Breaking News: Temple To Join Conference USA
By Mike Gibson (Temple Featured Columnist) on August 20, 2010


Reliable sources indicate Temple will be joining CUSA today or tomorrow
It's one thing when an anonymous blogger throws out a rumor. Those kind of things happen all the time.

It's another when a respected college football journalist like Rivals.com's Tom Dienhart does it, followed a few hours later by an assistant AD at Rice adding the "exciting news" coming later today that Temple and one other school will join Conference USA for football only, effective starting with the 2011 season.

Dienhart has broken many stories and his reputation is impeccable in the business, so his word is nothing to be trifled with, and when the Rice AD says "exciting news" coming today, that's as close to a two-source confirmation as you'll get in today's increasingly electronic media.

So I'm buying it.

Temple to CUSA. I think the announcement will be made Saturday in order to get exposure in the Sunday newspapers across the country. It will be released not by Temple first, but by the CUSA office. Only after it is made official will Temple have some kind of comment.

The Owls were wooed by CUSA a few years ago before accepting the MAC's football-only invite and that turned out to be a life-preserver for a then-drowning program.

The move was first mentioned by a Tulane blogger a couple of weeks ago, and it turns out he had some pretty good sources.

Truth be told, the CUSA Bowl lineup is so much better than the MAC's, it's not even funny. Even if Temple wins the MAC this year, the, err, reward for Temple fans is a trip to Detroit for the championship game followed by another trip to Detroit for the bowl game.

No offense to Detroit, but that's dreadful. I can just imagine the Temple fan now complaining that he can't go to Detroit because the walk from his car to the indoor stadium will be "too cold."

The only way Temple can avoid that is to win out, beat Penn State, Villanova, and UConn and sweep the MAC. Something like that could—could—put Temple in the Rose Bowl or the Sugar Bowl, and more likely means a certain Heisman Trophy for Bernard Pierce.

That's my mantra this year: "12-0 and we're Golden." I'd love to meet the Temple fan who went to the last Sugar Bowl involving Temple (1934). If he/she is still alive and, say, was 20 at the time, then he/she would be 96 now. Possible, but not likely.

Still, if this turns out to be true, I'm ambivalent about this. Seriously, I've always liked the MAC.

I liked the MAC when I was a kid. I liked the MAC when Big Ben was at Miami. I liked the MAC when Garrett Wolfe was making his run at the Heisman. I liked the MAC when Northern Illinois upset Alabama a few years ago and when Central Michigan beat Michigan State last year. I liked the MAC long before Temple even got involved with that conference. Now that Temple's in it, I follow all the MAC games even more closely.

I don't see how Rice will put more opposing fans at Lincoln Financial Field than, say, Bowling Green, but let's face it, BG never put more than a few hundred in there anyway. It's a step up for football certainly and Owl hoop heads will probably like the non-league schedule a lot more than they do now.

If Temple wins the MAC this year and THEN Conference USA next, I'm loving the move and the history that comes with winning two leagues in consecutive seasons.