I'm just SO confused. Why has Temple so thoroughly struggled with quality MAC opponents? They've held their own with Penn State, beaten the crap out of Maryland, etc... Yet, they play Toledo and get absolutely WORKED. Then, they lose to a mid-ranking BG team and can barely put points on the board. It is all so perplexing. And that's just this year! We know this pattern played out during the Golden Era as well. 

Any theories?

I think that theory is pretty reasonable.

However, that seems sensible for year one in the MAC, or perhaps year two. But you would think that after a while that the coaches would figure this out and put an end to it. I mean, they were beaten pretty easily by us last year and then were demolished by Miami on national TV.

It just seems unusual for that pattern to continue, several years into their MAC existence. 

Many of my contemporaries will remember the former Beast of the East that was the pre B1G Penn State.  Beat the crap out of Syracuse, Temple, BC and Pitt occasionally and no one could figure out why they weren't national champs every year.  So, finally, they agree to enter the B1G with much fanfare and to my best recollection have yet to win a conference title, much less a national championship.

History repeating itself on the MAC level, maybe?

Maybe not, given that they apparently have been recruiting kids using the notion that they'll be playing in the ACC or the Big Least sometime in the next four years.

Its the same story every year-

Temple gets WAY too much hype in the pre-season, they play decent in the OOC with "respectable losses" to Penn State and maybe upset a low level BCS team, then they get into MAC play and waltz through the bottom of the MAC. At this point they feel like they've arrived and begin to think that all MAC teams are on the same level as Akron, all the while spouting off about how they're too good for the MAC, and how their attendance sucks because of their MAC opponents, and how this is the year the BE asks them to go steady, and then BAM- OHIO ends their season.

Look at their message board, all their threads area about conf realignement. They have more threads about Villanova then about OHIO. Different year, same result.