Saturday’s match-up at the Kibbie Dome between Idaho and Temple is one featuring two programs that have lost their way in the last three years — on the field at least. Both programs have won bowl games in the last five years, Idaho in 2009 and Temple in 2011, yet both come into Saturday’s game searching for their first win of 2013.
For Idaho, it’s what Temple has accomplished administratively that will be an example the Idaho athletic department can follow. The Owls’ football program has been where Idaho is now — unwanted.
Just as Idaho was expelled from the fraternity of belonging in an FBS conference in 2013, the Owls of Temple were forced into independence in 2004 when the then-Big East conference voted to expel Temple from the conference because of bad football, poor attendance and a lack of institutional support.
Sound familiar?
“Temple may have been the only D-I member ousted from a league,” then Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw said in 2004.
Technically, he is right. But for all intents and purposes Idaho and New Mexico State were feeling that same disappointment when the Mountain West chose not to entertain the prospect of letting the two schools join.
From there, Temple spent two years doing what Idaho is doing now, independence with a grueling schedule. In 2005 the Owls played Miami, Arizona State, Wisconsin, Virginia and Navy — all programs that finished in the top 25 the year before. It’s a similar situation for Idaho this year, playing four guarantee road games along with home matchups against mid-major powerhouses Northern Illinois and Fresno State. Heading into the fifth week of the season there are six teams on Idaho’s schedule that are only three wins shy of bowl eligibility.
“Our schedule is like the perfect storm,” Bradshaw told Sports Illustrated in 2005. “What we’re heading into is either idiotic or quixotic.”
Temple ended up winning just one game during its two years of independence, a win total that is entirely possible for Idaho in its single year of independence. But the example Idaho can follow is what happened administratively at Temple. In 2007 Bradshaw was able to land his football program in the Mid-American Conference as a football only member, basically the equivalent of Idaho landing in the Sun Belt next season as a football only member.
That is when the turnaround happened on the football field, starting with the hiring of Al Golden in 2006. Golden had the Owls back in a bowl game by year four on campus, an important milestone that helped Temple land in the conference they had their sights set on the entire time — the Big East. In 2012 Temple returned to the conference that ousted it eight years before and in 2013, joined the football manifestation of the conference’s split with its basketball schools — the American Athletic Conference.
For Idaho, Temple’s perseverance of independence and joining the MAC is a model for where Idaho hopes to be.
Idaho athletic director Rob Spear said that his ultimate goal for Idaho is to find a western FBS conference for Idaho to put its football program — a conference Spear said the western United States needs. But for now independence is where Idaho resides, and the Sun Belt is where it will reside next season and in the immediate future. Whether or not Idaho can follow the Temple model for its ultimate goal remains to be seen.
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]