Good article about Temple football

[Go Lehigh TU Owl]

I give Desnis Dodd of CBS Sportsline props for writing a piece, and a good one, on the Owl football program.

http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/9658049

[LacesOut]

He first says Temple should drop football.

Then goes on to kinda give reasons why they should keep football.

At least that's what I got out of it.

[dbackjon]

Weird to see the words "Good" and "Temple Football" used in one sentence.

[GannonFan]

Golden can try to do whatever he wants, but Temple will never, ever be a consistently good football program. Philly is a town that doesn't care one iota about college football anyway (kinda like New York and a lesser extent Boston in that way), Temple will never have a following (they struggle to get good crowds at basketball games and that is with a program that has, until recently, been a national power - and the crowds aren't different now than when they were a power), and Temple will never have a homefield advantage - people don't come to see them play. Heck, I've been to two Temple games (I've been to a few actually) where they played Cal in one game and Oregon St in the other - and in both cases Temple fans were actually outnumbered in their own stadium by fans that had to come all the way cross-country to see their team play. That's hard to do.

They're going to struggle for awhile in the MAC as well - they've been playing MAC teams for a few years now and Temple gets just as killed by the elite MAC teams as they do against the Louisville's of the world. They should drop to I-AA and control costs, but they wouldn't be a sure thing at the I-AA level either - too many issues that would still stop them from developing a real program.

[blukeys]

They should drop to I-AA and control costs, but they wouldn't be a sure thing at the I-AA level either - too many issues that would still stop them from developing a real program.

They could also revitalize local rivalries with teams that are familiar to their students.

I met some Temple folks at a Delaware game last year. They like football but don't go to Temple games because the home crowd is outnumbered by the visitors and they don't really care who Eastern Michigan is.

[goasu984Life]

They really should either drop down or drop it all together. I'm sure that the coaches and players are doing the best that they can, and they really should give Al Golden some time, but if it stays like this for the next five years or so, I say get rid of it all together.

[NoCoDanny]

So having said all that why is there talk about Villanova moving up? They would just be join the same conference Temple bombed out of.

[GannonFan]

So having said all that why is there talk about Villanova moving up? They would just be join the same conference Temple bombed out of.

Because the elitists who make up much of the non-existent nova football fanbase (that's technically an oxy-moron - you can't put nova football and fanbase together) feel that they could do well where Temple failed - they think that the only reasons why nova football suffers for support now is that they are stuck in a backwater of college football playing a bunch of no-name schools and that, if they moved up into the Big East, the fans would come out in droves (they feel a 30k to 40k stadium would be okay at the start) because now they would be playing schools that people have heard of before. In reality, nova ain't going anywhere - they were playing those same name schools and they were DI-A when they decided to close the program back in the early 80's. They got some decent support when the program started back up in the mid-80's, but they do nothing to effectively sell the program, and they are a non-entity in their immediate local area, let alone nearby Philly. While they've had some very, very good teams over the years, the atmosphere at nova games (outside of when UD visits) is abysmal and they have a very antagonistic relationship with the local township (Radnor township) that prevents them from possibly making significant on-campus changes. If they moved to DI-A, they would have to play in Philly at either the Linc or Franklin Field as Radnor will never let them build a stadium like what they want (and there's no way adjoining Lower Merion would either). Maybe they do eventually move up if just to do what Temple did and pocket their share of the BCS money for as long as the conference lets them. I just don't see it and I just don't see the groundswell from their alumni and local area to warrant it.

[LacesOut]

Philly is a professional football town. That will never change.

Temple has obviously crashed at the I-A level, and I would not be surprised if 'Nova follows their lead at the I-AA level.

[GannonFan]

Philly is a professional football town. That will never change.

Temple has obviously crashed at the I-A level, and I would not be surprised if 'Nova follows their lead at the I-AA level.

Yup, outside of Big 5 basketball, college anything is ignored in favor of pro sports.