Appropriate to get excited for the season, even rooting for a team that has the 14th-rated QB in a 14-team league.

It’s football and Temple is my team. I love football and I love Temple. Temple at Oklahoma is less than a month away and there should be a sense of urgency at the Edberg-Olson Football Complex.

The other kids have been working hard and can’t control that other circumstance.

We’ve been on record here as saying Temple needs to tweak its single-digit tradition especially when you consider that Stan Drayton has been here for two full years and lost five single digit players to other schools.

To keep that from happening in the future, the coaches can control that by limiting the digits to either guys who have “Sr.” (senior) or “Gr.” (graduate) next to their names on the roster.

(The coaches also could have controlled the quarterback narrative by bringing in a big-time guy but chose not to do that.)

Also would be helpful to bestow that honor on those players who have been here for awhile and knowing that offensive linemen can’t actually wear the digit in the game but that should not disqualify them from the “honorary” single digit.

With that in mind, here are five “old heads” who should merit single-digit consideration:

Dante Wright, WR, 5-9, 160 (Gr.) _ Last year’s fastest player on the team was a first-team freshman All-American at Colorado State and the most explosive player on the current Owls. He’s No. 10 now.

D.J. Woodbury, LB, 6-2, 232 (Sr.). _ No. 11 was injured in the Tulsa game last year and missed the rest of the season but, in 2022, started five games and led the team in tackles in an OT loss at Navy.

James Faminu, OL, 6-6, 315 (Gr.) _ No. 62 missed the entirety of the 2023 season with an injury but was an important cog in the line two years ago, starting five games.

Wisdom Quarshie, OL, 6-3, 320 (Gr.) _ No. 79 started the final 11 games of the 2023 season and was named honorable mention all-AAC.

Demerick Morris, DT, 6-3, 300 (Gr.) _ No. 88 looks like he’s going to earn a starting spot on the defensive line after battling through injuries last year but he did play in all 12 games for D.J. Eliot’s defense in 2022.

Another possibility would include corner Ben Osueke, a 6-1, 185-pound senior but that would mean he would have to earn one of the starting cornerback jobs and I think he’s going to do just that.

Limiting the single digits to these “types” of players means no Temple fans will ever have to watch another team’s game and hear the announcer say “you know he’s tough because when he was at Temple he earned a single digit.”

That always causes both agita and acid reflux and Temple fans get enough of that watching their own team.

Monday: 5 Newcomers We’re Anxious to See