Temple won’t open football season Sept. 5 after Miami’s start is delayed
The ACC has moved back the start of the season until the week of Sept. 7. It's not known if Miami and Temple will play this season.
When the Atlantic Coast Conference announced on Wednesday that it was delaying the start of the football season, it impacted Temple’s opening game at Miami. Whether the game will be played at a different date remains to be seen.
The ACC announced that its football season would be pushed back to the week of Sept. 7. Temple had been scheduled to visit Miami on Sept. 5 in the opening game for both teams.
The new setup has ACC football teams playing 10 conference games and one non-conference game. The one stipulation is that the non-conference game opponent selected by the ACC school “must be played in the home state of that ACC institution and all non-conference opponents must meet the medical protocol requirements as agreed upon by the ACC.”
ACC teams will have at least 13 weeks to play 11 games. Miami also has home non-conference games scheduled against Wagner and UAB.
According to a Temple official, as of early Wednesday evening, the Owls and Miami hadn’t talked about the issue.
The game was part of a home and home series. Miami is scheduled to visit Temple on Sept. 23, 2023. Temple has already had one game canceled, Sept. 19 against Rutgers because the Big 10 has canceled non-conference games this season.
The Owls’ other non-conference games are Sept. 12 vs. Idaho and Oct. 10 at UMass. As of now, Sept. 12 would be Temple’s opener, but due to COVID-19, all schedules remain fluid.
Temple is currently going through mandatory workouts, but they are not working out with pads and have been described by one school official as more of walk-throughs.
The American Athletic Conference, of which Temple is a member, has made no decisions concerning the schedule at this point.