Like it or not, it's the same boat - or close to it

[newshound]

Temple football tries to become a factor in Philadelphia, MAC

By Phil Sheridan / Knight Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA — It is the great white whale, out there somewhere, and the Ahabs at Temple University just bought a brand-new ship to try to find it.

They looked excited as they hoisted the sails for the first time Tuesday at the Liacouras Center. The news conference to announce Temple’s addition to the Mid-American Conference might have been the most upbeat football-related event on campus in decades.

“People are smiling who haven’t had anything to smile about in 25 years,” Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw said as alumni stopped by to congratulate him.

So what do you say about a quest like this? Do you tell the good folks on North Broad Street that their whale doesn’t exist, that Division I-A football will never draw fans in Philadelphia? Or do you wish them well on this latest voyage, because, after all, who really knows? What if they do find that whale in the MAC?

Bradshaw and the rest of the Temple hierarchy seem clearheaded about this. They understand that Temple football has become a kind of sad punch line here, another way of saying that a disappointing crowd turned out for something. They also know that the first step toward changing that perception is to acknowledge it.

“We have to turn the page,” Bradshaw said. “We have to admit to ourselves that we haven’t done a very good job in the past.”

There have always been reasons Temple has been a nonfactor in football. It’s a commuter school with an inner-city campus. The facilities weren’t good. The Owls played at Penn’s Franklin Field and then as afterthoughts at decaying Veterans Stadium. Just as they fixed those problems, they were kicked out of the Big East, a conference they joined expressly to create a football identity.

“There are always clouds over us,” head coach Bobby Wallace said. “When one cloud would leave, another cloud came in its place. Now there are no clouds.”

Wallace acknowledged that expectations will change faster than his program can. For casual college football fans, and for non-fans, the MAC is little more than a rumor. Bowling Green? Kent State? Akron? These are not schools you associate with football greatness.

But Bradshaw was right to point out that Miami of Ohio’s Ben Roethlisberger and Marshall’s Byron Leftwich and Chad Pennington played quarterback in the MAC over the last few years. The conference’s commissioner, Rick Chryst, was right to point out that the bowl system is going to create more parity and more revenue for everyone as it evolves over the next few years.

If you’re Temple, then, you’re hoping that some future Leftwich or Roethlisberger can draw fans to Lincoln Financial Field. And you’re hoping that, because that star is playing on a team that isn’t as overwhelming as Syracuse or Miami (Fla.), the Owls have a chance to win a few of those games.

“The last few years,” Bradshaw said, “we would have a good win that got some excitement going, then something would happen to disappoint our fans. We lost to Villanova on a field goal in overtime or something like that. Then people would say, ‘Typical Temple.’ “

That is exactly the obstacle Temple faces here. If you buy tickets and go to a game, and the stadium is mostly empty and the home team isn’t compelling, you aren’t going to want to go back. It’s human nature not to want to be where the action isn’t.

Bradshaw worked at DePaul, on an inner-city campus in Chicago, when the Michael Jordan-led Bulls were winning. He knows how hard it is to draw fans to a stadium for a college game when the town is crazy about a pro team.

Can Temple do it? Can the Owls find a way to coexist with Eaglesmania in the fall, not to compete — that’s insanity — but to offer entertaining football in a fun environment as a kind of complement to the Birds?

It’s hard to believe that major college football couldn’t succeed in this football-mad city. But then, the only major college football available has been Temple football, so there’s no way to gauge the cause and effect here.

“If you bring the Beach Boys in and get 40,000 and then you get 15,000 the next week, all that tells you is that 25,000 people came to see the Beach Boys,” Bradshaw said. “We know we can’t go 6-5 and go to a bowl and expect everything to change. We have to put a winning team out there year after year.”

If it’s hard to picture the Linc packed for a big Temple game with postseason implications, that’s because it’s something you haven’t seen. That doesn’t mean the possibility doesn’t exist. It’s out there somewhere, a great white whale just waiting to be tracked down.

[NavyCrimson]

well - the MAC ain't going to help either /

until they join a league with all 'their sports' in the same league & start promoting & investing in their programs, it ain't happening folks!

back to the drawing boards little birdies

[NavyCrimson]

well - the MAC ain't going to help either /

until they join a league with all 'their sports' in the same league & start promoting & investing in their programs, it ain't happening folks!

back to the drawing boards little birdies