Tag Archives: college football

08.24.26
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Paul Darragh: Another Temple captain gone too soon

Had the BOT went through with its plans a decade ago, we’d all be tailgating at an on-campus stadium that might have looked like this. (Photo from the TempleAllSports twitter account)

Tailgating isn’t what it used to be.

For years, we’d have a solid crew of tailgaters who would reliably show up every single season.

Something happened since and, for the last three or so years, the normal “crew” would be missing one or two guys who we lost to passing away.

Some of them were real shocks, like John Belli.

Paul Darragh definitely was in that category, too.

Darragh wasn’t a regular but just an occasional visitor. He didn’t make it every Saturday, but he would be there every other year, and we’d see him pretty often on Cherry and White Day.

That’s the last time I saw him at a C and W game a couple of years ago. I won’t be seeing him again because he passed away at the all-too-young age of 63. I mentioned to him that I saw him make an interception on an old Youtube video.

Temple season ticket holders mingle with players and coaches on Saturday.

“I never had an interception, Mike,” Paul said.

I took his email and sent him the video and he got a kick out of it and thanked me for it.

“I completely forgot about it,” Paul wrote back.

Great guy.

Darragh might have been a regular tailgater except he had things to do on most Saturdays, like being the head coach at Bloomsburg University. He was named head coach on Dec. 6, 2013 and promptly went 10-2 his first season.

He was also an assistant coach at many places including Temple.

In his playing career, he was a three year starter at linebacker and captain of the 1983 Owls, Bruce Arians’ first Temple team. He also started the last two seasons of Wayne Hardin’s career.

In his post-coaching career, Darragh and most of us tailgaters would have returned to campus and enjoyed many Saturdays at the alma mater had the university stuck to its plans and built an on-campus stadium. Now it looks like there will never be an on-campus stadium as the area (15th and Norris) set aside was held for a few years and now is used by the university for other things. It’s amazing to me that the university spent $1 million for a rendering of the stadium by Moody Architecture yet an artificial intelligence tool (see above) did one for free that looks only about a million times better.

Maybe one day there will be a stadium on campus, but that day will probably be a lot closer to 50 years from now than five or 10. Of course, that talk could be revived if the Owls open the season with wins over Rhode Island and Penn State. It would take something that big to revive the project.

Doubtful that any of us will be around to see it but if it ever gets built, a tradition that included guys like Darragh will be the figurative foundation.

08.06.26
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Bruce Arians in HOF: Temple righting a wrong

Bruce Arians leaving his South Jersey home with photos of Bear Bryant and his Temple kids.

In an interview in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2009, Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz threw in this casual remark about Bruce Arians:

“Firing Bruce Arians was the biggest mistake Temple football ever made.”

Ball recognizes ball and Ferentz is ball. Not a friend of Arians specifically but a member of the same coaching fraternity, Ferentz was able to spot a school that overstepped the bounds when it came to firing a head coach. The story was about colleges too quick to pull the trigger on firing head coaches and the first person to come into Ferentz’s mind was Arians.

That was 23 years after the offense was committed.

Temple University righted a wrong today by including Bruce Arians into its Hall of Fame 2027 Hall of Fame class.

Ferentz will be entering his 28th season as head coach at Iowa and, if Ferentz was right, Arians might–and we use that word “might” loosely–be entering his 43d year as head coach at Temple.

In my mind, most of them would have been pretty damn glorious. I know because I covered Temple football all five of the Arians years. I am still friends with most of his players in those days, including the GOAT (Paul Palmer) and super nice guys like Joe Greenwood, Sheldon Morris, Mike Hinnant, and Eddie Parker.

Arians was loyal to Temple and Temple should have been loyal to him. In 1986, Arians turned down an offer to be head coach of his alma mater, Virginia Tech, to remain at Temple, saying, “I can’t leave my guys at Temple.”

Frank Beamer took that job instead and stayed at Virginia Tech pretty much the exact same length Arians should have remained with the Owls.

Look at his five years at Temple.

He had two winning (6-5) seasons with the Owls against a Top 10 schedule. Compare that to the revered Matt Rhule, who had two winning seasons against schedules ranked No. 84 and No. 91, respectively.

Me, with Arians players (from left) Kevin Jones, Pat Powell and Mike Hinnant

Love the championship Matt gave Temple, but there is no comparison.

After a 17-10 loss at Delaware, Arians called a mandatory full-contact scrimmage at 5 a.m. on the Sunday after that Saturday on Geasy Field. “We didn’t lose a game after that,” Bruce said. (Partially right. Temple won five out of six after that scrimmage.)

Arians beat Pitt in three of his five seasons. He came closer than anyone would expect against Alabama, Georgia and Florida State.

Bruce’s letter to me after I congratulated him on signing Dick Beck, who becamed captain of his 1988 team.

Give me one other head coach at Temple who beat a P4 team in three of five seasons.

You can’t because I can’t.

In his introductory press conference at Temple, one anti-Temple football journalist asked this question, “Why does Temple even play football?”

Arians shot back: “To beat Penn State.”

The Temple fans at Mitten Hall in 1983 went wild.

Nobody was happier when that really happened than Arians, who was the only ex-Temple head coach to have an extended phone conversation with Rhule.

Matt had already talked to Wayne Hardin in person after that game, kissed him on the cheek and handed him the game ball.

Ball recognizes ball and hopefully Kirk Ferentz will notice what Temple did on Thursday. No doubt Wayne Hardin will be smiling from above.

Monday: Back to the Future

07.19.26
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Temple football focus should be on nothing but Rhode Island

Took a week off to recharge the batteries.

That was the plan.

Little did I know that would be literally.

In this case, not recharge but replace.

In the middle of three days where you couldn’t go outside and breathe without inhaling five packs of cigarettes in an hour, I turned over the engine only to find out my car wouldn’t start.

The final season poll. Rhode Island kept most of its players, including its all-league quarterback, and is ranked No. 9 in the FCS 2026 preseason poll. If the Owls don’t bring violence to this game, they could lose.

Three years of turning that key and never worrying about starting the car were out the window. Called Triple AAA and a guy named “Jack” came by and dumped a new battery in my car.

That was a $247 expense I didn’t count on but I need that car to go to work, doctors and shopping so reluctantly pulled the $247 out of my wallet and handed Jack a $10 trip for his trouble.

My high school basketball coach, George Paull (RIP), once told me, “the only thing I know about cars is that you turn the key and away you go.”

Me, too.

Most times.

Doylestown’s John Fonash had a 96-yard punt return after Temple got a three-and-out on the opening series in this 28-0 win in 1965.

K.C. Keeler has the keys to the Temple football vehicle and he better set the GPS for Rhode Island. (Yeah, we know they are coming here but in terms of preparation that’s the direction he should go.)

Now Temple football recharges the batteries starting today with the focus on directing that trip to the Rhode Island game.

Rhode Island?

Yes. Unlike Temple, RI has a tune-up game at Merrimack the last week of August and that factors into an already problematic opener for the Owls.

Because as tough as the Temple schedule is, the Owls didn’t schedule Howard as a tune-up game the first week of September. They scheduled a Top 10 FCS team and we all know the success FCS teams have against FBS teams in recent years, especially in the opening week of the season.

Temple knows for sure.

The key to beating Rhode Island will be Temple’s defense bringing violence to the football with emphasis on punching that ball out and going the other way with it.

In 2009, the Owls won nine-straight FBS games after losing to eventual FCS champion Villanova in the opener. While hoisting that FCS national title trophy, then Villanova head coach Andy Talley gave special thanks to Temple, calling the Owls, “the best team we faced all year.”

Then Temple head coach Al Golden would have rather had the win than the compliment, yet that Temple team was the first Temple bowl team in 30 years and gave Rick Neuheisel’s UCLA squad all it could handle in a 31-21 loss at the Eagle Bank Bowl.

This Rhode Island team has something in common with that Villanova team in that it kept almost all of its starters. The Rams only lost their All-American kicker to Louisville.

Yet they retained their most important two players, quarterback Devin Farrell and wide receiver Marquis Buchanan, who were sought after by many FBS schools. Farrell threw for 3,745 passing yards to earn third team All-American status while Buchanan was a first-team All-American with 1,124 receiving yards.

Go to Seat Geek.com for some pretty good seats at a great deal. Better yet, buy Temple season tickets, go to the free season ticket holder party and get locked in for great seats the rest of the year, especially the nearly sold-out Penn State at Temple game.

Farrell gives the Rams something the Owls don’t have–an experienced college starting quarterback while Jaxon Smolik–if he wins the job as expected–gives Temple something Rhode Island doesn’t have, a 4* high school recruit at that same position.

Something’s got to give and how much violence Keeler can convince the other 21 Temple starters to bring to the football between now and then will determine the outcome.

It probably won’t be the 55-7 FCS win the Owls experienced last year, but figure on a 34-14 type of outcome if the battery starts when Keeler turns the key.

07.16.26
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A Temple Football Championship: There are no words

Editor’s Note: Every once in a while, I get asked why I write this site and my answer is winning. We get barely (and I do mean barely) enough contributions to keep this website alive yet winning remains the goal. Winning games, yes, but winning championships more. This is the one time in my lifetime of being a Temple fan I was there in person to watch Temple football win a championship. Yet winning remains the goal. When it happens, I’m usually speechless but I’ll try to come up with something. There are no words but I summoned some and they are below.

The morning after arguably the greatest win in Temple football history, there are no words.

Literally no words are coming out of my mouth, at least in the sense of being able to talk this morning.

The throaty and hoarse condition is more than OK because it was the result of cheering for the Owls at beautiful Navy-Marine Corps Stadium as they captured what really is their first-ever major football championship. The 1967 MAC title was admirable, but that was a day when the school played to a level of football that was beneath their status even then as one of America’s great public universities.

So this was it.

ride
I sat in the same aisle across from this trophy on the way home (thanks to Matt Rhule for arranging my seat). I couldn’t stop staring at it.

Walking out of the stadium and into the concourse, I let out a very loud primal: “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT!!”

Fortunately, I got a few high fives and smiles from my fellow Temple fans and not fitted for a straightjacket. It also put the voice out for 24 hours, maybe more.

When it comes to Temple football today at least, you cannot think in terms of a national championship—the deck is stacked against G5 teams in an unfair system—so what happened yesterday was the pinnacle of Temple football success. Thousands of Temple fans, easily in excess of 10,000 Temple fans, made Navy’s 15-game home winning streak a moot point by turning that stadium into a Temple home field advantage and to get to that mountaintop and look down from it is incredibly satisfying.

Hey, it’s a pretty spectacular pinnacle. The only thing that would have made it better was a G5 slot in a New Year’s Six bowl against Penn State, but that’s not happening for a number of reasons that are not important today. (Objectively, would you take a team for the Cotton Bowl that has won seven straight against this schedule and beat a Navy team, 34-10, over a Western Michigan team that struggled to beat a four-loss Ohio team? I would but I don’t expect the bowl committee to be that objective. I can also grudingly see the WMU argument.)

What is important is that the Owls have gone from being a perennial Bottom 10 team and laughed at nationally to being ranked in the Top 25 for two straight years and going to a title game one year and winning it the next. When you think of the success P.J. Walker and Jahad Thomas have had here, there is a Twilight Zone quality to the parallel between this success and their success at Elizabeth (N.J.). In their freshman year at Elizabeth, they won one game; in their freshman year at Temple they won two games. In their sophomore year at both schools, they won six games. In their junior year at both schools, they reached the title game and lost and, in their senior year at both schools, they lifted the ultimate hardware together.

“Get a Dub?”

Truly amazing and I will miss both of those guys.

The Navy team Temple held to 10 points scored 75 on SMU, 28 on Notre Dame, 45 on an 11-2 USF team, 46 on Houston, 42 on Tulane and 66 on ECU.

Back on Cherry and White Day, I wrote that this team will be better than last year’s team while people on other websites—notably, Rutgers and Penn State fan boards—insisted that Temple would take a step back. I was consistent in my belief that this was the STEP FORWARD year, not the step back one, and that belief was rooted in knowledge that both the defense and offense were significantly upgraded despite graduation losses. Only a Temple fan who follows the team closely would know that, not the know-it-alls who make assumptions on subjects they have no idea what they are talking about.

Today at noon, the Owls will know where they will go for a bowl game. They can finish the season in the top 25 and set the record for most wins in Temple football history.

It won’t be the cake because we saw that yesterday, but it will be the Cherry on top of that white cake and it will be delicious even going down past what promises to be a future sore throat.

Postscript: For the comments to the original post click here:

Monday: Regular Programming

Friday: American Conference Media Day

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

06.21.26
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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

06.07.26
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Matakevich deserves a spot in the College Football HOF

Tyler Matakevich leads the fans in “T for Temple U” after a big Temple win in 2015.

We expect a lot of good news in the area of recruiting by the end of this month.

As far as Temple football goes, though, the month got off to a good start when it was announced that Tyler Matakevich was one of the newest candidates for the College Football Hall of Fame.

About time.

Matakevich represents the last kind of player Temple will have under these new rules.

He was not only the national defensive player of the year, but won both the Bronco Nagurski and Chuck Bednarik Awards.

Guess what?

If Temple now gets a sniff of a player like that, he’s off to the next school.

That’s one of the many things that stinks about college football now.

College football then, though, was special and if Matakevich gets in–that’s a big if because there are 80 players nominated–Temple gets to celebrate the way things used to be when loyalty mattered.

Matakevich’s 493 career tackles still stand as a Temple program record, and he became the seventh FBS player to log at least 100 tackles in all four of his college seasons. The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Matakevich in the seventh round of the 2016 NFL Draft, and the Steel City was Matakevich’s home for the first four seasons of his NFL career before he played four more with the Buffalo Bills from 2020 to 2023.

The tackles were a little misleading because Steve Conjar nearly had as many tackles from 1979-1981 and played only three seasons, not four as Matakevich did. Still, Matakevich and Conjar formed a bond and Matakevich was at several of Steve’s post-game tailgates.

Matakevich returned to Temple’s Edberg-Olson Hall back on March 19 to take in a spring practice and talk to several of the program’s players and coaches.

Hopefully, he talked about how much loyalty means and the benefits of staying with a program from beginning to end.

Matakevich remained and had everything at Temple that he could have had anywhere else. That’s a message worth conveying to future players.

05.24.26
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College Football News checks in on Temple football

Every once in a while, you read something on the internet from a guy who thinks he knows everything about Temple football.

With Temple playing Penn State on Sept. 12, we are going to run into a lot of those guys.

Like this guy:

Pretty good tweet followed by an ignorant one about Temple not fielding a football team.

My only answer to him is something a very wise man once said on the cross more than 2,000 years ago: “Father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.”

In that case, saying it’s a shame Temple stopped fielding a football team. A guy from “Sinking Spring, PA” who should have known better.

I shamed him in the following four posts below his name, including receipts.

Others with some knowledge–like College Football News–are doing a deeper dive into Temple football and coming up with a more fair and balanced assessment.

The one guy who answered the 2stripesCPD post would be wise to read that assessment of this fall’s Temple football team.

Like us in February, College Football News and Temple Football Forever are in agreement that the Owls will finish 6-6.

Unlike CFN, we hope we are wrong and can see a pathway to a few more wins. First, we know Jaxon Smolik is inexperienced. On the other hand, not even in the Al Golden and Matt Rhule Eras–no doubt the best of the last 20 years–was Temple able to recruit a 4* quarterback. (P.J. Walker, for example, was a 3*.) Now, weirdly in this transfer portal era, 4* guys stuck behind other 4* guys are dropping down to Temple.

The Owls might benefit from that.

In fact, our post last week was us putting our money where our months were and plucking down $10 on Temple to win the American Conference football championship, repeating a feat it was able to accomplish a decade ago. That $10 investment could return us $460. (I wish I had $100 for a $4,600 return but we preach only bet what you can afford to lose.)

The twitter account @gnestro probably doesn’t even know Temple football won the AAC title in 2016 nor appeared in the championship game in 2015.

Father forgive him, because he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Or talking about. With Temple football playing Penn State this year, it won’t be the first or last guy who claims Temple gave up on fielding a football team.

So we have to get ready for those kinds of comments.

College Football News supplied the most interesting stat in its lead paragraph and that was in 33 years of football, K.C. Keeler has never had two losing seasons in a row.

He doesn’t plan on having one now, no matter what that guy down the street who claims he knows something about football tries to tell you. Plan is the operative word and what Keeler has done both maintaining and adding to the roster is the result of over 30 years of planning and it should pay dividends once again.

Friday: The Most Surprising Room

05.15.26
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What will the next Halcyon Days look like?

Only sustained winning will enable Temple to repeat this: 35,000 of its own fans for 2015 Homecoming against Tulane.

A little bit after Temple beat Penn State for the first time since 1942, Matt Rhule visited our tailgate and was holding the game ball.

He gave it to 90-year-old Wayne Hardin, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and said, “Coach, this is for all the times you came close and should have had one of these.”

Taking it all in, I turned to my good friend, John Belli (RIP), and whispered, “These are the good old days.”

He understood.

It wouldn’t get better than beating Penn State and extending them the courtesy of a worse beatdown that 27-10 by taking four knees to end the game on the Lions’ 12-yard-line.

Tailgating late into the night afterward was the Cherry on top of that White.

Why didn’t it finish 34-10?

That was a little bit of the Penn State in Matt Rhule. I would have scored the touchdown to make the final 34-10, but that’s me remembering Joe Paterno rubbing it in when Penn State won by 47-0 and 55-7 scores.

Today, a football site dedicated to the G5 remembered that 2015 team was a damn good one. What they forgot to note was that the team in the next year was even better.

That got me to thinking.

Was I right when I mentioned that to John?

Yeah.

Not only did Temple beat PSU that year, it went 7-0 and hosted No. 9-ranked Notre Dame and drew the highest rating for a Prime Time game ever in the 4th-largest TV market. Had safety Will Hayes turned the right way on a touchdown reception, the Owls would have started 8-0.

I shouldn’t have thought beating PSU was the Zenith of Temple football but I said it out loud then. Maybe it was prescient.

Because in no way did I ever dream that college football would devolve into what we have now. You not only pay to play, but you pay to win.

As much as I would love to beat Penn State in September of this year, I’m a realist, too. They pay to win and as much as I like to think Temple has a chance to win that game, I don’t.

What will the next “Halcyon Days” at Temple look like?

Webster’s dictionary refers to Halcyon Days as being “a very happy and successful period in the past.” We can be happy in the future, but I think it’s unrealistic given the current landscape to expect to be as happy as, say, 9/5/15 or championship Saturday the next season. I think K.C. Keeler is every bit the coach Rhule and Al Golden were so there could be happy days in the future.

Happier?

I think Temple–with the No. 1 recruiting class in the AAC and the No. 1 transfer portal class–has an outside chance to win the league this year but I think that would be more likely next.

Still, would it match that two-year stretch in 2015/2016?

You don’t win this attendance title with just ND and PSU sellouts. You win with getting 35,000 all Temple fans to do the wave at Homecoming.

No, because the student involvement with the program then was much more strong than it is now and enabled the Owls to draw 35,000 of their own fans for a 48-14 Homecoming win over Tulane in 2015. You need sustained winning seasons to build that kind of support and even if the Owls have one now after four 3-9 and one 5-7 seasons the fan momentum is not at the level in 2026 that it was a decade or so ago.

So, what do we have to hope for?

Minimum 6-6 seasons going forward with an occasional league championshipis the ceiling.

Even though that ceiling isn’t high, it certainly beats the floor we’ve seen in the six years of Carey/Drayton.

Unless college football goes back to the foundation it had then, that’s a ceiling we will have to embrace.

05.08.26
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Don’t bet against a team with two All-Americans

Temple punter Dante Atton (laughing, No. 7) is a preseason first-team All-American. Peter Clarke may join him.

(Photo courtesy of Zamani Feelings)

On most betting markets, the Temple football “over/under” is 5.5.

That means, if Temple wins six or more, you win and “The Man” (the house) loses.

Fortunately, I jumped on future College Hall of Fame coach K.C. Keeler and the Temple Owls when the man gifted me a ridiculously low 3.5 last year.

Going to do the same this year at the 5.5 number.

The reasoning is simple.

It’s hard to beat a G5 team with one All-American. It’s even more difficult to beat one with two.

Yeah, I know the No. 1 concern is a quarterback position where the Owls don’t have a single guy who ever started a college football game, but anyone who watched the Cherry and White game (raising my hand here) was more than satisfied with the performance of Penn State transfer quarterback Jaxon Smolik.

He’s got a little bit of Joel Embiid in him in that his career is injury plagued but there’s a chance he’s past that.

He certainly will have two All-Americans to work with if things play out the way we expect.

When I watched the Cherry and White game on April 11 (and got a $100 ticket for “speeding” on Broad Steet going 41mph), I was aware the Owls already had one certified consensus pre-season All-American in punter Dante Atton.

This week, the realization hit home they have another: Tight End Peter Clarke.

Clarke was named one of the five “tight ends to watch” this week and Mel Kiper had Clarke as one of the top 10 tight ends on the entire board had he come out for the 2026 draft.

Instead, Clarke made the gamble to return to Temple to move closer to the No. 1 tight end of the 2027 class and the gamble seems to be working because people have been watching his film in the offseason and noticed.

Add to that the fact that Clarke’s character is off the charts and that’s something every NFL team likes.

Clarke was the glue who kept an entire G5 roster together. Keeler gave him the credit for not only retaining the current roster (“we were the only G5 team not to lose a single starter”) and recruiting the No. 1 transfer portal group in the entire G5.

Catches in traffic mean a lot, YAC (yards after catch), too, but add on character and that’s an unbeatable combination.

To be a first-round NFL pick, Clarke won’t have to match Bruce Francis’ 2008 season with the Owls (15 TDs) but just reach 10 TDs and 1,000 yards.

That’s about the number for every past first- or second-round NFL draft choice in the past.

Winning will raise his profile even more so maybe that’s why Clarke worked so hard to build the roster.

Ironically, Clarke’s main goal is to lead an offense that keeps the other All-American (Atton) off the field.

My guess is Atton won’t mind if the Owls score touchdowns and kick field goals and never punt. (I know that sounds crazy but Temple went two straight games without punting in the 2023 season, led by quarterback E.J. Warner. Going 10 more may be a stretch, but it’s a goal worth striving for.)

If that happens, the Owls blow way past that 5.5 number and make a lot of their fans happy.

And maybe their wallets much thicker.

It still won’t pay my Cherry and White speeding ticket, which is due May 23, but the ROI on the Owls should pay dividends come December.