TEMPLE Coach wants spot in non-BCS league
Temple is leaving the Big East, and its football future beyond 2005 is uncertain.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Temple coach Bobby Wallace on Tuesday said he wants the school to compete in a Division I-A conference that is not part of the Bowl Championship Series.
Saturday's season finale against Boston College is the Owls' last game in the Big East Conference.
Temple will play an independent schedule in 2005, but its future beyond that is uncertain.
A university task force is now meeting to determine the direction of the program for 2006 and beyond.
Wallace said there are three options for the program: to join a BCS conference, to join a non-BCS conference or to drop down to Division I-AA. The decision is not his, but Wallace left no doubt as to his preference.
"I believe we fit very comparable to non-BCS schools," he said. "Do we belong in BCS? Not right now, we don't. That's just the reality. Our budget's not the same and the things we have aren't the same. The I-AA thing, I don't recall a team ever going down to I-AA, so there must be a reason for that."
Currently, the BCS is made up of six conferences -- the Big East, Big 10, Pac-10, ACC, Big 12 and SEC.
Temple was the only football-only member of the Big East. The rest of its sports play in the Atlantic 10 and many at the university want to keep them there.
The MAC?
Some have suggested Temple could find a home for its football team in the Mid-American Conference, an idea Wallace supports.
"It's not my decision but I think it would be a great fit for us," Wallace said. "Our budget fits like their budget. To me if we were playing those kinds of teams I think we'd have a chance to win ballgames and we'd have decent crowds. Whether [joining the MAC] is a possibility, I have no idea. That's another issue."
Temple athletic director Bill Bradshaw was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
The task force's decision is crucial to a program that has had trouble recruiting.
"The sooner, the better," Wallace said. "It's very difficult to recruit. In fact, it's impossible to recruit. I will not bring a kid on campus until I know the answer. I'm not going to have a kid use one of his [official] visits when I don't know what I can tell him."
Wallace said the task force's decision should be based on what is in the best interests of the university, and not what has happened on the field lately -- not even the Owls' 34-24 win over Syracuse on Saturday that snapped a 12-game Big East losing streak.
It's no secret that Temple has struggled on the field since joining the Big East in 1991. Wallace said a big reason is what takes place off the field.
'Not the same'
"We beat Syracuse and go look at everything they've got, their facilities, their tradition, their budget," he said. "Every coach has a laptop with a coaching station. We've got two in our whole building and they've probably got 20. We go to those places [in the Big East] every week and see what it's like. Things aren't the same."
Ultimately, Wallace said Temple needs to make a decision on whether it wants to be competitive or not.
"You've got to decide what you want and then make it happen," he said. "Kansas State decided they wanted a competitive program and then made it happen. It's got to be feasible and there's a lot of issues to look at, but Temple's got to decide what we want to do and then do it."
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