Musical chairs could help Temple football

Every year pretty much every successful team in the American Conference is going to go through turmoil afterward.

Every team except Temple.

That might be the biggest football news of this offseason for K.C. Keeler and the Owls, whose wife has put her foot down. Both feet, really, firmly implanted in her hometown of Philadelphia, where the two met and married. She told Keeler that this is the last stop and he has agreed.

While Keeler is the CEO of the Owls, Janice Keeler is the CEO of the Keeler Household and the grandkids are here and every Temple fan should breathe a sigh of relief, really, for the first time since this whole NIL and transfer portal nonsense began.

The Keelers on the Bethany Beach Boardwalk last Feb.

That’s because, while there is some stability here, there isn’t throughout the league and Temple is left with perhaps the best coach in the league, although Army’s Jeff Monken might have a say in that.

Tulane played its final game of the season on Saturday night and replaced Jon Sumrall with assistant coach Will Hall. While that might provide some stability for the Green Wave, it also replaces a guy who won championships both at Troy and Tulane with a guy whose only head coaching experience was 16-30 at Southern Mississippi. He was fired after going 1-6 there in 2024.

Speaking of Southern Mississippi, Memphis hired his head coach, Charles Huff. Nice hire but if Huff leaves Marshall after winning a championship and then only gives a year to Southern Mississippi, what are the chances he moves on with any kind of success with the Tigers–maybe even after a year? Pretty good I’d say.

Hooter isn’t allowing K.C. Keeler to go anywhere.

North Texas replaced Eric Morris with Neal Brown, who was also a good head coach at Troy, but there are a couple of problems with that. Rumors are that Morris is taking his quarterback and running back with him to Oklahoma State, meaning that Brown will have to start all over again.

UAB replaced Trent Dilfer with Alex Mortenson, who has never been a head coach on any level, and USF replaced Alex Golesh with Brent Hartline, who was a coordinator at Ohio State. Unless he brings some Ohio State talent with him (doubtful), he’s going to have to rebuild that roster.

All are a year behind Keeler and the Owls, who have done a decent job of retaining the talent already here and procuring a dynamite freshman class.

Where that puts the Owls in the conference pecking order, no one really knows at this point but, thanks to K.C. and Janice Keeler, they are close to the top.

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