The Athletics Committee of the Board of Trustees met today for the first time since it was announced that Temple would enter the Big East for football in 2012 and all sports in 2013.

Temple coach Steve Addazio addressed board members on the future of the football team, the facilities the team needs to stay competitive and taking the next step as a program.

“We couldn’t be in a better position right now,” Addazio said. “The key is to keep that ball moving forward.”

Addazio compared Temple’s current situation to when Temple was kicked out of the Big East in 2001, when Addazio was a part of the coaching staff at Syracuse.

“Temple was in the Big East, but everything else wasn’t,” Addazio said, referring to facilities. “I was at Syracuse at that time. Temple didn’t have what we had.”

Upon requests from the board, Addazio identified aspects of Temple’s current facilities that could be improved to make the team more competitive. Addazio said the school is working on indoor facilities, such as a weight room, a banquet hall and a new training room.

“We need to get recruits saying, ‘Wow, that’s really cool,’ instead of me having to explain to them why there’s not a picture on the wall,” Addazio said.

Athletics chair Lewis Katz went over Temple’s upcoming Big East schedule, which includes home games against South Florida, Cincinnati, Rutgers and Syracuse, asking “Are we competitive?”

Addazio said he will put together a competitive team that the board will be proud of, but insisted that competitiveness isn’t what the university should settle for.

“How do we start to push ourselves above just being a competitive team?” Addazio said.