5 Biggest Surprises of Temple spring ball

North Allegheny is a great football school and Kolin Dinkins earned his scholarship to Penn State there.

The saying that applies here is that “to beat the man you’ve got to be the man” and it applies to at least three of the surprises from Temple spring football.

Yeah, I know the most important goal is to win the American Conference football championship and I’m onboard with that but a secondary goal that would wake up this entire region is to duplicate the feat of 2015 and beat Penn State.

For a lot of casual football (and not even college) fans, Penn State is The Man. Temple football would move Heaven and Earth (and many of the Joe Football Philadelphia fans) to boost attendance with a win in the second game of the season. (Yeah, I know beating Rhode Island is the focus now but let’s be real.)

Never believed it before, but three Penn State transfers did some convincing for me that it could be a rallying cry for the 2026 Temple Owls. They were not “The Man” at Penn State but they all could play a part in beating the man.

My hesitance has always been this: Temple is asking the third-string Penn State quarterback to beat the second-team Penn State quarterback behind him and that’s never a good plan. Now Penn State did what Temple wasn’t able to do and beat a big-time Iowa State transfer, Rocco Becht, that former Iowa State and current PSU head coach Matt Campbell brought with him for big bucks. Ethan Grunkemeyer, who stepped in as PSU starter (making Smolik a backup) when Allar went down, followed James Franklin to Virgina Tech.

According to our research, Jaxon Smolik will be the first player from Iowa in the 134-yard football history of Temple to play here. Might as well get the first-team All-State QB.

How delicious would it be for an Iowa native, Jaxon Smolik, to beat the big-time Iowa State star of last year? Hell, Smolik, a 2023 grad, was a bigger “person” on campus at Dowling Catholic High than Caitlin Clark, who was ahead of him for a year.

Smolik had an outstanding spring for Temple and tossed three touchdown passes in the Cherry and White game. As of now, he is way ahead of Washington State backup Ajani Sheppard and a bunch of guys who participated in spring ball. This blog is a big fan of Lamar Best and I hope he gets a chance to beat out Smolik for the No. 1 job when summer camp begins on June 1.

If, however, Smolik hold onto the job because of what he does against Best from June 1 to Sept. 1, there will be no bigger Jaxon Smolik fan than me.

That’s where the other two surprises come into play, other Penn State transfers safety/LB (Viper) Colin Dinkins, and tight end Joey Schlaffer. Dinkins is from a great Western Pennsylvania football school (North Allegheny) and Schlaffer is from a great soccer school (Exeter) in District 11.

Dinkins got on the field way more than Smolik (500 snaps, mostly on special teams) at Penn State and Schlaffer caught a touchdown pass in a 52-6 Penn State win over Villanova.

Now the Temple coaching staff found the sweet spot for Dinkins, a hybrid LB/safety position and Dinkins has proven virtually unblockable on QB blitzes. This is what head coach K.C. Keeler has said about Dinkins:

“He’s so damn dynamic, he’s making plays maybe shouldn’t be made,” Keeler said after the scrimmage. “He has a knack of blitzing and being disruptive.”

You think the winningest active Division I head coach (Keeler) isn’t going to find a way for Dinkins to be disruptive?

That leaves the other two big surprises of camp, Illinois transfer portal safety transfer Saboor Karriem and Temple holdover Luke Watson (OT).

Karriem made all of the plays in the first two weeks of camp and that should not have been surprising. He led Illinois with 10 tackles (seven solos) in a win over then No. 21 USC just seven months ago.

Watson was forced into a starting OT tackle role as a true freshman when Stan Drayton forgot to recruit enough tackles three years ago. Keeler with one of his few shots at Drayton: “Watson should have never started as a true freshman but he’s come into his own now.”

Watson will anchor an experienced and talented offensive line that went toe-to-toe with some great talent Keeler brought into Philadelphia.

Surprises?

Sure.

But to beat the man, you’ve got to get the men and Temple has done enough to make any game a toss-up and that’s all fans can ask for at this point.

To be sure, by the second game, there will be at least three Owls as motivated to beat Penn State as the 70,000 Temple fans in attendance will be.

Monday: Slogan

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