Tag Archives: Temple bowl

10.31.16
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What Have We Done?

bowlform

If you are part of the crowd who remains totally focused on the next game and believes any discussion of anything beyond UConn is unhealthy and counterproductive and somehow has an effect on the game result, please click the “x” in the upper right-hand corner of your browser and leave the room now.

If you believe there are other issues for Temple football to address beyond Friday night in a timely fashion, please remain glued to the internet.

I, like many people, was a little surprised to get an email from Temple athletics on Saturday night upon my return home from the game asking me what bowl I wanted to attend.

What have we done? Surely,  the only thing anyone in athletics should be thinking about is UConn. (Just kidding.)

There are easy answers and there are ridiculously easy answers and this falls into the latter category.

Still, I think a lot of fans are going to pick the warm weather sites like Miami and Boca Raton again without thinking this question through. In reality, there are only three games the Owls should even consider and only three games you should vote for and they are these:

  • St Pete Bowl (American vs ACC)
  • Military Bowl (American vs ACC)
  • Birmingham Bowl (American vs SEC)

In fact, I will go a step further and go on record that the one in Birmingham against an SEC foe is the most logical choice. This is where the Temple administration swung and missed last year. Shawn Pastor of OwlsDaily.com reported a year ago that, as the second-place team in the league, the Owls were given a courtesy choice of Birmingham vs. Auburn or Louisiana vs. Virginia Tech and turned that down in order to play Toledo in Boca.

Bad job by the Temple administration and we wrote so BEFORE the game. The Temple administration’s response was that the survey said the majority of the respondents wanted to go to Boca because Temple has a large alumni presence in Florida. If you fill out this survey, please do not make the same mistake twice. Beating a MAC team will earn a collective “blah” from the Philadelphia community. Beating a SEC team (or even losing to one close) will give Temple football the shot of legitimacy it sorely needs from the general public. Just give me a shot at beating a good SEC bowl-eligible team. That’s all I ask. That’s what we owe these kids.

Go check that box for Birmingham. After that, it is permissible to start thinking about UConn even though you or I thinking about the Huskies will have zero impact on the outcome of that game.

Wednesday: The Conference Reacts

12.06.14
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Plenty to Play For, Just Not a Bowl

Sadly, the final gameday of the season.

Sadly, the final gameday of the season.

There are a lot of people who live in a fantasy world who believe that a team without a significant fan base and no bowl tie-in is going to somehow magically appear in a bowl if it becomes qualified because of things like TV ratings and conference affiliations.

Count me out of that group.

There’s plenty to play for, though, tonight when Temple travels to Tulane (7:30).  The game is on a real ESPN network (the duece), not ESPN3 or ESPN News or ESPNU so there will be a significant potential audience out there. The Owls will be playing to avoid a third-straight losing season and that is important.

The fact that Temple has done nothing about an abysmal punt return game is symptomatic of a larger overall leadership problem.

The fact that Temple has done nothing about an abysmal punt return game is symptomatic of a larger overall leadership problem.

There is just not a bowl game on the line.

Temple is not going to a bowl game with a win on Saturday, even if it is a 63-point effort like the one it had three years ago in West Point. Temple’s elimination game was two weeks ago, not today, and the Owls rolled out an uninspired offensive game plan against Cincinnati that belied that sense of urgency. Forget the calls for a play-action passing game and some semblance of a running game. Why didn’t Temple even TRY to use a slippery punt returner like Nate L. Smith instead of John Christopher to at least artificially pump some juice into the team?

Temple got zero yards from its punt return game … again.  It got nothing from its run game … again.

Those are two things fans should hope at least are addressed tonight.

Temple’s bowl chances might have been dashed before the season even started when American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco “sold” the rights to the conference’s sixth bowl tie-in to none other than CUSA. It was a monumental blunder.

The irony of this is dripping.  Temple’s 8-4 team did not get into a bowl because the MAC had too few tie-ins and its 6-6 team will not get into a bowl because conferences like the MAC and CUSA have too many. This kind of stuff happens only to Temple. You cannot make this stuff up. Temple’s major reason for leaving the MAC was getting more opportunities for a bowl and now the conference they go to sell a bowl where Temple would have appeared.

Any Temple fans up for a couple of winter days in the Bahamas? Sorry, we sold that bowl.

In the same category was UCF’s miracle win over ECU on Thursday night. Temple had a slight chance of backing into the fifth tie-in if Memphis moved up to a BCS game but, for that to happen, Memphis would have had to win the league outright and Fresno State would have had to knock Boise State out in the Mountain West title game. A head-scratching UCF Hail Mary allowed UCF to share the title with Memphis and eliminated even that sliver of Temple hope.

So, in a sense, Temple was beaten again by a Hail Mary pass, leaving winning tonight and at least some momentum into next season as the best the Owls can reasonably hope to accomplish.

Even given that, only a backroom Hail Mary in a smoke-filled room on Bowl Selection Sunday can extend this season beyond today and those kind of plays never go Temple’s way.