Like many of my tailgate buddies for many years, I met a couple of future good friends in front of Veterans Stadium one day long before Temple Football Forever was ever conceived or before I even wore Temple swag to the games.

I was wearing an “Upper Bucks YMCA” sweatshirt and they were from Upper Black Eddy, which I only knew as the Upper Bucks’ home of then National League baseball President Bill White. (I knew Bill because he was one of our biggest local celebrities and I worked for the local newspaper at the time.)

My newest friend at that time pointed to the sweatshirt, I explained the connection (I lived in Quakertown at the time), talked a little Bill White and The Riegelsville Inn and we became fast Temple tailgate buddies for maybe 30 years now, if not more.

The last year Temple played at The Vet, both of us would point to the stadium going up across the street and say: “We need to get into that stadium next year.” We did.

I only remember this story because he said his wife said something last week: “This reminds me of the Ron Dickerson Years.”

Hmm, I thought. This season sounds and feels very Ron Dickersonish. She might have had a point. I looked it up and found a gem of a tweet from a guy named Hayden.

Just by crunching the numbers, a Temple football season hasn’t been THIS BAD since Ron Dickerson was the head coach.

This is even worse than the 20-game losing streak Bobby Wallace left Temple first-year head coach Al Golden, who by some miracle, was able to beat a Bowling Green team in his first year that dropped a 70-burger on Wallace in consecutive years.

Stevie Wonder could see the 1-11 Owls improve in that first year under Golden. Superman with X-ray vision cannot see the 2-6 Owls improve in this second year under Stan Drayton. They were 3-9 last year. It will now take a miracle to achieve a third-straight 3-9 season. You fire a 3-9 coach and pay off $6 million of his contract to go forward and not sideways.

Right now, this is going backward.

This is almost a carbon copy of the 1994 Temple season and that’s historically bad.

Who to blame?

Certainly not the players. They returned 15 starters from a team that was competitive in many more games in 2022 than 2023. They hired a defensive coach who has no idea how to stop a modern offense after having a defensive coach who was competent enough to be hired by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Do you think Everett Withers has a chance to be hired by the Philadelphia Eagles next season?

I think even the Rockledge Eagles might pass on his services if he became available.

The 1994 season was one where Dickerson resigned on the spot following a 53-52 loss to Pitt, only to renege on the resignation a couple of days later. Temple had a 4th and 2 at midfield at Pitt Stadium only to go for it, give the Panthers a short field and see them score a last-second touchdown. Had the Owls merely punted there, Pitt would have had to go the length of the field with 52 seconds left no timeouts.

A lot of people are blaming the NIL and transfer portal for Drayton’s failures this season but I’m not buying it. This season is the result of a bad hire in a key spot. Thirty-four points against UTSA and 26 points against Tulsa should have been enough to win if the defense just performed to last year’s level.

That’s flipping a horrid 2-6 to a representative 4-4.

The fact that Drayton hasn’t fired Withers in this off week is a clear signal he’s willing to go down with the ship rather than plug the holes to save it. That message is received loud and clear not only by Temple fans but his players, the staff and the administration who have to be wondering what the hell is going on here.

Unfortunately, that means we all go down with the ship and if it reminds you of the time you spent shivering in a raft looking at an iceberg 29 years ago before being fished out of the sea then you are correct.

Major props to Mrs. Winkel for pointing out that cold hard fact and to a guy named Hayden Bandel for providing the receipts.

Monday: Navy Week