Nearly a decade after Temple's moribund football program was pushed out of the Big East, the revitalized Owls are rejoining the conference -- and bringing along their potent men's basketball team.
The school will move to the Big East for football next season and all other sports in 2013.
“We didn't deserve, truthfully, to be in the football competition in those years. But it's hard to get kicked out,” Lewis Katz, chairman of Temple's athletic committee, said at a news conference during the Big East men's basketball tournament Wednesday.
“When we started to negotiate to come back in, I thought it was just a wonderful, wonderful way to remove a blemish on our football program. ... We (now) have a real football program,” he added. “So we think we're going to give the Big East exactly what they deserve, and really they've given us financially the opportunity to run a stable program.”
Temple football played in the Mid-American Conference last season, while all other programs, including men's basketball, are in the Atlantic 10. The Owls will pay an exit fee of $6 million to the MAC and $1 million to the A-10, with the Big East providing financial assistance in the form of future revenue distributions.
The decision was made by Temple's Board of Trustees following a conference call.
Temple played in the Big East in football only from 1991 to 2004, but was forced out of the league because the program was one of the worst in major college football. The school played as an independent and eventually landed in the MAC in 2007. While there, Temple turned its program around and ran off winning seasons the past three years.
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“Where we are right now, we're not trying to fumble around and see if we can find our way into major college football,” coach Steve Addazio said. “This is a plan that's been going on for quite some time.”
In men's basketball, the Owls have long been a power in the A-10, and are the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament this week in Atlantic City, N.J.
The Big East has a vacancy next season because West Virginia is being allowed to leave immediately for the Big 12. The school and the conference settled competing lawsuits, and the conference will receive $20 million from West Virginia in return for setting aside its 27-month notification period.
The MAC has had 13 football schools since adding Temple in 2007. Last year, the league added Massachusetts as a football-only member, beginning in 2012. At the same time, the MAC put in place new exit provisions which state that any football-only member wishing to leave the conference would need to provide notice two football seasons before departure and pay a fee of $2.5 million. The A-10 reportedly needs $2 million to leave with one year's notice. It is not known what deal, if any, was put in place to avoid the MAC provision.
The Big East has added seven schools since December, but most of them are planning to join in 2013. Navy is committed to become a football-only member of the Big East in 2015. The league was hoping to get one of its future members to join a year early to replace West Virginia. Boise State was the most likely candidate to move up its arrival, but the school announced that it will stay in the Mountain West for one more year.
Adding Temple football next season obviously allows Big East members to fill West Virginia's spot on the schedule. But its largest impact may be in men's basketball the following season. After all, adding the Owls gives the conference another perennially strong program to help make up for the eventual losses of Pittsburgh and Syracuse to the Atlantic Coast Conference, and solidifies the Philadelphia market as a Big East town, with Temple and Villanova in the fold.
Pitt and Syracuse have said they won't fight the Big East for an early exit, though commissioner John Marinatto said after the West Virginia case was settled that the Big East would be open to discussing the Panthers and Orange leaving after the 2012-13 season.
