Last week, I looked at the reasons why the Temple Owls’ rivals are not Penn State and Villanova, as they are semi-claimed to be. Simply put, it isn’t a football rivalry if you admit that your so-called rival is consistently better at football than you.
Penn State, despite what’s happened recently, has a program that is way too storied for Temple to even pretend to compare. And Villanova falls at the other end of the spectrum. But if Penn State and Nova aren’t Temple’s rivals, who is?
Whoever came up with the claim of Penn State and Villanova being the Owls’ rivals was on the right track: Proximity is almost always one of the factors of a rivalry. The game becomes a talking point for people who live in the area and, in theory, the two schools will also compete for recruits.
In search for Temple’s rival, we need to find the schools in the AAC that are closest to North Philadelphia.
Right away we can rule out seven schools: Houston, SMU, Tulsa, Tulane, UCF, USF, and Memphis. That leaves us with Cincinnati (572 miles), ECU (416 miles), and UConn (273 miles).
Okay, so none of those schools are really that close to Temple. But I kind of like the idea of a Temple/UConn rivalry: They’re both hogging the northeast section of the AAC; they both have basketball-first athletic programs but have both been known to produce scattered talent in football as well.
Still, the distance is significant. It’s too significant to use as an excuse for a rivalry. For instance, you can’t really call the theoretical rivalry between UConn and Temple “the I-95 rivalry” because the two teams probably wouldn’t take a six-hour bus trip up and down the highway, right? They would probably fly. And I feel like having to fly to each other kind of negates a rivalry based purely on distance. There has to be some unwritten rule on that.
But let’s keep Temple/UConn (a.k.a “the US Airways rivalry”) on the back burner for now. We’ll run some tests. We’ll do some research surveys and get back to you. After all, you forgot there is one closer team in the AAC than UConn.
At 130 miles away, that would be the Navy Midshipmen, who join the conference next season.
Navy could work in theory: This year it defeated the then-undefeated Owls and ultimately kept them from a bowl game; it runs a crazy-annoying offense that will always be hard to stop but their defense is lousy enough to keep anyone in a game (P.J. Walker had his best game of the season against Navy: 240 passing yards, two touchdowns, 71 rushing yards), and I personally know some kids who work for Navy’s football team and they are just as annoying as their team’s offense. Just trust me.
But here’s the problem (and I’m sure you already thought of it): Navy already has a rival. Army. Obviously there’s no way Temple could ever step between those two teams. It’s comparing fluffernutter to peanut butter and jelly. No matter how much it’s pushed, no one would buy into it. Army/Navy just makes too much sense. And that isn’t the only problem. The other is that Navy doesn’t exactly compete for recruits with Temple.
Okay, I’m starting to think we definitely can’t force a Temple/Navy rivalry. It seemed like a good idea at first, but it would just be way too artificial. UConn is solid but it has flaws. Still waiting on the research survey results.
So we’ve basically ruled out the entire conference. But I like the way we’re thinking and I’m not ready to give up, even if it means looking outside the conference (Penn State and Pitt are doing it).
How about Rutgers? Yes, that Rutgers. The one that’s still living off that one year it was relevant (see, the trash talk comes naturally). Temple and Rutgers played in the Big East together for a while but a rivalry never spawned because they weren’t ever good at the same time (mostly Temple’s fault, I admit). The Owls let the door hit themselves as they left the Big East to join the MAC where they improved as a program, only to re-join the Big East and then the AAC. The Scarlet Knights played one season in the AAC (last year) and then selfishly joined the Big Ten.
I mean how can they be so selfish? Can’t they see we’re trying to bake a rivalry here?
Okay, so they don’t play each other anymore. But the recruiting rivalry is just heating up: Temple has already proven to be just as astute (if not more) with recruiting in the last year or two. Pitt transfer Adonis Jennings is currently deciding between Rutgers and Temple. The Owls’ top four recruits for 2015 are all from New Jersey. And three of the four chose Temple over Rutgers, including running back Chappelle Cook who de-committed from Rutgers to commit to Temple.
At less than 60 miles away, the two schools are very close to each other. And as somebody who lives in Pennsylvania, I can attest that everybody over here knows that New Jersey is the armpit of the country. And people over there, on the other side of the Delaware River, well I’m not really sure what they say about us Pennsylvanians. But it probably isn’t nice.
To top it off, Rutgers is in the same boat as Temple with rivalries. Its listed rivals are Army, Navy, and Maryland. A bunch of secondary rivals but no primaries.
Temple and Rutgers will no longer play consistently. But when they did play, the games averaged out to be competitive: Rutgers, which does own a four-game winning streak, leads the all-time series 20-16 with the average score being 22.8-20.2. Rutgers has been to four straight bowl games while Temple was bowl eligible this year and is (allegedly) on an upswing under head coach Matt Rhule. This could have, would have, should have been a great opportunity for a rivalry to be born.
Ohio State vs. Michigan. Texas vs. Oklahoma. University of Phoenix Online vs. ITT Tech. Temple vs. Rutgers. The Delaware River Rivalry. The Ben Franklin Brawl. The Will Smith Shootout. What could have been.
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