Temple still celebrating Super Sunday

When it rains it pours and we’re not referring to this upcoming weekend forecast.

Temple football is still celebrating a Super Sunday of recruiting and, while we detailed the most high-profile one in our Monday post with a quarterback named Brody Norman, three guys committed who could be on-field sensations for the Owls.

Could be is the key phrasing because way back in 2008 I was watching film with other Temple season-ticket holders who were ohhing and ahhing the No. 1 recruiting class in the MAC that Al Golden was able to pull in for that night.

A friend named Sal who was sitting in the first row turned to me and said, “they all look like O.J. Simpson on the film.”

Good point.

He killed with that one (no pun intended).

Hunter Watson’s impressive offer sheet (there were four other confirmed offers as well).

Still, there is good film and bad film and the other three guys who signed on Sunday night weren’t chopped liver.

Those three–there were other subsequent good ones after Sunday night but we’ll cover them later–are running back R.J. Blount of Pennsauken, N.J. (home to former Temple greats Todd and Scott McNair), wide receiver Hunter Watson of Jersey City St. Peter’s Prep (which produced Al Golden’s first recruit, Kee-Ayre Griffin) and offensive lineman John Watkins of St. Frances Academy (Baltimore).

To be clear, this is not immediate help but it’s nice to know that new head coach K.C. Keeler and staff are preparing for the future.

These guys are 2026 high school grads but this shows that Keeler is using this so-called “offseason” time to replenish the talent in the program. It also shows that the staff is working just as hard on a couple of weeks in June as they will a week before the UMass game.

Could not find the junior year RB stats at Pennsauken for both of the McNairs, but my guess is that both would have been hard-pressed to duplicate the 2024 stats of Blount who posted 1,585 yards and 21 touchdowns.

According to the ESPN website, Watson turned down offers from Syracuse, Boston College, and West Virginia to come to Temple.

That’s pretty good.

By all metrics, Temple’s transfer portal and high school recruits rate higher in Keeler’s first season than any of the three Stan Drayton seasons.

There’s something special that is connecting kids to Keeler and his staff and Philadelphia and the impressive campus that appeals to over 30,000 “regular” full-time students. It’s worth celebrating.

The film is O.J. good without any of the negative killer side effects.

Monday: Seeing Double

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