Category Archives: latest Temple football recruiting news

06.26.25
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Objectively, the best Temple recruiting month ever

The Owls already here hit the weight room on the hottest day in Philly since 2012.

A couple of famous names who signed on the dotted line illustrated what we’ve been thinking for a couple of weeks.

Objectively, this 2026 recruiting class is the best Temple one since 2007 and the credit must be given to a full court press the K.C. Keeler staff did this month.

Also objectively, this is the best recruiting month ever.

In an era where the G5 never beats the P5 (or P4 now), at least five recruits came down to two choices:

Temple and Syracuse.

Like the old Bill Cosby ad said, “they could have gone anywhere. They chose Temple.”

Now to the two famous names that haven’t been discussed in this space before:

Duane Johnson Jr. and Hanks.

Not Tom Hanks, but Alex Hanks, who is one of the Syracuse flips as a 6-1, 195-pound safety. The recruiting site 247 has him turning down a ‘Cuse offer on June 20 to commit to Temple.

The other is Duane Johnson Jr., who is no relation to the “other” Dwayne Johnson Jr.–better known as The Rock–who played his high school football in Bethlehem, Pa. and college at Miami (where he played against Temple). This Duane Johnson Jr. is FROM Miami and, like the other Johnson, a 6-3, 190-pound linebacker at the high school level. The Rock bulked up to 6-3, 290 and became a DE at Miami before becoming a superstar in wrestling and movies.

Temple’s Duane Johnson turned down offers from his hometown FIU and Bowling Green to come to 10th and Diamond.

Temple’s 2026 recruiting company as of 6/26/25.

Another player we haven’t mentioned here previously is Josh Nengite of Susquehanna Township (Pa.), and the attached announcement here gives a clue as to why he–and the other 23 June commits–picked Temple: “The goals for the program and how we are going to accomplish them.”

Keeler and his staffed are locked in with that message.

For all of this excitement about Temple’s 2026 recruiting class, 247 still has the Owls–with 24 commits–rated as No. 76 nationally. Historically, that ranks behind Al Golden’s second class at Temple (2007), which ranked No. 1 in the MAC and No. 52 in both the Rivals.com and Scout.com national rankings. That translated to a 2009 appearance in the Eagle Bank Bowl against a UCLA team that had a No. 3 recruiting ranking in 2007.

Bad, because only 64 teams play in the so-called Power 5. Good, because of the other 66 teams in FBS, Temple is rated No. 12.

Good, because Keeler’s 2026 class is rated ahead of Nebraska, Auburn, Virginia, Missouri and Virginia Tech.

The other consideration here is that Temple’s Fab Five that turned down ‘Cuse turned down a very good staff with a great history of recruiting for a staff with a vision for the future. It’s one thing that new head coach K.C. Keeler already has a proven eye for talent. It’s validation when an entirely different staff sees the same thing. So maybe that 76 is closer to 66 because no other G5 program is grabbing that many P4 offers, at least thumbing through the other AAC offer sheets.

No one knows if our Duane Johnson will approach the fame of the other Dwayne Johnson or our Hanks will make a football impact that Tom Hanks made on the world stage.

What we do know is that they will join a group of guys who have been vetted by dozens of eyeballs on two highly paid and well-respected staffs 500 miles apart and now will be playing before a lot more eyeballs in the largest stadium in the AAC.

Chances are pretty good those Lincoln Financial Field eyeballs will like what they see.

Monday: Immediate vs. Future

06.19.25
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Temple returns to recruiting footprint

Another year around the sun came and went on June 19th for this reporter and it was my annual reminder that the expiration date invisibly stamped on my forehead is rapidly approaching.

In a sense, Temple Football Forever, too. We don’t know the date and probably don’t want to at this point.

Yet while this website won’t last forever, what new head K.C. Keeler did this week was a sign that Temple football as a program will last, if not forever, a long time.

If Keeler keeps this kind of recruiting up, chances are he will be talking about Temple going from one year with a lot of losses to one year with a lot of wins like he did here at SHS last year.

That’s because he stepped away from the nasty habits of the last three head coaches and returned to the Owls’ recruiting footprint.

Bruce Arians once said it was simply metro Philadelphia, South Jersey, the Lehigh Valley and the D.C./Virginia corridor that included Norfolk and Richmond.

Al Golden reaffirmed that when he arrived on the scene, correctly pointing out that Temple is smack dab in the middle of 46 percent of the nation’s population.

“If you drew a 250-mile circle around Temple, that’s well within a five-hour drive for any family who wants to send their kids here,” Golden said. “That’s 46 percent of the nation’s population and you should be able to find 25 great players from that many kids.”

Arians went 6-5 twice against a Top 10 schedule with that philosophy.

Golden ended 20 years of Temple misery adopting it.

What do Arians (York), Golden (Colts Neck, N.J.), Matt Rhule (State College) and Keeler (Emmaus) all have in common? They played their high school football within 250 miles of Temple.

What do Geoff Collins, Rod Carey, and Stan Drayton have in common?

They did not.

Daron Harris makes returning kickoff and punts for touchdowns look easy, like this one against Imhotep.

Now with a slew of local recruits signed recently, Keeler apparently has decided that blueprint makes sense for him, too.

Among those guys are a 6-4, 315-pound offensive tackle from Strath Haven named Billy Brown, an All-Philadelphia Catholic League tight end named J. P. Oates and defensive backs Daron Harris of Chester and Dylan Abram of Monsignor Bonner.

Temple might not be back this year, but rest assured Keeler’s plan is to return the Owls to those kinds of days.

That’s not all.

Defensive tackle Jude Okeleke (pronounced OAK-LEAK-EEE) turned down a solid offer from Fran Brown and Syracuse to commit to Temple this week, saying “I’m home.” While not a Philly-area recruit, it’s nice to know that Okeleke considers Philadelphia home. Technically, he is within that 250-mile footprint, having played at the Taft School in Watertown, Conn. Better yet, he is considered one of the top 75 DT prospects in the country. Being from Nigeria and not able to earn NIL money, Temple gets the added benefit of probably keeping him for four years.

Brown was a first-team Philadelphia Inquirer OT playing in 2023 before moving onto Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. last fall.

Oates was a first-team All-PCL tight end for a 10-0 regular season LaSalle High team last year, catching 47 passes for 576 yards and five touchdowns.

Harris was called “one of the top athletes in the state” by Chester head coach Dennis Shaw, scoring 28 touchdowns for the Clippers in a variety of ways (5 rushing, 7 kick returns and 2 interception returns).

Abram was all-PCL and had five interceptions for Bonner after returning to his original school from Philly Public League power Imhotep.

None of this proves Temple football is back to the winning days of Arians, Golden and Matt Rhule but usually a good blueprint leads to a solid foundation.

History always repeats itself and, while we’re all getting older, all evidence points to Temple football getting better.

Monday: The Foreign Component

02.11.24
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Temple football: The rest of the recruiting story

Terrez Worthy is going from a field with (sometimes) no yard lines to the best stadium in the NFL.

Watching the Super Bowl on Sunday night was a study in contrasts, the old versus the new.

At least at the quarterback position.

Patrick Mahomes’ 25-22 overtime win for the Kansas City Chiefs over Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers represents a win for new school football, where the quarterback who is mobile and can complete any pass beats the immobile one who can do the same.

That’s already happened in college football. The championship quarterbacks in each conference can move and throw. The middling teams don’t have that guy.

Temple will be making that same transition in the 2024 season with Clifton McDowell, a mobile quarterback who can make any pass, replacing E.J. Warner, an immobile quarterback who can do the same.

Forget what Pravda is telling you about Evan Simon winning the Temple quarterback position. That ain’t happening. Just remember you read it here first. McDowell is a poor man’s Patrick Mahomes. Simon is a homeless man’s Brock Purdy.

What about the rest of the story, though?

Temple’s cloudy kicking situation just became sunny and bright with the addition of Maddox Trujillo.

Football is a 22-man game, not a one-or-two-man one.

The small picture is that Temple improved the passing game by moving the pocket and the running game by replacing Edward Saydee and Darvon Hubbard with a pair of JUCO All-Americans and a Big 10 running back.

The rest of the story is the bigger picture.

The only known photo of a current Temple recruit blocking an extra point.

Temple bulked up both lines and increased its depth while doing so.

For a deeper dive, this is a pretty good place to start but there are a couple of players who stick out.

A high school player from New Jersey, a defensive lineman named Giakoby Hills, is 6-5, 270 with four blocked kicks. The athletic ability to block that many kicks is impressive and Temple has not blocked an important kick since a 6-5 wide receiver named Deion Miller blocked a field goal that would have given UConn a win over Temple a dozen years ago. The best kicker in the country then, Brandon McManus, then made one to give the Owls a 17-14 win.

Speaking of kickers, the days of kicking the ball out of bounds–which have been four dark years–are seemingly over with the addition of Austin Peay kicker Maddox Trujillo, who made 38 of 53 field goals and 96.2 percent of his extra points. If he does those percentages at Temple, he will be second only to Don Bitterlich in both categories and better than the best kicker in the nation in 2012, McManus.

There are plenty more “worthy” of mention but we will end this with a guy named Worthy. Terrez Worthy was the most valuable player for Maryland in the 2022 Big 33 game against Pennsylvania, giving Temple its third MVP from a Big 33 game (Adrian Robinson and Jalen Fitzpatrick were the others). Both of those guys did great things at Temple and, if Worthy, who is 5-11, 190 with breakaway speed does the same, Temple will have its best running back since Ryquell Armstead.

All good things on paper.

Now let’s see them do it on the field.

Friday: New Coaches

12.17.23
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Wednesday’s Recruiting Show: Lipstick on a Pig

The hierarchy of talent in college football has been established over the past 50 or so years.

You don’t have to be Nick Saban to know where to get talent from in this age of the transfer portal.

One, P5. Two, G5, Three FCS, four Division I, five Division II and six Division III.

There is a seventh level of football talent below all of that and it’s called JUCO.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one is worth a million. Here, Layton Jordan sacks future Owl quarterback Evan Simon. Jordan, under D.J. Eliot’s scheme, thrived, setting a Temple record with three defensive touchdowns and terrorizing opposing quarterbacks. Under Everett Withers, Jordan more often than not dropped back five yards into pass coverage in no-man’s land where he couldn’t use his talent to sack QBs or cause turnovers. Simon since this lost his job to a quarterback that led RU to a 103d offensive ranking out of 133 teams.

Guess where the bulk of Stan Drayton’s third recruiting class is coming from this year?

Well, you won’t have to guess because we already know it’s JUCO but some Wednesday night must-see TV viewing comes on ESPN+ at 7 p.m. That’s where the Temple football recruiting plan will be unveiled for Owl fans to see on the Temple football signing show.

Whatever Drayton says, and it will be a lot, he will be holding a figurative drawing of a pig in one hand and a roll of lipstick in the other hand and trying to make the most of an ugly situation.

Bring a hanky because we might be witnessing the end of a once-great (at least in the Wayne Hardin years, some of the Bruce Arians’ years and most of the Al Golden and Matt Rhule years) program. Get ready to dab a view tears because, even from the few FBS-level recruits we do know of, there is no indication that the Owls got better in key positions.

Don’t give me Temple can’t get players because of the NIL because a lot of teams in the same NIL boat (South Alabama, New Mexico State, Troy, Ohio and Toledo) are getting enough players to thrive.

Temple should be able to do the same.

Let’s start with the MOST key position: Quarterback.

Unless Holy Cross quarterback Matt Sluka (who is still unsigned) walks through that E-O door in the next two days, it appears the Owls DOWNGRADED when their No. 1 offseason priority was to UPGRADE over E.J. Warner.

“Our E.J” (Drayton’s very words three weeks ago) appears to have made a lateral move within the conference when he was reported on Sunday to sign with fellow AAC member Rice. This comes a year after former Temple linebacker Kobe Wilson made a lateral move to another conference member. Huge statement by both Temple Owls on how they viewed Drayton’s possibility of future success here.

The bottom line in the Simon/Warner swap is that anyone with 20/20 vision the last time those two quarterbacks faced one another will tell you Warner, in his first collegiate start, was the better of the two quarterbacks that day in a 16-14 loss to Rutgers.

Warner only put up more impressive numbers as he got his feet wet. Simon flatlined and lost his starting job to a starting quarterback who could lead the Knights to a 103d offensive ranking of out 133 teams in 2023.

So, bottom line, was a coach with the pedigree of Greg Schiano thought the 103d-ranked quarterback was better than the guy Temple got.

That guy starts against Oklahoma on Aug. 31.

Unless Drayton can find Sluka’s phone number in the next day or two. (Hint: It’s in the Worcester, Mass. phone book.)

Friday: The Post-Game Show

01.19.16
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Kareem Gaulden Should Be Fan Favorite

If, on or around Feb. 3, the browser on your laptop or other device seems extra slow, resist the temptation to throw the gadget against the wall. Just remember it is National Signing Day for college football. In about two weeks, the internet will be shut down or close to it and the cure is readily available. Curing crazy is always a good thing and one way the NCAA can do that is to approve an early signing period.

That is the only way reasonable young men of their word will not have to go through what Temple football recruit Kareem Gaulden is going though now. Gaulden, a defensive back, was one of the early recruits Matt Rhule was able to snag for the Owls. If there had been an early signing day, like last summer when Gaulden gave his word, there would be no poaching of recruits of other programs.

Gaulden took to twitter and expressed his displeasure with the situation last week.

 

That tweet immediately made Gaulden a fan favorite at Temple, someone who to this class might be what All-American defensive back Kareem Ali Jr. was to the last class. Ali is the son of two former Temple athletes, one a football player and the other a track star, who grew up going to Owl games. After originally committed to a Power 5 school, Ali realized his dream was to play for the school that he cheered for all his life.

Gaulden, another defensive back, earned the same kind of love from Temple fans after that tweet. Fans love players who keep their word, and those are the great majority of athletes who commit early. An early signing period would eliminate the craziness of other schools coming in to try to flip recruits and those high school players deserve that option.

The others who take time to make their decisions can wait until Feb. 3 and that’s why an early signing period would be a victory for all recruits.

02.04.13
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National Signing Day is Wednesday

TFF congratulates Bernard Pierce and all of the future Super Bowl winners who sign with Temple on Wednesday.

National Signing Day is Wednesday and it has become a huge deal.
It always WAS a big deal, but never this huge.
Blame or credit it on the explosion of college football popularity or multiple ESPN networks desperate for programming options, but it’s just a fact.
That’s OK with me, though, because college football, for all its flaws, is my favorite sport.
The most exciting sports day for me is the first Thursday of the NCAA basketball tournament. Sixty-four teams with a chance, albeit not an equal one, of winning it all.
I wish college football was that inclusive, but it sure beats the NFL alternative.
While that NCAA hoops boasts the year’s most exciting sports day, the Wednesday of football signing certainly is right up there as the most intriguing sports day.
To me, the saddest day of the sports year is Senior Day when you say goodbye to players you have been following for four years.
Saying hello to 25 new Temple Owls on the first Wednesday of every February mitigates some of that sadness.

“I  look forward to seeing this new era
in  Temple football under Matt Rhule’s watch.
   Temple players will all enjoy playing for him as I have.”
__ Bernard Pierce
Super Bowl champion

It appears that new head coach Matt Rhule has held the class together fairly well, given he was a late December hire who also had to complete an NFL season. His additions to the 17 verbals Steve Addazio had addressed need areas, rather than grabbing “the best available athlete.” Addazio recruited like this was the NFL, picking up  the BAA rather than address need areas. That’s why Temple had a lot of 5-7 to 5-10 wide receivers and defensive backs, an overabundance of linebackers and a thin defensive line.
We’ll find out for sure on Wednesday, but it appears Rhule’s recent targets have addressed the size and depth concerns.
This new group of Temple Owls will know that they will be coached by a staff with proven credentials for putting guys in the league and, as shown yesterday, helping guys get Super Bowl rings.
The last six Temple rookies in Super Bowls have all come away with rings. Since 1975, 12 Temple players have made 19 Super Bowl appearances producing 15 rings, the latest going to Baltimore’s Bernard Pierce.
Rhule was Pierce’s offensive coordinator at Temple and Pierce credits Rhule with a lot of his development as a player and a person.
Players like Mo Wilkerson, the New York Jets’ most valuable defensive player at the end of last season, also speaks highly of Rhule, as does Steelers’ linebacker Adrian Robinson.
Defensive coordinator Phil Snow has not only put players in the NFL, but was a Detroit Lions’ defensive backs’ coach. So he knows what an NFL player looks like.
Even offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield has developed an NFL quarterback.
Players who sign on the dotted line with Temple on Wednesday can rest assured that whatever talent they have will be maximized by the guys to whom they have trusted their college careers.
So NSD is a huge deal, but it’ll be also a good one for Temple coaches, fans and, most importantly, players.