If some of the old-timers like me felt a little bit of deja vu on Saturday, it could be understood.

The last time a lot of us remember Temple trailing at halftime and winning, 49-17, it was at Veterans Stadium and the year was 1979.

Head coach Wayne Hardin told me the story then.

“I turned to (defensive coordinator) Vince (Hoch) and said, ‘What do we do?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, coach, what do you think?”

Hardin thought about throwing the ball but instead decided to give the ball to a great running back from Coatesville named Sherman Myers. “Tank” scored five second-half touchdowns, then a Temple record, in a 49-17 win.

The difference between then and now?

That Syracuse team was one of only 30 bowl teams that year. So was Temple. Now there are 80 bowl teams in a watered-down college football landscape.

That Syracuse team had future NFL Hall of Famers Joe Morris and Art Monk.

I doubt that this UConn team will have a single future Hall of Famer and I know for certain that the Huskies are about as far away from a bowl as any program in the country.

The 49-17 score this time was cosmetic but it was pretty good makeup so the current Owls deserve a lot of credit for averting disaster. Call it lipstick on a pig.

When people all over the country see the final, they will think Temple took care of business the way Temple was expected to do so prior to the game as a 29.5-point favorite. What isn’t as noticeable in the boxscore is that UConn led for half of the game and Temple needs to play better if it is going to win a bowl game.

I talked to two former Temple quarterbacks (before the game) who shall remain nameless and mentioned to them that this offense is ill-suited to the talents of the best quarterback on the team, Anthony Russo. Temple needs to run the same offense with Russo it ran in the last two years with P.J. Walker. Ditch the spread and establish a power running game and only then throw off play-action fakes. They both said they are going to sit down with current head coach Rod Carey and take that argument to him.

Good luck with that because that’s really the only way Temple goes from 8-4 this year to 10-2 or better the next. This season went way too fast and Temple had way too much offensive talent to struggle to score 13 on Cincinnati last week.

Carey is going to have to be flexible, but there’s nothing in his history at Northern Illinois that suggests he’s anything but stubborn. Great coaches, though, design an offense that suits their talent and the next few months will tell if Carey is great or just good.

At Temple, just good won’t do.

Tuesday: Season Recap

Thursday: An Ideal Bowl Matchup

By the luck of the draw of scheduling, the American Athletic Conference has given Temple the chore of sending off UConn in style.

The Owls are 29.5-point favorites and for good reasons. Rod Carey can probably run up the score on the Huskies if he chooses to do so and no one in the league offices would blame him.

Bruce Francis’ TD catch to win the 2007 game was ruled incomplete by MAC refs but replay showed that Francis had a foot down and possession but the Big East replay official (Jack Kramer) refused to overturn the call in perhaps the most controversial ending of a Temple game in modern history.

Nor in the athletic offices over at the Star Complex on the campus of Temple University.

Temple was the team the then Big East decided to kick out of the league and UConn was the team that the league decided to replace the Owls with and, pretty much since then, Temple football has been on the ascent and UConn football pretty much on the decline. The year after Temple was kicked out, the Owls put up 56 on the Huskies in a game at Franklin Field that opened with Mac Fenton taking the kickoff to the house. That game finished 56-7.

Last year, the Owls did it one better, 57-7.

Even in the year the Huskies made the Fiesta Bowl, Temple hung a 30-16 number on the Huskies at Lincoln Financial Field.

UConn has told the league it no longer wants to play basketball in the conference but asked to continue playing football. It took Commissioner Mike Aresco all of about two minutes to essentially say: “We don’t want your crappy football program.”

So the Owls committing a program to the trash heap of college football with a big win today would be more than a fitting sendoff.

There is, though, a much more important chore at hand: Giving the seniors a big win in their final game at Lincoln Financial Field.

The Owls will lose perhaps the best three linebackers they’ve had on the same field in a long time: Shaun Bradley, Chapelle Russell and Sam Franklin. All played with a fierceness that benefited their single digits.

At the season ticket-holder party a couple of years ago, Russell sought me out like he seeks out quarterbacks but, instead of putting me on the ground hard, he extended his hand and said simply: “Thanks for coming.” I told him I thought the team would be a lot better than the projections and he responded: “We know it.”

Three years ago at the same function, Isaiah Wright and Linwood Crump Jr. were among the five people at my table. Wright called me “Mr. Mike” (I like that better than sir and Mr. Gibson) and asked me if I thought the stadium would be built by the time he was a senior. I said, “I don’t think so. Too much politics.” Sadly, it turned out I was right.

I’ll miss my yearly, albeit short, conversations with guys like Wright and Russell and what all of the seniors brought to the field during their careers. These guys deserve to see the Owls score early and often and, if Carey decides to run it up, nobody in the league office will get upset.

Sunday: Game Analysis

Tuesday: Regular Season Roundup

Thursday: Our Dream Bowl Matchup