Tag Archives: football

11.30.25
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Season post-mortem: Good, so close to great

Plenty of good to like about K.C. Keeler’s first season as Temple head coach, so the grade has to be a Solid B.

Good, but could have been better so no A.

Refs also made a mistake in the Navy game that was just as important as Temple not kicking the field goal.

The Owls finished 5-7 and were only three knees away from 6-6 and a bowl game.

We’ve harped on this before, so won’t spend more than one or two sentences on the Navy game. Tied, 24-24, with 1:16 left and a first-and-goal from the 1, the obvious move was to take three knees and get that clock down to about 20 seconds before kicking a field goal from extra point distance to win it, 27-24.

Carl Hardin then squibs the ensuing kickoff, and Navy does the five backward passes on the kickoff that never works and somebody like Curly Ordonez falls on the ball to end the game. Then Hardin gets carried off the field, the Homecoming crowd of nearly 27,000 goes home happy and maybe a good portion of those folks come back for the final two games.

Wasn’t to be.

The worst errors are the unforced ones and that was doozy of the year. Didn’t buy Keeler’s post-game explanation that the Owls didn’t practice the kneel down and he wasn’t comfortable doing it. That was the same play the Owls executed flawlessly at the end of four of their five wins, so they must’ve practiced it. That was the difference between 6-6 and maybe playing another 6-6 team in a bowl game and getting about three weeks extra practice time for next year.

Live and learn.

Temple was 3 points away from beating three bowl teams (Navy, Army, UTSA, which they did beat) and a 7-5 record.

The one-point Army loss was hard, but easier to take than the loss to the other service academy.

Now let’s get to the good part.

They did beat a UTSA team that WILL be bowl bound and handed Charlotte a worse loss than either Tulane, North Texas or Army did.

They added a road win over Tulsa, something that the old coaching staff never did.

They upgraded the roster significantly all the while keeping every single player on scholarship who wanted to stay.

Even though they lose a record-setting quarterback in Evan Simon, they were thisclose to bringing in a Heisman Trophy candidate (Trinidad Chambliss), who was scooped up by Ole Miss the Friday he was supposed to sign at Temple.

They probably won’t find a Heisman candidate to replace him in the transfer portal this time, but they will find a QB or two good enough to win in the American Conference. Pretty sure they will upgrade the entire roster the same way, while keeping a good portion of the two-deep who do return.

At 6:46 here, Yale demonstrates the general principle of what TU should have done against Navy.

Keeler and roster-building guru Clayton Barnes built a nine-win FBS roster with fewer NIL resources at Sam Houston State than they have at Temple and probably will build a nine-win roster at Temple either next year or the year after.

All they have to do is improve to 6-7 next year and continue the upward curve.

Unlike basketball, there is reason for optimism with Temple football and the structure Keeler put in place is it.

Fairly certain there will be a better grade a dozen months from now, whether it’s a B+ or an A.

Friday: Signing Day Analysis

Monday: Room at the Top

11.27.25
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Temple-UNT: Moving parts offer some hope

If the Owls can visualize a 34-28 OT win at North Texas, they can do it.

If nothing had changed over the past few days, the prognosis for Friday’s football game at North Texas would have been exceedingly dismal for Temple.

Now it’s just regularly dismal. Or to be optimistic, more interesting.

This would be K.C. Keeler’s greatest win of his 276 as a head coach and enough for Temple to commission of statue of their living legend placed at the E-O.

A couple of moving parts, though, have given the Owls some hope in their final attempt to secure a bowl bid to make it a magical season at the 22d-ranked Mean Green (3:30 p.m., ESPN). One, North Texas head coach Eric Morris is headed to Oklahoma State and, two, quarterback Drew Mestemaker is probably following him.

How well UNT compartmentalizes those distractions probably will determine whether the Owls can stay in the game so we did a deep dive only over the last 10 years to find out how similar teams and coaches handled those situations.

Spoiler alert: Not very well.

Most head coaches who get other jobs at or near the end of the seasons go right to the other job and skip the final game with their old teams. Over the last decade, we’ve found 14 FBS head coaches who did stay and coach both the final game of the regular season and the bowl game.

In those 28 games, those coaches were 12-16. Shocking, because in every single one of those cases, all 14 of those head coaches had winning records in those seasons.

No data available if that also includes the star quarterback.

Breezy and 68 for Friday’s game on ESPN.

That’s an indication of a couple of things. One, their level of detail to the job currently at hand probably isn’t as comprehensive. Two, their eyes are on the next big thing.

None of that applies to Temple, though, and, if the Owls have an advantage, that’s it. The Owls have a committed coach and a roster of players whose stated goal at the beginning of the season was to make a bowl and turn this program around.

If they can visualize this win, they can do it. If they can’t visualize it, they can look at the video at the top of this post.

Their level of detail should be razor-sharp. For this game, that detail includes resurrecting the running game of Jay Ducker and Hunter Smith against a UNT defense whose Achillies Heel is run defense. Keep the ball. Control the clock. Use play/action passes from Evan Simon to keep drives alive and, most importantly, keep the ball out of the hands of Mestemaker and his explosive offense. North Texas is ranked No. 14 and last in the American Conference in run defense, giving up more than 211 yards a game. Put it this way: Ducker has 746 yards and, if he gets those 254 yards Friday to hit 1,000, Temple wins.

Plain and simple.

Or maybe get 150 and Smith get 100.

Sounds like a game plan head coach K.C. Keeler can get behind.

Also, that coach has been here before.

In Keeler’s 276 college football victories–the most ever as an active head coach–he has won 11 games as an underdog of 20 or more points. He is “only” a 19.5-point dog right now but that could change by kickoff.

Never, though, has Keeler beaten a ranked FBS team as a 20+ point underdog. He’s got everything else on a stellar resume so why not add this? No better time than now.

If he and the Owls are able to pull this one off and get to a bowl, it should be enough for Temple President John Fry to commission a statue of him placed right inside the gates of the E-O. Or at least approve a Go Fund Me to get the project going.

That would be one moving part Temple fans can get behind.

Late Friday Night: Game Analysis

Monday: Season or Bowl Analysis

11.22.25
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Temple’s bowl hopes now rest on a 90/10 game

The Owls didn’t even attempt a throwback pass from Kayjia Hollawayne to JoJo Bermudez so they lost.

Way back in August, K.C. Keeler said he noticed something about the American Conference.

“I told our guys there are going to be a lot of 50/50 games in this league and our chances of winning those games will come down to how clean we play,” he said.

Demerick Morris, who once thought the grass was greener on the Oklahoma State side of the fence and spent some time practicing for Mike Gundy, came back to Temple once he heard K.C. Keeler had taken the job. He takes one last look at the green grass at the Linc after his final game at Temple. (Black and White Photo Courtesy of Zamani Feelings)

Unfortunately Temple’s last 50/50 game was at Army and the Owls are out of such games meaning that their hopes to shock the world and make a bowl game rest on a 90/10 game.

And they have the 10 in that equation.

Maybe the Tulane game was a 70/10 game and that was pretty much reflected in Saturday’s final score of 37-13. Tulane got a number of ridiculous calls by refs who were seemingly told by the league office that if there was a 50/50 call, give it to the Green Wave. We can’t say for sure but it looked that way.

Expect another Green–Mean–to get the same kind of deference in five days.

Really, the game at North Texas (Black Friday) looks more lopsided in the sense that the Owls will have to play a better quarterback and a better running back than anyone they’ve seen on Tulane and they will have to do it on the road against a 10-1 Mean Green team that needs that game to reach its first American Conference championship game.

Temple’s been to two of those and won one and that only seems like a hundred years ago and not less than a decade ago.

Not a LB, but DT’s Demerick Morris’ legacy at Temple will be that of the first guy who entered the transfer portal and returned to 10th and Diamond.

Still, the Owls themselves were once 5-3 so not making a bowl would be a huge disappointment. If that happens, I would feel sorry for all the Owls who worked so hard–especially a guy like DT Demerick Morris on the defensive side and QB Evan Simon on the offensive side.

For not only those guys but themselves, they need to find a way to play a perfect game on Friday, or this will be forever known as the Year of The Three Knees.

That is, if they had done what every other pro or college team would have done with 1:16 left and a first-and-goal at the 1 against Navy–take three knees and burn the Middies two final timeouts–kicking a FG from extra point distance to win with no more than 15-20 seconds left, they would be figuring out which bowl invite to take. That was not a close call. An otherwise great coaching staff had a brain cramp on that day.

That cramp will be forever etched in Temple Football history if the Owls don’t find a way to get it done Friday.

You don’t want to let that happen, but you might not have a choice because those guys have better Jimmies than your Joes.

Or Evans and Demericks.

Monday: The Fans Are Not To Blame

Friday: Mean Green-Owl Preview

11.20.25
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Temple wins if it pulls out all of the stops

Gary Segars says K.C. Keeler is always a good bet as an underdog. He’s usually right.

The phrase “pulling out all of the stops” means to use all available resources to achieve a desired outcome.

At least that’s what both the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English dictionaries say.

The good news is that Temple head coach K.C. Keeler is starting to get that term in the sense that he admitted that the two close losses to the service academies caused him some introspective in analyzing what one or two things he could have done to get him over those 1-point humps in losses.

If Kajiya Hollawayne throws a TD pass, you’ve got the Temple Football Forever guarantee of a win.

He was kind of referring to next year.

Here’s a thought: Do it now.

As an outside observer, we’re going to offer a couple of theories how that desired result could be achieved for Saturday’s Senior Day home game against 24th-ranked Tulane (3:45 p.m., Lincoln Financial Field).

One, keep doing what you are doing 97 percent of the time.

That means offensive coordinator’s Tyler Walker’s innovative motion offense, which involves a lot of moving parts causing defensive confusion. It also means Brian L. Smith’s core belief of pressure on the quarterback, ostensibly with the front five, but also including blitzes if needed. Make Jake Retzlaff as uncomfortable for the entire game as you did to UTSA’s Owen McCown in the second half a few weeks ago.

Speaking of McCown, take a page out of the book he used to beat Tulane, 48-26. Go 31-for-33 with 370 yards, four touchdowns and zero interceptions against that secondary.

To do that, you’ve got to give Evan Simon a chance to throw the ball at least 33 times against a banged-up cornerback room even more depleted than the one McCown faced three weeks ago.

That leaves the other three percent of the time, which will probably determine the outcome of this most important Temple game in a decade.

Temple, especially on the offensive side of the ball, has done very little to “fool” the opposition in terms of “using all available resources to achieve a desired outcome.”

The last few games showed that Keeler and Company are starting to get it in terms that they used a third-string quarterback on a number of surprise packages that called for a QB run or a QB pass.

When the Army defense recognizes No. 14 is a backup QB and calls the reverse pass before it happens, that’s probably not the kind of play you want to use.

Ditch that. Ditch the entire Tyler Douglas package.

“Great throw Kajiya. I was saving this play for Senior Day.”

You will know Temple is going to win this game maybe early as the first offensive play from scrimmage. That’s been almost always a boring straight handoff to Jay Ducker. Let this one be a Jet Sweep to Kajiya Hollawayne. I don’t care if he gains 3 yards, 12 yards or goes to the house, it will be a successful play for Temple.

I know Hollawayne is a 4*star quarterback recruit from UCLA. You might know he is a 4* QB recruit from UCLA and both Keeler and Walker might know that, but it’s highly doubtful Tulane does. That Jet Sweep sets up another Jet Sweep down the road where the Tulane corners come up on run coverage and allow Hollawayne to use that 4* arm to hit JoJo Bermudez in stride for six points.

This is how open Bermudez would be on that kind of pass:

Especially since Temple hasn’t used that play all year.

To date.

That’s one of our 3 percent suggestions.

Here’s another: Temple hasn’t used the “tush push” or “Brotherly Shove” so far.

Doug Pederson said he got “The Philly Special” from watching this Temple play against Penn State in 2015. Nothing more Philly than Temple. The Owls have a long history of winning big games on trick plays.

Do it with 6-6, 265-pound tight end Peter Clarke doing the pushing for one or two 4th-and-1s.

You know what that sets up?

Certainly not a pass, but a “fake tush push” to “Temple’s Saquon Barkley” a pitch the speedy Keveun Mason, for maybe another six points.

Those dozen points might make a difference for the seniors who deserve one after three long years with this program.

Pulling out all the stops hasn’t been tried once this season, especially in the two 1-point losses.

Now that approach deserves the kind of chance it hasn’t been given for the first 10 games.

Very, Very Late Saturday Night (since I will be at the stadium until 9): Game Analysis

11.16.25
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The biggest Temple-Tulane game in 91 years

Last year, this story ranked the Sugar Bowl between “Temple” and Tulane as the 12th best of all time

Most of the time when Temple plays Tulane the Owls are either very good or Tulane is very bad.

Or, as we’ve seen over the last couple of years, Temple being bad and Tulane being good.

The twain never met until now.

It’s finally time to get revenge for that loss 91 years ago.

Now, on an unusually beautiful 60-degree day on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field (3:45 p.m. kickoff), both Temple and Tulane are pretty good and the stakes are higher than any other meeting between the two teams in a long time.

How long?

The last time that happened was 91 years ago when the two teams played in the first Sugar Bowl game, won by Tulane, 20-14. (They brought the same refs that officiated this year’s Army game.)

Tulane is playing for an American Conference championship a spot in the college football playoff. Temple is playing for a bowl game.

Both things mean just as much to each team as the other thing does so something has to give.

From the Temple game plan perspective, it’s time to pull out all of the stops.

Attacking your opponents’ weaknesses means unleashing Evan Simon on the 127th-ranked passing defense by throwing more than 30 passes.

That doesn’t mean to panic but it does mean a lot more “imaginative” plays than what we have seen through 10 games.

That means setting Kajiya Hollawayne up for the reverse pass by giving him the ball a few times a jet sweep. Only after a couple of successful jet sweeps, have the former four-star UCLA quarterback sucker the defense into him and use that arm to hit JoJo Bermudez in stride for six. Being a great coach means taking advantage of the unique talent of your players and, when you have a wide receiver with a 4* arm, not using that arm is coaching malpractice.

Should be a beautiful day to enjoy the last home game of the season, so Temple fans should make plans now to support these kids.

Also, trust in the numbers, which never lie.

Attacking your opponents’ weaknesses means unleashing Evan Simon on the 127th-ranked passing defense by having him throw more than 30 passes. UTSA’s Owen McCown demonstrated the wisdom of that approach by going 31-for-33 for 370 yards with no interceptions four touchdowns.

Not surprisingly, UTSA won that game against Tulane, 48-26.

Simon is a better quarterback than McCown, at least in our opinion, and that is also is matchup advantage Temple needs to lean on heavily. If Temple’s Mon-Friday practices emphasize all of that, it’ll be a pretty sweet “T for Temple U” afterward. If it’s the same/old, same/old we’ve seen on offense all year, that won’t do.

Bombs Over Baghdad. Or at least South Philly.

Friday: Temple-Tulane Preview

11.14.25
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2025 Temple is very similar to 2008 Owls

Had this not happened, the 2008 Owls would have made a bowl game. Same can be said for the current Owls not taking three knees and kicking a field goal against Navy if the Owls aren’t able to win one of their last two.

Leave it to Shawn Pastor to put the 2025 football Owls in perfect perspective.

On a recent post, the Owlsdaily.com editor compared the 5-5 current Owls to the 5-7 2008 ones.

That was Heartbreak City for Temple fans.

That team deserved much better. This team does, too.

So many similarities between the 2008 and 2025 Owls. A 5-7 record may be in the offing again, but not if the current Owls rise up and play their best football.

If this current version finishes with the same record, it will be Heartbreak revisited again.

Like then, the current version has a great head coach (K.C. Keeler/Al Golden), a great quarterback (Evan Simon/Adam DiMichele), and a great defense.

The 2008 team also had their share of heartbreaking losses (a Hail Mary at Buffalo and overtime losses to UConn and at Navy). This team had heartbreaking one-point losses at home to Navy and on the road to Army. The next year, without DiMichele, the Owls won nine-straight games and made their first bowl game in 30 years.

I don’t want to wait until next year, nor do any other Owl fans.

The difference this time is that team can do nothing about the 5-7 outcome.

This team can.

At the end of that season, I wrote a tribute to DiMichele saying we might never see his like again at Temple. Fortunately, I was wrong in that Evan Simon probably will finish with a better career. It would be nice to see him get what eluded Adam. I do know this. The Simon I saw crawl on his hands and knees to recover a meaningless fumble last year in a 53-6 loss at Tulane will move Heaven and Earth to beat Tulane this year.

Adam DiMichele was a helluva QB for the 5-7 2008 Owls. Evan Simon is probably better and would cement that belief by winning one more game.

Let’s hope the other 54 Owls who dress for the game take the same approach.

The path to a bowl game is difficult because both Tulane and North Texas will be double-digit favorites.

Think of it this way, though.

Temple beat UTSA, 27-21, and Tulane was blown out by UTSA, 48-26. That doesn’t mean Temple will beat Tulane by 30 points or even 20, but it does suggest that Temple has a chance.

What will have to happen that hasn’t happened the last few games is for both Sekou Kromah and Sultan Badmas to get healthy and get on the field and cause Jake Retzlaff the same kind of agita they did to Owen McCown in the UTSA win. McCown, after leading the Roadrunners to a 14-3 lead at halftime, was constantly running for his life in the second half when the Owls outscored his team, 24-7. He was either sacked or running 20 yards in the wrong direction and making throws off the wrong foot. (Hell, this was the same McCown who was 31-for-33 for 370 yards and four touchdowns against Tulane demonstrating how important a pass rush is in college football.)

There are a couple of lessons in those stats for both Brian L. Smith, the Temple DC, and Tyler Walker, the OC, and, ultimately, Keeler, the CEO, to consider why devising the Tulane Game Plan:

One, if McCown can put up those numbers against Tulane’s secondary, unleash Simon. Two, put relentless pressure on Retzlaff.

That kind of thing MUST happen in one week or the Owls season will be pretty much over. It would also help if every Temple fan within an hour of the game puts down the remote and comes out to support the Owls.

That’s the Tulane game, which is all important.

If you are looking for a silver lining in the game at North Texas, it’s that the Owls of Stan Drayton … yes, Stan Drayton and Everett Withers … lost by only a touchdown to North Texas last year at the Linc.

Gotta think both Keeler and Brian L. Smith give the Owls a better chance this time, but you don’t want to let it come down to that.

For the Owls to avoid the same kind of Heartbreak that happened 17 years ago, it’s not up to Tulane. It’s up to the Owls themselves. They know how they beat a better team in UTSA. They know how hard it was. They have to take things into their own hands and take care of business at home in eight days.

Otherwise, it will be the kind of de ja vu nobody wants to revisit.

Monday: Survival Week

11.09.25
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Time to throw caution (and footballs) to the wind

K.C. Keeler did this interview two days before the Army game and he says better days are ahead, we’re just trying to figure out if those better days are this month or next year.

Over the next bye week, the Temple coaches are going to have to decide how to best get one or two wins in their final two shots.

A defense that allowed only 14 points against Army should be competitive enough.

Trust Evan Simon’s arm to do more than lead the Diamond Marching Band and we might revisit this great moment after the Tulane game.

Remember, this is an Army offense that scored 24 on Kansas State and 17 on Tulane–one of the two remaining teams on Temple’s schedule–so it could be said if they perform that way over the final two games, they put the Owls in a good spot to win one of the two games and become bowl eligible.

There do appear, though, to be cracks on offense and those should be fixable over the bye week.

The Owls so far have maintained a balance of running and passing but maybe after a further review of the situation they should realize how fortunate they are to have a quarterback who has thrown for 22 touchdowns against only one interception and incorporate more of the offense around him. After the Tulsa game, K.C. Keeler said his OC (Tyler Walker) told him he thought the Owls’ offense was better when it was “more aggressive.”

I agree. Yet the Owls’ offense was anything but aggressive in a 14-13 loss at Army on Saturday.

Time to reset that.

Evan Simon, to me, seems to be the type of guy who can turn the scoreboard into an adding machine if he gets the chance and maybe Temple gives him that over the final two games.

We can only hope.

Time to throw caution to the wind and that means filling the air with footballs at least at a higher rate than throughout the season so far.

Unless Kajiya Hollawayne’s four-star arm is broken, I’d like to see him throw one touchdown pass on a reverse before he leaves Temple.

Temple has explosiveness on the edge in players like JoJo Bermudez and Kajiya Hollawayne and reliable pass catchers in Colin Chase and a fantastic tight end room led by Peter Clarke. Hollawayne–a former quarterback at UCLA– should be the guy tossing the throwback pass, not a backup quarterback that the defense can recognize right away. In fact, maybe it’s advisable to ditch that entire Tyler Douglas package.

Maybe instead of handing the ball off to Jay Ducker, Keveun Mason and Hunter Smith, involve those guys more in the screen game to keep the pass rush off Simon and then take some deep shots. Run the ball but make it closer to 40 percent of the time instead of 50. Hell, I wouldn’t mind if it was 30 percent of the time.

This is the kind of approach that both Tulane and North Texas haven’t seen on film and they might not be ready for it. Simon isn’t going to be around forever so Temple should put his ability to good use over the final couple of games. If I’m going to try for a bowl game, I want the ball in the hands of my best player wearing that Cherry helmet most of the time.

It’s worth a shot or the final two games could be a repeat of ECU and nobody wants to see that.

Friday: Avoiding Heartbreak

11.08.25
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Flirting with a bowl game was nice while it lasted

For most of the upcoming bye week, what we are going to be hearing from both the Temple coaches and players (and maybe some fans) is that the Owls can win one of their two final remaining games and reach bowl eligibility.

A lot of people (raising my hand here) who have watched this team know what we saw over the last 10 games and come to a competing conclusion.

The Temple fan section in one end zone at the game today.

The flirtation with a bowl was nice, but it’s probably over.

Nobody would like to see the Owls win one of their two remaining games (hell, both would be preferable) more than me but wishing and hoping isn’t going to make it happen and the Owls’ one-point losses to the service academies set them up for having to beat better teams than both Army and Navy.

That will be a nearly impossible task.

Both the Navy and Army games taught the Owls a valuable lesson in the way to close out a football game going forward.

Had the Owls did against Navy what Army did against them–slide at the 2 and milk the clock to end the game–we’d be talking about which bowl game we wanted to attend. The Navy game, a 32-31 loss, should have been a win had the Owls taken three knees and kicked the game-winning field goal.

Army quarterback Cale Hellums illustrated that point with an exclamation mark when he slid at the 2 in a 14-13 win on Saturday. He could have done what Temple head coach K.C. Keeler elected to do a couple of weeks ago and score but that would have given Evan Simon the same kind of time to beat his team that Keeler gave Blake Horvath and Navy.

It was almost like Cale turned to K.C. and said, “This is what you guys should have done against Navy.”

The Owls played dumb football then. Army played smart football today. The hard reality is for all of the great compliments Keeler had about kicker Carl Hardin is that he missed makeable field goals (45 and 38 yards) against both service academies. Just one would have put the Owls in a bowl game. Keeler said Hardin can hit it from 60, but I’d rather have a consistent kicker from 45 and in than the threat of hitting one from 60. Give me a guy like Cap Poklemba–who went 5-for-5 in field goals at Pitt–over someone who might hit it from 60.

After the Tulsa win, Keeler said OC Tyler Walker told him the Owls’ offense was better when it played aggressive. They were anything but aggressive against Army. They should have thrown downfield on 75 percent of the plays against a team that couldn’t defend the pass.

Instead, they relied on the run way too much. If the Army defense is good at anything, it’s playing against a run they see every day in practice. The few times Temple threw the ball on Saturday it was successful.

Clock management is an important thing going forward for next year not this one because it likely won’t be an issue over the final two games.

What will be an issue in the final two games is the same one we witnessed two weeks ago against East Carolina, a roster gap that can’t be bridged by getting all the injured players back over the bye week. Make no mistake about it, the rosters of North Texas and Tulane are every bit as good as the ECU roster.

After that ECU game, Keeler alluded to that issue by saying “we’re not there yet” in the area of talent.

Expect all the quotes over the next week to be of the “we can do it” variety but the quotes over the two weeks after that being of the “we’re not there yet” realm. Or “those guys have had a couple years to build the roster and we’ve had only one.”

You know what I’d like to hear?

“Tyler said to me we’ve got a great QB so let’s put the ball in his hands the final two weeks and that got us a couple wins nobody expected,” Keeler might say.

Doubt we’d hear anything like that, though.

Damn.

When that happens, the story of the 2025 season will be so close yet so far away. Maybe no more than one foot far right twice with the kicker being it should have never come down to one.

Monday: Caution to the Wind

11.06.25
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Temple-Army: So many ways to look at it

This video proves Temple Owls are everywhere, including being producers at CBS Sports Network.

There are about 17 ways to look at the Temple at Army game Saturday (high noon, CBS Sports Network).

For our purposes here, we will only look at the top two because there is a major drop between those two through 17.

Temple fans will be outnumbered, so it is incumbent among the football sideline Temple Owls to be active and cheering their teammates.

The first one, favoring Temple, is that Army (4-4) has won four games against losing teams and lost four games against winning teams.

In case anyone has forgot, Temple (5-4) is a winning team. Both were blown out against ECU, while Temple had a better performance against Charlotte (49-14) than Army (24-7) did.

The second, favoring Army, is that Temple is terrible against the run and Army has the best run offense in college football, averaging 334.9 yards. Temple has given up nearly 200 yards on the ground per game and its 5.2 yards per carry is the 8th worst in the nation.

I know that. You now know that. Chances are both Jeff Monken and K.C. Keeler–two of the best head coaches in the country–know that.

So we know what Monken is going to do–run the ball and only throw about 10 times or less.

Interesting that Temple was 5-4 against Army between the WWII year of 1943 and Daz’s first year (2011). Temple is 5-4 now.

The Temple numbers are skewed in the sense that the Owls also had to defend the pass in many of those games. Not so much in this one.

Keeler, being as smart as he is and having one of the top defensive coordinators against a triple-option (Brian L. Smith), know what both have to do: Sell out against the run and trust the athleticism of their secondary to defend the rare pass. Try to ball that fist up and punch that ball out every time and win the turnover battle.

The stakes are really high at least for Temple because the Owls need only one win over their last three games to gain bowl eligibility and become one of the top five stories for the 2025 season in all of college football.

Here’s the deal.

Should be a perfect November day for football.

For Keeler, it would be remarkable and illustrate why he is the winningest active head coach in all of college football because of where both teams he coached in the last two seasons currently rest on the FBS landscape.

The guy had Sam Houston as a nine-win team and bowl eligible last year. Now, without him, they are 0-8, while he has Temple at 5-4 and only one measly win away from turning a program that had gone 3-9 for four-straight years into another bowl eligible team.

A loss means falling farther down that hill and having to crawl back up it against far better teams than Army.

It’s not going to be easy because Army has played everyone tough in this league with the exception of ECU.

Our picks this week.

So has Temple.

Something has got to give.

(In case anyone is wondering, one of the 15 other factors is that Temple quarterback Evan Simon has been sleeping at the E-O and watching Army film for the last six days determined to have his usual great game. I’ve been watching Temple football for over 40 years and when I had the great honor to meet his parents before the first home game, the first words I told them were: “I love that kid” not because he was a good quarterback but because he showed me how much he cared when he fell on a fumble against Tulane last year like it was a live grenade. That same caring will go into his preparation this week.)

This, though, is largely assignment for Keeler, Smith and the Temple defense to complete.

Time for this team, especially along the defensive front, to show some Temple TUFF and both tackle well and ballhawk.

If they complete that task, they will come home bowl eligible for the first time in six years. It only seems like 100.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

11.02.25
by

Last Chance for Bowl: A win at Army

Temple was down 28-3 and still spoiled Army’s Homecoming 15 years ago (wearing Cherry helmets).

The schedule says Temple has three shots at gaining bowl eligibility.

Reality suggests only one.

This week at Army (noon, CBS Sports Network).

Head coach K.C. Keeler pretty much said so during his post-game press conference on Saturday when he said “we’re not there yet” when talking about the physical gap between his team and East Carolina.

Temple’s Montel Harris is all smiles after getting congratulated by Army captain Nate Coombs for gaining 351 yards and scoring 7 touchdowns in Temple’s 63-32 win in 2012, the last victory for the Owls at Army.

Leading up to Saturday’s 45-14 loss, he said it was a “50-50” game like so many in the league.

It wasn’t.

What happened?

Well, the Owls didn’t play as well as they did in the loss to Navy or the wins at Charlotte and Tulsa. East Carolina is closer in ability to Tulane and North Texas–Temple’s final two opponents–than Army is so this could very well be Temple’s last chance at bowl eligibility.

Army is probably closer in ability to Navy or Tulsa than it is to Charlotte, so this could be the last so-called “50-50” game on the schedule.

The Owls would probably be wise to look at it that way.

The Army team honors Temple by hanging around for “T for Temple U” after the 2012 win.

Army opened as a 5.5-point favorite over Temple at 2 on Sunday and the “public” bet enough money on the home side to push that up to 6.5.

Still, both Tulane and North Texas will probably be double-digit favorites over the Owls.

Can the Owls beat Army?

Sure, because Tarleton State, a FCS team that lost to Abilene Christian, beat Army. Abilene Christian lost at Tulsa, 35-7, who the Owls beat two weeks ago.

Transitive property means only so much because the Owls beating UTSA suggested that the game against East Carolina would be similar talent vs. similar talent.

The problem for Temple is does the Temple that showed up vs. Navy and Charlotte show up at Army or do the Owls who showed up–or didn’t show up–last Saturday show up next Saturday?

A lot will be determined by how much the injury factor played into the ECU loss and how much that factor lingers over into the Army game.

Can Jay Ducker duplicate or even come close to the 351 yards Montel Harris had in 2012 or even the 228 yards the 5-foot-5 Matty Brown had in 2010?

I’ll settle for 100, which would set up a lot of play/action passing from Evan Simon.

Or that long-awaited throwback pass from former UCLA quarterback Kajiya Hollawayne to JoJo Bermudez for six we’ve been talking about for nine weeks.

To get to a bowl, it’s time to pull out all of the stops because this could be the last one on a bowl-eligible train that might bypass the Tulane and North Texas stations.

Friday: Army Preview