Tag Archives: faith

07.20.25
by

This week: The AAC Discovers Keeler’s Plan

Plenty of “money quotes” in the above short six-minute interview where the AAC sent a media person into the Temple film room to interview K.C. Keeler.

To me, the big takeaway was that Keeler was so unlike his predecessor, Stan Drayton, that any objective observer has got to assume that the record is going to reflect that.

Drayton spent three years of spinning his wheels in the mud at Temple, going for the trifecta with the same record that got his predecessor, Rod Carey, fired: 3-9. Drayton never figured out a way push the bus out of the mud and get it moving forward.

I have that exact black jacket but it’s a pullover and not a full zipper. Would be sweet to find a full zipper in adult extra large.

Keeler spent six minutes detailing how he is going to put some straps around those Temple tires and have his new strength coach and big hogs up front pull this spinning vehicle out of the mud.

It’s sounds like a pretty good plan.

It’s a week of discovery for Temple football, not so much for the people inside the $17 million Edberg-Olson facility but for the AAC and maybe college football in general because they are going to hear Keeler’s plan to revive everything inside the building and at Lincoln Financial Field.

That’s because media day is in Charlotte on July 24th-25 and a lot of what Keeler said in the above interview will be on full display those two days. ESPN will cover the second day session but, by then, it should become apparent that Keeler’s approach is different than Drayton’s.

In the above interview, Keeler says that “we’re not going to be the kind of team on 4th and 1 where we’re going to bring five receivers in. We’re going to run the football.” Yet bringing five wide receivers in is what Drayton did on 3d and 1 at the 50-yard line in Year Two of his regime, throwing a pass with a lead against visiting ECU that turned out to be incomplete with 1:46 left in the game. He was forced to punt on fourth down and never saw the ball again in a 46-42 loss.

That wasn’t even Keeler’s best money quote of the week.

The money quote came not from the above interview but from Shawn Pastor’s excellent five-part series about Keeler, which just concluded on Sunday. (We recommend you subscribe to OwlsDaily.com to read all five parts. It’s well the few bucks a month it takes to subscribe.)

Here’s the Keeler Money quote:

“I didn’t come from Michigan. I came from Sam Houston, where we had very limited resources. So I see life a little bit different. I see this isn’t half-full here. This is overflowing in my mind. I think this is a gold mine.”

Compare that to what Drayton said on Nov. 10 on the same site after a 53-6 loss to Tulane: “Tulane has made the commitment to bring good players into the program. There’s definitely a gap there if we don’t catch up, no question about it. We have to level up.”

Two Temple coaches. Two very different opinions to what resources they have/had at their disposal.

One made Chicken Shit out of Chicken Salad.

The other is trying to make a Chicken Parmesan dinner, complete with Spaghetti and meatballs on the side out of the same base ingredients. He knows what he needs to put in the pot, even though his proven recipe is largely a secret. He’ll outline what the dinner will be this week, but not give away any KFC (or KCK) secret recipes.

When he gets back from Charlotte, he will be in the kitchen working on the first course to be served Aug. 30.

My educated guess is that it won’t taste like the same chicken bleep we fans have been eating as our post-game meal for the last four years.

Friday: Media Day Reactions

Monday: Biggest Turnarounds

01.05.25
by

When your best offer is Tarleton State

One word of caution for Temple players looking to jump into the transfer portal.

Don’t.

By all indications, most especially the eye test, Terrez Worthy was a pretty good player for Temple football this past fall.

Maybe the best from a pure production standpoint.

This is the Tarleton State practice facility (note that tiny building is where the locker room and weight room is).

But he’s getting pretty bad advice from who knows where?

That’s because he’s been in the portal for a few weeks now and the best (only?) offer he has is from Tarleton State.

We had to look up where Tarleton State was and it is in Stephenville, Texas. Its practice facility is a couple of storage lockers and a grass field, while Temple has a $17 million practice facility at 10th and Diamond.

On the field, Tarleton State doesn’t have a TV contract and plays pretty obscure opponents in Drake, West Georgia, Eastern Kentucky, Utah Tech (not regular Utah or Temple opponent Utah State) and Austin Peay. (Worthy also has a scheduled visit to UTEP but that is also a worse program than Temple by any measurement.)

Can’t imagine there’s a whole lot of NIL money available at a school that can barely afford pads and jerseys but there are always players at Temple and pretty much every G5 school who believe the grass is greener on the other side of the 10th and Diamond fence.

It almost never is.

According to a fan post on OwlsDaily.com, these players are among the many who have current Temple offers.

If Worthy’s tale should be anything, it should be a cautionary one. He would be welcome back to Temple if he chose to return and would have the benefit of playing in an NFL stadium in a big-time league with a big-time TV contract and a Hall of Fame head coach.

The point here is that, after three-straight 3-9 seasons, not a whole lot of suitors are going to come after Temple players so those who have scholarships would be wise to keep them and not lose them.

There are plenty of good players in the portal who would love to have a Temple scholarship and a number of them have reached out to new head coach K.C. Keeler first.

The great majority of players who have entered the transfer portal over the last three years–not just at Temple–have not only become homeless but lost a valuable scholarship at a school whose degree unlocks a lot of doors to a promising future.

Cooper Blomstrom, one of the top-rated edge rushers, just posted he has a Temple offer.

Plus, they would be on TV in the fourth-largest market in the nation with a lot more eyeballs on them than they would at a FCS school or a lower-tier FBS one. Many of those eyeballs are NFL scouts.

Got to feel for Worthy in the sense that the past Temple staff didn’t recognize his talent until midway through the season. To have a back like E.J. Wilson starting ahead of him in the first few games was borderline criminal.

That’s also the same kind of talent evaluation that put Forrest Brock as the starting QB ahead of a clear better choice, Evan Simon.

With K.C. Keeler, those days are over and any player lucky enough to have a Temple scholarship would be wise to keep it.

12.22.23
by

Postgame Show: Temple’s Final Hail Mary

The most impressive thing about this video is Kevin Copp being at the E-O on 7 p.m. Wednesday night and in Hawaii by 2 p.m. Eastern time the next afternoon. Call him the Padre Pio of the Owls.

Unless something changes, it’s not hard to envision the final 30 seconds of Temple’s opening half at Oklahoma roughly nine months from now including a meaningless Hail Mary.

Evan Simon goes back to pass at midfield and before he gets a chance to throw, is swarmed under by a host of Oklahoma Sooners.

Temple runs off the field in Norman, down, 43-0, with the announcers saying the clock will run continuously in the second half.

Temple fans turn off the TV in disgust and head for a run or a bike ride on a beautiful August afternoon.

A couple of things COULD happen between now and then to make that halftime score more respectable–say, 28-13 instead of 43-0–but Wednesday night’s signing day show gave no indication that would be the case.

Just from watching Stan Drayton, I got the distinct impression this whole signing day was one big recruiting Hail Mary.

If this one falls incomplete, and Temple finishes with another three-win season, I could see the Temple Board of Trustees saying we don’t like the way college football is going and we’re not going to compete in it anymore. We don’t like paying a coach $2.5 million-a-year who got beat by 12 coaches over the last TWO seasons making LESS money.

Signing Darian Varner and Reece Poffenbarger would probably put Temple in the middle of this pack.

The ROI doesn’t make sense.

I’m somewhat surprised they haven’t come to that conclusion now but Drayton and the program have been given a stay of execution.

They don’t have good appeal lawyers judging from this recruiting class.

While all over the AAC teams were bringing in five to 10 Power 5 recruits and supplementing those by more FCS players and only one or two JUCOs, Temple signed more JUCOs than any other team in the conference.

It’s just not logical that JUCOs can beat guys who were recruited to win national championships but this is the logic Drayton and staff are going with right now.

There is a reason why the Alabamas and Georgias and Washingtons and Michigans have recruiting classes ranked near the top of the top 10 every year and finish in the same place on the football field. The highly ranked recruits produce on the field and the coaches who don’t give up 39.8 points-per-game in their last two stops–which Everett Withers has–tend to stop the teams they are playing.

So by going with JUCOs and sticking with Withers, Temple is throwing a Hail Mary pass.

A high wobbly dying quail and not the kind of tight spirals we’ve been used to seeing E.J. Warner tossing.

A couple of things can change that dynamic. Temple can get Darian Varner back because he has entered the portal and Temple’s biggest defensive need is putting the bad guys’ quarterback on his ass. Temple can also upgrade the quarterback position from Simon to Albany’s Reece Poffenbarger.

Unlike Simon, Poffenbarger can make big-time plays, avoid the rush and hurt teams with his feet. He entered the portal yesterday and probably the first team that shows him love will be shown love in return.

Does Danny Langsdorf even know that? Does Drayton?

We will soon find out if they can add a starting quarterback LIKE Poffenbarger or a pass-rusher Prodigal Son like Warner.

If they don’t, these great Temple fans will have to figure on doing something else on Saturday afternoons for the next 20 or so years. That’s probably how long it will take for college football to return to the old transfer and money rules.

By then, Temple could be NYU or The University of Chicago. A great school that once had a great football program.

Don’t let that happen, Stan and Danny.

Monday: Off for Christmas

Friday: From One Owl To Another