Let's start backward.
The Post Game
The real news coming out of Central Michigan game day was by former Temple football coach Wayne Hardin on the post-game radio show with Harry Donahue and Bill Bradshaw.
"I guaranteed (Temple athletic director) Bill (Bradshaw) that we'd have 66,000 fans for our opening day game with Navy," said Hardin, the only man to ever be the head coach at both institutions.
Wow.
Those who know Hardin know he tended to make grand pronouncements when he was Temple head coach that he mostly backed up.
Hardin said the Owls were going to play Penn State and people snickered.
They ended up playing Penn State.
Hardin said the Owls would be in a bowl and more guffaws, yet the Owls were in a bowl on his watch.
Then Hardin beat the drum for an Eastern football conference and folks got an Eastern football conference made up of exactly the same teams Hardin mentioned would be in it.
More snickers.
So many think Hardin can deliver this guarantee.
"When Wayne says he's going to do something, it's hard to say no to him," Bradshaw said.
Hardin then said Bradshaw will go to work "next week" on moving the game from Saturday, Sept. 1 to Thursday, Aug. 30.
Then Hardin made an appeal to all those who played for him and who know him.
"I need you to do me a favor," he said. "Get as many people as you can out there. There's no reason that Temple, a school with 30,000 students, 8,000 of them living on campus, and 250,000 alumni can't get this done."
Hardin went on to praise the players he had at both Navy and Temple.
"The guys at Navy tended to have great careers in business," Hardin said. "The kids at Temple were very, very special to me because they always gave me every single thing they had."
Getting 66,000 mostly Temple people in the stands would require a lot of special giving but, if anyone can pull it off, Hardin can.
The Game
Well, it started out good.
Then it got real bad.
Then it got good again.
When Georg Coleman intercepted a tipped ball, I thought the Owls were in business in what turned out to be a numbing 42-26 loss to a very good Central Michigan team yesterday.
Numbing, because I had this sickening feeling that Coleman should have scored on the play.
All that was in front of him was a quarterback who had decent speed, but not Coleman speed.
It appeared that Coleman slowed down, ostensibly to make a move, then decided to run out of bounds.
Had Coleman kept flying down the sideline, full speed, I have no doubt he would have scored. Had Coleman slowed down and taken it up field, he would have scored. But Coleman took it the one place where he could not have scored.
Out of bounds.
Ugh.
Anybody else find this quote by quarterback Adam DiMichele stunning:
"Guys were yawning," DiMichele said. "It was weird."
Yawning?
Why?
Guys should have been wide awake for the opportunity to get a second-straight home win.
I've never understood why athletes, college football players especially, have letdowns. Maybe in baseball with a 162-game season or basketball with an 82-game season, but not football.
Especially not college football.
They only have 11 or 12 opportunities a year to get out there.
You'd think they'd be chomping at the bit all week and playing like crazed madmen on Saturday afternoons.
Kids today.
The strategy
Maybe it was the good seats at the Club Level.
But nobody in sections C2 or C4 thought lining up for a 50-yard field goal was a good idea to begin with.
There was much groaning.
"Why are we trying a field goal?" the season-ticket holders said, almost in unison. "We should punt."
When the snap went over the holder's head, it seemed like a very bad idea indeed.
What might have been a 7-0 lead on a Coleman interception turned into a 7-0 lead the other way.
Fourteen point swings against an unbeaten future conference foes are never a good way to start.
Maybe that's why head coach Al Golden called it "the most disappointing game" so far.
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