Branding and Temple University

Coach John Chaney, who would have been 91 yesterday, was a big proponent on changing the name of Temple to Philadelphia University.

In the grand scheme of things that hold Temple football back, branding is about 147th on the list but it came to the forefront for a minute while watching the school’s basketball team play SMU the other day.

Sometimes you’ve got to give credit to the other guy and the Mustangs deserve credit for hitching their wagons to the city of Dallas.

They have “Dallas” on their uniforms both in football and basketball and, in part, rode that association to a P5 invite. (It also helps to have about 10x more millionaire alumni than Temple does.)

John Chaney would have been 91 on Sunday but both he and his president at the time, Peter J. Liacouras gently floated the idea that Temple change the name of the school to Philadelphia University.

It never got any traction because so many of us have gotten used to the name “Temple” that old habits would have been hard to break.

Honestly, though, that ship has probably sailed because there is no stomach among the current members of the Board of Trustees to change anything.

With Liacouras and Chaney, though, Temple had back then what it doesn’t have now in strong, local, leadership. Liacouras was a lifelong Philadelphian and graduate of Drexel. Chaney was the Philadelphia Public League’s Player of the Year in 1950. The Catholic League POY that season? A guy named Tom Gola.

Philadelphia remains the fourth-largest TV market (and sixth-largest city) in the country and the largest market without a Power 5 college football team. Philadelphia is highly regarded as a city across the country, if not within the city limits.

It was a huge bargaining chip when the Owls made consecutive AAC championship football games in 2015 and 2016. It no longer is that now.

But branding with the city by putting “Philadelphia” like SMU does with”Dallas” on the uniforms–if not changing the name of the school itself–is something that Temple can control and should do.

It probably won’t get Reese Poffenbarger here or a dozen other badly needed FCS starters who can upgrade the football team but getting the city on the uniforms won’t cost any NIL money and that swag won’t hit the transfer portal in a year or two.

Heck, maybe if Temple sports gets respectable again, someone in the ACC will put two and two together while watching the Owls and notice that there is one big TV market out there left to grab.

It couldn’t hurt.

Friday: Better Late Than Never

Monday: Wrong and Right

11 thoughts on “Branding and Temple University

  1. What do you guys think of the Clifton McDowell signing? Positive or negative?

    • This is exactly the type of guy we needed. Huge pickup. Kudos to Stan Drayton and the staff. Montana would have kicked our asses with or without E.J. last season. We needed to upgrade from E.J. and Simon wasn’t it. McDowell was one of a handful of FCS guys who were available and fit that bill. Mobile quarterback, good arm, won’t have those annoying pick 6s (Rutgers, USF) that E.J. had. Don’t know if it moves the needle from 3 to 6 but it does not hurt.

  2. Any thoughts on McDowell who we just picked from Montana

    • Temple Pravda doesn’t think it’s a given McDowell beats out Simon. As Mike Missanelli would say, “stop.” They are in love with Simon for some reason.

      • Mike, from what I’ve seen of McDowell I totally agree with you. As for Temple Pravda no longer have a subscription there since that site was similar to listening to Howard Eskin regarding the Eagles. That being said a little competition at QB won’t be a bad thing come spring but do think McDowell is exactly the kind of QB TUFB needs especially with the o-line being a work in progress. Looking at his Montana stats I believe his 750 yards would have been the leading rushing numbers here

      • Saydee was the leading rusher here last year with 279 abysmal yards. McDowell had almost three times that much. So many times green space opened up for E.J. and he never even thought about taking it. McDowell will make defenses pay. This is a real good day for Temple football.

  3. The way things are going on the field and with recruiting, if that name change happened, be careful NOT to put “PU” on the helmets.

    “P”s alone lend themselves to some clever designs. In this town, we’ve got wings for Flyers and Eagles, so a unique wing logo peculiar to an owl would need to be created.

    On the other hand, put a consistently winning team on the field and people will remember the name whatever it is and just as important, show up at games or watch on TV in large numbers. That’s been demonstrated already.

  4. Great article. There is a formula to win in G5 football with zero NIL money and Kill mastered it for two years. Temple could learn a lot from guys like Kill and a few of the teams with coaches making 1/4th as much as Drayton is making.

Leave a reply to Chrisimp Cancel reply