My Belated Christmas Wish List for Temple

Under this unfair system, the best Temple can hope for is to do what Toledo did on Thursday.

After hearing about 100 good things from new Temple head football coach K.C. Keeler, I’m hoping that two days after Christmas he’s a watch what I do, not watch what I say guy.

That’s it. That’s my entire realistic Christmas Wish List for Temple football.

(The unrealistic part is me winning tonight’s MegaMillions with the numbers 8-13-15-30-55 (6) and donating $100 million to Temple’s NIL football fund so Keeler can get any player he wants. That will only happen if I get struck by lightning and eaten by a shark while holding the ticket and hopefully handing it off to Arthur Johnson on Ocean City Beach.)

Our low/risk, high/reward, picks in college football. Toledo already came through.

The realistic part is watch what I do and not what I say when it comes to Keeler.

Why do I say that?

Heard something in the press conference from K.C. that really concerned me.

He said he wants to build a program with high school recruits.

Hmm.

Not a fan.

Hell, that’s what I would have done a decade ago at Temple.

That’s what Al Golden did. That’s what Matt Rhule did.

Unfortunately, those days are over.

Here’s what happens now if you recruit high school players:

One, you develop them.

If these numbers hit, K.C. Keeler can afford any player he wants at Temple. That’s my promise here.

Two, you lose them.

Developing means that you put them in a weight room for a year, redshirt them that year, play them as a redshirt freshman and–if they blossom–lose them to a Power 4 team by their sophomore year.

The reality in the G5 is that the only way to build a program that wins exciting bowl games (see Toledo’s win over Pitt yesterday) is to get them from the portal on the cheap.

Toledo didn’t beat Pitt with high school players or even JUCOs. Seventeen of the Rockets’ starters in a six-OT win over Pitt came from Power 4 schools where they were stuck as backups and only wanted a chance to show their stuff.

They gave a hometown discount (most were Ohio high school stars) for Toledo in the sense that they weren’t asking for big NIL money but just a chance to get on the field.

That’s the formula for Temple.

Temple cannot win a NIL bidding war with anyone. This is a hardscrabble school in a scrabble town whose grads had to look under beds and in the seams of couches for two tokens to get to school every day.

They don’t own Twitter or Tesla or even Tastykake. They’ve got no money.

That’s where the “watch what I do” part when it comes to Keeler comes in and not the “watch what I say” part. That’s because Keeler built his Sam Houston team not with high school players but great transfers from both FBS and FCS schools and that’s exactly what he has to do here. Because building a program on the backs of high school players is a bad idea at any level today.

Just wish he would have said so in the press conference.

9 thoughts on “My Belated Christmas Wish List for Temple

  1. We shall see but I seem to remember him combing superior programs for disenfranchised players dating back to his Rowan/Glassboro State days. Has been in his playbook for a long time if I’m not mistaken.

    • Yes. That’s should be formula at Temple, really any G5 school. I don’t know why he thought saying it would look worse than the high school kid quote. This whole system is unsustainable. Temple has to bridge the gap until a more sensible system is imposed, which could be a couple of years down the road. By sensible I mean one transfer per kid and shorter portal windows that don’t include any period where actual college football games on being played. That’s reasonable. We lost another great coach in a different sport (Jim Larranaga) who said he was getting out because his entire Miami team got out after the Final Four 18 months ago.

      • Service academies win with lesser talent. Coaching still matters.

        It’s a pick-up game every year for G5 schools. That will not change at least for the next 5-7 years.

        The best bet is to create an identity on both sides of the ball. And, plug the peg holes the best you can after every season. Like the service academies, the identity should survive HC changes.

        TUFB has the 10th and Diamond blueprint for sustained success in this resource constrained environment.

        It will be interesting to see how the new OC attacks the challenge. TU has finished conference dead last in rushing the last four seasons in a row.

      • Interesting on that last Okie drive. The Sooners marched down the field and the Navy coach basically said (I’m paraphrasing now), “Fuck it, get out of this prevent defense and sack the MF’ing quarterback.” That’s how you win. Attack. Take chances. Don’t sit back and get beat. I don’t have to tell K.C. Keeler that because he knows what he’s doing. I had to tell Stan Drayton that for three years and he never listened.

  2. Two down, three to go to turn my $10 into $254. The game I’m most worried about is Arizona State covering the 14 against Texas. They have a super tough QB and a running back whose name sounds like Scuttlebutt who could make that one close. I’m hoping the 14 opt-outs ASU have gives Texas a blowout win but I’m not sure. Much more confident with Boise State because that kid Jenty is the real deal. PSU will knock the hell out of him at the line of scrimmage but he will bounce off more tackles than not. I see that game being closer to 24-14 than 35-14.

  3. Poffenbarger heading to No Texas..,

    Crazy, No Texas lost their QB to UVA. Would have given No Texas a shot at beating Texas St had he stayed.

    A No. Texas win would give the AAC a 7-1 bowl record and the Bowl Challenge Cup championship recruiting feather.

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