Helmetgate



"After all I did to change the helmet to TEMPLE, Addazio is doing WHAT?"

I could see Al Golden was doing some of the right things way back when he was getting some wrong results.
Nothing made me jump for joy after a 1-11 first season like something in did in the off season after that year.
He ditched the T logo on the helmet for the classic throwback TEMPLE helmet.
It might not mean much to you and some of the other younger TEMPLE fans, but TEMPLE on the helmets meant a lot to me.
"We're doing it to get back to our brand," Golden said at the time. "When I was growing up Temple had a lot of  really good, tough, physical, teams and they all had that distinctive Temple on the helmet. We want to get back to those days."
Those were pretty good days as I recall.
Let's see.
In the Wayne Hardin days of the TEMPLE helmet, the Owls won 82, lost 50 and tied 1, regularly scared Penn State, beat the crap out of West Virginia (38-16) AT WEST VIRGINIA, beat the crap out of a bowl-bound Syracuse team (49-17), WON a bowl game, beating a PAC-10 team (28-17) ... etc., etc.
In the Bruce Arians days of the TEMPLE helmet, the Owls twice won six games (against the 10th, not 119th toughest sked in the country) and had a Heisman Trophy runner up in Paul Palmer. Also, they were 5-0 against MAC teams, beat a bowl-bound MAC team (Toledo) by a 35-6 score and beat Pitt in 3 of 5 seasons.
In the last two years of the Al Golden TEMPLE helmet, the Owls won 17 and lost 8 in consecutive regular seasons.
In the T years, the Owls were largely the biggest joke in college football.
Can you see why I don't like the T?

Final Poll Results:
Keep it TEMPLE: 53%
Go to the T logo: 46%

Bad Karma.
I know it's the school logo and all, but put it on the field. Hey, you can even put it on the stripes down pants. The coaches can wear baseball caps with it featured.
Just don't put it on the helmets.
In the grand scheme of things, it's not that big a deal but it feels like a big thing to me now.
Tennessee has a T on its helmets. So does Tulane.
TEMPLE was telling people who we are and where we came from.
I liked that distinction. Plus, I think it looks better.
"I talked with a lot our coach Hardin's guys," Steve Addazio said his first day on the job, "and I appreciate some of you guys."
Addazio wouldn't have appreciated ANY of those guys on Cherry and White Day because, trust me, I talked to them and nobody liked the new helmet.
If he really appreciates those guys, and he should, he would rethink this ill-conceived idea.
If there's a way to go back to TEMPLE on the helmets, I think that Steve Addazio should find that GPS and right this wrong Karma before it gets too far.
Only one of the T teams did anything worth a damn and that was the Dick Beck-captained 1990 Owls, who won seven games and were screwed out of a bowl after beating Boston College, 29-10, in Boston. Those Owls also beat Wisconsin. At Wisconsin.
If it can't be done, I won't like it but I can live with it especially if the Owls can beat the only Big 10 team on their schedule this year.
Then, as one of the ex-Owls alluded on Saturday, he can put a photo of himself on one ear flap and Chuck Heater's mug on the other for all I care.