Over the next few weeks, fans are going to be hearing a lot about Quadrant 1 and 2 wins.

It’s a new way for the NCAA to determine the at-large teams in the 68-team men’s basketball field and assigns weight to each win based on a formula of RPI, the strength of schedule and home or away.

Fortunately, college football fans don’t have to worry about that.

Every win is just as important as the rest and that’s why I have never understood the phrase “trap game” or “letdown.” When you play only a dozen regular-season games, there should be no trap games or letdowns. You work your tail off for 353 days and get to show the fruits of that labor on the rest of the days so every Saturday should be showtime.

Penciling in wins and losses this far away is a fun exercise fraught with dangers. In Temple football history, there have always been unexpected wins and losses and that’s every year, not just every few years. The only outlier was the 1979 season when the Owls won every game they were supposed to win and reached up and upset a team or two on the way to a 10-2 season.

Cupid loves this Temple schedule, with the exception of the Bucknell game.

Still, the season can somewhat be broken down into quadrants. The technical meaning of a quadrant is four quarters of a circle.

In college football, that’s three games apiece.

Coming out of the first quadrant, the college football “world” probably expects Temple to come out 2-1 with wins over Bucknell and Buffalo and a loss to revenge-minded Maryland. Temple fans know better. I have to like the Owls’ chances at home in that one. Bucknell is a given and pretty much this same team (minus Rock Armstead) was able to thrash Maryland on the road last year.

So that’s a 3-0 quadrant in my mind.

The second quadrant is a little tougher with a home game against Georgia Tech, a trip to ECU, and a home game against Memphis. In my mind, any time you take Dave Patenaude off Temple you give the Owls an extra seven points. When you take him out of Temple and give him to the bad guys, that’s another seven points for the Owls. So that’s a win.

ECU will not be a 49-6 cakewalk that it was last time because Mike Houston is a far better coach than Scotty Montgomery. Memphis has had four solid recruiting years and seamless coaching so that’s a tough one, even at home. We’ll give that quadrant a 2-1, leaving the Owls at 5-1 at the midway mark.

Owls should win at SMU to kick off the third quadrant but UCF will be tough. That game looked winnable when Milton McKenzie–easily the single best player who faced Temple last season–went down with a broken leg, but UCF went out and replaced him with Brandon Wimbush. So that game suddenly becomes more problematic than it already was and, realistically, a loss. Owls bounce back at SMU. Getting a week off before traveling to USF for the next game should help so we will make that a 2-1 quadrant for a 7-2 record.

Owls finish off with home games against Tulane and UConn sandwiched around a tough trip to Cincy and 2-1 would be a decent way to finish up that quadrant for a 9-3 season.

Of course, you always hope for 12-0 and a league championship but, given these quadrants, signing for 9-3 right now would be a nice consolation prize.

Saturday: The Alliance of Football and Temple

Bucknell might be able to entice Nicholls State to visit its 13,100-seat Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium on 8/31

On the floor level of the Wells Fargo Center, there were smiles all around Sunday afternoon for what Sixers’ general manager Elton Brand was able to pull off.

He immediately upgraded the Sixers with a megastar like Tobias Harris and some valuable pieces that upgraded the bench. Still, like any good trade, to get something Brand had to give something and those were mostly draft picks that are going to make the Clippers a more valuable franchise down the road.

The Sixers are playing for now. The Clippers are playing for the future. It was a trade that benefited both ballclubs considering their current circumstances.

The reaction of most Temple fans when they first saw Bucknell on the schedule

That’s why current Temple athletic director Dr. Pat Kraft should be considering a trade for the football Owls. Getting Bucknell off the schedule would benefit the Bison from decimating their current roster due to injuries and would benefit Temple by getting it a possible Power 5 win the Owls might desperately need if they were fortunate enough to win the AAC.

“We just got a better today; a lot better,” Kraft said on the day he hired Rod Carey.

This whole dilemma reminds me of a conversation I had with Bill Bradshaw when he was named athletic director. He said he looked at the schedule and when he saw that Temple had a game the next season that did not make sense, he would immediately make calls to switch with other schools. Bradshaw saw it as a challenge and the conversations with other ADs eventually led him to schedule a series with Notre Dame.

Kraft needs to be as flexible now as Bradshaw was then.

The Owls need to win now and capitalize on it. Playing Bucknell does Temple zero good. It gives the Owls an extra (seventh instead of six) home games, but have Temple fans done anything over the last 40 years or so to deserve a seventh home game? I think not. If they were filling the Linc on a regular basis, they deserve an extra home game now and then. At best, Bucknell attracts 22K fans for an August 31 date.

Here are five possible trades Kraft could make now that would benefit both ballclubs:

Friday, Aug. 30

• • UMass at Rutgers _ This would be the ideal trade. Temple would bring 20K fans to Piscataway alone and Bucknell can go play at UMass, a much more competitive game for them. Some say Rutgers would be “afraid” to play big bad Temple. I say give them a call and find out for sure.

Saturday, Aug. 31

• Montana State at Texas Tech _ Kraft has said in the past that “it’s hard to get games against (Power 5) teams because they don’t want to play us.” Hard to believe Texas Tech would risk a loss to an FCS power like Montana State and be “afraid” to play Temple. The guarantee Tech could give Temple to visit would pay for Bucknell to travel to Montana State.
• Nicholls at Kansas State _ Last year, Nicholls went to Kansas and beat the Jayhawks. That has got to get the attention of the Wildcats, who might be wary of the same thing happening to them. Hard to believe new KSU coach Chris Klieman who won six of the last seven FCS titles at North Dakota State would be afraid of Temple. Have Bucknell travel to Nicholls and the Owls to the fake Manhattan.
• Portland State at Arkansas _  Razorbacks’ head coach Chad Morris is familiar with Temple having coached against the Owls as SMU’s head coach. It might be easier selling Arkansas fans on an FBS opponent rather than Portland State. The trip to the West Coast to play Portland State might be more educational for the Bucknell kids than a trip to South Philadelphia.

• 

  Curt Cignetti takes his JMU squad to WVA; he might be up for a swap of games with Bucknell so the Owls can return to the scene of this crime.

• James Madison at West Virginia  _ While driving across the interstate might be a short trip for JMU fans, new James Madison football coach Curt Cignetti (a former Temple assistant) knows he has a better chance to make a first impression with a solid win over Bucknell than a road loss to Neal Brown in his first game as WVA head coach. Temple and WVA have a history that goes way back. James Madison would be a nice trip for the Bucknell kids.

These are five trades that would benefit both Temple and Bucknell and all of the above schools. Like any good trade, it involves working the phones and that’s what Dr. Pat Kraft should be doing in the next couple of months.

If it worked for Elton Brand, and the Sixers,  it can work for Pat Kraft and the football team five miles up Broad Street.

Thursday: A Closer Look at the Schedule