Category Archives: K.C. Keeler

07.26.26
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Biggest Media Day Takeaway: The Defensive Line

An unexpected question led to an unexpected answer from second-year Temple head coach K.C. Keeler during one of the many media day side interviews.

Someone asked Keeler about “taking back” arguably his top defensive lineman of a year ago, Sekou Kromah, if a court challenge the player had against the NCAA succeeded. The expected answer was that the Owls were supporting Kromah in his effort to play another year but wouldn’t commit either way until the issue was resolved.

Now the Owls need Nebraska assistant Adam DiMichele, who turned 41 on Sunday, to sue the NCAA for that final year of eligibility Joe Paterno denied him and come back to play quarterback for the Owls. Hey, Lebron James is older so he can do it.

The unexpected answer was that, while Temple lost some big-time players along the DL, Keeler said that the line was definitely upgraded at all positions due to the personnel General Manager Clayton Barnes and company brought into the building.

Without Kromah, rush end Cameron Stewart, and Khalil Poteat, the Owls figured to struggle finding pieces from elsewhere to plug and play but Keeler honestly felt the new players represented a talent upgrade. Keeler indicated the reason for that was because he couldn’t “cut” anyone a year ago due to the fact that he told the Owls in the first team meeting that anyone who wanted a Temple degree was welcome to stay and get one.

With all but three linemen on the defensive side either graduated or out of eligibility, Keeler (and Barnes) could go out on the open market and get players who were better than the prior staff recruited. Now Poteat has joined the Kromah party and also filed a lawsuit. With so little time remaining, hard to imagine any other place one or both of those guys end up not being Temple again.

Here’s the kicker (or the three-point stance): Even if they come back, there’s no guarantee they could reclaim their spots as starters.

That’s saying something because, when Stewart, Poteat, Kromah and a couple other interior linemen were healthy they were pretty formidable. Arguably, they were the stars of the 26-21 home win over bowl-bound (and champion Tulane-beating) UTSA, sacking Owen McCown three times and hurrying him into incompletions or interceptions 14 more times.

It was the best pass-rush ratio of any game last year.

The problem was health, though, as Kromah was only able to start five games due to a bum shoulder.

With the entire offensive line returning, it only figured that side of the ball would dominate in the Cherry and White game, but it didn’t and the defensive line had more than its share of moments.

So what Keeler said on Friday pretty much jived with what some of the offensive linemen were saying after the spring game.

With only three players back on the DL who saw significant action last year, the Owls had to fill the other holes with seven transfer portal players and one junior college pickup and those guys proved themselves in spring ball.

Khalil Poteat celebrates a sack at UMass.

The cream will rise to the top when summer camp starts in earnest on Friday and we’ll be able to plug some names into starting spots shortly after that.

While most of those names will be new ones, a couple of Prodigal Sons could be added to the list if their cases are expedited through the courts.

For a team that returned every single ELIGIBLE starter (the only one in the G5), adding a couple of guys who supposedly completed their careers at Temple could be the Cherry on top of this White cake.

Friday: An Under-The-Radar Story

Monday: Keeler’s Biggest Gamble at Temple

07.24.26
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Must-see TV begins this morning at 10: Temple Owls

This is where most of the media comes down on the Temple Owls and jives with my 6-6 prediction. However, if the Boston College QB landed at Temple we would have upped at to 9-3. Jaxon Smolik, prove me wrong.

When Astronauts first landed on the moon, the phrase of the day was: “Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.”

That referred to the lunar module, which was The Eagle, and the spokesman was the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. (And to you skeptics, yes, it was real and we did it 57 years ahead of the current technology.)

On Thursday, another bird, the Owls, have landed, not on the moon, but at St. Petersburg, Fla., the home of the American Conference Media Day. It’s hot in St. Pete (real feel 110) but that’s child’s play compared to the real feel the Owls had in an outdoor practice at the E-O in Philadelphia (111) on June 24. (FYIW, the temperature on the moon 7/20/69 was 250 degrees.)

Tranquil, we’re not sure but it will be today’s home base for the Temple Owls.

So the two Owl player representatives, tight end Peter Clarke and linebacker, should not be sweating much.

Maybe the rest of the league should but they don’t know it yet.

Athlon Sports has a relatively low opinion on the Owls

Thursday was just a feeling out day and the big show begins today on ESPN+ at 8 a.m. and runs until 2 p.m. with every head coach taking the stage. At 10 a.m., it’s K.C. Keeler’s turn. (That’s 4 a.m. Hawaii time for our many Owl fans on the island.)

There will be plenty of questions and plenty of optimism from the assembled head coaches, including Temple’s K.C. Keeler. Usually, there is a Media Poll, which ranks the teams from first to last but that was discontinued last year and there are no plans to have it revived.

Yet there are other media outlets who either plan to or have released a poll and one of them was Athlon Sports (see inset). They had the Owls listed for No. 8 in the league and, shockingly, Navy as No. 1.

Shockingly, because Navy lost a lot of talent, including the single closest thing to a one-man team the American has ever seen in quarterback Blake Horvath. New quarterback Braxton Woodson was absolutely dreadful in a blowout loss at Notre Dame when Horvath was injured last year.

Horvath was the only reason Navy beat Temple. Heck, he might have been the only reason Navy came CLOSE to Temple last year and so that prediction may be more based on reputation than reality.

However, despite the fact that the Owls returned every single eligible starter–no other American nor G5 team did that–there are legitimate questions about the Owls, too. One, is quarterback, where, for the first time in a long while, the Owls will have to go without someone who has started a college football game. That’s always a crapshoot.

Some people have expressed concerns about the defensive secondary but the Owls have a guy in Adrian Laing who returned an interception for a touchdown at Charlotte and was absolutely robbed of another goal-line interception in the North Texas game on a ridiculous PI call. Still, it’s not certain if he’s won the starting job this year so the Owls should be OK at corner. If his competition is that good, and I’m more than OK with Laing as a starting corner (and I am), cornerback is the least of my worries.

All of this could be addressed at 10 this morning. I’ll settle for most of it.

That’s why it’s must-see TV.

If you are a die-hard Temple football fan like me, it will be the last must-see TV until you get home from the Sept. 5 opener and check out the Rhode Island-Temple highlights on YouTube.

Monday: Media Day Recap

Friday: Keeler’s Biggest Gamble Yet

Monday: An Under-The-Radar Story

07.09.26
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Temple telegraphing its leaders with Media Day docket

Not much mid-July news for Temple football but a couple of clues came out today about the leadership group.

Both past and present.

Head coach K.C. Keeler calls it his leadership council and designated for assignment tight end Peter Clarke and linebacker Eric Stuart. That assignment was accompanying Keeler to the American Conference Media Day sessions.

Those choices said a lot, considering that last year quarterback Evan Simon and defensive end Sekou Kromah were the guys.

Simon at the time was in a knock-down, drag-out battle with Gevani McCoy for the quarterback job. That went down opening day at UMass, where Simon grabbed the job by throwing six touchdown passes. McCoy became the good soldier backup ready to save the season if Simon went down.

Kromah was who we’d thought he’d be, one of the two best pass-rushers on the team, and a solid run-defender. He made life miserable for UTSA quarterback Owen McCown in the Owls’ most impressive win of the season, 26-21, at Lincoln Financial Field.

For some reason, Kromah entered the portal. There were no takers because his eligibility was in question. Today, he filed a federal lawsuit applying for emergency relief, meaning eligibility to play this season. Kromah’s lawyers cited a case in Ohio that was similar to his where a federal judge granted that eligibility and it seems like he has a good chance to play.

Will it be at Temple?

A lot of that is on the other three guys mentioned at the top of this story–Keeler, Clarke and Stuart–because, in cases like this, if a player wants to come back Keeler leans on his leadership council.

Clarke was the glue that kept the team together, staying himself and lobbying every single other returning starter to stay. As a result, Temple was the only G5 team to return every “eligible” starter. Stuart, their best linebacker, was one of them.

Do you think he wants to play behind Kromah again? Certainly the comfort level would be there but Keeler would have to sign off.

Who knows, but an area of need for the Owls seems to be pass-rushers who can also defend the run and Kromah qualifies on both counts. His 4.5 tackles for loss led the Owls and his three sacks were second on the team. A player like that doesn’t drop out of the sky often and, even though the Owls have all their roster spots filled. a little tinkering here and there could restore his scholarship. Even if Kromah is granted injunctive relief, he really isn’t in position to demand NIL money and the restoration of another season gives him another chance to impress the NFL and that’s a good outcome for him.

K.C. seems to be saying “now, Sekou, don’t enter that transfer portal, OK?”

From Temple’s perspective, it’s a trade that could help both parties. They get that proven guy on the defensive line and Kromah gets his scholarship back.

Shawn Pastor, the Editor of Owlsdaily.com, when asked if Temple would have any interest in taking him back, said: “Absolutely” in a post on June 13.

That would give Temple three guys who repped on Media Days and that’s one more than they could have expected a few days ago and you can never have enough of those.

Monday: Best of TFF (vacation week)

06.28.26
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Turning a metaphor into a literal demonstration

Swimming upstream.

That’s what teams like Temple, really the entire Group of Five, have been doing since the advent of the transfer portal and the NIL.

Temple has watched while it whatever resources it spends on scouting and developing players turns into benefiting some P4 school. It’s not a fair system but we all knew that.

Little did we know, though, that Good Morning America would turn this metaphor of “swimming upstream” into a literal demonstration on its show earlier last week.

Ginger Zee, the Chief Meteorologist and Climate Correspondent for ABC News, grabbed three Temple football players–including starters Eric King (OT), Colin Chase (WR) and Eric Stuart (LB) for a swimming demonstration. For some reason, they added a pair of athletes from the dance team to fill out this five-person squad.

(You think they’d be able to find a couple of members of another American Conference Olympic sports team.)

Whatever.

Despite the fact that I thought the football players would fare better (at last Chase did swimmingly), it’s publicity the school can’t buy and that’s the best kind. I’d give the other two guys a B+.

It was good publicity for the school on the most watched early morning show in the nation and elevated Temple’s name recognition a bit. It certainly couldn’t hurt the football program.

Temple football players spent all day in OC filming a 4-minute segment that appeared on Good Morning America (6/24/26).

Someone deserves credit for this and maybe its Kevin Neghandi, who works for Disney’s ESPN arm. They could have chosen any one of the 136 FBS football-playing schools.

They chose Temple.

Maybe it is someone in the Sports Information Department, but head football coach K.C. Keeler certainly had to sign off on lending his players to ABC for at least a day and arranging transportation to Ocean City, N.J.

No small feat since being a big-time college football player is a 365-day job.

One of those days being set aside for swimming upstream in a literal sense.

When the guys got back to the Edberg Olson Practice Facility, it was back to swimming upstream in a metaphorical sense.

Let’s hope they ace that test.

Friday: A worthwhile investment

06.26.26
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College Football Youtube Channel: Owls will finish 8-4

Despite the fact that Colby Dant thinks Temple is a private school (it isn’t), these guys know their college football.

Sometimes fans are too close to the forest to see the trees.

As far as Temple football is concerned, I’m right in the middle of the trees so I examined the roster, expressed my concerns about an inexperienced new quarterback, mixed the recipe and baked a conclusion:

6-6.

An improvement on the 5-7 we saw last year but, at least for me, a potential disappointment.

As far as a second year for a coach with the resume of K.C. Keeler, not as impressive as I wanted the second season to be. Kinda thought at the end of last year that the Owls would be able to grab a superstar FCS starter or a competent lower-level FBS starter.

Instead, they grabbed the third-string quarterback from Penn State.

It might work out. It might not.

Might doesn’t get me to a bowl game. Love the way this roster is constructed with the exception of the most important of the 22 starting positions.

Sometimes, though, it’s good to look at things from 40,000 feet and that’s exactly what the guys from The College Football Experience did with their season preview of the Owls dropped yesterday.

Colby Dant and Ryan “Moneyline Mac” McIntyre know their college football and both agreed that the Owls would finish 8-4.

That’s not the biggest news.

Phil Steele correctly ranks Temple’s schedule as the toughest

“Moneyline Mac” predicted the Owls would beat Penn State in the second game, noting that K.C. Keeler is in his second year and Matt Campbell is a Penn State rookie still putting the pieces together.

He also correctly asserts that if the Owls do the impossible and beat Penn State, they are losing to Toledo the next week. (I’m not as sure about that because Matt Rhule beat PSU and I wrote two days after that the tougher game would be the next week at Cincinnati. It was but the Owls still managed to win. I think Keeler is a better head coach than Rhule so we will see.)

Crazy or not, there is some logic to Mac’s assertion in that there are rookie mistakes for every first-year coach in a new spot. (Even K.C. had his rookie mistake in the Navy game, not falling on the ball and kicking the winning field goal with no or little time left after getting a first-and-goal at the 1 with 1:16 left on the clock.) Hell, if Colby and Ryan are right and the Owls finish 8-4 all will be forgiven.

Just a reminder for Colby Dant, Temple is a public, not private, school.

First, because they have noted quite correctly that Temple has drawn the toughest schedule in the American Conference.

They aren’t the only ones who have noticed.

Phil Steele’s college football magazine was named No. 1 in a survey for this summer and that’s confirmed my personal bias for a number of years and even Phil has said “Temple’s schedule is by far the toughest in the American Conference.”

That, and an injury-prone inexperienced quarterback fueled my lower expectations.

If I had to choose between me being right and Colby and Ryan, I give the nod to the latter two guys and will gladly write the apology post in December.

Sometimes you need to get above those trees and out of the woods to see the forest below and let’s hope this is one of those times.

Monday: Swimming Upstream

Friday: Real Estate Deal

06.21.26
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Temple’s recruiting focus: Speed Kills

Tylik Mitchell is expected to make some kind of immediate impact for the 2026 Owls on offense and special teams.

Lose a Hollawayne, gain a Holloway.

Kajiya Hollawayne was a productive receiver for the Temple football Owls a year ago, starting all 12 games including a spectacular nine-catch, 149-yard game against Navy. He ran out of eligibility, leaving the Owls look for a speed receiver on the edge.

Pretty impressive offer list for Kamari Hollaway.

Temple gained a “Holloway” recently, grabbing highly thought of North Carolina running back Kamari Holloway from Southern Durham (N.C.) High School, right under the noses of East Carolina, which offered him a full scholarship last year.

Holloway has four years of eligibility left.

He was the second “athlete” recruit with speed from North Carolina that K.C. Keeler and his coaching staff have recruited and both have something in common.

Blinding speed.

Hollaway has clocked a 4.48 in the 40-yard dash, which, in terms of measurables compares favorably to former Owl superstar back Bernard Pierce, whose NFL combine time in the 40 was 4.55. So Hollaway is a full seven tenths of a second faster in the 40 than Pierce was the year after he scored 25 touchdowns for the Owls and became a third-round NFL draft choice.

Mitchell, who should compete for a wide receiver job for the Owls this season, also was a former running back out of North Carolina’s Southern Nash High School. His measurable comparison to Pierce was that he ran a 10.7 100-meter dash in high school. Pierce’s 10.8 in the same event was enough to win the PIAA state indoor title as a senior at Glen Mills.

Both Hollaway and Mitchell both put up good football numbers as well. Hollaway had 122 carries for 1,420 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2025. Mitchell, also playing running back, had 1,866 and 21 touchdowns during his senior season in 2034.

Kamari Hollaway.

So the Owls plucked not only two great athletes out of North Carolina, but two of the fastest guys in that state.

The Owls looked a little slow against some of the better teams in the league last year. Going forward, it appears they are determined to win their share of foot races, which usually means getting to the goal line faster than the bad guys.

Friday: How Others See Temple

06.14.26
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Commits so far: A Big City Feel

Ethan Dempsey from Charlotte Rolesville (N.C.) will be joining the Owls in 2027.

Coaches like to talk about getting the right fit and that includes everything from game plans to starter to recruits.

A fit is looking like part of the plan for Temple in the high school recruiting department as the Owls picked up the New York City championship game MVP (Ameir Morrow) last year and the D.C. Championship game MVP this year (Jakari Graham).

Temple recruit Jakari Graham makes three one-hand catches in the same game.

Not surprising that both found Philadelphia a good fit because they thrived in big city environments before and there is a belief–at least among the Temple coaching staff–that they can thrive here, too.

Graham isn’t the only big-city player Temple has added as Temple got added Camden pass rusher Amara Dolleh (6-5, 230), DeMatha Catholic (also D.C) offensive tackle Kevin Nesbittt (6-6, 320) and Charlotte, N.C. wide receiver Ethan Dempsey (6-3, 198).

Others–with the possible exception of edge rusher Caleb Saint Fleur (6-2, 230)–are country bumpkins by comparison. Saint Fleur is from Hollywood, Fla., which for all intents and purposes is Miami.

Pleasantville (N.J.) RB Ta’kiesse Barnes is the only three-star recruit for the Owls so far.

That’s 11 so far in an expected class of 25. The Owls have way more offers out that available scholarships so it is incumbent on those being recruited to accept the offers as soon as possible or risk holding the bag or going to lesser G5 or even FCS schools.

Temple is taking a developmental approach to its high school recruits, building a team the old-fashioned way–getting the skill position players a chance to play right away, while putting the linemen in a lock box with the idea being getting them in the weight room and a redshirt year to adjust to college without being force-fed into a starting job, like Stan Drayton was forced to do with Luke Watson.

If there is any concern so far, only one–Pleasantville (N.J.) running back Ta’kliesse Barnes–has a three-star rating. That will probably mean Temple won’t get the No. 1 recruiting class in the American Conference this year unless it hits on a lot of stars in the remaining 14 offers. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a good class but it does mean the public perception of it won’t be as high.

All that matters is what the future Owls do between the white lines starting in 2027.

For the best recruiting news, follow Owlsdaily.com. Here is that site’s list of current Temple recruits:

06.11.26
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June Recruiting: Temple holds all the cards

Amazing how Temple football was so highly thought of in the sports section of The New York Times.


Happy to see that K.C. Keeler likes to tell the same story about Wayne Hardin now that I used to 20 years ago.

Keeler recently talked about being recruited by Temple and then being brought into Hardin’s office with Wayne’s first question being: “Son, do you play golf?”

I had to laugh because, as a 17-year-old rookie reporter for The Temple News, I was asked the same question by this most important Temple football Hall of Fame head coach (yes, more important than Pop Warner).

Wayne Hardin asks starting quarterback Doug Shobert (who told us he will attend a Temple football game this fall) if he played golf before sending him out for the coin toss in this 1973 game.

Keeler was 17 at the time and wanted to know if he received a scholarship from Temple. I was 17 only a couple of years before that and was in Hardin’s office and one of the questions Wayne asked was, “Son, do you play golf?”

(I didn’t nor did K.C.)

Didn’t matter.

The larger point was that Hardin, an avid and great golfer, wanted to make a golf analogy to a football question and made it even though I had no idea of the inner workings of golf. Since there was no Google back then, I went back and looked up what he said and how it applied to that sport and everything made sense.

Keeler telling the same story made me laugh because Hardin was trying to make a point about missing the cut and Keeler, who thought he was about to be offered a scholarship, instead heard a story about great golfers missing the cut and applying that to recruits Temple wanted by ran out of scholarships to hand them.

That was Hardin’s way of saying Temple was out of scholarships and Keeler missed the cut.

Didn’t mean Keeler wasn’t a great player and Temple didn’t love him but had no more schollies.

That’s where this month comes into play for Keeler, Temple, and the guys Temple offered.

Instead of a scholarship to Temple, K.C. Keeler was forced to accept one to Delaware, where he lost twice to Wayne Hardin (and beat him once).

There is a thread on the Owlsdaily.com site about Temple offers and it only seems like Temple offered 8,134 guys.

Plenty of offers, very few scholarships left.

In many ways in this current high school recruiting environment, Temple–and only a few schools like it–holds all the cards.

Word to the wise (or at least all those being recruited for by the Owls), if you have a scholarship offer from Temple now, accept it immediately. Because, by the end of the month, that scholarship will be gone and so will your opportunity to make any money either from Temple or because of Temple.

That’s because the Owls are near the top of the most high-profile G5 programs in the country. If you succeed at Temple, you will have two choices: 1) Stay with your brothers and continue to win under the next Temple Hall of Fame football coach or 2) Go elsewhere for bigger bucks. Largely, P4s have given up on recruiting high school players so the question is do or don’t.

If you don’t, the opportunities to succeed in college football don’t vaporize but they do diminish. The good players know that and are accepting offers from Temple now.

The others risk the same golf story Hardin told Keeler being told to them by Keeler.

What goes around comes around indeed.

Monday: Big City Guys and Temple

06.04.26
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TFF’s No. 1 Summer Priority: Getting Lamar Best up to speed

Thanks to Zamani Feelings for this great artwork. Love the diamonds.

After monitoring the upcoming visits from high school ranks, we’re very aware of what K.C. Keeler’s No. 1 June priority is right now.

Nabbing another No. 1 American Conference high school class. Temple should be able to recruit a great high school class every year because, with the transfer portal, P4s are pretty much dropping high school recruiting.

The Lamar Best part of this interview (sound quality not great, so we recommend headphones) starts at the 9:57 timestamp.

We’re onboard with that but the meteorological summer includes three months, not one, and there is a summer priority after that.

Getting freshman phenom quarterback Lamar Best up to speed.

Whether that speed means overtaking Jaxon Smolik and Ajani Sheppard, that’s pretty much a combination of two things: 1) Tyler Walker cramming his read-option offense into Best’s head and, 2) Best absorbing all that information.

Put it this way: After watching Smolik on Cherry and White Day, I came away with two observations and those were he was good enough to get Temple to a bowl game but probably not good enough to get Temple to a championship. There is a very low ceiling for both Smolik and Sheppard.

To me, the best Smolik can be is an “Evan Simon-Lite”–meaning having a lot of the qualities of Evan, but not all. After seeing Sheppard, he looks like Chester Stewart to me. Not good enough.

For Best, on the other hand, the sky’s the limit. His 41-inch vertical leap and 4.4 speed make him the most athletic quarterback in the conference by a longshot.

Those 5- and 6-yard gains on option reads with Simon (and perhaps Smolik) were nice but they turn into explosive 70- and 80-yard scores with Best.

A few of those and that ceiling is the American Conference championship.

Now no one understands the difficulty of jumping from high school ball to college more than Keeler and his staff but Best already made a similar jump when he went from Willingboro to St. Joseph’s. Willingboro is a good level of football but St. Joseph’s of Montville is the top of the top of New Jersey football.

P.J. Walker made a similar jump from being a New Jersey state champ at Elizabeth to a true freshman starter at Temple.

Best is faster in the 40, has a higher vertical leap and threw more touchdown passes in high school than Walker and it doesn’t take a leap of faith to see him having a more impactful freshman season.

Recruiting is the focus this June, but the Owls have two months to get Best up to speed and that should be job one until opening day. Whether that speed puts him between Smolik and Sheppard or gives him the job outright is something that should be up to Lamar himself.

For those who say it cannot be done, it has been done at Temple in 2013 and at BYU in 2025 with pretty good results. Hell, every year all over college football true freshman quarterbacks win G5 championships.

That’s never been done at Temple. Now would be a good time.

06.01.26
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Temple football: The Boys Are Back in Town

R.J. Blount’s work as a track star and his getting to Temple early gives him an, err, leg up on the competition.

Every once in a while, Temple head football coach K.C. Keeler might say something that would give one pause.

K.C. Keeler tells the team there is a lot of hard work ahead but the reward will be more than worth it.

For me, the “biggest something” was that Keeler noted that preseason practice would “basically start on June 1” after giving a summation of Cherry and White Day way back on April 11.

June 1 is today.

(Made a note to check when the “official” NCAA practice was allowed and it was 42 days before the opening game. This is way more than 42 days.)

Ameir Morrow is a from a Brooklyn high school of greatness, having produced basketball’s Billy Cunningham and pop star Neil Diamond. He, like Blount, participated in spring ball.

Now that depends upon the interpretation of preseason practice is. What Temple is allowed to do from now until August is eight hours per week of preseason instruction, which includes four hours of coaching and weightlifting, etc.

When things really ramp up in August it’s 42 hours per week. Maybe the Owls can get away with a little over eight hours of “official” work because there’s really little oversight in college football anymore but we’ll see.

Eight hours a week until August seems a little light.

That’s a lot of cramming for some important tests, particularly with so many new faces on the team.

Since Keeler considers June 1 the target date, we can assume he’s going to make the best use of those eight hours and treat it as a preseason camp of sorts.

That has to be good news for every Temple football fan because it involves film study and learning from the mistakes in 2025 that turned a 7-5 season into a 5-7 one.

After some well-deserved time off, looks like a strong brotherhood has formed upon the Owls return to campus on Sunday.

Maybe that 5-7 goes to 7-5 or better.

To me, the key is establishing a running game and Temple has the pieces in place. Hunter Smith was every bit as talented as No. 1 back Jay Ducker was and way more explosive. He has the inside track to the No. 1 RB spot.

Sam Brown has been oft-injured and had some impressive Big 10 production along with being the star of spring practice. (Maybe that’s because Smith had been held back due to some Joel Embiid-type “load management.”)

The real surprise, though, in the young depth behind Smith and Brown, including Keveun Mason (who showed flashes last year as a true freshman), DeCarlos Young, R.J. Blount and Ameir Morrow. I don’t remember the last time Temple has had that kind of quality depth at the RB position. Maybe the last time was when Paul Palmer played here with Shelley Poole, Sheldon Morris, Ventres Stevenson and the McNair brothers (Todd and Scott) but that was the mid-1980s.

The question worth asking is can someone out of those bottom three show enough flashes to actually make a difference on the field?

Unlike last year, when it was Mr. Inside (Ducker) and Mr. Outside (Smith), we think yes.

In fact, if someone does, Temple benefits because they all have different skill sets and, in the American Conference, speed kills and the younger RB group appear to be slightly faster than their older teammates.

They got a head start by being a big part of spring practice and we’ll find out if that speed moves them up the depth chart starting today.

Friday: No. 1 priority