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Opinion: Owls feed off Penn State’s luster
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Article RatingPHILADELPHIA --- The city of Philadelphia’s media outlets are as gridlocked as their traffic.
And believe me, traffic in this city makes you appreciate how Penn State handles game day traffic in State College.
Stuck in my Jeep sitting over the Schuylkill River, watching planes disappear into clouds, cars zipping by in other lanes and endless loud mouth banter on Philly’s all-sports talk station WIP, the focus shifted to Temple football.
All because Penn State and Penn State alone was in town.
The images on the local sports reports consisted of Penn State getting off their charter, Joe Paterno yucking it up with the media.
Saturday’s game was billed as Temple’s biggest home game ever, and all do respect to Al Golden’s program -- it’s getting better -- but a good portion of the 69,029 fans that packed into the Linc and filled the expressways to get there were decked out in Blue and White.
Temple admittedly brought in sound machines to mimic the overflow PSU sound.
Penn State travels to small markets every week in the Big Ten.
State College checks in at market 247 in the Arbitron books.
You don’t need to look at Arbitron to figure out that Ann Arbor, though it gets the Detroit feedback, and other markets like Champaign, Ill., and Bloomington, Ind., don’t do much damage in the ratings either.
This, until Penn State lands in either Tampa or maybe San Antonio, registers as their biggest stage, their brightest lights and after Saturday’s 31-0 sleepwalk past the Owls, they can be looked at as the reason Temple will get the attention today.
During the game ESPN.com was updating the game live on their front page.
Forty-four members of the media for Penn State alone credentialed for Saturday’s contest.
As far as major market domination goes, Philly can have their Big 5 basketball, steep in tradition, the professional teams, but when the Nittany Lions come into town, they dominate everything.
And why not.
The Sixers are awful, the Flyers are the average at best, and Eagles fever has long since left the City of Brotherly Love.
The media turned its eyes to Temple football, and their three straight wins, their upstart head coach, people were focused on Temple for a day, but understand why, it had just as much to do with Penn State and it’s heavy Delaware Valley alumni base being miles away, as it did Temple actually being competitive for a change.
The major market, the bright lights, the big city, it was all Penn State’s on Saturday.
And while the performance didn’t exactly leave a lasting impression on the college football world, Penn State did what they’ve been doing to Temple for years.
Honestly, they embarrassed them.
The Temple program, while growing under Golden, and doing so rapidly, is not up to par to the point they can sell their name and product yet.
That may come in the next few years when Golden gets a senior class or two under his belt.
But until that point, the school, which rents space from the Eagles, and pays a lump sum of $10,000 just to operate the scoreboard at the Linc.
So the game is what it is.
A chance for Temple to feed off another program.
And rightly so. Along with continuing to recruit tirelessly and getting competitive in the MAC, Temple will need to feed off the name programs that might want the opportunity to, themselves, play in a large city, inside an NFL stadium.
It’s smart business.
It’s big city business.
It’s the way corporate America works. You feed off the other guy, you get name recognition off the other guy, you make money off the other guy.
These two teams will meet five more times, and each time Temple will get a massive check cut for three more trips to Beaver Stadium before Penn State finally comes back.
The series is all about money and exposure for Temple while Penn State, in hindsight, will gain little except to cater to the hundreds of Philly alums who don’t venture to Happy Valley seven weeks a season.
That is what college football has become, a business, we all know that.
Temple is now joining the party and if they can make it work, here’s to them.
They have the right city, the right landlord, and the right coach.
The window might not last long, and Golden, if he can turn the program around, may not either.
But the right business plan to market Temple football is in place.
And really, in college football in the here and now, isn’t that all that matters?
