Tag Archives: K.C. Keeler

07.31.26
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Keeler and Keller: Perfect together

Cherry and White, 1978, in front of Temple Stadium. K.C. Keeler would be wise to be restricting the uniform/helmet combo to above (in case anyone can’t see, that’s a Cherry, not a White, helmet Ross Mongiardo is holding).

(Photo Courtesy, Matt McArdle, 32)

Everything is a lot more expensive these days.

I learned that the hard way this week.

Having been an automotive AAA member for more than 25 years, I was shocked when my $125 yearly membership fee gave me the “privilege” of having a new battery dropped into my car on Sunday for the princely sum (at least for me) of $247.

With my registration expiring today, I took the same car down to my friendly neighborhood mechanic. Trustworthy guy. Told him to slap on an inspection sticker and not fix anything that didn’t need to be fixed right away.

Pat Keller was a star quarterback at Central Bucks East. He volunteered to switch to tight end in an attempt to help the team.

Still, the minimum charge to keep the vehicle on the road was $525.

That’s almost $1,000 bucks in one week for a car that gets me from Point A to Point B.

Yikes. (I didn’t know there was anything wrong with the car.)

College football has also gotten way more expensive, especially in the area of player acquisition and retention.

So it comes as a surprise that the perfect coach/player relationship–not only at Temple but maybe in all of college football–is the inexpensive Keeler and Keller one at Temple.

They are both as “old school” as it gets and it’s for free or pretty close to it.

K.C. Keeler, the head coach, and Pat Keller, the longtime Temple backup quarterback, have similar values. Keeler has coached most of his life in the era where players only got room, board and tuition. Keller’s only motivation is something every “student/athlete” wants: Playing time.

If anything demonstrates the kind of coach Keeler is, it’s the relationship with Keller. He’s not the No. 1 player on the team. In fact, he’s closer to the No. 105 player on a team of 105 scholarship players but he’s right at the top of Keeler’s radar.

Give credit to Shawn Pastor of Owlsdaily.com for unearthing this gem on American Conference Media Day.

Pastor asks the best questions and it’s not surprising he gets the best answers of anyone covering the team.

This one is an all-timer.

“Pat came to us and goes, ‘Coach, you guys are set at quarterback.  I want to find a way to get on the field,'” Keeler said.  “And Pat is one of my favorite players of all time.  You talk about just a ‘yes sir’ kind of guy.  And has some ability, too.  So Pat has moved in with those guys and he’s competing.  And he knows for the most part it’s can he find a way to get on special teams?  Can he find a way to get on the bus?  But that’s just who Pat is.  He’s just looking for any way he can to help this team.”

Best line of that quote: “Pat is one of my favorite players of all time.”

Not the guy who threw 25 touchdown passes against only two interceptions (Evan Simon), although I’m sure he qualifies under those parameters but the fifth-team quarterback who asks to be moved to tight end so he can get on the field.

And that guy is making zero NIL money, although he probably gets a $2,500 COA stipend. That’s a mere pittance in college football these days.

Yet it says more for the way Keeler relates to his roster from 1-105 than any other story. That’s probably why he is the winningest active head coach in Division One college football.

That story costs nothing but is worth a thousand bucks, maybe a million.

07.26.26
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Biggest Media Day Takeaway: The Defensive Line

An unexpected question led to an unexpected answer from second-year Temple head coach K.C. Keeler during one of the many media day side interviews.

Someone asked Keeler about “taking back” arguably his top defensive lineman of a year ago, Sekou Kromah, if a court challenge the player had against the NCAA succeeded. The expected answer was that the Owls were supporting Kromah in his effort to play another year but wouldn’t commit either way until the issue was resolved.

Now the Owls need Nebraska assistant Adam DiMichele, who turned 41 on Sunday, to sue the NCAA for that final year of eligibility Joe Paterno denied him and come back to play quarterback for the Owls. Hey, Lebron James is older so he can do it.

The unexpected answer was that, while Temple lost some big-time players along the DL, Keeler said that the line was definitely upgraded at all positions due to the personnel General Manager Clayton Barnes and company brought into the building.

Without Kromah, rush end Cameron Stewart, and Khalil Poteat, the Owls figured to struggle finding pieces from elsewhere to plug and play but Keeler honestly felt the new players represented a talent upgrade. Keeler indicated the reason for that was because he couldn’t “cut” anyone a year ago due to the fact that he told the Owls in the first team meeting that anyone who wanted a Temple degree was welcome to stay and get one.

With all but three linemen on the defensive side either graduated or out of eligibility, Keeler (and Barnes) could go out on the open market and get players who were better than the prior staff recruited. Now Poteat has joined the Kromah party and also filed a lawsuit. With so little time remaining, hard to imagine any other place one or both of those guys end up not being Temple again.

Here’s the kicker (or the three-point stance): Even if they come back, there’s no guarantee they could reclaim their spots as starters.

That’s saying something because, when Stewart, Poteat, Kromah and a couple other interior linemen were healthy they were pretty formidable. Arguably, they were the stars of the 26-21 home win over bowl-bound (and champion Tulane-beating) UTSA, sacking Owen McCown three times and hurrying him into incompletions or interceptions 14 more times.

It was the best pass-rush ratio of any game last year.

The problem was health, though, as Kromah was only able to start five games due to a bum shoulder.

With the entire offensive line returning, it only figured that side of the ball would dominate in the Cherry and White game, but it didn’t and the defensive line had more than its share of moments.

So what Keeler said on Friday pretty much jived with what some of the offensive linemen were saying after the spring game.

With only three players back on the DL who saw significant action last year, the Owls had to fill the other holes with seven transfer portal players and one junior college pickup and those guys proved themselves in spring ball.

Khalil Poteat celebrates a sack at UMass.

The cream will rise to the top when summer camp starts in earnest on Friday and we’ll be able to plug some names into starting spots shortly after that.

While most of those names will be new ones, a couple of Prodigal Sons could be added to the list if their cases are expedited through the courts.

For a team that returned every single ELIGIBLE starter (the only one in the G5), adding a couple of guys who supposedly completed their careers at Temple could be the Cherry on top of this White cake.

Friday: An Under-The-Radar Story

Monday: Keeler’s Biggest Gamble at Temple

07.24.26
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Must-see TV begins this morning at 10: Temple Owls

This is where most of the media comes down on the Temple Owls and jives with my 6-6 prediction. However, if the Boston College QB landed at Temple we would have upped at to 9-3. Jaxon Smolik, prove me wrong.

When Astronauts first landed on the moon, the phrase of the day was: “Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.”

That referred to the lunar module, which was The Eagle, and the spokesman was the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. (And to you skeptics, yes, it was real and we did it 57 years ahead of the current technology.)

On Thursday, another bird, the Owls, have landed, not on the moon, but at St. Petersburg, Fla., the home of the American Conference Media Day. It’s hot in St. Pete (real feel 110) but that’s child’s play compared to the real feel the Owls had in an outdoor practice at the E-O in Philadelphia (111) on June 24. (FYIW, the temperature on the moon 7/20/69 was 250 degrees.)

Tranquil, we’re not sure but it will be today’s home base for the Temple Owls.

So the two Owl player representatives, tight end Peter Clarke and linebacker, should not be sweating much.

Maybe the rest of the league should but they don’t know it yet.

Athlon Sports has a relatively low opinion on the Owls

Thursday was just a feeling out day and the big show begins today on ESPN+ at 8 a.m. and runs until 2 p.m. with every head coach taking the stage. At 10 a.m., it’s K.C. Keeler’s turn. (That’s 4 a.m. Hawaii time for our many Owl fans on the island.)

There will be plenty of questions and plenty of optimism from the assembled head coaches, including Temple’s K.C. Keeler. Usually, there is a Media Poll, which ranks the teams from first to last but that was discontinued last year and there are no plans to have it revived.

Yet there are other media outlets who either plan to or have released a poll and one of them was Athlon Sports (see inset). They had the Owls listed for No. 8 in the league and, shockingly, Navy as No. 1.

Shockingly, because Navy lost a lot of talent, including the single closest thing to a one-man team the American has ever seen in quarterback Blake Horvath. New quarterback Braxton Woodson was absolutely dreadful in a blowout loss at Notre Dame when Horvath was injured last year.

Horvath was the only reason Navy beat Temple. Heck, he might have been the only reason Navy came CLOSE to Temple last year and so that prediction may be more based on reputation than reality.

However, despite the fact that the Owls returned every single eligible starter–no other American nor G5 team did that–there are legitimate questions about the Owls, too. One, is quarterback, where, for the first time in a long while, the Owls will have to go without someone who has started a college football game. That’s always a crapshoot.

Some people have expressed concerns about the defensive secondary but the Owls have a guy in Adrian Laing who returned an interception for a touchdown at Charlotte and was absolutely robbed of another goal-line interception in the North Texas game on a ridiculous PI call. Still, it’s not certain if he’s won the starting job this year so the Owls should be OK at corner. If his competition is that good, and I’m more than OK with Laing as a starting corner (and I am), cornerback is the least of my worries.

All of this could be addressed at 10 this morning. I’ll settle for most of it.

That’s why it’s must-see TV.

If you are a die-hard Temple football fan like me, it will be the last must-see TV until you get home from the Sept. 5 opener and check out the Rhode Island-Temple highlights on YouTube.

Monday: Media Day Recap

Friday: Keeler’s Biggest Gamble Yet

Monday: An Under-The-Radar Story

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.

07.09.26
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Temple telegraphing its leaders with Media Day docket

Not much mid-July news for Temple football but a couple of clues came out today about the leadership group.

Both past and present.

Head coach K.C. Keeler calls it his leadership council and designated for assignment tight end Peter Clarke and linebacker Eric Stuart. That assignment was accompanying Keeler to the American Conference Media Day sessions.

Those choices said a lot, considering that last year quarterback Evan Simon and defensive end Sekou Kromah were the guys.

Simon at the time was in a knock-down, drag-out battle with Gevani McCoy for the quarterback job. That went down opening day at UMass, where Simon grabbed the job by throwing six touchdown passes. McCoy became the good soldier backup ready to save the season if Simon went down.

Kromah was who we’d thought he’d be, one of the two best pass-rushers on the team, and a solid run-defender. He made life miserable for UTSA quarterback Owen McCown in the Owls’ most impressive win of the season, 26-21, at Lincoln Financial Field.

For some reason, Kromah entered the portal. There were no takers because his eligibility was in question. Today, he filed a federal lawsuit applying for emergency relief, meaning eligibility to play this season. Kromah’s lawyers cited a case in Ohio that was similar to his where a federal judge granted that eligibility and it seems like he has a good chance to play.

Will it be at Temple?

A lot of that is on the other three guys mentioned at the top of this story–Keeler, Clarke and Stuart–because, in cases like this, if a player wants to come back Keeler leans on his leadership council.

Clarke was the glue that kept the team together, staying himself and lobbying every single other returning starter to stay. As a result, Temple was the only G5 team to return every “eligible” starter. Stuart, their best linebacker, was one of them.

Do you think he wants to play behind Kromah again? Certainly the comfort level would be there but Keeler would have to sign off.

Who knows, but an area of need for the Owls seems to be pass-rushers who can also defend the run and Kromah qualifies on both counts. His 4.5 tackles for loss led the Owls and his three sacks were second on the team. A player like that doesn’t drop out of the sky often and, even though the Owls have all their roster spots filled. a little tinkering here and there could restore his scholarship. Even if Kromah is granted injunctive relief, he really isn’t in position to demand NIL money and the restoration of another season gives him another chance to impress the NFL and that’s a good outcome for him.

K.C. seems to be saying “now, Sekou, don’t enter that transfer portal, OK?”

From Temple’s perspective, it’s a trade that could help both parties. They get that proven guy on the defensive line and Kromah gets his scholarship back.

Shawn Pastor, the Editor of Owlsdaily.com, when asked if Temple would have any interest in taking him back, said: “Absolutely” in a post on June 13.

That would give Temple three guys who repped on Media Days and that’s one more than they could have expected a few days ago and you can never have enough of those.

Monday: Best of TFF (vacation week)

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

06.26.26
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College Football Youtube Channel: Owls will finish 8-4

Despite the fact that Colby Dant thinks Temple is a private school (it isn’t), these guys know their college football.

Sometimes fans are too close to the forest to see the trees.

As far as Temple football is concerned, I’m right in the middle of the trees so I examined the roster, expressed my concerns about an inexperienced new quarterback, mixed the recipe and baked a conclusion:

6-6.

An improvement on the 5-7 we saw last year but, at least for me, a potential disappointment.

As far as a second year for a coach with the resume of K.C. Keeler, not as impressive as I wanted the second season to be. Kinda thought at the end of last year that the Owls would be able to grab a superstar FCS starter or a competent lower-level FBS starter.

Instead, they grabbed the third-string quarterback from Penn State.

It might work out. It might not.

Might doesn’t get me to a bowl game. Love the way this roster is constructed with the exception of the most important of the 22 starting positions.

Sometimes, though, it’s good to look at things from 40,000 feet and that’s exactly what the guys from The College Football Experience did with their season preview of the Owls dropped yesterday.

Colby Dant and Ryan “Moneyline Mac” McIntyre know their college football and both agreed that the Owls would finish 8-4.

That’s not the biggest news.

Phil Steele correctly ranks Temple’s schedule as the toughest

“Moneyline Mac” predicted the Owls would beat Penn State in the second game, noting that K.C. Keeler is in his second year and Matt Campbell is a Penn State rookie still putting the pieces together.

He also correctly asserts that if the Owls do the impossible and beat Penn State, they are losing to Toledo the next week. (I’m not as sure about that because Matt Rhule beat PSU and I wrote two days after that the tougher game would be the next week at Cincinnati. It was but the Owls still managed to win. I think Keeler is a better head coach than Rhule so we will see.)

Crazy or not, there is some logic to Mac’s assertion in that there are rookie mistakes for every first-year coach in a new spot. (Even K.C. had his rookie mistake in the Navy game, not falling on the ball and kicking the winning field goal with no or little time left after getting a first-and-goal at the 1 with 1:16 left on the clock.) Hell, if Colby and Ryan are right and the Owls finish 8-4 all will be forgiven.

Just a reminder for Colby Dant, Temple is a public, not private, school.

First, because they have noted quite correctly that Temple has drawn the toughest schedule in the American Conference.

They aren’t the only ones who have noticed.

Phil Steele’s college football magazine was named No. 1 in a survey for this summer and that’s confirmed my personal bias for a number of years and even Phil has said “Temple’s schedule is by far the toughest in the American Conference.”

That, and an injury-prone inexperienced quarterback fueled my lower expectations.

If I had to choose between me being right and Colby and Ryan, I give the nod to the latter two guys and will gladly write the apology post in December.

Sometimes you need to get above those trees and out of the woods to see the forest below and let’s hope this is one of those times.

Monday: Swimming Upstream

Friday: Real Estate Deal

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

06.19.26
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My One Birthday Wish: The Keelers Keep their promise

On the day Steve Addazio was hired by Temple, he called it his dream job. Two years later, he said the same thing about BC.

Another year, one foot closer to the invariable end all of us face.

For me, the number is shocking because I outlived a lot of damn close good friends, like fellow Temple fan John Belli and the great Daily News high school writer Ted Silary.

Belli, I had many “Belli” laughs with at Temple games and tailgates and Ted I had many “belly” laughs with covering Philadelphia high school games together. They were both about my age.

On Tuesday, I learned that the best damn copy editor I ever had at The Philadelphia Inquirer—Al “Moose” Campbell–(nobody called him Al) passed. He was only a couple years older than me.

Everybody wishes for good things on their birthday but sharing Juneteenth with one of the greatest days in U.S. history–the official freeing of the slaves in Texas, ending slavery in the country–makes it a memorable day not just for me but for eternity.

As a Temple fan, though, I’m realistic.

It would be nice to hit tonight’s Mega Millions and get the $452 million, forward $400 million of it to Temple football and scrape by with the few years I have left on $52 million. Not a damn penny to Temple basketball because I’m sick of the mindset online that says Temple football is holding back Temple basketball. Get one of those fans to win the next $452 million.

That way, Temple wins the next four national titles and proves to the rest of the world how flawed this current college football system is and they got back to room, board and tuition. Even I, who loves to win more than anyone, will feel a little guilt for Temple winning under those parameters.

Janice Keeler (left) will deserve all the credit if K.C. Keeler keeps his promise and makes Temple his final job.

If an even college football playing field means no fifth-straight natty for Temple, that’s a price I’m willing to pay.

That’s not realistic, though, but what is gives Temple an advantage and I will take that wrapped up in a box with a nice bow on it.

For the Keelers–K.C. and Janice–to keep their promise and make Temple their last coaching stop.

That would give Temple the kind of stability no other university–either P4 or G5–has.

We’ve seen coaches promise fealty to Temple before. On the day Steve Addazio was hired by Temple he called it his “dream job.” Two years later, he said the same thing about Boston College.

Two DAYS, not two years, before Matt Rhule was hired by Baylor he said he wouldn’t sell his soul to another school for $4 million because “I’d rather coach these (Temple) kids.”

One day after winning a title for the Temple kids, he sold his soul for the $4 million.

This promise, though, has a different feel.

One, Keeler is the winningest active Division I college head football coach. Two, everybody else not named Keeler leaves for so-called greener pastures.

Matt Rhule made this promise to Temple two days before selling his soul for $4 million dollars.

Keeler is a special case. He’s from here. His kids are living here. His grandkids are rooted here. There is a real anchor to Philadelphia for the Keelers that did not exist in the past for other Temple coaches.

Given that, what a tremendous recruiting tool in an era where the kids know full well the coach who recruits them is not likely to be the same guy who is there at the end of their college careers–or even halfway through–that exists now.

Temple offers stability.

Nobody else does.

That sets Temple apart from everyone else and by association, every Temple fan apart from a fan of any other college football school.

Failing a financial windfall that is probably not forthcoming, that’s a birthday present any Temple fan (not just me) can’t top.

Monday: Speed Kills

06.14.26
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Commits so far: A Big City Feel

Ethan Dempsey from Charlotte Rolesville (N.C.) will be joining the Owls in 2027.

Coaches like to talk about getting the right fit and that includes everything from game plans to starter to recruits.

A fit is looking like part of the plan for Temple in the high school recruiting department as the Owls picked up the New York City championship game MVP (Ameir Morrow) last year and the D.C. Championship game MVP this year (Jakari Graham).

Temple recruit Jakari Graham makes three one-hand catches in the same game.

Not surprising that both found Philadelphia a good fit because they thrived in big city environments before and there is a belief–at least among the Temple coaching staff–that they can thrive here, too.

Graham isn’t the only big-city player Temple has added as Temple got added Camden pass rusher Amara Dolleh (6-5, 230), DeMatha Catholic (also D.C) offensive tackle Kevin Nesbittt (6-6, 320) and Charlotte, N.C. wide receiver Ethan Dempsey (6-3, 198).

Others–with the possible exception of edge rusher Caleb Saint Fleur (6-2, 230)–are country bumpkins by comparison. Saint Fleur is from Hollywood, Fla., which for all intents and purposes is Miami.

Pleasantville (N.J.) RB Ta’kiesse Barnes is the only three-star recruit for the Owls so far.

That’s 11 so far in an expected class of 25. The Owls have way more offers out that available scholarships so it is incumbent on those being recruited to accept the offers as soon as possible or risk holding the bag or going to lesser G5 or even FCS schools.

Temple is taking a developmental approach to its high school recruits, building a team the old-fashioned way–getting the skill position players a chance to play right away, while putting the linemen in a lock box with the idea being getting them in the weight room and a redshirt year to adjust to college without being force-fed into a starting job, like Stan Drayton was forced to do with Luke Watson.

If there is any concern so far, only one–Pleasantville (N.J.) running back Ta’kliesse Barnes–has a three-star rating. That will probably mean Temple won’t get the No. 1 recruiting class in the American Conference this year unless it hits on a lot of stars in the remaining 14 offers. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a good class but it does mean the public perception of it won’t be as high.

All that matters is what the future Owls do between the white lines starting in 2027.

For the best recruiting news, follow Owlsdaily.com. Here is that site’s list of current Temple recruits: