09.20.26
by

This Temple loss was the hardest ever

This guy is all of us. We Temple fans should be able to enjoy a 42-28 lead but too often defeat is grabbed from the jaws of victory.

As a kid, I was a Penn football fan.

Watched every game on TV. Went to every home game and watched running back Adolph Belizaire, wide receiver Don Clune and a quarterback from Bishop Egan named Billy Creeden terrorize Ivy League defenses.

Still, something was missing.

Never understood why Penn was big-time in football and gave that up to pursue academics. There was a void in the City of Philadelphia, one of the largest cities in the country without a big-time football team.

I was a football fan, not a chemistry class fan, and looked on the other side of the city and saw a legendary coach named Wayne Hardin try to fill that void with Temple.

For awhile, he did.

The ultimate metaphor how Temple fans felt: K.C. Keeler all alone on the field after Saturday’s game.

That’s when I became a Temple fan and turned down a full academic ride to Cabrini University (RIP) to walk on (err, pay my own way with a college job at the Philadelphia Bulletin) with the Owls and try to get a journalism degree. All the while my goal was to cover my new favorite sports team, the Temple football Owls.

That dream was achieved both at The Temple News and professionally elsewhere.

Temple had four-straight winning seasons under Hardin capped off by a No. 17 ranking in the country with a 10-2 season in 1979.

To me, if Hardin proved Temple football could be a factor on the national scale, subsequent coaches could.

So far, Bruce Arians did. Al Golden did. Matt Rhule did so those “eras” only reinforced my belief. Winning football is not only possible at Temple, but winning football on a national stage.

If they can do it, and they did, it can be done.

Still, as a Temple fan, I experienced a lot of heartbreaking unexplainable losses along this journey.

None took me to the special place in hell quite like Saturday’s.

Some say the 53-52 Ron Dickerson loss at Pitt was the worst in Temple history. Or the 2024 29-20 loss at UConn was bad but none, in my mind, surpassed the debacle we saw on Saturday at Toledo.

Maybe it’s recency bias but based on what I saw last week against Penn State, this defense should never have given half a hundred to anybody else.

Penn State tried for a white out in Temple’s home stadium, but there was plenty of Cherry as in this photo from the press box. Doubt there will be this much Cherry for Army after the Toledo debacle.

Even Hardin had his brutal losses but the difference between his 26-25 loss at Franklin Field in 1975 and the next year 31-30 at Veterans Stadium, both against Penn State, is that Hardin made no tactical errors in those two losses, coached brilliantly, and lost.

On Saturday, at Toledo, Temple made plenty of coaching mistakes.

The first as detailed here on Saturday was not rushing the passer. The second was throwing a fade to the tight end in the end zone when every Temple fan in America who followed Hardin, Al Golden and Matt Rhule knew the call would have been a rollout pass for a mobile quarterback. Those coaches took advantage of the unique talents their players had. They would have not turned Ajani Sheppard, a rollout passer, into a pocket passer with the game on the line.

Mental mistakes that turned a 42-28 lead with 1:11 on the fourth-quarter clock to a 49-48 OT loss.

Unacceptable.

Everybody has said that North Carolina State’s fumble in the end zone that led to a 35-31 loss to host Vanderbilt was the most brutal loss on Saturday.

To me, that paled by comparison to Temple’s because all the Owls had to do was put the bad guys’ quarterback on his ass or roll out the good guys’ quarterback for a run/pass option that Toledo could not stop. If the easy flare toss to, say, Colin Chase, wasn’t there, Ajani Sheppard would have took it in for the winning 2-point conversion and a 50-49 win.

Don’t force your running quarterback to be a pocket passer on the most important play of the game but that’s what Temple did. The baseball analogy here is that a guy tries to bunt to get on with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. Instead of getting past the pitcher the bunt goes right to him and the pitcher for some inexplicable reason throws to second instead of walking the ball to first for the underhanded throw to end the game. Taking the analogy further, the pitcher throws the ball over the second baseman’s head and loses the game. Temple had a nice underhanded throw to first but for some inexplicable reason decided for the tougher throw to second which goes over the guy’s head.

Tried to watch and enjoy the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday but could not enjoy it because I kept thinking about the Temple loss. When the Eagles lose, nobody calls for the team to drop out of the NFL but for the last 24 hours or so on social media, I’ve had to listen and read the bullshit that Temple should drop football for losing to a team that was a 6-point favorite. When the Phillies lose two straight to the Mets, nobody has to hear that the Phillies should shut down Citizens Bank Park.

Every Temple loss, Temple fans have to listen to this crap.

That’s why every Temple loss cuts deep followed by the knife being stuck in the next day with the reaction. Things were supposed to be different with this winningest ever head coach in college football and we were going to show these losers that we are winners this year.

So, yes, this was the toughest Temple loss ever and there have been many. Hopefully, the kids are more resilient than the adults who have loved this team for the longest time but the flip side is those kids have done the hardest work and have nothing to show for it. Maybe some will say fuck it. Let’s hope not.

They have a choice now. Turn that hard work into a 10-2 season or turn that disappointment into more losses down the road.

They will now have to do it without a lot of Temple fans who saw what happened on Saturday and checked out. Getting them to check back in will take a few wins at least.

Friday: Army Preview

10 thoughts on “This Temple loss was the hardest ever”

  1. Definitely one of the most frustrating losses I’ve seen as a Temple alum and long time football fan. Maybe the worst. How to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. However, as bad as that was, I still feel Coach KC Keeler is building a solid program here at TU. He is a proven winner. Yes, the pass defense was dreadful, but the offense, particularly the running game looked great IMO.

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    • It’s up to the kids and the leadership council. If they decide to beat Army and they do, they can have a successful season. Almost impossible to have a successful season if you start 1-4. There has got to be an urgency to stop the run and those passes in the flat that Monken is going to throw their way. Almost no time to do it though. This is a bad spot for Temple.

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  2. Sadly, so many blown games to choose from, but I think the OT loss to Navy on the road in 2008 was the worst. The Owls had a 3 TD lead in the 4th quarter and squandered it but still should have sealed the W as they had the ball with 45 seconds left but instead of taking a knee, Golden elected to handoff. A fumble resulted that was returned for a TD and sent the game into OT.

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  3. The only thing Golden did wrong in that game was handing the ball off to Kee-Ayre Griffin (RIP). I would have taken a knee and punted and won the game. Last year’s Navy loss was harder IMHO. They should have taken 3 knees at the (first, second and third down) at the 1, burned Navy’s 2 time outs, and kicked the FG to win it, 27-24, with 20 or so seconds left. No way Navy tries that QB draw to Blake Horvath with no TOs and 20 seconds left. That is the difference between 6-6 and a bowl and 5-7 and no bowl. Still, this is more devastating. You can’t be leading by two touchdowns with less than 2 minutes left and lose. Can’t let that happen. Big fan of the all-out blitz in passing situations vs. the prevent defense. Look what the Eagles did on the Hail Mary play yesterday: Send the freaking house. All Cam Ward had time to do was a half throw that hit the ground 12 yards away. The fact that Richter’s uniform was clean after the game burns me up to no end.

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  4. Have been around TUFB for 60 years, so I’m not going anywhere. But “time is of the essence” at this point in my life.

    Despite Saturday’s frustrating loss, I’ll be there Friday for a must win game. The defense has to show up given the “traditional” long drive offensive possessions’ of ARMY or the offense will never see the ball. At the same time, the TU offence will have to treat each possession as a must score opportunity, given the few chances they will likely get. GO OWLS!

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    • It was the most important game on the schedule from the time the schedule was released. I would hope as many of the 7,000+ students who showed up for Penn State realize that and that the school itself cancels afternoon classes and encourages the kids to go. Already seeing that a lot of adults can’t make it due to work. Most adults use up their vacation days by Sept. and that’s completely understandable. There are a significant amount of “fair-weather” Temple fans who would have gone if the Owls beat Toledo but won’t now. This crowd will only be slightly larger than Rhode Island and that’s thanks to the 6,000 or so Army fans in attendance. I’m expecting announced crowd of 16,365 or thereabouts. Expect Temple fans to get hammered for not showing up. Toledo’s Glass Bowl was 1/4 filled on Saturday and nobody is talking about Toledo fans not showing up. It’s a problem all over G5 football.

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  5. I am guilty of being a fair weather fan. Im 47 years old now and have always been a huge college football fan but never really had a team growing up. I would always check in on Temple during the Bobby Wallace era because they were the local team and I always thought how great it would be to have a local FBS team but those were some rough years in the big east. When Al Golden took over and breathed new life into them, I became a die hard temple fan and even had season tickets for a few years. I was die hard all the way through the Matt Rhule era and once he left, the decline began and I had had enough and became a casual fan during the last 2 coaching regimes. However, when Keeler took over it really spiked my interest again. I always rooted for Delaware when they were FCS so I knew all about Keeler. What gets me excited with him is we know he is a great program builder. When Golden was here, we knew he would move on to a power 5 school. Same with Rhule. We knew Temple was just a stepping stone for those guys. There is a different vibe with Keeler though. I really believe this is his final stop. So as ugly as last week’s loss was, which was a brutal loss, I feel confident he will right the ship. His 1st full recruiting class was the best in the AAC and the way coaches move on in this conference for bigger opportunities at power 5 schools, Kepeler will stay put. I think he can bring in the top recruiting class in the AAC year after year. As much as last weekend sucked, the future is bright. Maybe not this season but by year 3 or 4 of having top AAC recruiting classes, thos program will be on the rise again and the fair weather fans could turn into die hards. That is my hope anyways!

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