How good is Temple? Pretty much mediocre

Owls probably picked the wrong starting quarterback for the Rhode Island game and that set Ajani Sheppard’s development back by two or three weeks.

After one of the worst losses in the last 20 years or so of Temple football, it’s very tempting to say that the Owls are a bad football team.

Head coach K.C. Keeler said as much after a 34-20 Homecoming Day loss vs. UConn.

Then the Owls went out and proved him right in a 38-31 loss to winless Charlotte. Maybe if he had said they are a great team Temple would have won, but I doubt it.

They probably aren’t as bad as a bad team and more like approaching mediocre now.

A “bad” football team doesn’t go to USF and beat a 4-0 team so we have to dispute that characterization. A bad football team doesn’t get a 42-28 lead at Toledo with 1:11 left on the clock. After that Toledo debacle, the Rockets beat a pretty good San Diego State team, 41-16. USF hung with current league favorite UTSA before blowing out Kent State, 29-2, on Saturday night. A bad football team doesn’t take Army to the wire, which Temple did.

That Temple team seems like a hundred years ago when it was only a couple of weeks ago.

Really, though, how good is Temple?

Our preseason predictions published on this website 3/5/26

Way back on this site on March 5th we predicted mediocre simply because the Owls didn’t get out and get a big-time quarterback. The very definition of mediocre is 6-6 and, while it doesn’t look like the Owls will get there because they lost to teams we predicted they would beat (Toledo, UConn and Charlotte), and only beat one of the teams we’d thought they lose to (USF).

By “big-time quarterback” I didn’t mean some Big 10 starter. I meant “a starter” who had “a decent record as a starting quarterback” at either the FBS, FCS or Division II level.

After one of the worst losses in the last 20 years or so of Temple football, it's very tempting to say that the Owls are a bad football team.

Head coach K.C. Keeler said as much after a 34-20 Homecoming Day loss vs. UConn.
Sam Brown V needs five 100-yard games for the Owls to win four and he’s got that kind of talent. If he stays inbounds here, the Owls beat Army, 24-21.

A year ago, the Owls were able to get an FBS starter, Gevani McCoy (Oregon State) to back up a former Big 10 starter, Evan Simon (Rutgers) and that’s pretty much the adult minimum daily requirement of quarterback vitamins K.C. Keeler and his staff must swallow going forward.

Because both Jaxon Smolik and Ajani Sheppard were learning how to be QBs while on the job, the Owls didn’t get much out of the position until Sheppard’s breakout game at Toledo.

It would have been nice to have a starter who already knew how to be a starter from the jump.

Sam Brown V might be the best back in the American Conference, but he needs to play all five of the remaining games to prove it and nothing that has happened so far suggests that is in the cards.

The other problems–defense and special teams–we did not anticipate.

Because Keeler has developed a deserved reputation of a “stand-up guy” we accepted his claims that JoJo Bermudez was the “best punt returner in the country” and that his returning offensive line couldn’t block his defensive line.

Bermudez has not been the best punt returner in the country and what has turned out to be closer to the truth was that every other offensive line could not what his own OL couldn’t do in spring ball–block his defensive line. They’ve gotten nothing from kick returns with a straight-line sprinter. Maybe they should try a guy like Tylik Mitchell back there because Mitchell has a knack to find holes in addition to his 10.7 100-meter speed. Mitchell gained nearly 2,000 yards and scored 25 touchdowns as a big-time running back in North Carolina two years ago.

The Owls have done better than a couple of our preseason predictions–playing Penn State to a 27-9 loss (we said it would be 35-14) and beating USF (we said it would be a 55-24 loss). They have done worse against Toledo, UConn and Charlotte–which we all listed as close victories.

Therin lies the rub.

For the Owls to get to the mediocre spot we had them at, they are going to have to steal four out of the remaining five games. The good news is that there isn’t a world-beater left on the schedule, including Memphis. For example, Navy and ECU are nowhere near as good as we thought they would be and Army is better. Fortunately, Army is in the rear-view mirror and a lesser Navy team is a short road trip.

The bad news is that all five of those teams will probably be favored over the Owls right now.

The best hope is that a new defensive coordinator can re-energize the defense and that Sheppard has turned into that winning quarterback we hoped to get in the offseason.

Hope never got me to a bowl game but that’s all we have now.

Friday: Possible Upgrade

Monday: Game Week

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