For a brief second there on Saturday, CBS Sports put up a graphic that showed only two teams in the country at the top of the national charts for one-score losses.

Navy and Temple with four apiece.

They say being close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades so, when Temple tied Navy in the final five minutes the balance of the game was for the college football Horseshoes and Hand Grenades National Championship.

Temple lost the game, 42-35, but the consolation prize was the most one-score losses in college football this season so it looks like the Owls have the inside track on the natty for close losses.

Sadly, the Owls will probably hoist that trophy at least metaphorically.

It didn’t have to be that way and we’ll get into all of those reasons on our Monday post.

First off, the abysmal 0-28 start has to be addressed because this particular post is about this particular day in this perculiar season.

In this particular game, Temple quarterback Jaxon Smolik came up microscopically small in the first half before being a hero in the second half. That just cannot happen and it means moving on from Smolik in the offseason. Zero points in a half should be disqualifying from any Temple quarterback. Two, JoJo Bermudez put the Owls on his back and almost carried that Elephant-sized weight past the finish line and maybe the only reason he didn’t was because he wasn’t the opening kickoff returner.

There is no NCAA rule that prohibits a punt returner from also returning kickoffs. Temple (specifically, Bruce Arians) had Heisman Trophy runner-up Paul Palmer do both.

Just a thought.

In addition to all of these agonizing one-score losses, no team suffers more worse starts in history than the 2026 Temple Owls and that must be addressed not only in the coming weeks but in the offseason as well.

After a brutal loss at Delaware on a similar Saturday back in the day, Bruce Arians ordered the Owls to report in full gear to Geasey Field at 5 a.m. on a Sunday less than 24 hours later. On Homecoming Day of this year, those players–well into their 50s–were talking about that full-contact practice and how it made them a better team. Plenty of hitting between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. on the largest Astroturf field in the world made the Owls right again. That included allowing the Owls to hit the crap out of their quarterbacks who produced only 10 points that day.

On the NFL “It’s a Football Life” Arians said, “After that practice, we didn’t lose a game.” (He was nearly right. The Owls closed out that season by winning four of five.)

Point being, maybe these Owls need to play a full-contact quarter in the stadium before starting games from now on so as not to get off to slow starts. Given what I’ve seen so far, rather see that pre-game than stretching drills.

It couldn’t hurt because zero points from scrimmage in a half is unacceptable at any level.

Sad, too, because that year was the last time Temple came back from a 20-point deficit and won a game (at Pitt).

These Owls almost surpassed that but fell short. Almost is the operative word for both today’s game and the season.

Close, but no cigar. At least no victory ones.

That’s the story of a season that will end very sadly, no matter what happens from this point out.

Monday: What Went Wrong?