Temple Owls football

The Temple Owls football team represents Temple University in the sport of college football. The Temple Owls compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the American Athletic Conference (The American). They play their home games at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Owls were a football-only member of the Big East Conference from 1991 until 2004. Temple was forced out of the league due to poor attendance averages, non-competitiveness, and a lack of commitment to the football program from university officials. Temple played the 2005 and 2006 seasons as an independent before playing in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) from 2007 to 2011. In March 2012, the Owls rejoined the Big East Conference, with football membership beginning in the 2012 season and all other sports beginning conference play in 2013. That same year, the conference was renamed the American Athletic Conference after several basketball-only schools split off to form a new conference that kept the Big East name. Temple is the last original Big East football member still in the The American. Five of the eight former members play in the ACC, while the other two teams play in the Big 12 and the Big Ten.

Temple Owls

The Temple Owls are the athletic teams representing Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The school's sports teams are called the Owls. The current athletic director is Kevin Clark.

The owl has been the symbol and mascot for Temple University since its founding in the 1880s. Temple was the first school in the United States to adopt the owl as its symbol or mascot. The owl, a nocturnal hunter, was initially adopted as a symbol because Temple University began as a night school for young people of limited means. Russell Conwell, Temple's founder, encouraged these students with the remark: "The owl of the night makes the eagle of the day."

Affiliation

The Owls are primarily members of the American Athletic Conference (The American). Since their football team participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. The football program was a member of the Big East Conference until its expulsion after the 2004 season due to a variety of program shortcomings. Temple played a limited MAC schedule in 2005 and 2006 before becoming an affiliated football-only member and playing a full 8-game league schedule in 2007. The school's men's basketball team is part of the Big Five, the traditional designation for the rivalries between the Owls and their Philadelphia rivals: Penn, Saint Joseph's, Villanova, and La Salle. Temple considers the rivalry with St. Joe's to be the most intense, especially in basketball. St. Joe's, however, considers this rivalry to be secondary to their rivalry with Villanova.

American football

American football (referred to as football in the United States and Canada, also known as gridiron elsewhere) is a sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with control of the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with or passing the ball, while the team without control of the ball, the defense, aims to stop their advance and take control of the ball for themselves. The offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs, or plays, or else they turn over the football to the opposing team; if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs. Points are primarily scored by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of a game wins.

American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of association football and rugby football. The first game of American football was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams, Rutgers and Princeton, under rules based on the association football rules of the time. During the latter half of the 1870s, colleges playing association football switched to the Rugby Union code, which allowed carrying the ball. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football," established the snap, eleven-player teams, and the concept of downs; later rule changes legalized the forward pass, created the neutral zone, and specified the size and shape of the football.

Temple

A temple (from the Latin word templum) is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities such as prayer and sacrifice. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out on the ground by the augur. Templa also became associated with the dwelling places of a god or gods. Despite the specific set of meanings associated with the religion of the ancient Rome, the word has now become quite widely used to describe a house of worship for any number of religions and is even used for time periods prior to the Romans.

Hindu temples

Hindu temples are called by many different names, varying on region and language, including mandir, mandira, ambalam, gudi, kavu, koil, kovil, déul, raul, devasthana and devalaya.

Hindu temples are large and magnificent with a rich history. There is evidence of use of sacred ground as far back as the Bronze Age and later the Indus Valley Civilization. However, it was not until Today, Hindu temples have been built in various countries around the world, including India, Nepal, Mauritius, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Great Britain, the United States, Australia, South Africa and Canada.

Football

Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football is understood to refer to whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional context in which the word appears. Sports commonly called 'football' in certain places include: association football (known as soccer in some countries); gridiron football (specifically American football or Canadian football); Australian rules football; rugby football (either rugby league or rugby union); and Gaelic football. These different variations of football are known as football codes.

Various forms of football can be identified in history, often as popular peasant games. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the nineteenth century. The expanse of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire, though by the end of the nineteenth century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage. In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions. During the twentieth century, several of the various kinds of football grew to become some of the most popular team sports in the world.