Temple deserves big crowd for Memphis game
The last time Temple's football team came through the tunnel at Lincoln Financial Field, the place was literally dressed to the T and filled to the brim. There was no denying it was Temple's home even if a sizable portion of the sellout crowd pledged its allegiance to Notre Dame.
The last time Temple's football team came through the tunnel at Lincoln Financial Field, the place was literally dressed to the T and filled to the brim. There was no denying it was Temple's home even if a sizable portion of the sellout crowd pledged its allegiance to Notre Dame.
With a prime-time national television audience invited in for a rare look at one of college football's historically bad programs, Temple did a sensational job of portraying the different, prouder image that has emerged in recent years. For those of us who have watched Temple football through the decades, it was a pleasant surprise to see the cherry and white school logo at midfield and to see T-E-M-P-L-E painted in the same colors at each end zone.
It was also a far cry from some grim yesteryears when a barely visible Temple logo was hastily painted over a still very visible Eagles logo. The lasting impression of that attempt at school pride was: Why bother? Big-time programs pay attention to details like that because appearances can mean everything to talented high school recruits who are undecided about where they want to play their college football.
Unfortunately, the flavor of Lincoln Financial Field will be vanilla rather than cherry and white for a game that deserves the same royal treatment given to the Halloween showdown with Notre Dame. In some ways, Saturday's game against a Memphis team that has one of the country's best quarterbacks in Paxton Lynch is more enthralling than the game against the Fighting Irish.
With a win, depending on what South Florida does against Cincinnati on Friday night, Temple could claim the American Athletic Conference East title, which would earn it a chance to play Navy or Houston in the conference championship game. If they win that game, they would likely play in the Peach Bowl, one of the elite six games on New Year's Day. That would be much bigger than an October game against Notre Dame.
The T should be back at midfield and T-E-M-P-L-E should be in the end zones Saturday. Coach Matt Rhule, his staff and his players have earned the dressing, but a contractual agreement between the school and the Eagles will prevent it from being there. Because the Eagles play a 1 p.m. game Sunday against Tampa Bay, Temple cannot put its markings on the field for its game.
Larry Dougherty, Temple's senior associate athletic director of communications, said the school understands. All the sod must be replaced in the end zones and midfield to change the logos and one day is not enough time for the new sod to be safe for the NFL game the following day. It is among the list of reasons Temple would like to have its own stadium with permanent cherry and white markings.
Another thing that should happen Saturday when Temple plays Memphis still can, and this, too, should factor into the school's ultimate decision about its desire for a new stadium.
Rhule had a long list of concerns after his team's loss to South Florida that put the first tarnish on Temple's conference record. One of them was not how many people will show up for his team's noon game at the Linc.
"I care about the people that do come that they see good football," Rhule said. "There are people who have been coming to those games that I've seen since 2006 and I want those people to be proud of the way we play. I'm only worried about how we play and nothing else."
That's fine and that's fair, but the better a team plays the bigger the bandwagon should become. It's nice that the Linc was sold out for games against Penn State and Notre Dame, but Temple's other two home games this season against Tulane and Central Florida drew an average of 33,276, which is less than half capacity.
Temple, regardless of its past, has played like a big-time football program this season and those Owls loyalists that Rhule said he has seen for nearly a decade should be able to look up and see more people than ever in the second deck for Saturday's game.
"It's boiling down to a two-week sprint," defensive tackle Matt Ioannidis said. "I think you'd always like to see more of a crowd there. You'd like to see the Linc filled with 65,000 people, especially if they get real loud when we're playing defense, which makes it harder to play offense. At the same time, we've played in all kinds of atmospheres, so it's not going to affect us at all."
The crowd might not affect the Owls' performance on the field, but it does impact the perception of the program. Big-time college football draws huge audiences, and that's what Temple football wants to be. Rhule said he's leaning on his seniors to get things going in the right direction again after the loss to South Florida. It would not hurt if they had more support than they've ever seen before.
Anything less than 40,000 would be a huge disappointment for a team that deserves even more than that.
@brookob