On behalf of Julie and our children, I want to express our sincere gratitde to Temple University, the City of Philadelphia, and Owls fans throughout the world. The passion and pursuit of excellence at Temple allowed for our student-athletes to achieve success on the football field and to develop as young men off of the field. Temple and Philly will always be a part of us and we will be cheering on the Owls from afar.

Estimated cost of a full-page black-and-white ad in the Inquirer sports section on a Wednesday*: $7k.

Estimated number of hours it will take Rhule to earn that much money coaching at Baylor**: About 6.

Not a bad deal.

*Based on an educated guess of the current Inquirer full-page rates.

**Based on the $4.25 million salary of Rhule’s predecessor at Baylor. He might be getting more.

H/T to (@ZBerm)

Temple press release:

Temple has reached an agreement on a three-game series with one of the nation’s most storied college football programs, the University of Oklahoma.

The teams will start a three-game series on Aug. 31, 2024 in Norman, Okla. with the Sooners traveling to Philadelphia for a Sept. 13, 2025 contest. The final game of the series will be at Oklahoma on Sept. 2, 2028.

“We look forward to starting a series with a great program like Oklahoma and hosting the Sooners in Philadelphia,” said Temple University Director of Athletics Dr. Patrick Kraft. “Our goal is to continue to schedule the best games possible for our program, alums and the college football fans in the city.”

Is this typical in college football, to schedule games a decade out? Feels excessive. But I’m going to withhold myself from snarking on Temple and their coup of landing a big-name opponent to potentially play at their ill-advised on-campus stadium 12 years from now when football will probably be a footnote in history because it prematurely killed thousands of athletes and President Trump, in a sweepingly anti-populist move – yet another in his remarkable transformation into a Commander-in-chief willing to make the tough decisions for the betterment of society – banned the sport in 2022, more than a year into his second term, during which he operated without fear of running for reelection and yet still managed to weigh each decision with the care and consideration such an important job demanded. So, I’ll just congratulate Temple on this small step but important step toward becoming a nationally respected program. J-E-L-L-O.