HTS 2019: Temple

I don’t run hot and cold on a lot of things. I have strong opinions. And one thing I will always hold firm on is that when one travels, they should find the characteristic sandwiches of any given city. Iconic comfort food is a place’s most loving contribution to its unique culture. And for the first time since 1931, when Tech dropped road games to Pennsylvania at Franklin Field, the Yellow Jackets have a regular season opportunity to grab some Philadelphia cheesesteaks when they visit Temple this weekend. So let’s dive on in.

Temple Owls

Opponent Background:

• Conference: American Athletic Conference (2013 - present)
• Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• All-time Record: 467–584–52 (.447)
• Home Stadium: Lincoln Financial Field (Capacity: 68,532)
• National Championships: N/A
• College Football Playoff Appearances: N/A
• Conference Championships: 1967, 2016
• Division Championships: 2009, 2015, 2016
• 2018 Season Record: 8 - 5 (7 - 1 AAC)

Past Results:

• Team Head-to-Head Record: 0-0-0 (N/A)
• Recent Meetings:
  N/A
• Coach Head-to-Head Record: 0-0-0 (.000)
• Tech record against Temple in this week’s venue: 0-0-0 (N/A)

2019 Football Schedule:

A Whole Lot of Nothing:

In 1894, Temple played the Philadelphia Dental College in their first game. Then, they spent thirty years doing a whole lot of nothing. They came into their own when they hired Henry Miller in 1925 and slowly began upgrading their schedule. They opened Temple Stadium in 1928, which remained their home until they moved to Veterans Stadium in 1978. Miller coached eight seasons, posting an excellent 50-15-8 record.

Then they hired some guy named Pop Warner.

His final five seasons in college football was at the helm of the Owls. Temple was one of the strongest teams in the Northeast, and lost to Tulane in the inaugural Sugar Bowl.

The next 25 years, they posted four winning seasons. They were passed over for a bowl bid with a 7-1 record in one of them, but most of that time was generally bad football. They spent the entirety of the 1960s in the Middle Atlantic Conference, peaking with a conference championship in 1967. They reverted to independent status in time for the 1970s, and reached perhaps the golden decade of Temple football. They ditched their home digs for a spot in the new multipurpose stadium and went 80-52-3, reaching their first bowl games in years and had healthy records against every other major Eastern football school. However, by the mid-1980s, Wayne Hardin had retired, and Bruce Arians was hired as his replacement for a spell, so they reverted back to their middling status. Their last winning season in two decades came in 1990, and they joined the Big East Conference the next year. They did not win a conference game until 1995. Their first conference road game Was not until 1998. They were bad enough to be evicted from the Big East, effective at the beginning of the 2002 season, but hung around through 2004, with a tenuous grip on attendance, funding, and competitiveness. Their first postseason game in thirty years came in 2009, with an EagleBank Bowl loss to UCLA.

Following the departure of Al Golden, who would take his talents to South Beach, Temple became a proving ground for coaches - first with Steve Addazio in 2011-2012 (hired away by Boston College), followed by Matt Ruhle from 2013-2016 (Baylor), then Geoff Collins in 2017-2018 (Tech), and most famously Manny Diaz, who would go undefeated at Temple before again flying the coop for the sunny shores of Coral Gables. He was, conversely, also winless for the Owls.

As far as Tech football history goes, From the Rumble Seat has been taking a look at it since May 2018 over at Rearview Mirror. The short version is that Tech football began ignominiously in 1892. A game up in Athens in 1893, which Tech won, set the stage for one of the fiercest rivalries in the sport and also is one of the mythic origins of the Ramblin’ Wreck nickname. If that wasn’t enough, it’s also how Tech got its colors. Apparently gold is a color for cowards, if the residents of Athens are to be trusted. Tech was pitiful, to put it nicely, for quite some time until one man, Frank Turner, started an initiative to hire a bonafide legend as a football coach. That resulted in John Heisman. Heisman, innovator and champion, saw much success on the Flats until he dramatically left town as part of his divorce. The old man was replaced by William Alexander, who was known for his team’s strong academics and his own 1928 national championship.

Coach Alex was, in turn, replaced by his own protegé, Bobby Dodd. By the end of Dodd’s tenure, Tech had amassed three national championships, twelve conference championships, including five in the Southeastern Conference, which just mean more. What’s more, Dodd and Institute president Edwin Harrison had decided to go independent to make a stand not only for football principles, but its intrinsic academic ideals as well. Dodd and Tech would not sacrifice student-athlete education and well-being. The independent years were lean for Tech and did not result in the dream of a “Notre Dame of the South” status.

Eventually, Tech joined the Atlantic Coast Conference. By the end of the decade, coach Bobby Ross brought the Jackets from the utter depths of football irrelevance to win a national championship, Tech’s fourth. It is hard to overstate just how terrible Tech was at its nadir. Since then, the Jackets have seen average-to-great years, the most recent excellent year being 2014, when Tech was a few plays from the inaugural College Football Playoff. The Jackets have an all-time record of 737-503-43.

Tomorrow, the Jackets face off against the Owls (0-0-0 all time) in the City of Brotherly Love at 3:30 pm. The game will be shown on CBS Sports Network and can be heard over the radio in the usual suspects, 680 AM / 93.7 FM and the Georgia Tech IMG Sports Radio Network, featuring the voice of the Yellow Jackets, Andy Demetra, as always.

With the appearance of the historical matchup preview, that means it’s after Friday at 10:00 AM and that concludes From the Rumble Seat’s regularly scheduled pregame content. Tune in tomorrow starting at 6:00 AM for How to Watch continuing through the gameday thread and the postgame recap. Less than 36 hours until toe meets leather! As always, go Jackets!