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Temple Owls Football
2010 Temple Owls football team
First season1894
Head coach
4th season, 26–32–0 (.448)
StadiumLincoln Financial Field
(capacity: 68,532)
Field surfaceGrass
LocationPhiladelphia, PA
DivisionEast
All-time record409–543–52 (.433)
Bowl record1–2–0 (.333)
Consensus All-Americans1 (Paul Palmer, 1986)
ColorsCherry and White
   
Fight song"Fight Temple Fight On", "T for Temple U", "We're Here to Cheer for Temple"
MascotHooter T. Owl
RivalsPenn State Nittany Lions
Pittsburgh Panthers
Buffalo Bulls
Villanova Wildcats
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
WebsiteTemple Athletics

The Temple Owls football team participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the East Division of the Mid-American Conference (MAC). Temple is a football-only affiliate of the MAC because their primary conference, the Atlantic Ten Conference, does not currently sponsor a football league (although during the time the A-10 did sponsor football, it was in the Division 1 Championship Subdivision, and Temple's program has always been in D-I football). The Owls were a football-only member of the Big East Conference from 1991 until 2004. Temple was forced out of the league due to poor attendance averages, non-competitiveness, and a lack of commitment to the football program from university officials. Temple played the 2005 and 2006 seasons as an independent before joining the MAC in 2007 where they currently reside. Al Golden is the current head football coach.

History

Henry Miller Era

Although Temple began playing organized football in 1894, the Owls' modern era began in 1925. That was the year that Henry J. "Heinie" Miller was hired as head coach, and for a time, the Owls were a regional power. To start the 1928 season, the Owls moved to Temple Stadium. Miller coached eight seasons and compiled a 50-15-8 record.

Pop Warner Era

Following Miller's departure in 1933, the Owls made a national splash with the hiring of their next coach, the legendary Glenn "Pop" Warner. Warner had spent the previous 19 years at Pittsburgh and Stanford, winning three national championships. He ended his career at Temple, going 31-18-2 in six seasons. In 1934, the Owls went 7-0-2 in the regular season and were invited to play in the inaugural Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day, 1935, where they lost to Tulane, 20-14.

George Makris Era

From the time Warner retired at the end of the 1938 season until 1963, the Owls experienced only 4 winning seasons. The team reached a nadir in the late 1950s, enduring a school record 21-game losing streak from the last four games of the 1957 season and through the entire 1958 and 1959 seasons. George Makris arrived as head coach to start the 1960 season and won his first game. Makris restored competitiveness to the Owl program, compiling a 10-year record of 45-44-4. Makris' tenure coincided with Temple's 10 years in the University Division of the Middle Atlantic Conference.

Wayne Hardin Era

After the 1969 season, the Owls became an independent again to upgrade their schedule and compete against the top teams in the East. Under new coach Wayne Hardin, who coached six years at Navy, Temple was up to the challenge. Hardin led the Owls to an 80-52-3 record over 12 years.

Temple went 9-1 in 1973 and 8-2 in 1974 and won 14 straight games at one point. Temple played regular season games in Japan's Mirage Bowl twice, losing 35-32 to Grambling in 1977 and beating Boston College 28-24 in 1978.

In 1979, the Owls had a 10-2 record and the most wins in school history. The Owls opened the season with a 38-16 win at West Virginia and later beat Rutgers (41-20) and Syracuse (49-17). Temple's only losses during the regular season were to nationally ranked Pittsburgh (10-9) and Penn State (22-7). In the game at Penn State, before a record-setting crowd, the Owls led 7-6 at the half. Following the 1979 season, the Owls defeated California 28-17 in the second Garden State Bowl. The crowd who witnessed Temple beat California (55,952) was the largest in the short history of that Bowl.

Under Hardin, the Owls were one of the more stable Eastern football powers and often defeated local rivals West Virginia, Rutgers and Syracuse. In the 1970s, Temple went 4-4 against West Virginia, 2-1 against Rutgers, 1-1 against Syracuse, 4-1-1 against Cincinnati and 2-0 against Connecticut.

Bruce Arians Era

When Hardin retired in 1982, the Owls hired Bruce Arians - then 30 years old - to succeed him. Arians had some success, beating Pitt three times in his six years on the job. Arians had two winning seasons, going 6-5 in 1984 when the defense was ranked 21st in the nation beating East Carolina, Pitt, and West Virginia and 6-5 1986. Unfortunately, Temple's six wins in 1986 were later forfeited due to the fact that the Owls' roster included an ineligible player.

Decline

Jerry Berndt, who took over for Arians in 1989, led Temple to their last winning season for almost twenty years in 1990, when the Owls went 7-4. Temple joined the Big East Conference in 1991, but had difficulty competing against teams with better facilities and bigger budgets. During their fourteen years in the league, Temple won as many as three league games only once (1997: 3-8, 3-4 Big East) and failed to win any league games six times. Overall, they had a 14-80 record against Big East foes.

Berndt (11-33), Ron Dickerson (1993-97: 8-47) and Bobby Wallace (1998-2005: 19-71) were unable to halt the decline. Temple went 0-11 in Wallace's final year. In part due to the Owls' noncompetitiveness, poor fan support, and lack of institutional support, the Big East voted to expel the Owls at the end of the 2004 season.

Al Golden Era

On December 6, 2005, Al Golden, then the defensive coordinator for the University of Virginia under Al Groh, was named the new head coach. The Owls lost their first 8 games under Golden before beating Bowling Green during their Homecoming game on October 28, 2006. The win snapped a 20-game losing streak, one game short of the school record. The Owls finished 1-11 in Golden's first year. The Owls won 4 games in 2007, including three straight wins at one point in mid-season. During Golden's second season, Temple's defense was ranked 49th in the nation, as opposed to 118th in 2006.[1] The offense also improved from 118th to 113th, but it was clear that Temple's defense, despite their incredible youth, was the heart of their team. The Owls won 5 games in 2008, their most since 1990. In his fourth season, Golden's record stands at 19-29. In 2009, the Owls went 9-4, their best record since 1979 with three of four losses being competitive, the lone exception being a 31-6 loss to a Penn State team that finished 11-2 and ranked #8. Temple accepted a bid to play in the EagleBank Bowl, where they faced the UCLA Bruins, which was the Owls' first post-season appearance since the 1979 Garden State Bowl. The Owls fell to the Bruins 30-21. In 2010, the owls lost a crucial game to Ohio University which would have given them a potential MAC championship. The week after, Temple would lose to Miami-Ohio, leaving the owls at 9-4 for the season.

Awards

  • Mid-American Conference Freshman of the Year

Consensus All-Americans

Retired Jerseys

Offensive guard Bill Singletary was a first team All-American in 1972 and is the only Temple player to have his number (64) retired.

Owls in pro football

Home Stadium

From 1927 until 1977, the Owls played at Temple Stadium. In 1978, they moved to Veterans Stadium. During the 1986 season, the Owls averaged an all-time high of 34,543 fans to their games at Veterans Stadium and their games, regularly televised, did well in the local Neilsen ratings. Veterans Stadium remained their home field through the 2002 season. Lincoln Financial Field has been Temple's home field since 2003, with the first home game being the inaugural college game at Lincoln Financial Field between Temple and Villanova, which drew over 30,000 fans.

The most attended Temple game, with 105,950 attendees, occurred November 11, 2006 at Beaver Stadium, home of Penn State. Temple lost that game 47-0. Nine out of the ten most attended Temple games occurred at Penn State.[2]

Temple in action vs. Penn State
November 10, 2007

The largest attended home game was November 10, 2007, at Lincoln Financial Field, when the Owls played host to the Penn State Nittany Lions, which had an attendance of 69,029.[2] Temple lost the game 31-0.

Media coverage

Eight Temple games were broadcast over Philadelphia television in 2005, the most in school history. The Temple radio network, which once included 12 stations from as far north as Sayre, PA to as far south as Baltimore, MD, is now down to one flagship station, WPHT 1210 (AM), in Philadelphia. Harry Donahue handles the play-by-play with former Temple Owl Steve Joachim doing the color. WHAT 1340 AM also carries the games. Past play-by-play broadcasters have included Dave Sims, who currently covers college football and basketball for ESPN; Ron Menchine, the former Navy play-by-play announcer and Howie Herman, currently a sports columnist in Massachusetts. Two Philadelphia newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, cover Temple football. Owlscoop.com and The Temple News, the university's student-run newspaper, regularly provides coverage of Temple football. The blog Temple Football Forever provides commentary and history and received the college football bloggers award for top non-BCS blog, 2007.

Bowl Games

In the Polls

In the 1979 season, Temple finished 10-2 and ranked #17 in both the coaches and AP poll, their only post-season ranking ever.

College Football Hall of Fame

References

  1. ^ "wNCAA Football Statistics". Yahoo! Sports. 2007-12-06. Retrieved 2007-12-06.
  2. ^ a b "weekly release" (PDF). Temple Athletics. 2007-11-05. Retrieved 2007-11-06.
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