Tag Archives: K.C. Keeler

09.05.25
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Temple home opener: Gameday is fun again

This should be the gameday film shown in the EO team meeting room Friday night.

Not very many new Temple head football coaches have accomplished what K.C. Keeler has in his 261 days on the job.

He’s made gamedays at Lincoln Financial Field fun again despite never having coached a game in that stadium.

I will be grabbing one of these bad boys.

Oh, yes. There was some excitement with Geoff Collins taking over for Matt Rhule after an American Conference championship season, but nothing like this.

Nothing like Temple fans will experience at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon against visiting Howard University.

Why?

Because Temple is coming out of six dark years into the light. Temple was already in the light the year after Rhule won the league championship.

Things fell apart somewhere between the time Collins left and the time Keeler arrived.

There are doubting Thomases out there but don’t count me among them. What Keeler has done so far is very impressive. In addition to convincing most of the “good guys” on the roster to stay, he’s added some key pieces to the puzzle that only enhanced the roster and bolstered this team’s 2025 chances.

Then came June and Keeler–despite the handicap of four-straight 3-9 seasons–was able to convince the third best recruiting class in all of G5 football to come to Temple.

The students need to answer the call and become the 12th man for the Owls on both this Saturday and next week against Oklahoma. SEPTA is no excuse for not attending this game.

Mix in a 365-day offseason and no vacations for head coaches to Texas–like we had two weeks in the summer for three-straight years–and this team is primed and ready.

They demonstrated as much in the opener at UMass, finishing the game on a 35-0 run to beat the home team 42-10. Many in the “real world” of college football expected that game to be a 3.5-point Temple win. Not me. I predicted 24-10 and hoped for a blowout.

My most fervent hopes were realized.

Now let’s hope a lot of the fans buy in because they won’t all buy in unless the Owls are able to either give Oklahoma a good game next week or win it outright.

That’s not important now.

What’s important now is to get the largest-ever Temple student freshman class into the habit of both attending the game and enjoying the experience once they arrive in South Philadelphia. That means giving them a fun pre-game experience and convincing those same kids to get into the habit of going into the stadium and cheering their heads off. This isn’t Tulsa, which only has 3,432 full-time students. This is Temple with over 30,000 full-time students, including the largest incoming class ever.

Get those kids into the habit of going to the games.

For the team itself, it also means not overlooking anyone. When you’ve gone 3-9 for four-straight years, that shouldn’t be an issue but knowing that Howard–as a 40+-point underdog only eight years ago–shocked the world should get their attention.

For me, this is a Gevani McCoy game. Either sit Evan Simon at the jump (my choice) or play him one series and get him the hell out of harm’s way. Earlier this week, Keeler said he’s told the Owls many times they are a good football team and if they play clean, they are a tough out.

According to the great Cecily Tynan, there are no weather concerns for the Temple game on Saturday.

He didn’t mean a tough out against Howard. He meant a tough out against Oklahoma and the other good teams remaining on the schedule.

Play hard. Play clean. No spitting on anyone in the pre-game and no excessive celebrations after any good play.

Win the game and only then let the dice roll against Oklahoma.

Temple football is fun again in South Philadelphia.

It’s been a while.

Very Late Saturday Night (since I will be at the game until 8 or so): Game Analysis

09.01.25
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5 Takeaways From the Temple Game

OL shows the improvement Keeler spoke about by blowing UMass off the ball here.

Controversial take here but I’ve thought about it long and hard since the end of Temple’s 42-10 win at Mass on Saturday.

Put Evan Simon in bubble wrap for one game only and sit him against Howard this Saturday.

My thinking is this:

You can beat Howard, 40-0, with both Simon and Gevani McCoy so why not start McCoy? If the game works out like it should, McCoy gets a nice game under his belt and faces live ammunition that can’t be duplicated in practice.

You probably don’t even have a puncher’s chance against Oklahoma if Simon turns an ankle (or worse) against Howard. For those of you who don’t think Temple has a chance against Oklahoma anyway, this is your periodic reminder that fellow AAC member Navy beat Oklahoma last year.

Who did Navy lose to, 32-18, a couple of years ago?

Temple.

You can hear a lot of cheering for Temple when Peter Clarke catches this touchdown pass.

Beating Okie after going 2-0 would make a huge statement for the program and the conference itself.

Okie beat Illinois State, 35-7, on Saturday. Hard to believe that Illinois State is as good as UMass so Temple does indeed have a chance. They need Simon healthy to do it and getting McCoy up to game speed with an extended look against Howard wouldn’t hurt either. He was inserted into the game deep in Temple territory with the Owls up so big that all he did was basically hand off.

Allowing him to throw the ball downfield and utilizing the entire playbook would be a win/win for Temple. To do that, he needs to play an entire game.

That’s our first takeaway from the game. Here are four more:

Keeler was right about the lines

Two weeks ago, Keeler said he “never had a defensive line this deep. We have 9-10 guys who can really play.” Turns out he wasn’t blowing smoke. The Temple DL dominated, and all 10 guys played well. A week later, Keeler said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a position group improve as much as our offensive line.” He credited that with an intensive strength program and new OL coach Al Johnson. UMass went to a goal-line defense, selling out for the run, when Temple had the ball on its 1 and the Temple OL blew a hole so wide open a truck could run through it. Instead of a truck, Jay Ducker went for 55 yards.

The Tight End Room is Stacked

Peter Clarke and Ryder Kusch emerged as the top two tight ends, both catching a pair of TD passes. Yet Daniel Evert, who scored a long touchdown against Army last year, is also very good and will make an impact. Despite all that, Jake Woods might have been the star of summer camp and he will be heard from as well.

K.C. Keeler should consider put Evan Simon in bubble wrap for one week only. He can play all the rest starting with Oklahoma.

Ducker and Worthy Should be Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside

Got the distinct feeling that if Terrez Worthy went through the hole at the goal-line, he would have taken it to the house. Worthy runs a legitimate 4.4-40 and is the fastest guy on the team. He’s a home-run hitter and few linebackers have the speed to cover him out of the backfield. OC Tyler Walker probably noticed that from the booth and will take advantage of that mismatch.

Two Dante Wrights are better than One

Temple was expected to miss the oft-injured Dante Wright but Kajiya Hollawayne and JoJo Bermudez proved to be up to the task with the former catching a touchdown pass and the latter catching 7 balls for 78 yards. Yet Colin Chase was pretty much the WR star of the summer camp, much like Woods was with the tight ends, and although he had a spectacular catch near the goal-line, was not targeted like he will be as the season goes on and, once he gets those targets, should show fans in the stands what he showed his teammates in the summer.

While Saturday was exciting and a lot of players performed well, there will be a lot of other players making an impact over the next 11 games.

Or if they are as lucky as they appear to be good, a dozen or more games.

Friday: Howard Preview

08.30.25
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Temple leaves fans with a good taste in their mouths

Gameday at Lincoln Financial Field is going to be fun again, maybe for the first time in 10 years.

The last word in this space yesterday was that we expected to eat some sort of delicious cake at around 6:30 p.m. today.

Well, we were off only by about 17 minutes.

The game ended at exactly 6:47 p.m., Eastern, and the double-layered Cherry and White cake with ice cream on the top was well worth the wait.

Best part of this is from 0:38 timestamp on…

Temple went into Amherst and not only won but won 42-10.

We didn’t expect the Cherry on top of this White cake but, thanks to the leadership of K.C. Keeler and Evan Simon, our bellies are full right now.

So ends a 20-game losing streak in the first year of a Temple head coach and, if that number sounds familiar, that happened roughly 20 years ago in the middle of Al Golden’s first season. That was a real 20-game losing streak and Golden stopped the bleeding with a 28-14 win over Bowling Green that day.

This was a little less real but no less embarrassing 20-game road losing streak that is, thankfully, over.

Those of us sitting in the stands back in 2006 knew it was the start of something special and those of us who had the pleasure of watching today have a similar feeling in the pit of our stomachs. Not heartburn, but a stomach that just ingested something Cherry and White and delicious.

Like a cake.

Poteat’s sack of Rose here turned the game around. (Photo Courtesy Zamani Feelings)

After 20-straight road losses, Temple has a road win and similarities between the two times abound.

Golden led the Owls to a nine-game winning two years later before bolting for Miami.

He made gamedays fun again at Lincoln Financial Field. Instead of bitching and moaning about this call and that call and that hire and this one, the pre-game talk turned to winning.

Then, Golden was 36 and we all knew in the back of our heads he was eyeing the next-big thing.

Keeler is 65 and his roots are planted here and less likely to leave and that’s one of the reasons why this time is even more exciting than that time.

The last time a Philadelphia football team above the high school level played a meaningful game they won it by sacking the quarterback at crucial times. This Philadelphia team did the same in the next game with Khalil Poteat providing the kind of sack that reminded Owl/Eagle fans of Jalen Carter.

Temple Football Forever way back on 8/29/25

UMass couldn’t handle the Temple D-Line pretty much the way the Chiefs couldn’t handle the Eagles’ D-Line. Keeler pretty much said it would be that way two weeks ago when he noted that “this is the deepest D-Line I ever had. We have 9-10 guys who can really play.”

A week later, Keeler said the same thing about his O-Line, “I’ve never seen a position group improve as much as our O-Line” perhaps referring to the “iron sharpens iron” of playing against an elite D-Line. The OL gave Evan Simon time to throw for six touchdown passes and gave Jay Ducker space to rush for over 100 yards in his Temple debut.

The Eagles proved on Super Bowl Sunday that games are won in the trenches and the other birds who play home games in that same stadium seem to have adopted that formula.

Either way, the food at the tailgates is going to taste better for the first time in a long while and the dessert afterward is promising, too.

Leave some room for both.

Monday: Five Takeaways From The Game

Friday: Howard Preview

Late Saturday Night: Howard Game Analysis

Monday: 5 Trick Plays for Okie

08.29.25
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Temple-UMass: Only one way to look at it

Should be a beautiful day for Philadelphians to drive the six hours to Amherst and see their only FBS team come away with a win.

Most of the nation’s “wise guy” bettors have the Temple at UMass football game tomorrow as pretty darn close to a pick-’em.

Should be a perfect day for football tomorrow in Amherst.

Temple is a 2.5-point favorite at this moment. At other moments it was -4. Earlier in the summer, it was +1.5.

Most of those know nothing about Temple or UMass.

It’s not their fault.

The so-called wise guys, otherwise collectively known as “Vegas”, pay a lot more attention to Texas-Ohio State and Notre Dame vs. Miami.

They don’t spend too much time studying the G5 because the money isn’t there.

If they had, they would know there is one way to look at this Temple at UMass game (3:30 p.m., ESPN+) and that way is this:

Both teams played UConn tough last year but Temple was the team that dominated UConn in the trenches and lost on the flukiest of fluke plays in New England. That, despite the Owls having the albatross of a terrible head coach (Stan Drayton) and a worse quarterback (Forrest Brock) around their necks.

UMass fans don’t sound as confident as they were earlier in the week.

The necks are loose and free this year and that’s the way this team should play. The only players who should have their heads on a swivel Saturday should be on the home team.

Now the Owls have one great head coach and two pretty darn good quarterbacks playing a New England team far worse than the one they played and lost to on a scoop and score a year ago.

Temple has spent nine months gestating this baby of a lead-pipe cinch College Football Hall of Fame head coach in K.C. Keeler and it’s about to be birthed kicking and screaming at 3:30 on Saturday.

Keeler will be in the CFB Hall of Fame in Atlanta one day (joining former Owls Wayne Hardin and Paul Palmer) not because of what he has done for Temple but because of what he has done up to this point, winning the most FCS games in the history of any head coach.

What he will do at Temple will only be icing on that cake but, based on that history, what he’s baking now should be pretty tasty for Owl fans. UMass should be the first slice of that cake. If it’s a win, it’s a pound cake. If it’s a comfortable win, it’s a double-layer cake. If it’s a blowout, there’s ice cream on top of those double layers.

One way or another, cake it should be.

Not only did the Owls make a serious upgrade in coaching on both sides of the ball they improved their running back room by getting Jay Ducker to play first team in front of last year’s best running back, Terrez Worthy. (Bold prediction: Worthy breaks a long one and gets more yards than Ducker.)

They lost last year’s best receiver, the oft-injured Dante Wright, but overcompensated for that loss by adding Colin Chase and JoJo Bermudez, who could instantly make Owl fans forget about Wright.

On the defensive side of the ball, they replaced the worst DC in Temple history, Everett Withers, with a guy who has the chance to be one of the best, Brian L. Smith.

Keeler said his defensive line was “9-10 deep and the best I’ve ever had.” Keeler also noted that his OL was the position group that improved the most over the last nine months, perhaps due in part to playing against such a talented DL every day. This team has the ability to dominate UMass in the trenches and that’s where winning football begins.

Keeler has taken the right approach, telling his players to not worry about the scoreboard but to take it one play, one position battle, at a time. He said if they take care of the play in front of them, they can start to look at the scoreboard in only the closing seconds and they will like the results.

If they don’t, they won’t.

Still, the biggest determiner of the outcome is the attitude of the players who seem to have bought into the notion that 3-9 seasons are a thing of the past and are collectively focused on changing that dynamic now.

It all starts tomorrow. One play at a time.

One win at a time.

Me?

I’d love to see a Temple blowout but I don’t think it will happen. There will be some growing pains and it will be something between the 40-22 Super Bowl score and the 23-21 Vegas seems to expect.

Call it 24-10 Temple. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it. If I’m wrong, I will eat crow but I’m fully expecting a pretty decent slice of cake around 6:30 tomorrow night.

Saturday Night: Game Analysis

08.24.25
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Temple football: Finally, Game Week

Since Wayne Hardin transitioned the Temple football Owls from what was then called the college division (roughly FCS) to the university division (FBS), football here could be broken into five eras:

One, The Hardin Years (1970-82)

Two, The Arians Years (1983-88)

Three, The Dark Ages (1991-2005)

Four, The Golden Rhule Era (2006-2016)

Five, A Mini-Dark Age (2017-2024)

Some pretty good times and a couple of rough patches.

There are signs with the season opener at UMass on Saturday (3:30 p.m., ESPN+) that the Owls are coming out a rough patch and into good times and that’s encouraging because one of the lessons of the Golden Rhule Era should have been the Owls were not going back the dark ages.

After Al Golden righted the ship, the prevailing thought around here was that there was no reason for Temple to return to losing seasons and breaking even should have been the minimum standard for every season.

Nobody could have predicted that after being bowl eligible for nine of a 10-year period, they would slump to a 1-6 season followed by a lot of 3-9 ones.

What happened?

After Rhule, the university went away from the formula that caused the revival in the first place–instead of hiring coaches with local connections, the administration hired either big-time coordinators from elsewhere or “a fish out of water” head coach from the middle of the country.

By returning to the formula that worked, the Owls got the best of both worlds–a big-time winning head coach with Philadelphia roots.

Everything K.C. Keeler has done since his arrival in Philadelphia screams he gets Temple as a university and gets both this city and the Temple football program.

Now emerging from the dark tunnel into the sunlight begins and winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

The first game won’t be an easy one as the Owls have to take to the road to take on another revitalized program in UMass. Temple is a 4-point favorite and Vegas is usually pretty good so very few expect a blowout (although I wouldn’t mind the Owls getting one).

This is the type of confidence UMass fans have (LOL).

As much as the Owls expect to win, that’s how much the UMass fans expect to win because they, too, have a first-year coach who understands their region as much as Keeler does his. While this is head coach Joe Harasymiak’s first FBS head coaching job, he’s was a successful head coach at Maine. Many of their fans think they can win.

Still, Temple plays in a tougher conference and has a four-year head start recruiting a superior pedigree of players so the Owls have reason to be confident. The last time Temple played UMass, even a Stan Drayton-coached team came away with a 28-0 win.

With a better coach and better players, the Owls need to start fast and, after 231 days of hard work under a guy who knows what he’s doing, they are hungry to show how far they’ve come.

They’ll have that chance in six days.

Friday: Temple-UMass Preview

Saturday Night: Temple-UMass analysis

08.21.25
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First things first: Single Digits

Must admit that the only thing that generated any interest in my watching the sad 2024 season of The Temple football Owls was The Evan Simon Story.

It might make for a pretty good movie someday.

Was miffed when then head coach Stan Drayton picked a JUCO quarterback over him to start the season at Oklahoma and then watched in horror as said JUCO (Forrest Brock) played like Forrest Tucker (F-Troop fame) and became, at least in my mind, the worst starting quarterback in Temple football history.

The miffing turned to anger when I saw Simon throw four touchdowns and run for another in a 45-29 win over Utah State. (Yes, the same Utah State that handed Hawaii a 55-10 loss and Hawaii is favored over P4 Stanford this weekend.)

Me, a mere fan who sits in the stands was right and the freaking CEO of the entire program who made $2 million more than me to watch this garbage was wrong. My first thought was that the Owls might have won as many as three more games (certainly one or two more) if Drayton had might the right decision.

I cheered my ass off when Layton Jordan sacked Evan Simon here in 2022. Little did I know I would become Simon’s biggest fan a couple years later.

That wasn’t when I became a big Evan Simon fan.

I became a big Evan Simon fan when, during the later stages of a 53-6 loss at Tulane, he fumbled the ball and crawled on his hands and knees for 5 yards at midfield to outfight four bigger faster and tougher Tulane defenders and recover the fumble. He sacrificed his body and health for the ball and, in some respects, for Temple University.

That’s Temple TUFF.

On Thursday, Simon was rewarded not for that but what he has done since and his leadership of this team as being one of the new single digits. One of the other single digits was a punter, Dante Atton. Let’s hope this is one single digit the Owls never have to use.

The big story is Simon, though.

There are two ways to look at this.

One, it’s an indication Simon will start at UMass in about a week.

Two, new head coach K.C. Keeler is throwing a bone to Simon with the single digit for his leadership and accepting last year’s Oregon State starting quarterback, Gevani McCoy, into the fold.

I don’t know. We will find out the answer to that question in eight days.

This I do know: Both are AAC championship level quarterbacks and Temple can win with both and need both to win.

I only know one who I can be sure will crawl forward on his hands and knees for a full 5 yards to recover a fumble. I can hope the other guy has the same level of courage.

Or never fumbles.

If Simon gets the job and wins a championship, though, that would rival “Rudy” for the best college football film ever made.

Monday: Game Week

08.14.25
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Behind The Lines: NYP Finds Value in Temple

One of the themes first-year Temple head coach K.C. Keeler keeps bringing up at team meetings is to shoot for the top and not settle for incremental goals like winning one or two more games than last year’s team.

Keeler has repeatedly mentioned going for the championship this year and now he has a nice slideshow to drive home that point in the next team meeting because someone well outside of the E-O has mentioned Temple and the AAC title in the same breath.

On Thursday, the New York Post floated the possibility of Temple winning the AAC title.

In football.

This year, not some fictious year three or five years down the road.

My response: Why not?

College football can change from year to year.

Carl Hardin shares his surname with the greatest Temple head coach of all time, Wayne. He’s been sensational both in the spring and summer practices as Temple’s placekicker.

No greater example of that than Southern Mississippi. Pretty much the entire Marshall team which won the title in its league transferred to Southern Mississippi, which plays in the same league, following their head coach, Charles Huff.

That’s the way of the world in this transfer portal era. My feeling is that team will go from worst to first because of the coaching decision that university made.

Temple going from third worst to first due to the same reason might be mildly surprising, but not out of thr realm of possibility.

Keeler brought only the best running back on the Sam Houston State team, Jay Ducker, with him to Temple on the player level. On the staff level, he brought the architect of that 9-3 roster, General Manager Clayton Barnes.

Barnes and Keeler upgraded the Owls in every single area where they needed starter or depth.

They have two high-level AAC quarterbacks in Evan Simon and Gevani McCoy, a defensive line that goes 9-10 deep (Keeler’s words) and two star receivers (Colin Chase and JoJo Bermudez) to replace the Owls’ best wide receiver of the last three years, the oft-injured Dante Wright.

Are there areas of concern for Temple?

Sure.

The offensive line is pretty much the one that had Simon running for his life all last fall but with a new strength coach, a better offensive line coach and a better overall scheme, that one perceived weakness can be masked.

We will see.

Everywhere else–with the possible exception of placekicking–Temple has improved significantly. Even there, current Indianapolis Colts’ kicker Maddux Trijillo called his replacement, Carl Hardin, the second-best kicker in the AAC last year.

That, combined with the fact that the league is nowhere near as good as it was a year ago, means there is a lane for Temple to shock the world. It’s a small lane but, with Keeler in charge, there is a way Temple can squeeze through.

People are noticing, even a guy who writes for a paper 90 miles away.

Let’s hope we can call him a genius come December.

Monday: Some Interesting First Years

Friday (8/22): First Things First

Monday (8/25): Game Week

08.10.25
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Temple Depth Chart: Punching Back

Two heavyweight champions and Temple fans, boxer Tex Cobb (left) and Ted DeLapp.

About this time last week, being a summer-lover like I am, started getting a little depressed about entering the last month of–at least in my mind–the best three months of the year.

Also, while the stats for Temple Football Forever were higher than any previous summer, the money coming into the website never matched the money going out.

Then came home to this post from in my mind the greatest single Temple football fan I’ve ever known: Ted DeLapp:

Nothing to pick up your spirits like knowing someone is reading this blog and appreciating it. Around the same time, we got our first three donations in over a month so our readers were putting their money where their mouths were.

Really appreciate it and it will make a difference going forward.

Ourlads’ Guide’s view of Temple’s offense. I would put Luke Watson as first-team LT (now that Kevin Terry is injured), Colin Chase and JoJo Bermudez as WRs (John Adams is gone) and Worthy second team. Also note that McCoy should be at No. 2 at QB and moving up. Wouldn’t be surprised if Worthy/and or McCoy start at UMass, those positions are that close.

Better days are yet to come.

We hit a low ebb in Temple fandom at the end of the 2004 season when Ted, me, heavyweight fighter Randall “Tex” Cobb, Rick Gabe, Fred the Owl Club President, and a couple of other Temple fans were the last remaining tailgaters in an empty Lot K. While there were more Miami fans than Temple ones that day, always felt that if we were unfortunate enough to get in a fight with them, Cobb could take on five or six by himself. Punching back was something the team wasn’t doing, but the few fans left always were.

Pretty good summary of the defense, but would flip Badmus and Poteat and we understand Ordonez is moving up the depth chart fast.

That’s it. About five fans tailgating before being spanked by the Fake Miami, 41-10.

The pre-game conversation was a debate whether we wanted an up-and-comer like Al Golden or some big name out of a job at that point like Rick Neuheisel.

Fortunately, Temple made the right choice then and we certainly feel Temple has made the right choice now. Then, Golden was the man of the moment for Temple. Now, K.C. Keeler is that guy.

Keeler has assembled a roster that includes a defensive line that he called “the deepest I’ve ever had” and DC Brian Smith added that it is a deeper defense than any of his seven previous ones at Rice. The last few days have been dedicated to shuffling all that talent and putting it into some form.

That’s what depth charts are for.

Offensively, Temple has two good quarterbacks for the first time since the Matt Rhule Era (Evan Simon, Gevani McCoy) and three running backs who made the Doak Walker Watch list for best RB in the country–Terrez Worthy, Jay Ducker and Joquez Smith–the most in Temple history.

Ourlads’ Guide is one of the few websites outside of Temple that takes a stab at the current depth chart.

Defensively, they did a pretty good job but we won’t know until the official depth chart is released the week of Aug. 25.

Offensively, they need to update a few things but keeping track of 136 depth charts is an almost impossible task.

Yes, the summer is coming to an end but watching a competitive Temple football team for the first time in six years would be a pretty good consolation prize.

Finally, after being a punching bag for the last six years, Temple is showing signs of punching back. If Tex Cobb is still watching the Owls, our guess is that he will be smiling.

Friday: Behind The Lines

08.03.25
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An ECU fan and a WVU fan walk into a bar …

Colby Dant and Ryan McIntyre break down Temple’s season.

An ECU fan and a WVU fan walk into a bar and ….

…. decided that Temple is going to be better than the Vegas Line predicted this season.

No joke.

One of them, Colby Dant, the lead broadcaster for The College Football Experience, even floated the possibility of six wins and a bowl bid. Dant is an ECU fan and his cohost, Moneyline Mac (Ryan McIntyre), was the video coordinator for Bobby Huggins at West Virginia.

If all Temple players and fans had the enthusiasm of this guy, the Owls would be in the CFB playoff this year.

That’s important because those guys never wore Cherry and White-colored glasses and can take a step back and view the upcoming season from a more objective standpoint than those of us who do.

That’s what we always tried to do here.

Proof is in the pudding, though.

Last year, knowing that Stan Drayton was the head coach and Everett Withers the DC, we predicted that the Owls would finish 2-10. Those expectations were so low because we had seen enough of those two over the prior years to come to that conclusion way back on May 19, 2024. Another factor was that one of our main themes was to replace E.J. Warner with a big-time newcomer at that position–even floating the names of Holy Cross starter Matt Sluka and Miami backup Reese Poffenbarger–but Drayton didn’t get it done. (Miami outbid Temple for Poffenbarger because, well, Miami but Sluka was promised more than TU could come up with yet was lied to and stiffed by UNLV.)

Instead, he completely botched the quarterback position not only by sitting on his hands but by misidentifying the talent on his own team by trotting Forrest Brock out as the starter over the clearly superior Evan Simon.

Who knows how many games that cost the Owls last year?

This year, new head coach K.C. Keeler not only brought in a big-time quarterback–Oregon State starter Gevani McCoy–but also was able to talk Simon into staying, where he currently leads a close battle for the starting quarterback position. Keeler also sprinkled in talented transfers all over the place to compete with the holdovers.

Others outside of Temple have noticed.

Dant isn’t saying the Owls make the college football playoff (see inset where the Owls beat Penn State in the opening round) nor are we.

Our game-by-game prediction last year had Temple at 2-10 and the Owls bettered that by one game. Our game-by-game prediction was/is six wins this year and it was posted in this space way back on May 23.

If the Owls prove us wrong and win one more game this year like they did last year, we will be toasting Colby Dant and Moneyline Mac from a bowl location in December.

Friday: New Digs

Monday: Depth chart clues

08.01.25
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Keeler and Berndt: TU football’s Lincoln and Kennedy

Jerry Berndt outside McGonigle Hall the day he got hired by Temple.

Very few things cause a human brain to short-circuit but the comparisons between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy after the latter was tragically assassinated boggled the mind of any student of history.

Here were just a few (there were many more):


Both Lincoln and Kennedy were second children, both boat captains, both elected to Congress in ’47 (18 for Lincoln, 19 for Kennedy) and both VP runners-up in a year ending with 56. Each was elected POTUS in a year ending with 60. Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln and Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy. Both Kennedy and Lincoln each contain seven letters.

Temple is probably safe from any Keeler vs. Berndt comparisons.



Each President in his 30s married a socially prominent 24-year-old woman who spoke French fluently.

While in the White House, each President had a family of three children, and both lost a child through death.

Temple football has a more modest comparison between new head coach K.C. Keeler and the architect of the 1990 turnaround, Jerry Berndt.

Temple hired both from a school based near Houston, as Berndt was hired after a head coaching stint at Rice and Keeler after a head coaching stint at Sam Houston State. Both Berndt and Keeler each contain, like Kennedy and Lincoln, the same amount of letters.

Our critique of the Diaz hire on Day One (of 18 days).

Both had success in the Philadelphia area prior to moving to Texas with Berndt winning an Ivy League football title at Penn and Keeler winning titles at Rowan and Delaware.

But if Temple fans even entertain the thought that Keeler will be a redux of Berndt, they should think again.

History supports Keeler in this comparison.

Temple hired Berndt coming off an 0-11 season at Rice. Temple hired Keeler off a 9-3 season at Sam Houston. That Berndt hiring existed long before this blog started but I mentioned to several fellow Temple fans at the time that hiring a guy coming off an 0-11 season was not only a major red flag, but pretty damn stupid.

Unfortunately, I was proven correct–as I was years later in my assessment of both the Manny Diaz and Stan Drayton hirings.

Terrez Worthy might beat out Jay Ducker for Temple’s featured back this season.

Both were negative gut feelings but Keeler has always been a positive one.

That should disabuse any Temple fan of a thought that the Keeler regime will include just one winning season and a lot of losing ones.

That, plus the fact that Keeler won everywhere he went and Berndt didn’t should bode well for the future.

Sometimes being a student of history pays off at the college football betting windows and this is probably one of those times.

We won’t find out until we cash the ticket in December but history is both our guide and our prognosticator and proven to repeat itself.

Monday: ECU and WVU break down Temple’s season

Friday: New Digs New Look

Monday (8/11): Will We Get a Depth Chart?