Getting a little ahead of ourselves here because the focus should always be on the next game but new Temple head coach K.C. Keeler is building a team of guys with chips on their shoulders.

Good, talented, guys, who have played a lower level of football but finally have a chance to get on a larger stage at Temple.

Question: Can you beat a team like Penn State with a group of guys who have a chip on their shoulders?

As one of The Three Stooges would say, “Certainly.” It definitely happened in 2015.

The next game with that same team is 2026. This is 2025.

We know. We know.

The focus should be on UMass but Keeler is faced with the task of playing a big-time P4 team in one year and he is putting together a group of talented guys.

Since the Cherry and White game, Keeler has signed a dozen transfer portal guys who can make a difference both now and a year from now.

The latest included a pair of wide receivers, including Jo Jo Bermudez and Colin Chase.

Bermudez is the third big-time player who eschewed Delaware for Temple, including the Blue Hens’ top running back recruit and best linebacker and, now, best wide receiver. Temple football doesn’t lose players to a program like Delaware but compare and contrast that to Temple losing a Penn State transfer guard in basketball to Delaware.

Bermudez’s high school coach once called him “the best football player in the state of New Jersey.” That was at a time when the Philadelphia Eagles’ first-round draft choice, Jihaad Campbell, was playing for a high school less than 20 miles away.

Ugh.

If that isn’t the best illustration for the job K.C. Keeler is doing at Temple visa ve Adam Fisher, I don’t know what is.

Above is a screenshot of an article I wrote for Calkins Newspapers in 1986. At the time, those three newspapers (Bucks County Courier Times, Burlington County Times and Doylestown Intelligencer) had a combined daily circulation of 170,000 subscribers (better than the 2025 Philadelphia Inquirer).

Those were the halcyon days of daily newspapers.

Now people get their news other ways.

The big news at Temple these days is football is hot and basketball not so much.

We’d like to see both thrive but this says more for a good A.J. Johnson hire vs. a bad one.

Beating Penn State is a pipe dream in today’s current monetary environment, but a group of motivated guys with chips on their shoulders can move mountains.

We saw a mountain move once a decade ago. Keeler might be hooking another mountain up to a tow truck.

It should be fun to watch in two years and maybe more fun this one.

When I was the sports editor of The Temple News and Wayne Hardin was well into his 13-year tenure as head coach, I asked him if he thought football should be fun.

“Good question, Mike,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I’ve always thought about that. The only fun in football is winning.”

The genesis of the question came from talking to so many guys who played under him who said his hard practices made the actual games fun because they were so prepared.

Thought about that the other day when, after the first “official” practice of the K.C. Keeler Era, the new Temple head coach said one of his early challenges was to get the guys to laugh.

Pretty much said the team is too serious and noted the reasons for that was they were beat down by so many consecutive 3-9 seasons (three under Stan Drayton, one under Rod Carey).

Keeler didn’t have to say it but he is from the Wayne Hardin School of Football and probably believes the same things Wayne did. (After all, the only reason he ended up at Delaware instead of Temple when he played was because Hardin ran out of scholarships.)

The way to get these guys to loosen up and laugh is to win a few games and, if they have to be serious about it now, that can only bode well for the future.

Two College Football Hall of Fame coaches and the same philosophy about having fun.

Hard practices are followed by games in which the team knows exactly what they are supposed to do in critical situations.

Having fun is part of the deal.

Football, after all is a game, and in a game you are supposed to have fun.

When somebody keeps beating the crap out of you, it’s hard to enjoy anything.

Now the Owls are getting the hard work in this spring to determine a couple of things: One, who on the current roster is good enough to win now and, two, what are the holes the coaching staff needs to fill to help those guys achieve that.

Those coaches who were here last year wanted to fill holes but had no idea how. These ones do.

After years of gloom and doom post-game, it will be good to see the smiles on the faces of both Temple players and fans again.

If not this spring, then certainly this fall.

Monday: A Needed Change