10.09.26
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Temple Homecomings: Big Crowds, Big Results

In a perfect world, Lincoln Financial Field would be packed with Temple fans on game days and the crowd would be so loud opposing teams would never be able to hear their offensive signals.

As everyone knows, the world is not perfect.

Err, make that the 2018 season … a 7-0 No. 21-ranked Cincy team came into Temple and could not hear due to the loud LFF Homecoming crowd and lost, 24-17.

Especially the college football world in the NIL and transfer portal era that disses the G5/G6 teams and, by extension, the fans of those teams.

For Temple fans, though, the closest thing to perfection ever year comes on Homecoming where the Prodigal Sons and Daughters of the university return for their only game of the season to make some noise, sing T for Temple U loudly and proudly and usually have a good time.

This Homecoming shapes up better than most as UConn comes to town (3:45, ESPNU).

Why?

Lot K, the largest and closest Lot to LFF, is sold out and has been sold out for a full week. This year, the Owls helped the cause by playing Penn State tough and beating an unbeaten USF team on the road.

In the past, that usually means an announced crowd in excess or at least close to 30,000.

Let’s take a look at some past numbers:

The 2020 season was omitted due to Covid and, while the uni did have a Homecoming win (39-37 over USF), attendance was restricted due to the pandemic.

Temple announced a sold-out Lot K on Monday and that usually means a 30K-plus crowd. The only time the uni announced a pre-game sellout of Lot K, and the attendance fell below 30K was the 28,573 crowd against Memphis in 2021–a 34-31 Temple win over a top 20-ranked Tigers’ team.

Last year, the Owls sent home a nice crowd of 26,149 disappointed in a 31-30 loss to Navy when they got a first down on the 1 with 1:16 left and forgot to take three knees and kick the game-winning field goal (really, extra point) with roughly three seconds left.

That brain cramp cost them a bowl game and probably larger home crowds for the balance of the season.

I was at every single one of these games.

A smarter, tougher, more talented Owl team takes the field tomorrow against a perfect opponent for Homecoming, a regional rival (like Navy) in UConn in a game that should be competitive.

How competitive?

The teams have no common foe so it’s hard to tell but from the Kevin Bacon four degrees of separation theory there are clues.

One, Temple went to USF and won, 17-13. Two, USF went to Bowling Green and won, 14-6. Three, Bowling Green went to Miami (Ohio) and won, 24-20, and four, UConn went to that same Miami and lost, 35-31.

Transitive Property isn’t perfect but it generally does give you a ballpark idea of where the teams stand and the bookmakers like Temple by four. If you think the bookmakers are full of crap, just remember that they liked UTSA to beat USF on Thursday night by seven and how much did UTSA win by?

Seven.

Four or more will only happen if the Prodigal Sons and Daughters of Temple scream their lungs out like they usually do this time every year.

Who knows?

Maybe the Owls will give them a good enough show to make them return for an encore. That should be the plan.

Saturday Near Midnight: UConn-TU Game Analysis

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