters like SMU that could cover media revenue for 7 years to buy our way into a P5 conference. Hell can’t even get more than several thousand alumni to join the Owl Club. I mean I’m only a Captain level member ($500 -1000) and even at that level it seems like pulling teeth to get new donors. I would rather see a conference that Joe lays out as I don’t think teams like BC or Syracuse join the big boys down the road.

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  6. You took off my last post b/c you thought I advocated eliminating football, I am not proposing an elimination of football.

    I am in agreement with you that with NIL, Transfer Portal, declining enrollment and budgetary hurdles facing many universities there is going to be a bifurcated FBS hierarchy. Example:
    Cal Berkeley–In the 2022 fiscal year, Cal Athletics managed to finish in the green with $118.2 million in revenue against $105 million in expenses. However, this figure includes direct institutional support that totals $29.8 million.

    In other words, without campus’s injection of nearly $30 million, Cal Athletics would be running deep in the red. What’s more, UC Berkeley has committed to pay for 54% of the stadium debt, totaling $238 million over several decades.

    Cal, BC, Temple, Oregon State’s of the world are not going to have the financial resources to play with the Penn State/Bama/Georgia/Texas and A& M’s of the world. As you have laid out, the days of the upset will be much more rare.

    What do you do: Maybe what was mentioned, similar to the Premier League and the English Football League.

    Top Programs-NCAA Premier League
    Other Programs (Temple) NCAA National League

    2-4 teams get relegated annually, 2-4 teams promoted. You play a Regional Schedule. TU Schedule:

    Pitt, WVU, JMU, BC, Syracuse, Rutgers, UConn, UVA Maryland etc.

    You can have Premier league teams play National League teams, but you don’t have a Norfolk State play TU or U of Delaware play Penn State. Keep it regional.

    You can have an upstart team turn it on and get a chance to move up to the Premier league, but you don’t have TU or any of the National League teams consistently getting pounded by teams they aren’t competitive.

    NCAA might not like it b/c it may usurp some of their power, but in the long run, it is good for universities, fans and most importantly student athletes.

    What you avoid is a Tulsa v Temple matchup that has very little interest for anyone.

    C E SPEED

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  7. Mike, I didn’t look into Withers background like you did but I have to say you were spot on about him, granted a number of injuries on defense but still don’t see it with him. Having some doubts about Drayton as well with this blowout by Tulsa. Can’t wait for your recap tomorrow but watching this game pretty simple, poorly coached team, lacking AAC level talent except for maybe Wright, Andersen and maybe 2, 3 others. Really not one position that can’t be upgraded on this rooster

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    • Forget my comments above, maybe Norfolk St and Delaware should be on TU schedule. UTSA is going to be tough. I wish had more positivity, Tulsa is significantly more talented than TU, which is a little shocking. This TU team just seems to be lacking playmakers. Have not seen much improvement YOY. C E SPEED

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      • Based on what the announcers were saying sound like Tulsa’s staff was much better at getting players from the portal. And seems like they had a strategy. On TUs side looks like a few good pick ups were made but doesn’t seem like there was a real game plan, should have been looking for o-lineman, top running back and d-line. Not going to get too many true freshman who can be instant contributors on the o-line

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