Here we are about to play the fifth game of the season, and the theme of K.C. Keeler’s post-game press conferences the last two weeks were that the Temple kids battled.

The truth is that the Owls of a year ago got pushed around for a closing 10-minute drive a year ago at Army and, on Friday, they allowed a killer nine-minute drive for the win when they went up 17-14, and a lot of those plays were with eight men in the box.

Yet they lost both games.

At some point, battling will not be enough and we’re about to reach that point when the Owls go on the road for their next game in South Florida.

Yes, the same South Florida team that not only “battled” Army but beat them. How come they can battle and win and we battle and lose?

I’d rather fight a skillful retreat and win than battle hard and lose but maybe that’s me.

The Owls had one job after losing a pair of one-point games to Army and Navy last year and that was to turn those one-point losses into wins, preferably by more than one point. From roster construction to game planning, they needed to figure out a way to turn those 3-to-4 yard gains Army and Navy live by to 1 and 2 yard gains. They didn’t figure that out.

Instead, they turned one half of that two-headed monster into a four-point loss to Army.

Keeler has said the roster is better, the team is deeper than last year but if the results are the same 5-7 does it really matter?

Death by a thousand paper cuts a year ago and death by a thousand paper cuts this year are pretty much the same.

Hard to see the improvement when the ledger at this point says 1-3. Just to get to 5-7–which I would consider unacceptable–the Owls have to split the last eight games of the season.

That’s why it’s getting late early. Pretty soon the math won’t be there for a winning season.

Last year the team started 5-2 and faltered late. Maybe this year’s team is built to finish 5-2 after faltering early.

You’ve got to hope so but there are several concerning signs out there.

One, they no longer appear to have a quarterback with the savvy of Evan Simon, a guy who was able to toss 25 touchdown passes against only two interceptions. Simon was particularly adept at finding mismatches in the secondary, often to secondary receivers, and a reliable safety valve was Peter Clarke. Simon was the Steve Carlton of the Owls and Clarke was the Tim McCarver, Simon’s personal catcher.

Now you might as well put Clarke’s face on a milk carton that’s how MIA he has been this season through no fault of his own. On the final drive of the game, Clarke was wide open over the middle at the 10 and Ajani Sheppard forced the ball into the end zone to JoJo Bermudez, where he was covered by three Army guys. If I had to choose one Temple All-American I’d rather not see play, it would be punter Dante Atton over Peter Clarke. Instead, we see too much of Atton (no offense, literally) and not enough of Clarke.

Two, the much-praised defensive line, which Keeler called 10 deep, was pushed around in the same fashion last year’s lesser praised defensive line of guys like Sekou Kromah, Khalil Poteat and Cameron Stewart were.

Maybe it’s better but the proof is in the pudding. Or the putting of the bad guy’s quarterback on his ass, which we haven’t seen much of so far.

Three, the Owls were supposed to have a reliable field goal kicker in Carl Hardin and the stats back that up because Hardin went 11-for-14 last year. Yet two of the misses came in one-point losses to the academies, one from 45 and the other from 38. On Saturday, he hit the crossbar from 42 yards out. Had he hit that one early, he would have lined up for another makeable game-winner. Rather have him miss the 52-yarder at Georgia Tech last year in a 42-24 loss and hit the 38-yarder in a 31-30 loss to Navy last year.

They say the best predictor of future success is past success and, judging the 2026 Owls so far, the future isn’t bright.

Battling is OK but winning is better. The winning needs to start now because it’s later than most would think.

Monday: The Breakdown