Memphis and Temple by the numbers

In addition to 2-, 1- and 2-win seasons the past 3 years, Memphis adds this fan base to BE football.

Memphis-Temple by numbers:

TV market (Temple 4th, 2,993,370 households; Memphis 49th, 669,940)

Full-time students (Temple 39,386; Memphis 22,755)

2011 avg. football attendance (Temple 28,060; Memphis 20,078)

2011 football record (Temple 9-4; Memphis 2-10)

2010 football record (Temple 8-4; Memphis 1-11)

2009 football record (Temple 9-4; Memphis 2-10)

2011-12 current basketball record (Temple 17-5; Memphis 16-7)

2012 football recruiting rank (Temple 54th, 1st in MAC; Memphis 87th, 6th in CUSA)

If there's one famous quote that sums up Temple's long-running sad saga with the Big East, it might be something Damon Runyon once said: "The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet." Runyon's quote was in in reference to Ecclesiastes 9:11, "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Yeah, that pretty much sums up the Big East these days. By adding Memphis to ostensibly replace West Virginia today, the Big East inadvertently might have set the charges to blow up its own house. The BE is neither swift nor strong, bereft of men of understanding and today's chance decision could prove its undoing. Memphis is the worst program in college football today and has been for the last three years. This story in the Memphis Commercial Appeal talks about the school's putrid attendance and provides a photo of an Oct. 15 game against East Carolina. Despite what it looks like, it was not an end zone photo.

Without a doubt, the smartest Owl
ever (Wayne Hardin) meets the
swiftest Owl ever (4.29 speedster
Travis Shelton) at a luncheon
on Monday.

Now, according to a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by an excellent reporter named Paul Zeise, Pitt is saying, "Hey, if West Virginia can leave by 2012, so can we" and may petition for early admission to the ACC. Syracuse could soon follow.
Can you say implosion?
Hey, at this rate, Villanova might be the only team left.
From Temple's standpoint, chaos is good.
The more teams leave the BE, the better the chances that the Catholic Cartel's blocking of Temple fails in the next go around which could be as early as weeks and months and not years.
Does Temple want to even join this ship of fools?
Well, yeah.

College football is about the break off into the haves and have-nots and, no matter what you say about the current Big East group (even the leftovers), they are still part of the haves and probably will be.
Big East schools will have a seat at that dinner table.
Pressing their noses at the window looking in at the feast will be CUSA and MAC teams, unfortunately.
They won't even get scraps and, as a result, probably starve and die of hunger.
Temple could stay in the MAC, but who's to say what configuration college football will have for traditional MAC teams five years from now. I don't want Temple to be in that group to find out.
Implosion?
Bring it on.