North Texas at Temple: No “D” in Owls

There is both humor and truth to this. Nothing would end all this transfer portal and NIL nonsense faster than for a Saudi man to invest $10 billion in Temple football’s NIL fund. Watch how fast the rest of the college world shuts down the NIL if Temple wins three national championships in a row. The Saudi man would get a good laugh out of it, though.

Any thoughts of an upset for Temple in the high noon season finale (ESPN+) at Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday probably went out the window a week ago.

That’s when the Owls gave up 51 points.

The last coach who called the Temple game his Super Bowl was the Utah State coach this year. He lost, 45-29.

To have a chance to win in college football a respectable defense is a must and the Owls haven’t been respectable since holding Tulsa to 10 points in a 20-10 win.

That was back on Oct. 19, a long time ago. We wrote in this space on that beautiful 70-degree day that “we all be freezing our asses off a month from now at the North Texas game.”

And we will as the temperatures won’t escape the 30s.

Since then, Temple has given up 56 (ECU), 52 (Tulane) and 51 (UTSA).

The lone outlier was the 15 points given up against FAU.

There is no “D” in Temple and even no “D” in Owls. That’s something the next coach is going to have to fix because to have a chance to win at football or even break even, you can’t be giving up the 35+ points per game Everett Withers has in his two years as DC.

There was some hope that a change in the DC to Chris Woods last week would have stopped some of the bleeding but it was apparent that it was the Jimmy and Joe’s as much as the X’s and O’s because the Owls could not sustain a pass rush.

North Texas has called this game its “Super Bowl” and there is a good reason why. The Mean Green have lost five in a row after a hot start and needs the win for a 6-6 record and a bowl game.

Of course, the last coach who proclaimed the Temple game as his team’s Super Bowl was Utah State’s and Temple won that one, 45-29. So there’s that. If it’s a Super Bowl, it will probably be the least-attended one in history as no more than 5-10K fans are expected to rattle around in a 70K stadium.

Still, the incentives seem to be all on North Texas’ side here.

All Temple has to play for is a 4-7 season after three-straight 3-9 ones (one Rod Carey 3-9 followed by two Stan Drayton 3-9s). That’s not what Drayton promised when he was hired and that’s why he was fired.

Now the Owls are faced with an almost impossible task of stopping a team that played Army and Tulane a lot tougher than Temple did.

The football is odd-shaped and can take a lot of funny bounces but for Temple to even be competitive in this one would require a defense that has shown the capability to stop someone.

The Owls aren’t going to get that until a new coach comes in and, with him, a lot of Jimmy and Joe’s who can strike fear into an offense and put a quarterback on his ass.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

Monday: Season Analysis

7 thoughts on “North Texas at Temple: No “D” in Owls

  1. KC Keeler appears to be the guy. Probably will be named after the CUSA title game, where he’s one of the two coaches.

  2. I recall when K C was at Rowan. He loaded up on transfers from D1 and rode them to glory in D3. Maybe he can use the same strategy with the Owls.

    • Whatever he’s doing at Sam Houston works. Whatever Stan Drayton did at Temple did not. Not my No. 1 choice but you don’t have to be my No. 1 choice and take Temple where it needs to go. Hire a Syracuse assistant whose defense gives up 30 points a game is going backward in my humble opinion. Onward and upward, not backward. Great hire by Arthur if he pulls this off.

  3. Well with any luck if Keeler is the choice it could be announced next week with Western Kentucky winning today they will be going to the CUSA championship rather than SHSU. If a new coach isn’t named in the upcoming week what was the point in firing Drayton before the season was over

    • That blows. KC did all he could to get SHU in the finals. Maybe a blessing in disguise for Temple in that he can skip the bowl game and get some P4 players in the portal (along with his SHS kids) to Temple. Stan’s philosophy of recruiting JUCOs was coaching suicide.

Leave a comment