The Temple Owls will pick up where they left off in 2004 and rejoin the Big East Conference in 2012, it was announced at a press conference today.
The Owls will play football immediately and complete the Syracuse Orange's 2012 football schedule with a game in Philadelphia. They will basically just take on West Virginia's 2012 schedule, which means home games against SU, Cincy, Rutgers and USF and road games against Pitt, UConn and Louisville.
The big sticking point, payouts to the MAC and Atlantic 10, were settled. Temple will pay the MAC $6 million so that it's football team can play in the Big East immediately. All other school sports will remain in the Atlantic 10 for 2012-2013 join in the following fall.
Syracuse is 25-10-1 all-time against the Owls, though they won two of the last three games, including the last one. It feels weird saying we owe Temple some payback, but, here we are. Next time someone tells you Pasqualoni shouldn't have been fired, give them that stat.
Interestingly, one of the big talking points on the day was the idea that the Big East isn't just forgetting about Villanova football and an eventual move to FBS. Villanova, who approved the move for crosstown Temple to join the conference, does not have an invitation on the table but will receive consideration in the form a Big East-appointed committee to help the two programs co-exist, whatever that means.
But that's not our problem anymore. All we need to know is that, for at least one season, we will play Temple next year (The Addazio Bowl). It's just like the old days...hopefully the ones that we used to win by 40.