Meteorological winter ended on Thursday while astronomical winter ends in about 20 days, so for the purposes of this space, we are acknowledging the former.

For Temple football fans like myself, hope springs eternal today.

On the last day of meteorological summer, Temple will be playing at Oklahoma. That seemed like a good idea back on Halloween of 2015 when the Owls were trading blows with a then better team, Notre Dame.

Not so much nine years later due to a couple of things that didn’t exist then, the NIL and the transfer portal.

Because of largely those two things, Oklahoma will be playing downhill that day while Temple plays uphill.

There are reasons to believe, though, that the Temple season will will really start the next week during meteorological fall could be successful.

Since the Temple football schedule came out a couple of days ago, we can now go with our way-too-early projections.

Here they are:

Oklahoma 66, Temple 7 _ The Sooners recruit high school All-Americans and get the best out of the portal. The Owls recruit JUCOs and maybe lower end FCS and FBS players. Our guess is that Temple quarterback Clifton McDowell will avoid a hellacious rush and hit Dante Wright with a touchdown pass after Everett Withers’ defense gets predictably torched. 0-1.

Temple 34, Navy 16 _ If the dysfunctional Owls of 2023 could beat Navy by that score (and they did), it is only logical that a more functional team can duplicate the same feat. 1-1.

Coastal Carolina 31, Temple 19 _ Coastal has been a much better G5 program than Temple the last three seasons and not enough has changed for the Owls to catch up. 1-2.

Temple 34, Utah State 31 _ Utah State barely beat UConn and Temple was better than UConn at least last year based on the one comparable opponent. 2-2.

Temple 28, Army 24 _ Going with the hunch here that Temple wins a home game much like the 0-6 Owls of Matt Rhule’s first season beat visiting Army. Likely a Homecoming Game and Army doesn’t bring a big crowd. 3-2.

Temple 37, UConn 30 _ UConn is finding out how difficult it is to recruit playing an independent schedule. If the Owls can beat Utah State, they must be able to beat UConn. 4-2.

Temple 31, Tulsa 21 _ Tulsa has much of the same recruiting problems as Temple and its student population. The Owls embarrassed themselves at Tulsa last year. They must turn that around. 5-2.

Temple 10, East Carolina 6 _ East Carolina might have been worse than Temple last year. If Withers holds them to a couple of field goals it will be his best job since a 1985 shutout of Louisville. 6-2.

Tulane 42, Temple 14 _ Jon Sumrall is a flat-out better head coach than Stan Drayton and will prove it on this day. 6-3.

FAU 35, Temple 14 _ Same for Tom Herman vs. Stan Drayton. 6-4.

UTSA 59, Temple 24 _ E.J. Warner put up 34 points on UTSA a year ago but that was at Temple’s Homecoming where the Owls typically overperform. On the road, McDowell puts up 24 but UTSA’s team speed embarrasses Withers’ defense again. 6-5.

UNT 45, Temple 34 _ McDowell does a decent job against a porous Mean Green defense but Withers does the same job he did a year ago against the Mean Green offense. Temple finishes 6-6, makes a bowl, but a four-game losing streak puts a damper on an otherwise good season.

The postscript of this season will be what might have been had Drayton made for the rest of the world was an easy business decision (but for him a difficult personal one) to replace Withers at the end of the 2023 season.

That’s our story and we’re sticking to it. We will revisit this prediction no later than December.

Eating crow after an 8-4 season or better would be our hope that day but the more likely scenario is that we’re probably overly optimistic.

Spring can do that to a psyche.

Monday: The Newest Trend