Chris Vannini from The Athletic (with ads) ranked every single team in college football after two weeks. The Temple Owls came in dead last. Right in front of Kennesaw State, who is playing their first season in D1. Hang the banner in the stadium they pay $4.5 million a year to rent:

I’m old enough to remember when Temple was good. Come along with me children as we regale the story of Matt Rhule, PJ Walker, Tyler Matakevich, and Ventell Bryant and College Gameday.

Now in my old age I might not be able to recant every fine detail, but I’ll do my best to paint the picture of a lovely Halloween in 2015 where the Temple football program peaked. After years of mediocrity and being the only program ever kicked out of their conference because they were so bad, the #21 undefeated Temple Owls faced off against the 7-1 Irish with playoffs on the line.

It was a crisp fall day on the grass of Independence Mall where a large crowd gathered before the sun came up. Most were wearing cherry red with some green sprinkled in waiting for ESPN’s College Gameday programming to start. Children, adults, and students lined the Mall grass with posters as far as the eye could see. Some took shots at the Owls’ opponent, Notre Dame:

 


Most took shots at Penn State:

 

Even poking fun at the most famous guy to ever graduate from the school. The irony being Cosby is probably the guest picker if this matchup happens the year before:

The Temple students knew this would be the only time they’d have to show off their creativity and they fucking brought it. Multiple sites clutched their pearls at the signs from Penn State’s campus outlet to Sporting News to even local pubs like Philly Mag couldn’t believe college kids could make jokes.

Before College Gameday kicked off ESPN had a pregame show. The producers brought out former Eagles QB Ron Jaworski to give some analysis on the matchup and then make a cheesesteak. A gratuitous gesture to the crowd that was met with little fanfare. The crowd was growing restless of Rocky euphemisms and external shots of the LOVE sign until 9am when four men appeared and wrapped themselves around a mahogany desk. Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, a still spry Lee Corso, and Desmond Howard. The crowd was back. If Gameday started at 9am we had our first Rocky analogy by 9:01am when Davis recounted “the last time the Owls were ranked Rocky Balboa had just become heavyweight champ”.

Thankfully “LETS GO TEMPLE!” “LETS GO TEMPLE!” chants almost drowned out Davis.

You’ll never believe this, but the Owls were the best team in town at that point:

The Sixers had just begun The Process, the Eagles would fire Chip Kelly in eight games, the Phillies were trying to navigate to the next chapter in the franchise, and the Flyers were hovering near .500. The Owls on the other hand were off to their best start in school history. They had a legitimate title shot and the city had fallen in love with a lovable loser.

Cameras on strings 15 feet in the air whizzed by as ESPN went in and out of commercial. The crowd of drunk Irish and Temple fans would bust balls. Herbstreit would get his nose powdered. Davis would check his phone. Corso would sit and just stare off into the distance. It was cool to see the behind the scenes in person. So much people and resources went into this production.

Finally, it came time to get to the special celebrity guest picker. Who would it be? Hall & Oates? Boyz II Men? It was the Phillie Phanatic. Fine. Whatever. This has to be one of the only celebrity guest pickers ever that couldn’t talk.

Gameday ends we kill time drinking back at my buddy’s place and head down to the tailgate, which was massive. Honestly it was a blur. Not because I was blacked out (yet) because I think the anxiety kicked in like, “Holy shit. We’re about to play Notre Dame on national television in front of the entire world and we actually have a chance to win this game.” We shuffle into the Linc. Somehow we got student tickets seven rows in the endzone. Tyler Matakevich’s pick early in the game happened right in front of our section. I watched Jahad Thomas on 4th and goal allude a ND defender with one of the sickest cuts I’ve ever seen to tie it up:

Holy shit. We could win this. We could actually win this.

The stadium was on fire. If you came there as a neutral party you were definitely rooting for Temple at that point. Hell I’m pretty sure some uncles in the Northeast had our back that night.

What happened after? I forget honestly. Like I said I’m old. Guess that’s just the price of aging.

Since then I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I’ve went into a Temple game. The program sucks right now. It’s been mismanaged, coaching hires don’t make sense (Manny Diaz being hired and resigning within hours didn’t help), and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be fixed any time soon. They brought in an AD from Texas who somehow doesn’t have the first clue what to do with NIL or what even is NIL really. The Temple coach, Stan Drayton, another Texas guy just started his third year and still hasn’t won a road game? That’s crazy. The football team has had three winning seasons in the eight years since Rhule left. They’ve won one conference game in each of the last four seasons. I’d probably be annoyed if we weren’t a basketball school.