Someday the Sun Will Explode

The Sixers lost on Monday. The Flyers lost on Monday. Some are suggesting that Temple should fold its football program.

The good news? Someday the sun will explode and none of this will matter. 😀

In the email today:

• 💔 Sixers Blow 19-Point Lead Against Heat, Lose By 17

• ⛰️ Flyers' Comeback Effort Against Avalanche Falls Short

• 🦉 Vulture Voices Circle Around Temple Owls Football

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

The Sixers continued their absurd start to the NBA season on Monday.

Joel Embiid was listed as questionable in the morning due to illness, was downgraded to doubtful by the afternoon, then ended up in the starting five.

And by the end of the night it didn’t matter. Embiid and the Sixers lost to the Heat, 106-89.

From On Pattison’s Austin Krell:

If the Sixers can’t field a competitive basketball team on many nights, they have to win on the nights that they do. Though Tyrese Maxey continues to miss time with a hamstring strain, Embiid and Paul George were on the court, and Jared McCain scored 20+ points for the fifth consecutive game.

They still blew a 19-point lead and fell to 2-11 on the season.

That’s… hard to do. The Sixers have to figure something out, and it probably starts with the big guy. More from Austin:

The Sixers will face the Grizzlies in Memphis on Wednesday.

The Flyers entered last night’s game with the Colorado Avalanche on a three-game winning streak that pulled them back to .500.

Colorado also entered play at level par (9-9-0). For about 50 minutes, though, you’d never have known that these teams had similar records. The ‘lanche were up 3-0 even with a disallowed goal and had it on cruise control.

Recent versions of the Flyers would have lost this game lying down. There’s something going on with this season’s Flyers team, though. Even on nights when they don’t seem to “have it,” they don’t give in.

Tyson Foerster’s second goal in as many games drew the Flyers within a goal. The Wells Fargo Center had some bounce. Could they come all the way back?

Not this time.

The real bottom line in this game was talent. The Avalanche got two goals from Cale Makar and assists from Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin.

We all love Matvei Michkov and everything…but MacKinnon had 140 points last season. Makar had 90. The Flyers can’t match that firepower, and it might be a few seasons before they can even begin to try.

For one night, though, the Flyers played a more talented team nearly to a draw. While the Sixers are doing less with more (see above), the Flyers are doing more with less.

We don’t write much about Temple football in this space. What’s to write about?

Conference realignment in recent years did Temple absolutely no favors. The Owls lack anything resembling a natural rival in the current American Athletic Conference.

Army and Navy are the two closest opponents geographically. Beyond those two, every other school in the conference is situated well below the Mason-Dixon Line. It’s tough to get too worked up about a conference battle with, say, North Texas or South Florida.

Temple fired Stan Drayton after an overtime win this past weekend. That was rough timing. What followed yesterday, though, was much more dire.

Joel Embiid’s favorite local columnist made his case for the outright end of a football program that has represented Temple since 1971.

• John Fry, the president of Temple, has a history of advocating for dropping college football programs to avoid financial burdens. Fry now has the opportunity to eliminate Temple’s football program on those grounds; like most college football programs, Temple’s is financially unviable.

• Temple football has not been competitive for years, failing to reach a bowl game since before COVID. The program has produced only two NFL first-round picks in 37 years, which makes it difficult to attract top recruits.

• The changing landscape of college football, with its focus on NIL money, the transfer portal, and wealthy programs, has made it even harder for Temple to compete.

• At day’s end, Philadelphia is a pro sports city which only pays attention to college athletics when Villanova basketball is not just good, but great.

There are other factors in play. If you’ve never attended a home Temple football game at Lincoln Financial Field, it’s hard to describe how weird that experience is.

Attendance on Saturday was announced as 12,291. Not even that bad a crowd for a 2-7 team, but that many bodies in the Linc are outnumbered by empty seats by something like five to one.

And so it isn’t only Marcus Hayes making noise about drastic measures, including but not limited to euthanasia, for Owls football.

We prefer to have correct answers in this space. Temple football, though, is your classic dilemma as compared to a problem.

Problems have solutions.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On this day, at the Meadowlands. 1978.

📊 Poll

Results from Monday:

🔗 Links

• 🚑️ Our sincere wishes for a speedy recovery go out to NHL referee Mitch Dunning who was stretchered off the ice during last night’s Flyers game.

• 🗽Daniel Jones lost the Giants’ starting QB job again.

• 🏟️ When AT&T Stadium isn’t blinding the Cowboys, it’s dropping debris from the roof.

• 🙄 As always, it’s never Doc Rivers’ fault.

• 🔥Stan Drayton was one of two head coaches from the same game to get fired in the aftermath.

📺 Coming Up

No games for the locals tonight.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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