When Astronauts first landed on the moon, the phrase of the day was: “Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.”

That referred to the lunar module, which was The Eagle, and the spokesman was the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. (And to you skeptics, yes, it was real and we did it 57 years ahead of the current technology.)

On Thursday, another bird, the Owls, have landed, not on the moon, but at St. Petersburg, Fla., the home of the American Conference Media Day. It’s hot in St. Pete (real feel 110) but that’s child’s play compared to the real feel the Owls had in an outdoor practice at the E-O in Philadelphia (111) on June 24. (FYIW, the temperature on the day of the first moon landing was 250 degrees.)

Tranquil, we’re not sure but it will be today’s home base for the Temple Owls.

So the two Owl player representatives, tight end Peter Clarke and linebacker, should not be sweating much.

Maybe the rest of the league should but they don’t know it yet.

Thursday was just a feeling out day and the big show begins today on ESPN+ at 8 a.m. and runs until 2 p.m. with every head coach taking the stage. At 10 a.m., it’s K.C. Keeler’s turn. (That’s 4 a.m. Hawaii time for our many Owl fans on the island.)

There will be plenty of questions and plenty of optimism from the assembled head coaches, including Temple’s K.C. Keeler. Usually, there is a Media Poll, which ranks the teams from first to last but that was discontinued last year and there are no plans to have it revived.

Yet there are other media outlets who either plan to or have released a poll and one of them was Athlon Sports (see inset). They had the Owls listed for No. 8 in the league and, shockingly, Navy as No. 1.

Shockingly, because Navy lost a lot of talent, including the single closest thing to a one-man team the American has ever seen in quarterback Blake Horvath. New quarterback Braxton Woodson was absolutely dreadful in a blowout loss at Notre Dame when Horvath was injured last year.

Horvath was the only reason Navy beat Temple. Heck, he might have been the only reason Navy came CLOSE to Temple last year and so that prediction may be more based on reputation than reality.

However, despite the fact that the Owls returned every single eligible starter–no other American nor G5 team did that–there are legitimate questions about the Owls, too. One, is quarterback, where, for the first time in a long while, the Owls will have to go without someone who has started a college football game. That’s always a crapshoot.

Some people have expressed concerns about the defensive secondary but the Owls have a guy in Adrian Laing who returned an interception for a touchdown at Charlotte and was absolutely robbed of another goal-line interception in the North Texas game on a ridiculous PI call. Still, it’s not certain if he’s won the starting job this year so the Owls should be OK at corner. If his competition is that good, and I’m more than OK with Laing as a starting corner (and I am), cornerback is the least of my worries.

All of this could be addressed at 10 this morning. I’ll settle for most of it.

That’s why it’s must-see TV.

If you are a die-hard Temple football fan like me, it will be the last must-see TV until you get home from the Sept. 5 opener and check out the Rhode Island-Temple highlights on YouTube.

Monday: Media Day Recap

Friday: Keeler’s Biggest Gamble Yet

Monday: Second Season TV