Don’t bet much on sports except on something which I think is undervalued.

So it could be weeks before scratching that itch but I scratched it on Sunday night, when a juicy Temple football bet appeared on the Parx sports website.

First, though, a look at the last bet that paid off.

Plucked $2 on a horse named Golden Tempo because that sounded a lot like “Golden Temple” and, at 23-1, thought he was undervalued given his last three races. Al Golden turning around Temple football was a real thing that made me do a deep dive on that horse and found that he won three of his prior four races–all at good tracks–coming into the Kentucky Derby. Plus, he wore No. 19 and my birthday is Juneteenth.

That hunch returned $48.30 when it won the race on the first Saturday in May.

Was I kicking myself for not betting more?

No, because the first rule about sports betting is not to bet more than you can afford to lose.

To me, that’s about $2 for a horse race and up to $10 for stronger hunches.

That’s where Temple football comes into play.

Even though our “official” prediction is 6-6 on the season (the schedule might be the toughest in the American Conference), I would not be surprised if Temple found itself in the championship game come December.

The reasoning is simple. Places like North Texas, Tulane, Memphis and USF have all new coaches. While there is significant talent remaining at those places, a lot of the “better” talent–including quarterbacks now at Auburn and Oklahoma State–left with their coaches for so-called greener pastures.

Those teams will undoubtedly come back to the American Conference pack.

(Really, if you look at it objectively, the road to the title runs through both academies but, for a place like Navy, there is no transformational quarterback like Blake Horvath.)

A team rising in that pack?

Temple.

The Owls not only kept their head coach–the winningest active one in Division I college football–but completed the trifecta by keeping their roster and adding to it.

As K.C. Keeler stated on Cherry and White Day, Temple was the only team in the G5 to keep every returning starter. It was also the only team with the No. 1 high school and No. 1 transfer portal class.

Stir all of those ingredients together and the stock to buy in the league is Temple. Whether it rises to contention is debatable, but, unlike last year, dreaming big is not all that unrealistic anymore.

Last year, Keeler told his first-year team he wanted them to be “unrealistic” and shoot for the title. He can’t use unrealistic this year given the turmoil throughout the rest of the league and the relative stability at Temple.

Plucking the price of a warm beer at LFF on the Owls for a $460 return doesn’t seem unreasonable now. If Golden Tempo can win the Derby, a Golden Temple $10 bet might come through, too.

Friday: Wise Guys