Temple football loses another scheduled game after UMass cancels its season
Temple's only remaining nonconference game is against Idaho, whose conference, the Big Sky, has canceled its fall league schedule.
Temple lost another nonconference football opponent this fall when Massachusetts announced on Tuesday that it was canceling its football season.
UMass became the second Football Bowl Subdivision independent to cancel its season. Last week, Connecticut, a former conference rival of Temple in the American Athletic Conference, canceled it season.
The Owls were supposed to visit UMass on Oct. 10.
This is the third definite nonconference game to be canceled this fall for Temple. The Owls were supposed to open with Miami on Sept. 5. The Atlantic Coast Conference, of which Miami is a member, pushed back the season to begin the week of Sept. 7 and then allowed each team only one nonconference football game. Miami chose to play Alabama-Birmingham.
Temple’s Sept. 19 game at Lincoln Financial Field against Rutgers was canceled when the Big Ten announced on July 9 that it was not playing nonconference games. The only nonconference game remaining on Temple’s schedule is Sept. 12 at the Linc against Idaho, a Football Championship Subdivision school.
Idaho plays in the Big Sky Conference, which on Friday announced that it was moving its football season to the spring. However the Big Sky Conference noted in a press release that nonconference play for the conference’s football programs is still pending further review for the fall.
Idaho director of athletics Terry Gawlik issued a statement to The Inquirer, saying, “we will be exploring the option of playing non-conference games this fall.”
A Temple official also said that the two schools are having continued discussions.
Temple’s conference, the American Athletic, outlined its plan last week. The AAC plans to have teams play eight conference games and as many as four nonconference games.
If the Idaho game isn’t played, then Temple’s first game given the current schedule would be its AAC opener, Sept. 26 at Navy.
Temple interim athletic director Fran Dunphy said last week that the Owls are looking for other schools actively looking to schedule nonconference games.
Temple began football training camp Friday.