Temple football has a winner in town

Former FSU All-American QB Danny Kanell nods his head in agreement as Chip, Tom and Bud Elliott compliment Temple on the choice of K.C. Keeler to coach the Owls.

One day after being named one of CBS Sports’ “Coaches of the Week” for Week 14 in college football for a Texas team, K.C. Keeler was standing at a podium 1,000 miles away in Philadelphia talking about leading a Pennsylvania team.

Things move fast when you beat other teams to the hiring punch as Temple seems to have done.

Keeler didn’t open his press conference like Buddy Ryan did with the Eagles in 1986 by saying “you’ve got a winner in town.” He didn’t have to because, as a real winner (Bill Parcells) once said, “you are what your record says you are.”

Unlike 1986, Philadelphia–and most importantly Temple–has a winner in town.

Keeler’s wife, Janice was back in Texas selling their house in Huntsville. They already have another house 40 minutes from Philadelphia that they’ve maintained since leaving for Texas.

Keeler’s opening press conference brought something even the press conferences of Al Golden, Matt Rhule, Steve Addazio, Geoff Collins and Rod Carey never did.

A winning pedigree in post-season football.

Ryan was 0-3 in playoff games as Eagles’ coach. Carey was 0-7 in bowl games both at Northern Illinois and Temple.

Keeler’s post-season exploits are chronicled elsewhere in this post. You don’t have to google him. He’ll get you to the postseason and he will win his fair share there.

That’s kind of where Temple is at now.

K.C. Keeler under the goal post where the best field goal kicker in the nation this year practiced his craft every single day.

The arms’ race is such in college football that really the best the Owls can hope for–barring putting the NIL genie back in the bottle–is playing in great bowl games and winning in the postseason. Maybe grabbing an AAC title every five years, tops.

A great school like Temple should expect to be in the top 80 of college football teams every year when only 134 teams are playing at the FBS level. The Owls should expect to win their share of postseason bowl games.

Do that and the fans come back, especially after four-straight 3-9 seasons. Making Lincoln Financial Field a happening place again requires only consistent winning. Al Golden proved that. So did Matt Rhule.

K.C. Keeler’s postseason record screams winner.

Keeler has a history of doing that, too, even against teams with greater resources. With no NIL, Keeler’s Sam Houston State destroyed a Rice team that beat Navy. That was the same Navy team that beat Temple, 38-11.

He has a history of turning loaves into fishes and he’s going to have to take that approach with Temple.

Keeler’s familiarity with Temple will help as he talked about playing three games in his college career and losing twice to the Owls, including in Delaware’s national championship 13-1 season (1979).

“Then lens through I look at it is Temple was a great program at one time,” Keeler said. “This is a great university. It can even be greater.”

It got greater on a very cold December Tuesday morning in Philadelphia. Now all that remains is to determine how great.

Friday: The Letter Keepers

Monday: The Reaction

12 thoughts on “Temple football has a winner in town

  1. Nice press conference. Keeler is all Philly, inside and out, and very impressive. Unlike the Fry and Johnson, he didn’t need to read from his notes. He knew what he was talking about.

    Great start. Let’s see if he can do it as both Fry and Johnson made it clear, zero promises on NIL.

    Keeler believes he can with limited NIL.

    It will take miracle work. Nobody is listening. Aside from Army/Navy, the AAC schools aren’t waiting for Congress to pass NIL legislation. Temple is getting left behind, again.

    • Solid points everywhere. My feeling is that winning seasons will produce NIL. Right now, the fan base has been beaten down by 1-6, 3-9, 3-9, 3-9. Memphis only got a significant infusion of NIL money after posting a few winning seasons after 2014. Up until that point, Memphis was in a far worse situation than Temple. Even Matt Rhule’s 2-10 team beat Memphis, 41-21, on the road. Then had to string together a few winning seasons first. Temple has to do only what Keeler said the goal is next year. Make a bowl at a minimum.

    • The one person I saw from his Texas staff who appears to be coming with him is Clayton Barnes his GM for football, Get the same feeling is that Keeler will look for a staff with NE/Mid Atlantic regional experience

      • Maybe he’s the college equivalent of Howie Roseman with the transfer portal. I’ve always said Stan should have had a guy in charge of the portal from the jump. Instead, they wasted resources on JUCOs.

  2. With respect to recruiting, Keller mentioned that he would hit NJ hard. Two of his former OCs at SHSU were Phil Longo and Ryan Carty, both of whom are from NJ. Longo was recently let go by Wisky.

  3. My hopes are running wild. Can KC get really good coaches ?

    Can KC retain the best players ?

    Can KC immediately bring in good players?

    These are the same questions we all have.

    Damn I hope he can, I enjoyed his intro speech.

    Maybe, just maybe.

    Ww will return the TU Football games next year, in support

    • https://247sports.com/season/2025-football/transferportal/

      reality 3.0.

      maybe Johnson can convince Mary Rice Bowl Burke to share donor $$s. Second thought, Keeler should quit now and become the AD. Then hire the next version of himself.

      NIL, NIL, NIL.., must we die first in order for folks to listen?

      CUSA ain’t the AAC. The AAC teams have means and are moving out with a sense of urgency.

    • Good questions that we can only say “we’ll see!” Temple already has some good players who will hopefully stay and Keeler will get more – just his rep should attract some more. He’ll win at least a couple more close ones that we lost this year and I keep saying “hopefully” will get us to at least 6-6 and a bowl. No reason Temple be at least respectable but poor choices for HCs always hold them back.

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