Tag Archives: Temple Football Homecoming 2025

10.05.25
by

Why I don’t care (much) about attendance

This is the Temple student second a dozen years ago. There is a shocking lack of a student section now. They went away with six straight losing seasons. They will hopefully return sooner than later.

“I’ve seen the light
And I’ve seen the flame
And I’ve been this way before
And I’m sure to be this way again … “

_ Neil Diamond, 1974

Log onto a message board to read Temple fans reacting to a joyous football win and, inevitably, some Debbie Downer will say something like this:

“Great win, but somebody has to do something about attendance.”

College football’s attendance problem includes not only Temple but UCLA and almost every American Conference school with the exception of ECU, Memphis, Army and Navy and scores of others across all conferences.

Invariably, said Mr. Downer will post this during a game thread from some place outside of the stadium while watching the game on TV. Many of them sitting on a couch and eating potato chips less than an hour’s drive from the stadium.

Translation: “I don’t like the problem, but I can’t be bothered to be part of the solution.”

Speaking as someone who has been to all three home games, I don’t have time for people like that. While I’ve been to all of the games, the slow erosion of the Temple fan base is completely understandable, and I don’t blame a single fellow fan for not attending. This fan base has been beaten down by consecutive 1-6, 3-9, 3-9, 3-9 and 3-9 seasons.

You can only do so much hoping for next year to improve before you say I’m out.

I never did, but a lot of my former tailgate buddies from the Halcyon Days of Al Golden and Matt Rhule who shall remain nameless did. One guy liked to go in an hour before the game because he “wanted to see the punting” and I found that humorous. I haven’t seen him in years and hopefully he’s still alive.

It took Al Golden a couple of years to go from crowds similar to the 12,131 who showed up for the UTSA game to at least a couple of times a year topping 30,000 and it will at least take K.C. Keeler that long to build it up.

When you spend six years tearing that down, it’s not going to take six weeks to build it up.

Maybe one or two years of winning. Maybe even three.

A sampling of Temple Homecoming Crowds

Six years of losing isn’t the only thing working against Temple attendance. The NIL and the transfer portal haven’t helped. When a fan base feels they are at an unfair disadvantage against foes they used to have a fair advantage against, that contributes to lack of interest in the product.

The problem is not specific to Temple. Look at UCLA which, like Temple, got a big win in a largely empty (larger than needed) stadium. The Bruins have lost for awhile but beat Penn State, 42-37. One of the reasons was because they were able to spend $3 million on a quarterback but that’s a P4 team with no fans.

A P4 team able to pay big-time money without fans.

Temple used to have a large and loud student section. It will be nice to see that come back.

The good news is that Homecoming looms and Temple regularly brings in 30,000 of its own fans for that one occasion. Many of them don’t even like football but love the university which gave them a great education and want to renew that experience at least once a year.

Temple, like Neil Diamond in that great song, has been this way before and it is sure to be that way once again. Interest has ebbed and flowed and been there in the past and will be there in the future again following some sustained winning.

Maybe if this biggest crowd of the year likes what the Owls are selling they will want to come back for one or two more games this season.

At least that’s the hope.

Maybe even Mr. Downer will put down the chips, get off the couch, stop complaining about the crowd and become a solution to the problem.

Friday: Navy Preview