Tag Archives: basketball

05.15.25
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Temple football: We’re No. 4

Nobody is predicting that in a league with 14 teams Temple finishes No. 4.

Yet in that same league, Temple has a coach ranked No. 4.

A couple of days ago, the popular college football site Yardbarker ranked the top four coaches in the American Athletic Conference and new Temple coach K.C. Keeler was in the group.

Not surprising considering Keeler is the all-time winningest FCS coach and a lock to be the third Temple Owl ever inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame when he hangs up the clipboard.

What does this mean for the 2025 Temple football Owls?

Both a lot and a little.

Everyone knows in these terrible days of college football when money talks and bullshit walks, money means a lot.

Yet it doesn’t mean everything.

As a lifelong football fan, particularly of high schools and colleges, I’ve seen a lot of remarkable stories and wrote many of them.

As a sportswriter for The Doylestown Intelligencer in the 1980s, I covered perhaps the greatest high school football program of all time in Central Bucks West. The coach there, Mike Pettine Sr., a Villanova grad out of the same Conshohocken high school as legendary Temple baseball coach Skip Wilson, took a team of mostly 5-10, 170-pound white kids to multiple state championships. First, “mythical” ones when the PIAA did not conduct postseason playoffs and then reaffirming those in real state championship games in large school football playoffs. Pettine’s lifetime record: 364 wins, 42 losses and three ties, including 10 unbeaten seasons.

Amazing.

Mostly done with only about 700 boys in a school district split in half when Central Bucks East came onboard. I arranged a series between CB West and a big-time Catholic League power, Archbishop Ryan, and West won those games, 22-14 and 14-7. At the time, Ryan had 2,500 boys and West had 700.

“Hey, Mike, can you imagine how good we’d be with 2,500 boys?” assistant head coach Mike Carey said to Pettine as they walked off the field after the second win.

A few years earlier than that, watched as Wayne Hardin took the Temple Owls from a small school schedule to three consecutive close losses against a national championship contender in Penn State. Hardin was the real deal, having proven himself as the head coach at Navy, leaving the Middies to the No. 2 ranking in the country in the 1960s with a program that required a five-year service commitment after graduation.

I know what good coaches can do against insurmountable odds.

These guys aren’t Temple fans but they see what the college football world sees.

Maybe the NIL and transfer portal odds facing Keeler today are tougher than those facing Pettine and Hardin but I doubt it.

Hat tip to Finland for its support of TFF.

Unlike Stan Drayton and Rod Carey, Keeler has dipped into the portal and filled a lot of needs of this program by bringing in good players.

No doubt in my mind–like Pettine and Hardin–he can coach them up.

Others are noticing what a good hire this is for Temple.

Keeler doesn’t have to finish in the top four in the league but a top six finish isn’t out of the question.

That’s why this season is the most exciting one in at least half a decade. There is no sport where a great head coach makes an impact more than football on any level and we are witnessing it now.

Somewhere up there, Pettine and Hardin are looking down and nodding.

02.24.25
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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.

02.07.25
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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.

01.20.25
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Keeler finally showing his recruiting hand

Jay Ducker appears to be the biggest addition so far for K.C. Keeler.
Ty Davis takes an INT to the house for Delaware.

A lot can change in 12 months.

This time in 2024, Temple football Chief of Staff Marcus Berry was talking about having a “good plan” to upgrade the roster.

We learned then that the plan was rooted in 1980s recruiting philosophy where immediate needs were filled by JUCO transfers. Not surprising because head coach Stan Drayton and DC Everett Withers were assistant and head coaches, respectively, back in the 80s and never changed with the times.

New Temple head coach K.C. Keeler was also coaching Rowan in the 1980s but the difference seems to be that Keeler has adjusted to the current reality of the transfer portal and finding talent at higher levels than JUCO.

New Temple LB Jayvant Brown talks about his offers coming out of high school.

As we’ve been preaching in this space for the last two years, the fastest way for Temple upgrade the roster is at levels higher than JUCO, with a special emphasis on disaffected but good P4 backups and FCS stars.

That appears to be the case with the latest additions.

The biggest addition is Jay Ducker, a proven 1,000-yard FBS back at Northern Illinois as a freshman who Keeler is familiar with because he was at Sam Houston State this year. Ducker, who is 5-10, 205, had 1,184 yards in just his freshman year for NIU.

Temple looks like it landed a pair of cornerback starters in Youngstown State’s Jaylen Castleberry and two-year Hampton starter Omar Ibrahim. Castleberry (6-0, 190) was an All-Missouri Conference performer where he had 50 tackles, including five tackles for losses.

On defense, the new 3-4 will be bolstered by a pair of speedy linebackers, Delaware transfer Ty Davis (6-3, 218) and Kentucky transfer Jayvant Brown (6-0, 225). Originally a Michigan State commit, Brown had offers from LSU and Alabama coming out of high school in Florida.

While Keeler also added a backup RB to an All-American at Stony Brook, and a starting quarterback at Robert Morris, those appear to be walk-ons for depth purposes.

The other guys are potential starters and there is not a JUCO in sight.

That’s a new plan better than the old one.

12.01.24
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Keeler: A pick Temple fans can get behind

Wherever he’s been, K.C. Keeler has developed great relationships with his players and Temple should be no different. I defy anyone to find a similar photo of Rod Carey or Stan Drayton celebrating like this on the field with their players.

After a couple of head-scratching decisions on its last two football CEOs, Temple University finally went in a more logical direction by picking K.C. Keeler to lead the Owls’ football fortunes today.

More like a head-nodding decision than a head-scratching one.

It’s about time and maybe just in time.

That’s because the last two guys were hired by ADs tied to their picks: Pat Kraft played football at around the same time at Indiana that Rod Carey did–they missed each other by one year but both played the same position at Indiana (center).

Arthur Johnson’s first high-profile pick at Temple was to hire a guy he saw walking around the University of Texas football building every day: Running backs’ coach Stan Drayton.

One was a head coach. The other was an assistant.

Hard to believe that you claim to conduct a national search for a head coach and end up with a guy who worked in the same building you did and that’s exactly what happened with the Johnson/Drayton relationship.

Carey had success in the Midwest with little knowledge of Temple and Philadelphia. Drayton hadn’t coached in Philadelphia since the 1980s but for Penn and Villanova. Neither is Temple or even close. Drayton had to learn to be a head coach while on Temple’s dime and Temple’s time and that rarely works out.

This time, Johnson hired a guy he didn’t know personally but a winner at every place he’s been. That’s important because, before Keeler, no one ever proved they could win at Rowan. At Sam Houston and Delaware, he benefitted from following legends in Willie Fritz and Tubby Raymond. Keeler can take all of those lessons learned to a place where multiple men have proven they can win: Wayne Hardin, Bruce Arians, Al Golden, Matt Rhule and, to a lesser extent, Steve Addazio and Geoff Collins.

The blueprint for winning at Temple is simple: Establish relationships within a great recruiting base (46 percent of the nation’s population is within a five-hour drive of Philadelphia) and recruit the hell out of that base. Establish the run and have explosive plays in the downfield passing game off play/action fakes.

The last three years we’ve pulled our hair out watching Temple teams try to establish the short passing game first. That’s not Temple TUFF. It never was. It never will be. As a result, Temple couldn’t generate anything on the ground or keep its defense off the field.

Temple needs some big offensive linemen who were recruited and developed by P4 schools but find themselves as backups through no fault of their own. It also needs to scour the ranks of FCS schools and get players who should have been recruited at a higher level.

In the transfer portal and NIL era, that means getting disaffected guys who went off for riches at P4 schools only to find themselves riding the pine elsewhere. All of those kids have a chip on their shoulders and Temple football in the past has thrived when giving kids a chance to play against good competition.

Let’s face it: Temple isn’t going win an NIL bidding war for players, but it does offer an opportunity to play right away and, in Keeler, is picking a guy who thrived despite having the lowest NIL in the nation at Sam Houston State.

At Temple, a lot of the rich grads who could have supported football either tragically died in a plane crash (Lew Katz) or got involved in legal troubles (Bill Cosby) or had a dispute with his fellow pop legend (John Oates). Oates likes Temple football, Darryl Hall doesn’t.

Not a whole lot of deep pockets in an alumni base that had to scrouge to find SEPTA tokens to get to school every day.

Keeler is free to concentrate on a quick rebuild at Temple right now.

After beating Liberty last week, Keeler needed only Western Kentucky to lose to earn a spot in the CUSA title game. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for Temple, Western Kentucky won and Keeler can hop on the recruiting trail for Temple.

Already, a number of top Drayton recruits have reaffirmed their commitments to the new staff to play for Temple. There seems to be a renewed enthusiasm in the Edberg-Olson Center. Now all that remains is for Keeler to convince top returning players like Evan Simon and Torrez Worthy to remain on board. Once Keeler grabs Simon at the press conference and tell him he’s going to give him an offensive line that would keep him upright, Simon might stay.

Keeler knows how to navigate the portal without an infusion of NIL money, and while some Saudi billionaire hopping on board would be nice, Temple had to find a guy like that to bridge the gap. Keeler has won with guys who haven’t made money and there’s no reason to expect he can’t do the same in the future.

Keeler would do well to keep certain members of this staff, including OL coach Chris Wiesehan, running backs coach Tyree Foreman and linebackers coach Chris Woods. Wiesehan and Foreman were here with other staffs while Temple was winning and can offer helpful hints to Keeler how things were done then vs. how things have been done over the last three seasons.

Plus, Keeler is very familiar with the Temple brand. He was a linebacker on the 1979 Delaware team that lost to Temple, 31-14. That was the Blue Hens only loss on the way to the Division II (now FCS) championship. Those Owls he lost to were just 16 points from a 12-0 season and a possible mythical national championship of their own.

Keeler can share old war stories with his fellow linebackers of that era on the other side of the ball, Steve Conjar and Mike Curcio and possibly get them on board to drum up alumni NIL support.

After beating Liberty, Keeler went on national TV for an interview and his Philadelphia accent sounded more genuine than the really good one Tina Fey used to mimic on SNL.

This guy knows Philly. He knows Temple. More importantly, he knows how to win.

Temple hasn’t had a guy like that in a long time.

Welcome home.

Wednesday: The Press Conference

10.05.24
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These kids deserve better coaches

This was one of those games where, after watching, had to get into the car and go for a drive to let off some steam.

By some miracle, nobody was killed or even injured by my driving but plenty of thoughts of the train wreck I had just witnessed caused the windows to steam up.

Temple losing to UConn, 29-20, (really, 23-20) on the last play of the game was bad enough but the way was much worse.

Temple was the better team for 59 minutes and 57 seconds and that was because of the kids.

It finished as the second-best team because of the coaches.

The coaches started their bumbling and stumbling early when they didn’t notice a punt went off a UConn helmet in the first quarter and Temple recovered. Any other professional coaching staff has someone watching for that, getting on the headset and telling head coach Stan Drayton to throw the challenge flag.

The nation noticed and so did the CBS Sports TV announcers.

Temple did none of that and gave up early points that would have made the ending moot.

Now what should have been moot but wasn’t. Second-and-goal inside the 1 with two more chances to punch across the win in the last minute and UConn having no time outs.

Should have been easy peasy for any coaching staff in America but the one employed by Temple.

First of all, running back Torrez Worthy was the guy who put you in a spot to win the game getting a second and less than a yard at the goal line. You ride or die with him. You don’t dick around giving the ball to anyone else. At worst, you fake it to him and then do a simple pitch and catch for the winning touchdown to a wide-open receiver in the end zone.

UConn was selling out for the run. It would have been an easy score.

Second, every single time backup quarterback Tyler Douglas came in the game he ran the football. You do not telegraph plays like that on the college level. You don’t do it in the pros. You don’t do it in high school. You don’t do it even do it in Pop Warner Football.

Stan Drayton was essentially telling the Huskies: “Hey guys, heads up, we’re going to run the ball.”

Piece of cake but the Temple coaching staff would rather eat a turd, and that’s exactly what they did.

Is he working for Temple or UConn?

If you are going to have Douglas come into the game, have him make a few throws to cause the defense to think.

There was no thinking involved on Saturday.

There really hasn’t been all season.

Or any of the last three years for that matter.

No doubt in my mind this was the most heartbreaking Temple loss since the Hail Mary that ended the game at Buffalo in 2007.

The difference between that time and this one was that those coaches led by Al Golden put the Owls in a position to win the game and a freak play ended it.

This was the game where the kids put the Owls in position to win and some Rick James-like super freaky play-calling by the coaches robbed them of a deserved celebration.

Inexcusable.

These kids deserve better coaches.

Whether they get them or not is a question only Temple decision-makers at the highest level can answer now.

Monday: Waiting for the Temple administration to do something

09.29.24
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Begging to differ: This is not fixable

This was 10-on-11 blocking but looked like 42-on-11. Things like illegal shifts, too many men in the backfield, offsides, illegal formations are fixable but how is this fixable?

For three of the last four games, really three of the last dozen, Temple head coach Stan Drayton looked the assembled media in the eye and said what ailed his team in losses was “fixable.”

We beg to differ.

Maybe the penalties are fixable but what we have seen too much this season doesn’t appear to be.

Army pushed the Owls’ defense aside like they were bowling pins. At times, it looked like Army had 42 guys blocking 11 guys and not 11-on-11.

How is that fixable?

It would be one thing if that was the only time the Owls looked like that, but they also looked that way against Navy and also looked that way against Oklahoma. Yes, they stopped Oklahoma on 11 of 12 third-down opportunities but whenever the Sooners needed a first down on fourth down, they got it.

Oklahoma is a Power 4 team and that can be excused.

Looking the same way against two Group of Five teams is inexcusable.

Next up is at UConn on Saturday (3:30 p.m., CBS Sports).

UConn just finished beating Buffalo, 47-3, in the same stadium and an argument can be made that Buffalo, not just UConn, is clearly a better team than Temple.

Buffalo beat NIU, which beat Notre Dame. That was not just a one-off as NIU lost by only a touchdown at North Carolina State on Saturday. Buffalo played Missouri, another SEC team, a lot more competitively than the Owls did Oklahoma.

Has Temple done anything as impressive as Buffalo, which came into Storrs with a 3-1 record?

No.

Other than all of the above, everything is just peachy at 10th and Diamond.

For its part, UConn hung with Duke in a 26-21 loss. (It also lost to Maryland, 50-7.) UConn also beat FAU, 48-14. (For comparison, Army “only” beat FAU, 24-7.)

It has a professional head coach in Jim Mora, Jr. who was a winner as a head coach before coming to UConn.

Temple cannot make the same claim.

That’s not to say that UConn is going to ramrod Temple, 47-3, but the general public is not believing in the Owls right now. At noon on Sunday, the line opened with the Huskies favored by 11 and jumped up to 13.5 just two hours.

That’s a lot of money riding on the Huskies.

Can you blame the betting public?

Army outgained the Owls, 417 to minus -5.

Temple is a team that cannot run the football, cannot stop the run and can’t protect the quarterback. In the rare cases they have protected the quarterback, he can do damage but those cases and too few and far between.

None of those things appear fixable now, no matter what Drayton says in post-game press conferences.

He has one chance to prove himself right and the public wrong and it’s coming up on Saturday.

Friday: UConn Preview