An original football-playing member of the Big East in 1991, Temple and the conference “parted ways” in 2004 due to a combination of poor performance and lack of fan support.
Seven years later, and as was suggested here a week ago, the Owls could be on the verge of a return.
According to the Sporting News, the presidents of current Big East members will meet Sunday in Washington to continue discussions as to how the conference can stave off extinction following the departures of Pittsburgh and Syracuse. One of the items on the agenda? The presidents will reportedly vote on extending an offer to Temple to become a full-fledged member of the conference, including, obviously, in football.
The Owls currently call the MAC — where they landed after getting the boot from the Big East and spending two years as an independent — their conference home for football, while their other sports play in the Atlantic 10.
Another item on the agenda will reportedly be “demanding” a commitment from UConn and Rutgers. Both schools have been connected to rumors and speculation – and in one case, public confirmation — regarding a potential move to the ACC. Unlike current conference brethren Pitt and ‘Cuse, however, any interest in the ACC has not yet been reciprocated by the conference.
Does it really matter that these schools get together to verbally “hold hands”? Everyone knows that an invitation will be expeditiously accepted when extended to a university in this dying conference.
I truly don’t understand why the Big East is so concerned at this point. If they were truly concerned, they would’ve been insanely proactive with expanding prior to waiting for others to act.
It just seems to me like this is all a bit late.
I agree. Pitt & Syracuse get criticized for leaving for the ACC, but what choice did they have but to protect their athletic programs? The BE had plenty of time to try to stabilize the conference but did not address the needs of the football schools. Now, the conference looks like it will fall apart, at least as a legitimate football conference. If I was Temple, I’d stay in the MAC before rejoining the conference that kicked them out.
This shows 2 things. How far Temple’s football program has come and how far Big East is willing to go to survive. Temple will probably accept to get back…but they were pretty much kicked out before….if i was them i would spit in the Big East face first!
The Big East is totally awesome.
I live in Philly. And while I am not a Temple grad (I went to La Salle. I do pull for their football team and watch them when they are on TV.
While Temple’s team has progressed enough to be competitive on the field in the Big East (they nearly beat Penn State 2 weeks ago and blew out Maryland last week) they bottom line is they simply do not get enough fan support. They average about 16k a game for MAC games and even when UCONN came in last year, they only drew about 19k. Couple that with no stadium of their own, you will be watching crowds of 25k (max) playing in 70k seat Eagles stadium for Big East games. For a conference still struggling to remain relevant, how “small time” will those acres of empty seats look on tv?
It’s too bad too because the players and coaches have worked hard to turn things around. The bottom line is the Temple Alumni and city of Philadelphia just don’t support their team enough.
Waiting for the possibility of the BBall schools to pull out of the nonsense. Watch Nova, Georgetown, Providence, Marquette, DePaul to grab some additional schools as Butler, Daytona and Xavier to form a premier bball league. Leave the Big east to the Rutgers and Temples of the world.
Adding Temple to the Big East makes a lot of sense to me because of the natural rivalries with ‘Nova and Rutgers’. Their football program is now on much better footing and even though they play in a 60,000 seat stadium, so does Pitt. They don’t have an on-campus facility either. Temple Basketball is excellent and always has been with Harry Litwack, John Chaney, and now Fran Dunphy as Hall of Fame coaches. At least Litwack and Chaney are HOF coaches but Dunphy will be there some day too! Anyway, I think the Big East will now have a solid foundation. Just my opinion.