Temple lineback Alex Joseph

BY ROCK HOFFMAN

The Delaware Valley area might not have the college football history of a South Bend or Ann Arbor but it certainly has accomplishment to be proud of. Saturday has a chance to be one of the more special days in the area’s history as it relates to the college game.

Temple will play the 1000^th game in program history when they host Kent State (5-5, 4-2 MAC) at Lincoln Financial Field. More importantly, they have a chance to clinch the Mid-American Conference East Division title and a birth in the MAC Championship game with a win combined with a loss by Ohio University, which plays Northern Illinois.

Also on Saturday, the Owls will honor their seniors – head coach Al Golden’s first class of recruits. It’s a class that started their careers 1-16 but has won 17 of their last 29 games including eight in a row this season. They have the Owls (8-2, 6-0 MAC) bowl eligible for the first time since 1990 and poised to get to their first bowl game since 1979.

“It was a long process coming from the bottom,” said senior linebacker Alex Joseph, “there was no one to look up to as a freshmen. We didn’t know who to follow and were thrown out there to learn on our own. Now, there is leadership for the young guys to look up to.”

That right to be leaders was hard earned by this senior class; in their first 17 games, they were out scored 675 to 230. Even in the better times of the last two-plus seasons, they still had to endure four losses on the last play of the game and of the Cherry and White’s last nine losses, two were big to Penn State while the other seven were by a combined 31 points.

“We didn’t think we were going to be 1-11 our first year,” said senior strong safety Dominique Harris, “

but we always thought we were winners. We played hard, we did everything hard so we never had a losing mentality.”

While the Owls fight to make tradition, the area school that has perhaps the most tradition looks to get back to where they think they belong – alone atop the Ivy League. With a win over Cornell (2-7, 1-5 Ivy) at Franklin Field, the Penn Quakers (7-2, 6-0 Ivy) will win their 11^th Ivy League title outright. Last week, they clinched a share of the title (their 14^th overall) with 17-7 victory over Harvard. It’s the Quakers first championship since 2003.

“There’s so much at stake,” said head coach Al Bagnoli, who is looking for his seventh outright championship – an Ivy first – in 18 season at the school, “You don’t get an opportunity too often to finish unbeaten in the league and to clinch it outright. You don’t want those opportunities to pass you by.”

As the Quakers look to end their season on a high note, the Villanova Wildcats (9-1, 6-1 CAA) look to go into the postseason on one and all they need to do is beat their archrival Delaware (6-4, 4-3 CAA) to complete a 10-1 regular season. A win would wrap up the Colonial Athletic Association title, the automatic bid to the playoffs that goes with it and most likely make Villanova one of the four teams that gets seeded in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) playoffs. Lose and head coach Andy Talley thinks his team will suffer a fate similar to last season – on the road for a second-round playoff game.

“I told our team,” Talley said, “let’s not leave it to chance. We can control our own destiny for the first time in a long time. We need to win this game.”

The Division III playoffs start this week and Delaware Valley (9-1, 7-0 MAC), the champions of the Middle Atlantic Conference, will host Susquehanna (8-2, 6-1 Liberty League). The last time these teams met was 2006, when Susquehanna, who would finish the 2-8, upset their then league foe 17-10. The loss knocked the ranked Aggies from playoff contention and it’s something they remember.

“The last time they came to Doylestown,” said Aggies head coach Jim Clements, “they beat us. So, we’ll be ready and we’re excited about it.”

Ursinus (6-4, 6-2 Centennial) didn’t make the playoffs but they still have a chance to get a postseason win when they play in the ECAC Southeast Bowl against Kean (8-2, 8-1 NJAC). It will mark only the fifth time in their history that the Bears will play extra football and head coach Peter Gallagher said that in his nine years this is his best team.

“If [we] can leave the field Saturday as champions,” Gallagher said, “you could argue that this is the best team in Ursinus football history.”

Rock Hoffman can be reached at RDVSports@yahoo.com