Thereās a whole article in The Athletic. Itās nothing special. But they did an article because itās odd. Temple was pretty good when they did it. OU also got a 2 for 1 and didnāt have to pay to play a subdivision team so saved some cash. We donāt have billionaire money. Hereās a part of the article.
Temple football had just ripped off the first of two consecutive 10-win seasons under coach Matt Rhule, and the schoolās athletic department leadership was thinking big.
The time was right to start pushing for a football stadium for the Owls, who were ā and still are ā playing their home games at Lincoln Financial Field, the 67,594-seat home of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Then-athletic director Pat Kraft gave chief of staff Sean Padden an assignment: Find a blue blood, a traditional power, one of those programs with easily recognizable helmets, to agree to play a road game against Temple so they could tell school and city officials, āIf you build it, they will come.ā
āI called all over the place,ā said Padden, who now works for Rhule at Nebraska. āI called USC. I called UCLA. I called Alabama. I called Florida. The guy from Florida, I canāt remember who it was, but he was the only one that was most honest with me. He was like, āSean, you just won 10 games. I donāt know whatās going on up there.āā
Padden found an enthusiastic taker in Oklahoma, fresh off the first of four College Football Playoff appearances in five years as Big 12 champions, and in June of 2016 the schools announced a ātwo-for-oneā series: The Owls would open the 2024 and 2028 seasons in Norman, and the Sooners would play in the City of Brotherly Love on Sept. 13, 2025.