When Pitt played Boston College at the start of the month, I mentioned how they were completely ignored by the Boston media. That’s nothing compared to the way Temple football is ignored in Philly. The Philadelphia Daily News has them in a day old piece just rounding up local colleges (though Wednesday is the last day to pick up seats purchased from now abandoned Veterans stadium). The Philadelphia Inquirer has a “Temple” section, but most of it concerns the basketball team. And the PhillyBurbs.com coverage of Temple is downright pathetic.

There was a column recently in the Philadelphia Daily News, from Temple alum, and the ancient, perpetually cranky, and large sportswriter Bill Conlin. His message. Quit.

The Owls will go looking for a new conference lugging the leper’s bell: Nobody cares. Nobody goes.
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I have lost track of the times I have delivered this message, but here goes again: Drop your pretensions and the grandiose Division I dreams a fanatical cadre of alumni keeps gulping like methadone. Wallace is the latest of many good coaches holding his fingers inches apart to indicate how close the Owls are to being really big time. Just a good recruiting class here, a few breaks there, a little bit more of a commitment from alumni, students, the media and area high school coaches.

Nobody told the Temple people that urban college football began a rapid death when University of Chicago egghead Robert Maynard Hutchins dropped football and such powerhouses as NYU and Fordham dropped out or downsized. I get the argument that Southern California is proof an inner-city university can field consistently great football teams. The only difference between the Owls and the Trojans is that USC is among the wealthiest private universities in America, a depository for conservative, Republican money. Richard Nixon tapped USC for brain power the way John F. Kennedy tapped Harvard.

Temple has Bill Cosby…

So, don’t give up football, Owls. Instead, give up the delusion you can ever be a successful, big-time program. Get back with Delaware and Villanova, William & Mary and Northeastern. Give a call to Georgia Southern. Keep scheduling the Daytons and Akrons. You’ll need to be good to beat any of them.

Definitely going to be a light week.