12.12.24
by

The reviews are in and they are all good

The reviews are in on the new Temple head football coach and let’s just say they are a lot better than the reviews a certain McDonald’s in Altoona received this week.

Validation is always a good thing, and the Temple brass received plenty of it in the 10 or so days since hiring K.C. Keeler away from Sam Houston State.

That got me to thinking about the reaction to past Temple hires. I can’t remember a single time there was this much positive reaction to a Temple football head coaching hire since Wayne Hardin. Places like The New York Times raved about Temple hiring Hardin, who had Navy as the No. 2 team in the country in the 1962 season and won a pro championship later with the Philadelphia Bulldogs of the Continental League in 1966.

We all know what happened when Hardin decided to return to Philadelphia four years later.

Hardin became the winningest coach in Temple history, had four-straight winning seasons, won Temple’s first bowl game ever and was a mere 16 points from an unbeaten season in 1979 which would have almost assuredly gave Temple and Philadelphia a mythical national football championship.

In a way, Keeler decided to return to Philadelphia earlier this month and that’s a comparison that bodes well for Temple.

Keeler knows those bullet points all too well since his only disappointment in that 1979 season came at the hands of Temple. Keeler was a linebacker whose only loss in a 13-1 year was a 31-14 one to Hardin’s Temple team.

This is not a Temple fan. It is a WVU fan who was thrilled by the hiring of Rich Rodriguez.

That Delaware team didn’t have a “mythical” national championship then. It had a real one at the next level down from Temple and the national powers (now FCS).

Keeler, more than anyone else, knows how great Temple can be in this sport.

After hiring Keeler, Temple fans need to reflect on what they’ve seen over the last three years of the Stan Drayton Regime. Plenty of sub-level G5 talent, plus numerous games where the head-scratching moments came when Temple was either offsides, had false starts, illegal formations and linemen downfield.

Sam Houston fans never saw that kind of stuff and that’s why Temple hired K.C. Keeler nearly a dozen days ago.

Since then, Keeler has gotten to work revamping the coaching staff and making strides to do the same with the roster. Temple is the only team mentioned for a backup Ohio State linebacker who returned a pick six for a touchdown three months ago against Akron.

That’s the kind of player Temple needs. That’s the kind of player we’ve been preaching that Temple go after the last two years, guys who can play at the P4 level but are stuck behind other NFL players.

What did the previous staff do?

Go after JUCO players. The past staff was stuck in the 1980s, where the only way they knew how to fill immediate needs was to get JUCO players.

When you do that, you get JUCO results.

If you want to get big-time results, you’ve got to go after big-time players and Keeler understands that. Winning the portal means as much as winning the NFL draft and Keeler was so good at that a year ago that he lost only one player in the portal on the way to a 9-3 season.

There are plenty of big-time players in the portal, and plenty of guys who are looking for an opportunity to show themselves over a NIL payday. Temple needs to go after that type of hungry player and nobody more than Keeler understands that reality.

Others are noticing and that cannot be a bad thing and we haven’t had that happen in a half century.

Monday: The Letter

10 thoughts on “The reviews are in and they are all good”

  1. Fingers crossed the AD got this one right. But it ain’t over.

    NIL, NIL, NIL, NIL.., the AD must now work tirelessly, and bust his butt to increase NIL.

    Jimmy and Joe’s who can play want to get paid.

    Keeler is not Jesus Christ, he can’t turn water into wine. We can’t expect him to win if Temple doesn’t commit to a conference leading NIL pool.

    Belichick didn’t take the UNC job w/o an NIL commitment.

    Time for Temple to belly up.

    Reply

  2. It’s really exciting to see you be excited!

    Reply

    • always wanted a big-time coach here. Now we have one. There’s a reason to be excited. KC is not JC but he’s not SD either. We will go from near first in the nation in penalties to near last. That kind of stuff turns losses (Rutgers, ECU, 2022; USF, 2023; Coastal Carolina, UConn, North Texas this year) into wins and that makes a difference without the NIL equation.

      Reply

  3. Wonder if any of his Sam Houston players will swing east with him, ala Cignetti/JMU? Start the “watch” for players coming out of the portal to N. Broad.

    Reply

  5. Here’s a legacy player to recruit:

    BREAKING: Georgia LB Troy Bowles plans to enter the Transfer Portal, he tells

    @on3sports The 6’1 220 LB will have 3 years of eligibility remaining Top 90 Recruit in the ‘23 Class (On3 Industry) Son of Tampa Bay Buccaneers HC Todd Bowles

    Reply

  7. AJ needs to contract with an NIL firm. They don’t have the resources to do it in house. Firms have been incredibly successful setting up NIL capital raising for universities that don’t have the $1Billion Collectives of the P4. Put out an RFP, numerous firms are in the business, no downside as TU gets a cut, the NIL firm gets a cut. The firm work to get the agreements, takes a percentage and you create continuous capital flowing into the NFL coffers. It won’t be football specific, but the Athletic Dept decides the allocation.

    It is not AJ’s fault he doesn’t know NIL, it is rapidly changing, but to not have the confidence to say “this isn’t my wheelhouse, let me get some outside help that specializes in this”. I can tell you in the media market we are in, no question you would have firms jumping at the opportunity for TU’s NIL contract.

    The next step will be they are going to have to take the NIL $, funnel to the school, have the school pay athletesdirectly.

    Having virtually zero NIL exposure, Temple could get with a cutting edge firm in the space and catch up quickly.

    I wish them the best of luck.

    P.S. Do not hire an NIL firm from a friend in Texas.

    CE SPEED

    Reply

    • Great comments, we need an attitude shift from the entire TUFB community.

      In today’s environment the three components have equal weight.

      NIL, talent, and coaching. You simply will not succeed w/o all three.

      Reply

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