Category Archives: Temple football

03.10.25
by

Spring Football Returns to Temple tomorrow

While spring practice officially starts tomorrow, the Owls have been hard at work all winter at the indoor facility. Temperatures approaching 70 degrees on Tuesday no doubt will push practice outside.

Some things change and some remain the same, even in the transfer portal/NIL environment.

Those who attended the men’s basketball home finale against North Texas on Sunday (a 66-61 win) saw a senior day that honored more players who didn’t spend four years at Temple than did. That’s sad because watching the journey of these players from freshmen to seniors was always a fun part for fans.

On the football side, things are just beginning as K.C. Keeler’s first spring practice begins tomorrow (March 11).

There are five big days in college football and the opening of spring practice is one of them. Opening of summer camp is another, as is the first signing day and the regular opening day.

The fifth one for a school like Temple has to be bowl selection Sunday because the top 80 teams in a 130-team FBS make it. A couple of bad coaching hires and Temple has been outside that loop for the past six years and that’s a disgrace.

The Owls decided to find someone who knew what he was doing rather than a guy (Stan Drayton) who they HOPED knew what he was doing.

More Temple fans follow football than the next two most popular sports combined, as this poll on OwlsDaily.com proved.

Already, Keeler has made an important spring practice decision in that the Owls are going to have their Cherry and White game. That’s important because with this new hire is a new enthusiasm for the sport at Temple and getting people out in April to see the new staff at work can only help drive up season tickets.

Hopefully, Keeler has checked out the game film for important players like running back Torrez Worthy (who came into his own in the second half of last season) and quarterback Evan Simon, who proved to be Temple TUFF despite a playing behind a line who didn’t give him much protection.

As important as the work is on the field in the next month, it’ll probably be even more important to scour the portal to get some pass rushers and pass protectors on both sides of the line.

That’s because we don’t get to see players developing from freshman to seniors anymore. While that’s sad, if you get a ready-to-play guy into the program by summer, there’s an opportunity now for an upgraded roster that did not exist back then.

03.07.25
by

Delaware: Schedule them and beat them

Temple not only got Delaware’s best current player but stole its best recruit as well.

When a first-year Temple head coach named Wayne Hardin was asked about scheduling Villanova, he came up with his succinct response:

“I’m all for scheduling them and beating them.”

Another first-year Temple coach, K.C. Keeler, would be wise to adopt the same policy in the near future about not only the Wildcats, but his alma mater.

Temple puts fannies in the seats in Delaware and the Blue Hens would do the same in Philly.

Hardin pretty much did both in his 13-year Temple career. He also believed in scheduling smaller school power Delaware and doing the same.

Temple hasn’t scheduled Delaware since Bruce Arians ended that series by saying: “I’m all for scheduling smaller schools but not when you are the biggest game of their season.”

Now, with a former Delaware head coach and the Blue Hens moving up to FBS, it’s time to renew this longstanding rivalry.

There are a couple of reasons for that.

Wayne Hardin’s record against Delaware and legendary coach Tubby Raymond was 8-4, proving that when both teams have a legendary head coach, Temple is the better football school.

One, the storyline.

Former Delaware player and legendary head coach K.C. Keeler is now the head coach of Temple. Keeler stole not only the best Delaware player in the transfer portal but the Blue Hens’ best recruit this year so there’s that.

Two, fannies in the seats.

What visiting team STILL holds the Delaware single-game attendance record?

Temple.

Delaware hailed the acquisition of RB Keveun Mason. He is now at Temple.

That was set when a Joe Klecko-led Owls’ team spanked the Blue Hens, 31-8, before a record crowd.

Temple needs fannies in the seats and visiting Delaware would bring a significant amount (maybe 30-40 percent) of a crowd that could exceed 30,000 at Lincoln Financial Field.

Delaware has asked to play Temple before but the Owls (rightly) demanded a 2-for-1 deal. Delaware wanted a 1-for-1. Temple said thanks but no thanks.

Now that Delaware has joined FBS, maybe the Owls can relent and settle for a home-and-home.

That’s a deal that makes sense for both ballclubs.

Kind of like the Eagles sending Nolan Smith to Cleveland for Myles Garrett. Cleveland gets younger at the same position without losing a whole lot of talent and Philly gets a possible two- and three-peat.

Monday: Football Season is Here (Kinda/Sorta)

03.02.25
by

Temple schedule: Some catching up to do

Temple’s schedule is rated one of the hardest in the AAC.

Anyone who tells you what Temple’s record is at the end of the calendar year is a fool.

A year ago at this time, knowing who Stan Drayton brought in and who he needed to bring in, we took a stab at the 2024 record and came up with 2-10.

We were wrong.

K.C. Keeler needs to take a page out of Howie Roseman’s book and load up on both lines.

The Owls went 3-9 for the third-straight year under Drayton.

No stabs this time because, with the release of the 2025 schedule, it looks pretty daunting for anyone, not to mention a first-year staff.

One thing we do know: Both the gameday coaching and the talent acquisition piece seems to be upgraded even though the schedule is tougher.

So any guess at a final record is a crapshoot.

If Drayton had been retained, we could only see four potential wins on the schedule (UMass, Howard, Tulsa and Charlotte).

Maybe that’s what new head coach K.C. Keeler gets as well. A lot of it will be determined how he uses the available transfer portal scholarships (right now, it stands as nine). If he the Drayton route and gets JUCOs, then he might finish with four wins. If he gets some solid FBS and FCS starters, then he could grab another game or two and reach his stated goal of getting to a bowl game in his first seasons.

Going the “Howie Roseman” route and loading up on both lines probably is the way to go because the Owls seem to have an abundance of skill players and a lack of depth on both the OL and DL. Drayton’s 2023 season fell apart when he didn’t address that depth in the portal and, due to injuries, had to play linebackers at defensive end and safeties at linebacker.

So Keeler has some catching up to do between now and Aug. 30 to achieve his minimum goal. Drayton did this time a year ago. The difference between the two is that one headed to Houston for a two-week vacation while the other probably will focus on upgrading the roster.

Friday: An Old Rival

02.27.25
by

Football: The Game where coaching matters most

Some great stuff about hockey here but advance to the 41-minute mark for the Keeler comments.

There has been a procession of coaches at Temple throughout the past few years and most gave passing props to the school’s football history or former stars.

Geoff Collins was the most clueless.

Temple’s only Heisman Trophy runner-up, Paul Palmer, applauds the hire of K.C. Keeler. (He hasn’t aged a bit since 1986.)

At a Temple alumni function that coincided with one of his first spring practices, Collins walked up to a bunch of Temple football alumni who were wearing varsity jackets. Collins assumed they were high school coaches who he also invited to the same practice.

“Hey, I’m Geoff Collins, where do you coach?” he said to one.

That one was Temple football Hall of Famer and arguably GOAT Paul Palmer (really, the only other GOAT is Joe Klecko but since this is just for Temple stuff and not for pro football stuff, Palmer’s got to be the guy).

Swing and miss by Collins right in his first at-bat.

Palmer was way too humble to say “I’m Paul Palmer, the greatest Temple player of all time” so instead he said he coached at Haddon Heights (N.J.), which was also true.

Collins had no idea who he was talking to that day.

Al Golden and Matt Rhule both understood and respected Temple history. Golden said when he played at Penn State no team hit him as hard as Temple so he went back to TEMPLE on the helmets to honor that time. Rhule adopted many of the Temple traditions passed on to him by his former boss.

Temple has played football since 1894 and never hired a national championship coach who got that title in Division I or above. That all changed in December and the impact should be felt on the field.

Steve Addazio was the guy who got rid of the greatest helmet in Temple history and put the block T back on it so he also swung and missed on traditions.

When it comes to Temple football, Collins wasn’t the only tone deaf guy but he certainly holds a spot in the Tone Deaf Hall of Fame.

The same certainly cannot be said about new head Temple football coach K.C. Keeler. He not only recognized Temple right away, but said the only reason he didn’t end up at Temple was because Wayne Hardin ran out of scholarships and so he ended up at Delaware.

Good stuff and, yes, he knows who Paul Palmer is.

Came across this great podcast by former Temple tight end Bryant Garvin and Temple fan Monty Moss (give it a like and a sub) talking about Temple’s new coaching hire and Palmer endorses Keeler for all of the right reasons.

Palmer talks about not only what Keeler did at Rowan, Delaware and Sam Houston but his commitment to all three institutions. He makes the very valid point that Keeler is in his mid-60s and that’s not an age where you think about moving on but one where leaving a legacy is more important.

Why not make that legacy at the school where you wanted to be as a 17-year-old kid?

Keeler brings with him all the “how to” stuff he brought to those other schools but the “want to” stuff has always been there with Temple.

The Temple GOAT understands that. The rest of Temple Nation is about to find out.

Monday: An under-the-radar recruit

02.24.25
by

Football in February: Reasons for optimism

While one major sports team at Temple University appears to be imploding, there will be a “Football in February” event held by the only other major sports team at Temple.

K.C. Keeler will be appearing at Maxi’s today to answer all your questions and outline his plan to bring immediate respectability to Temple on a national level that we really haven’t seen around here since the first four games of the AAC basketball tournament in 2024.

Temple hoops had a great opportunity to build off that national momentum but blew it as new acquisitions never panned out.

Since I have a “real job” that I have to be at the time, I won’t be able to attend but if I could ask him a couple of questions these would be it:

“One, since you talked to OwlsDaily.com editor Shawn Pastor about 10 days ago and said you haven’t watched any film on the current Owls, did you get a chance to do so subsequently?

“Two, what were you pleasantly surprised by and what areas of concern do you have going into spring practice in a couple of weeks?

That’s pretty much it.

If not, why not and do you plan to check out the game film of the guys who showed enough loyalty to the school and the program to stay?

The community outreach could not have come at a better time and we’re not talking about 5 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. We’re talking about the overall malaise this winter with Temple sports.

The Temple basketball Owls started their conference season with a 4-1 record followed by a 6-3 record and are now sitting at 6-9 in the AAC. They were the only team to beat Memphis in the conference at one time.

Now a complete implosion has occurred.

One site that covers Temple basketball after an 80-64 loss at UAB used the term “moral victory” even while suggesting that it wasn’t. Hell, that was no moral victory. It was an immoral loss. I clapped back on that suggesting that a Pearson Hall rec team of non-scholarship athletes could have lost to UAB 80-16 or so and there’s not a whole much of a difference in national perspective between 80-64 and 80-16.

Not good and maybe there are some lessons to be learned on the football side.

A second-year hoop coach relied on high-profile transfers from Penn State and St. Joseph’s who never panned out and maybe better vetting should have been involved. Maybe some semblance of hustle on defense could have helped.

It doesn’t even look like the basketball team is trying on defense (not to mention rebounding) and that’s never a good look.

Now Keeler appears to be focused not only on talent but on vetting and coaching and playing defense with a modicum of heart, which will always keep you in the game in any sport.

Keeler will explain all that and more this afternoon and maybe for the first time in a long time, Temple fans will leave a venue with smiles on their faces.

02.16.25
by

Stan Drayton proves the Peter Principle

K.C. Keeler representing Temple at the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl parade.

Hate to say I told you so but I told you so about Stan Drayton.

His hiring as Penn State running backs coach proves what we said in this space in December of 2021. He was a career running backs coach and that’s where his level of competence rested.

Helluva nice guy, heart in the right place and his wife did the best Electric Slide we’ve ever seen at a Cherry and White tailgate but not cut out to be a head coach in either the pre- or current NIL and transfer portal environment.

Temple paid a hefty price by hiring him and I’m not talking about $2.5 million a year. I’m talking about all the pain on the faces of those great Owl fans after suffering three-straight needless 3-9 seasons on the backs of a prior 3-9 season and the 1-6 season before that.

Much more worried about the impact on the Temple fan base than the $8 million Temple gave Drayton for doing basically what a guy like Ed Foley could have done.

That’s OK because it proves The Peter Principle and if Temple learns anything from that, it will be a valuable lesson.

Our post on Dec. 3, 2021 which was 18 days before Stan Drayton was hired. If the Temple brass followed our advice, Temple could have saved the pain of $8 million and 27 subsequent losses.

That Principle says “you rise to your level of incompetence” and that’s exactly what happened with Drayton. He rose to the level of head coach. That’s incompetence. He’s competent as a running backs coach and Penn State should benefit from that.

Already Temple has benefitted from this loveless divorce.

New head coach K.C. Keeler hasn’t immersed himself into the Temple community, it feels like he’s been here forever.

Keeler repped Temple with an Owls’ ski cap at Friday’s Super Bowl parade. Temple as an institution stepped up with a huge banner congratulating the Eagles in the middle of the parade.

Say what you will about Philadelphia Eagles’ fans but Temple needs to woo the “Joe Philly Football Fan” who has been priced out of Eagles’ games. The “average” price a single ticket at the NFC championship game was $1,300. The average price of a ticket at a Temple football game is $10.

Temple showed up in force to congratulate the Eagles.

Nobody is going to pay 10 cents to watch 3-9 but it is realistic to expect a significant number of Philadelphia football fans priced out of the Eagles will watch a 9-3 Temple team every season and have a fun experience, including the tailgating.

National championship is not the goal nor should it be. A bowl right away should be followed by a bunch of 9-3 seasons.

Stan Drayton had an abundance of “want to” but Temple needs the “how to” factor that Keeler brings to the table. If Keeler ever leaves Temple (and we don’t want that to happen), it will not be for a RB coaching job at a Big 10 or an SEC school. He’s already risen to his level of competence and it’s about three levels above running backs coach.

The Peter Principle strikes again.

Friday: Checking The Film

02.10.25
by

Temple now has three Howie Roseman’s

Khalil Ahmad will reportedly go from being recruiting coordinator at Penn State to a high-profile football job at Temple.

What’s better than one Howie Roseman?

Three of them.

While Jalen Hurts received the MVP of the Super Bowl on Sunday night after a 40-22 demolishing of the Kansas City Chiefs, most inside football guys will tell you that the real MVP this year was Roseman, the general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Put it this way: After last year’s total collapse, it was Roseman’s job to retool both the roster and the coaching staff and hit went 4-for-4 with both.

He got a couple of No. 1-type picks in Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean and both provided good coverage and sure tackling on the back end of the defense the team didn’t have a year ago. Plus, he signed what turned out to be the best linebacker in football in Zach Baun and re-signed C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

Kyle Pollock.

Then he fixed the coaching piece by hiring a pair of proven coordinators in Kellen Moore and Vic Fangio.

Mix the coaching with the new players and a team that couldn’t tackle anyone at the end of last year could not be blocked.

Temple football fixed that coaching piece a few months ago when it fired Stan Drayton and replaced him with a Hall of Fame head coach in K.C. Keeler.

Now with Keeler’s hiring of Khalil Ahmad to a “high-ranking” front office role at Temple, the Owls do not have one Howie Roseman but three.

The other two are Clayton Barnes and Old Dominion’s Kyle Pollock.

All will have a “Howie Roseman” type role with the Owls, scouring the transfer portal for overlooked talent like Baun was in the NFL.

Ahman is Penn State’s recruiting director so he knows what he’s doing. Barnes was the portal guy at Sam Houston State and helped build a roster than gave Keeler a 9-3 record this year and Pollock’s job description is “associate general manager for personnel and roster improvement.”

Sounds to me like the days of reaching for JUCO talent are over and Temple is going to make some real inroads into acquiring talent that could win right away.

One Howie Roseman turned out well for the Eagles.

Maybe three of them will do the same for the other Lincoln Financial Field football tenant.

Friday: A tale of three Temple programs

02.07.25
by

Feb. 4 signees: Reasons for optimism

Gut feeling that De’Carlos Young becomes Temple’s featured back in 2025 and that Jett White and Jayvant Brown make immediate all-AAC impacts.

You won’t find Temple football in the top 10 of recruiting classes.

You don’t have to.

All you need to do is compare Temple not necessarily against the best AAC recruiting classes (Memphis and Tulane’s were better) but against the G5 as a whole.

Nobody said Sam Houston’s recruiting class was No. 1 in the Group of Five a year ago. In fact, it was much closer to No. 64 than No. 1.

What Sam Houston had then and what Temple has now is a College Hall of Fame football coach in K.C. Keeler. It also had no NIL money. It also finished 9-3 in the regular season.

That means a lot.

A year ago Temple had neither a highly rated recruiting class nor a Hall of Fame college football coach.

One out of two ain’t bad.

The reality of college football today is that the schools with the alumni with the rolls of money will always have the top-ranked classes.

Temple will never have that.

The sooner we accept that reality the better.

So what’s the path forward?

With apologies to P4 big-time recruits Jett White and Jayvant Brown, DeCarlos Young is Temple Football Forever’s choice as the No. 1 recruit in this 2025 class.

Keeler and a very smart staff identifying diamonds in the rough is acceptable alternative.

Make a bowl game right away and challenge for the AAC title in a couple of years.

That appears to have happened on Wednesday with this recruiting class.

Put it this way: Does even a Temple team coming off consecutive 10-win seasons ever dream of recruiting a player like Jett White or Jaybrant Brown?

The answer clearly is no.

The transfer portal taketh away but it also giveth.

White and Brown were big-time P4 recruits and would not have given Temple a second look first time around.

Now, they can help Temple inch closer to the top of the AAC.

How close?

Maybe not to the Memphis or Tulane level but certainly to that level just after those two teams

Keeler as my coach over Stan Drayton as my coach makes me think 6-6 is much more attainable than the 3-9 we’ve been used to as fans.

Now this guy still has six scholarships in his pocket with about 2,000 players to chose from and they better be defensive linemen who can put the quarterback on his ass and offensive linemen who can protect a franchise quarterback like Evan Simon.

If he doesn’t deliver them by the summer, you will read your first criticism of Keeler here. Until then, trust a process demonstratively better than the last process.

02.03.25
by

Some great players remain in the portal

Hard to believe the number of very good players left in the college football’s transfer portal and, the longer they stay there, the better the chances for a G5 school like Temple to come away with some.

There’s no secret who new Temple portal expert Kyle Pollock should be targeting because the Owls lost two of their better defensive lineman to both portal and graduation and their offensive line struggled in pass protection last season.

Both need to be resupplied.

The top offensive lineman remaining in the portal is Fa’Alili Fa’amore who is a 6-5, 314-pound junior from Wake Forest. He originally signed with Washington State but moved on to Washington.

C.J. James from UTSA was granted an additional year of eligibility due to the Diego Pavia lawsuit. He’s 6-3, 310 pounds and is familiar with Temple. The Owls lost their starting quarterback to a rival conference school from Texas two years ago so turnabout is fair play. K.C. Keeler has plenty of recruiting connections in Texas so maybe he could pull this off.

Hard to believe the number of very good players left in the college football's transfer portal and, the longer they stay there, the better the chances for a G5 school like Temple to come away with some.
Analysts like Bruce Feldman insist the biggest problem with the transfer portal is the belief among players that they will land somewhere. Nearly 50 percent who enter one year find themselves without a home the next.

Kai Greer (6-6, 285) redshirted this year at Georgia Tech and has offers from places like Liberty and Utah State so Temple should probably throw its hat into the ring for him. Temple beat Utah State, 45-29, last year and Keeler beat Liberty, 20-12, as head coach at Sam Houston State.

Those are just a few of the “types” of lineman Temple can and should go after.

The Owls don’t have the same NIL resources many other schools have but they can offer an opportunity for good players who want to bet on themselves to succeed.

Maybe it’s enough. Maybe it’s not, but we will never know unless we try.

Friday: Signing Day Recap

01.30.25
by

Next dozen signees could be key to a bowl game

Quarterback Evan Simon is our Jan. 30 choice as the MVP of the 2025 Temple Owls. Here he is working out earlier this week.

Leave it to a future college football Hall of Fame coach to set the bar high for the 2025 Temple Owls.

“While we’re thinking long-term success in the form of championships, the immediate goal is to be in a bowl game now and we think we can do it,” new Temple coach K.C. Keeler said back in early December.

While the Owls have a lot of holdovers capable of leading the charge to fulfill that immediate destiny (we’re thinking quarterback Evan Simon and running back Torrez Worthy here), what they do in the next dozen signings probably will determine that fate.

Hundreds of really good players remain in the portal and there aren’t enough musical chairs for all of them to receive a scholarship, let alone NIL money, and that’s where Temple has to offer a place to sit.

Look at Matt Sluka, the quarterback who left Holy Cross because he said he was promised $300,000 to play at UNLV but instead got nothing once he landed in Las Vegas. Got to give the kid credit for sticking up for principles and leaving in the middle of the season.

The sensible ones at this stage know the smart move is to find a landing spot where tuition, board, housing and what’s called “Cost of Attendance”–usually a stipend of at least $5,000 a year–is provided to the student athletes.

You know, just like the old days.

The not-so-dirty dozen comes in because the Owls now have at least 12 of those scholarships to dangle and playing for Hall of Fame head coach certainly has its appeal.

Think about it.

In the entire history of FCS football, the No. 1 winner is K.C. Keeler with 171 victories. There is no way with that resume he doesn’t join Pop Warner, Wayne Hardin and Paul Palmer has guys with Temple connections in the College Football Hall of Fame.

On top of that, Keeler is a proven FBS winner at Sam Houston State and he looks to pad that resume at Temple.

We don’t have to tell a guy like that what he needs to do. While the Owls lost their two best linebackers, Keeler already has brought in a linebacker who was captain of the Delaware team and another linebacker who had offers from LSU and Alabama and signed with Michigan State before going to Kentucky last year.

In the pre-portal era, Temple could never dream to sign the latter type of player out of high school.

Now there’s a chance for a significant roster upgrade for this coming season.

Bring some P4 backups and FCS stars in here to rebuild the offensive and defensive lines and away we go.

A dozen should do it.

The rest of the roster is fairly well set and, unlike the last six or so years, the coaching is rock solid.