07.04.24
by

Business as usual: We’re back baby

In 1984, Time Magazine estimated Bill Cosby’s net worth at $368 million. That same year, Cosby went on the field and hid a flag that an official threw against Bruce Arians’ Temple team. Fortunately, the ref laughed.

Sometimes you have to read between the lines to get a real handle on what someone is saying.

Reading too much between the lines is dangerous but this we do know.

Temple’s new President, John Fry, is on the record as being anti-football. According to a recent article in Football Scoop, which shouted out Temple Football Forever and got Fry’s quotes from a Philadelphia Inquirer story, he’s now anti-football ONLY at places not named Temple.

Hmm.

In the story, Fry says “Temple has a proud football tradition” and he has “no plans to end football.” He also says he has “no preconceived notions” about football at Temple.

Thanks to Zach Barnett of Football Scoop for the shoutout.

So we’re back in business, baby, but on notice.

This is where the reading between the lines part comes into play.

The comment I felt particularly interesting was the “no preconceived notions” part.

The implications are when he does get here–and that will be after Drexel names a President–he will start having “conceived notions.”

I imagine if another 3-9 season or worse comes while Fry is on board he will start building those notions.

So Temple football is on notice. Start winning and make it snappy. I find it particularly interesting that Temple’s recruiting class for 2025 is good but what about 2024? To paraphrase Terrell Owens, “where is my quarterback?” because we can’t say for sure “that’s my quarterback.”

If 2024 is not a good one, there might not be a 2025. When the E-O is on fire, you don’t bring out a garden house to wet it down. You need the whole damn fire department or, in this case, the whole damn transfer portal.

Where’s the urgency to win now?

No more 3-9 seasons in the future because those will be conceived notions built on the foundation of two-straight 3-9 seasons before that and one 1-6 season before that.

The university is investing a lot of money in football and has seen little return on it since Geoff Collins used Matt Rhule’s players to post consecutive winning seasons. Since the university invested $17 million into the E-O and a couple more million on Collins’ salary, and maybe a couple more on support staff, that was an acceptable return on the investment.

Happy Birthday to Temple Sports Hall of Famer Al Golden. Not an exaggeration that he saved Temple football at a time it needed saving. Born 16 days before the first Moon landing.

Since then, what we have seen is unacceptable.

It would be impossible for Fry to do to Temple what Drexel did to itself when it eliminated football if Stan Drayton could meet that minimum standard.

Right now, that’s the $21 million question only to be answered by either Drayton or his next big boss.

Monday: Some roster additions

One thought on “Business as usual: We’re back baby”

  1. Talks cheap, so we’ll see what happens. But Temple has had many consecutive gosh-awful seasons in the past and still they carried on. Or maybe there’s enough donors and even BOT members who want to continue the program. Thing is its become so gosh-awful expensive now-a-days and Temple has other pressing issues to contend with. But for all of us who were thinking “its over” I for one was thinking not so fast folks – we’ll see. And hope it is just talk!

    Reply

Leave a comment