Huge Temple crowd expected Saturday

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By now, everyone should know that artificial intelligence is pretty much ahead of the crowd.

In Temple’s case, literally.

KJ predicts Okie 31-3. This was his prediction two days before Temple beat Penn State, 27-10. Sorry KJ.

Without knowing anyone in the Temple ticket office or the Philadelphia Eagles ticket office, I took to chat GPT and Grok and asked how many tickets were left for Temple hosting Oklahoma (high noon, ESPN2).

Here’s what they were able to tell us.

One, there are only a couple of thousand tickets left in a 70K-seat stadium. Two, only five percent of the tickets sold are from outside the tri-state (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware) area.

What AI didn’t say was how many sections were open for sale but, given the demand, it only makes sense to open as many sections as possible.

We won’t find out until Saturday but what we do know is that given the proximity of the ticket sales to Lincoln Financial Field and the unlikelihood of Oklahoma fans living in the nation’s fourth-largest TV market, it will be a heavily pro-Temple crowd. Lot K–the largest Philadelphia Eagles’ parking lot–sold out by Wednesday. Even for the 2016 opener against Army, which drew 34,271, that didn’t happen until the day of that night game. Lots M and O are open for now. Since the Phillies are playing a night game on Saturday, CBP lots should be open also.

Now it might be 60K or it might be 35K, but we do know it will be loud and proud.

No one expected this result, either.

We don’t know if that’s enough to push this team across the finish line but it can’t hurt. There are many things that make me like Temple’s chances but one indicator is that Temple’s defense–with the worst head coach in history–was able to limit Oklahoma to 1-for-13 on third downs last year.

Another is that the Temple quarterback responsible for five of the six turnovers in last year’s game between the teams is on the trash heap of history and the guy who was denied that chance, Evan Simon, will get a chance to make history.

Who knows?

Desmond Ridder blaming Cincy’s first loss of the 2017 season on the loud Temple crowd.

They might even let him conduct the world-famous Temple University Diamond Marching Band again if he’s able to do it.

Temple is two-deep in quality along the defensive line and, yet, K.C. Keeler called his offensive line the most improved unit on his team.

These lines won’t be bullied.

No predictions but I will not be surprised if Temple wins outright because Oklahoma is expecting to play in a high school-like atmosphere and has no idea that a 7-0 Cincinnati team in 2017 came into LFF and came out with an overtime loss because it couldn’t hear its signals.

This stadium can be very loud and unfriendly for visitors and it needs to be on Saturday afternoon.

After that, let the chips fall where they may.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

10 thoughts on “Huge Temple crowd expected Saturday

  1. The upper deck is not open for sale. So no way there will be 60k there. I think max would be 30 K, given the 15k crowd for Howard.

    I hope the fan base comes out, and we get 40k, but I don’t see it happening.

    Either way, I’ll be there, and I hope we give them a run for their money.

    • I figured as much but there still should be wiggle room to open up the upper deck if, say, Lot K sells out on Wednesday, which it did–indicating a demand here we haven’t seen in awhile. There’s got to be more flexibility. Club seats in C section (above the lower bowl but not quite in upper deck) are pretty much gone.

      • I hope I am wrong and we get 40 to 50k. That would be great. The past 4 or 5 seasons have really eroded the fan base. KC has this team playing better, so I hope they buy back in and show up tomorrow morning.

      • The erosion comment is true. So sickening that we handed over a multi-million dollar program (the EO itself cost $10 million to build with a $7 million addition) to a running backs coach.

  2. “Worst head coach in history” limited OK to 1 in13 3rd down situations. Uh, what about worst D-coordinator in history also? I’m just hoping the Owls can keep it tight. A win would be off the charts!

    • It was all the kids. Between decisions that allowed a QB with 5 turnovers to stay in the game and all the pre-snap penalties (on both sides of the ball), those coaches never gave these kids a chance. This coach does give these kids a chance.

  3. Let’s hope the improvements for the Owls are more than the improvement (singular) for the Sooners….that being the QB. This game will let us see how the teams’ speed factors compare. That may be the defining difference.

  4. Oklahoma is the real deal, and could be a playoff team. They held Michigan and itʻs five star QB to under 300 total yards and only 1 touchdown. Michigan didnʻt have single turnover.

    Do we think Temple is better, or more talented than Michigan on offense?

    Letʻs hope Keeler keeps them mistake and penalty free. Perhaps a new single digit will emerge from this game.

  5. In 2015 as the seconds ticked down with our eventual victory over Penn State, I made a vain attempt to get the student section to storm the field. With my two kids in tow we went to the rail and egged students on, I thought, it will only take one person to start, so I did, no one followed. I felt like Frank the Tank, Will Farrell’s character from Old School leading a streaking group with no one following. I was politely escorted out of the stadium and a golden opportunity for students to storm LFF was lost.

    let’s hope, after today’s victory, the student section does not let us down and there is a party on the LFF turf! Go Owls!

  6. I thought the lower bowl was going to be more full than it is. The temple to okie fan ratio is surprisingly more even than I thought it would be though. Let’s just hope we finish this game without any major injuries.

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