An eye-opening opener against Rhode Island

Driving down Delaware Avenue, the all-news-all-the-time AM station gave its top Philadelphia stories on the hour.

“The top stories are Philadelphia reports four new West Nile Virus cases and the Temple Owls open their football season today.”

Odd juxtaposition of stories, but it was nice to see Temple football getting the same kind of billing as a health scare. Most times the local sports talk stations ignore the Owls, let alone the all-news station.

New season, new stories, so the task for the day was to judge whether the Owls would provide eye-popping results or eye-opening ones.

We’ll have to go with the latter in a workmanlike 38-14 win over visiting Rhode Island. Eye-popping would have been one of the quarterbacks throwing for six touchdowns, like the guy last year did in the opener. Eye-popping would have been for the defensive line to have a few sacks.

Neither happened.

Not great, not overly good, but just OK because, from the way K.C. Keeler talked over the last few months, he said that he has two quarterbacks who can win in this conference and maybe he’s correct but neither one knocked my socks off like Evan Simon did in the UMass game a year ago.

Don’t know if the Owls have one quarterback who can compete against this conference and certainly, on the results, did not see one who is capable of beating Penn State.

You would have hoped to see one of them take the job but neither did. John Madden’s old saying was “if you have two quarterbacks you have none” seemed to apply after the game because the Owls still have two quarterbacks.

The other concerning thing was the defensive line. Keeler said the line was so upgraded that it “could be the story of the year in this conference.”

Hell, it wasn’t even the story of the day because the Owls–although limiting Rhode Island to 97 yards on the ground–got no pressure on Rhode Island quarterback Tyler Budge, other than a single shoe-string sack by Kevin Hornbeak and one in the fourth quarter by Davier Bishop. Most of the time, URI rolled the pocket away from the rush and no doubt Penn State was taking notes.

The offensive line that helped the Owls put up 500+ yards of total offense against Navy last year could only muster 369 yards against a FCS team, albeit a very good one. On Jaxon Smolik’s touchdown pass, he was hit and this offensive line can’t let that happen after giving Simon a clean pocket for most of last year. He didn’t really have a clean pocket all day, nor did Ajani Sheppard.

Another head-scratcher was that tight end Peter Clarke was rewarded for his loyalty by being only targeted twice. Clarke was a matchup nightmare last year and why the Owls only threw two passes his way was baffling. Let’s hope they are saving him for Penn State.

That’s the hope. Doubtful because offensive coordinator Tyler Walker showed a nice wrinkle on the first play of the game, and if he’s saving Clarke for Penn State, he probably would have saved that play for the Nittany Lions, too.

Peter Clarke was MIA through no fault of his own. (Photo courtesy of Zamani Feelings)

To me, if Clarke is going to be a first-team All-American he needs a 10-touchdown, 1,000-yard season. The opening game did not help that cause.

The highlight of the day was sophomore running back Keveun Mason rushing for 158 yards on 20 carries and that’s impressive because he lost the job to starter Sam Brown, who will be ready for Penn State. We were looking forward to seeing Brown play and, if he’s better than Mason, he must be very good. Also, the secondary had two pick 6s in a single game and that hasn’t happened at Temple since Chuck Heater was the defensive coordinator in 2011.

What we do know is for the Owls to have any chance against the better opponents ahead, they have to get some sacks on defense and someone is going to have emerge as a clear starting quarterback by winning the job outright.

That, and staying away from mosquito bites.

Monday: Cherry on Top

Friday: Penn State Preview

Saturday: Penn State game analysis

6 thoughts on “An eye-opening opener against Rhode Island”

  1. Just a few things. One, we are better informed by filtering what we hear from Keeler with what we observe on the field. #10 couldn’t be blocked by the TU OL and was a Keeler proclaimed all-conference player. He finished the game without a sack or tackle. huh? Perhaps he is injured, and one game doesn’t make a season but no tackles and no sacks?

    IMHO, #5 is a mystery until we see him play in the fourth quarter. Turns out he didn’t survive Fall camp.

    Top college teams are duplicating the pro model. Star, big arm QBs and top WRs. NIL allocations confirm the duplication. Temple is doing the anomaly. In part due to circumstance. Temple plays Army and Navy every year. So stopping the run and running the football becomes job #1, or chalk up two losses if you don’t. However, IMHO TUFB can’t compete for conference championships without a top big arm QB and star/Sunday talent WR. This 2026 has neither.

    Now the good news. Yes, this team has depth and more top to bottom talent than last year. Six wins and a bowl game? IDK, Temple will be underdogs going into the next four or five games.

  2. On the drive home, I couldn’t help thinking that I went into the game thinking I’d be more impressed than I was. Then I rewatched the game and came to the same conclusion. Fortunately, I stuck around for the on-field interview ESPN had with Keeler and Keeler said that he was missing four offensive linemen (all but one will be back next week, Luke Watson). Then he said he was missing his starting RB (5) so maybe I was too hard on the OL so I will withhold evaluation until next week. That doesn’t explain the DL, which I thought was going to dominate URI OL. It did in the running game, not in the passing game. Not good enough. The secondary was way better than I thought. Maybe I’m not giving URI enough credit. That team won 22 games and two CAA championships the last two years and retained about as many starters as Temple did. Still need a QB and wish KCK brought in a big-time experienced starting FBS or FCS guy with gobs of touchdown passes. The kid I wanted is now backing up for Belichick. I think in his heart of hearts he wishes he was starting here.

  3. Keeler had a pretty funny line when the ESPN guys said that if he ever got tired of coaching he was welcome back in the booth. “I’d probably have a longer lifespan if I did that.” That’s John Madden-level wit.

  4. ….at least the “all mosts” happened yesterday by way of previously missed catches on INTs. Our guys were on target unlike other years where there were too many misses. Next game? Who knows. Keep it close at least.

  5. After a very sloppy first half the team was able to take control in the second and avoided a debacle like Rutgers. If they start the same may next though the game will be over by halftime. With yesterday’s game along with last season I will say I haven’t been overly impressed with Keeler’s gameday coaching. Don’t get wrong he his definitely head and shoulders above Carey and Drayton in pretty much all facets of running the program but I thinking we’re 6-6. maybe 7-5 last season except for some coaching miscues in both service academy games

    • Great opening sentence. That caused me to think out loud. “Who would give UMass a better game, Rhode Island or Rutgers?” Pretty sure after the last 48 hours UMass-URI would be a much more entertaining game and closer outcome. Too bad that’s not on the schedule this season.

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