Temple at Eastern Michigan: Numbers in Stands Equal Amount of Wins

The old saying is two's company and three's a crowd.

How about 2,000 is company for a really big house party and 3,000 is a crowd for a really bad Homecoming Game in college football?

Well, 3,364 to be exact.

That was the announced crowd at Saturday's 24-12 Temple win at Eastern Michigan, Homecoming for the Eagles. Hmm.

I'm really sensitive about this topic because I'm a Temple fan and we've gotten our, err, stones busted about attendance a lot over the years.

It's up recently. Temple even averaged nearly 30,000 fans in 2007, best in the Mid-American Conference. But all we hear on message boards is cracks about Temple attendance.

"Too bad nobody was there to see it," one MAC poster wrote after a 37-13 win over Buffalo, when actually there were nearly 14,000 people to see it. I never want to hear that again after Saturday.

The hardest things to do is win in big-time college football and draw fans if you don't.

I don't care if you are playing in The Big House in front of 106,000 people against Michigan or in front of 3,364 in The Little House in Ypsilanti. Eastern Michigan couldn't fake the total because the NCAA would be able to review the film and count them in about 10 minutes.

I never want to hear anything about Temple's attendance again.

Compared to Eastern Michigan and Kent State and some of these MAC teams, Temple is like the Red Sox in attracting fans. Temple is in the upper echelon of attendance and will remain so if the system (i.e., consistent winning) remains in place.

After an opening disappointing loss to Villanova, the Temple "softcore" fan base dissipated. The hardcore of about 15,000 fans are still there, though.

Temple expects a good crowd for Saturday against Ball State and an even better one in two weeks against Army.

Sure would have been nice, though, to see what those figures might have been with a 3-1 record and a win over Villanova on the resume.

Two and two is a whole lot better than 0-4 and Saturday was a reminder that attendance numbers have more to do with those the numbers between the hypen than any other factor.