Golden still at work at Temple

Despite recent rumors and blog posts to the contrary, Temple head football coach Al Golden is not a candidate for the vacant head coaching positions at Minnesota, Vanderbilt or Indiana, according to a source.

In his fifth season with the Owls, Golden has been highly visible in his office at the team's facility at Edberg-Olson Hall all week and has been working on itineraries for various bowl scenarios and preparing the team for its first bowl practice Friday morning, according to the source.

Golden's name being attached to various openings across the country is nothing new. After just his second season on North Broad Street in which the Owls finished with a 4-8 record, Golden interviewed for the vacant head coaching job at UCLA that eventually went to Rick Neuheisel. Last December, Golden had discussions with Notre Dame about its opening, and he declined an opportunity to interview for the Cincinnati job.

Temple, which lost its last two regular season games to Ohio and Miami of Ohio, is 8-4 and bowl-eligible for the second consecutive season. If the Owls are selected to play in a bowl, it will mark the first time in program history that the team has gone to consecutive bowl games. Various projections have Temple going anywhere from the Hyundai Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 31 to the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho, on Dec. 18. A spot in the Maaco Bowl in Las Vegas on Dec. 22 remains a possibility as well.

Temple played UCLA last December in the EagleBank Bowl at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., and lost to the Bruins, 30-21.

OwlScoop.com Editor John Di Carlo can be reached at jgdicarlo@gmail.com.