Tag Archives: ncaa-football

09.18.25
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GT-Temple: Only one more chance to meet the moment

Another scoop and score for the Owls against Georgia Tech would be nice, maybe two.

From a conference standpoint, there are plenty of chances for Temple to meet the moment this year.

From a reality standpoint, there is only one and that one is Saturday (4:30 p.m., The CW Network) at Georgia Tech.

Why?

Let’s finally see that throwback pass to Kajiya Hollawayne, who hits JoJo Bermudez for six. That would qualify as a Trojan Horse.

Simply because even if Temple is only able to do something that is a 7.5 percent possibility (according to ESPN) and win the American Conference championship, there will always be a “yeah, but. …” aspect to it.

“Yeah, but they were blown out by the only two big-time teams on their schedule, Oklahoma and Georgia Tech.”

I will take that “yeah but” knowing that still the storyline of what could be a remarkable season includes the chapter which will be written Saturday.

Here’s what it could be:

“Amazing season for Temple. It not only won the American Conference championship it beat Georgia Tech, which went on to win the ACC.”

Scratched my head all week wondering how that could happen and came up with the Troy theory.

In my mind, Temple is a better team–maybe MUCH better–than Troy, which went into Clemson and took a 16-0 lead before falling, 27-16. GT had to have a Herculean Effort to beat Clemson, 27-24.

There are a lot of fans out there who think Georgia Tech is closer to Oklahoma in roster talent than it is to Troy yet there is a lot of evidence to the contrary.

We will see come around 8 p.m. or so Saturday.

The “wise guys” in Vegas say this will be a 24 or 25-point game which projects to a probable score of 34-10 or 35-10.

Hmm.

Temple is the only game in the country in the 4:30-7:30 TV window. Click over for better view.

Not if GT is closer in ability to Troy than it is to Oklahoma.

Maybe Temple is GT’s “Trojan Horse” which was a legendary tale of subterfuge that marked the end of the Trojan War. After a prolong siege of 10 years, the Greeks devised a clever plan to gain entry into the heavily fortified city of Troy. They constructed a large wooden horse, hiding a select group of soldiers inside and left it at the gate as a supposed offering of peace. The Greeks pretended to sail away and the Trojans brought the gift horse into the city. While they slept, the soldiers inside the horse opened the gates for the rest of the Greek Army and a surprise upset occurred.

That’s where the Troy-Temple comparison comes into play.

I will admit my theory about Temple being better than Troy is out there but so was the Trojan Horse a dozen or so centuries BC.

Maybe that’s a sign that new OC Tyler Walker should try a few trick plays because going at Oklahoma conventionally did not work.

This is Temple’s one chance to meet the moment from a national perspective. The season can still be good with a loss, but this moment is out there to be had so why not seize it?

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

09.14.25
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Keeler: Owls didn’t meet the moment

This Cherry helmet is the best in college football. Let’s stick with that going forward.

In the grand scheme of things, this is about the 147th-most important thing that happened on Saturday but seeing Temple football come out in those God-awful-looking white helmets certainly didn’t meet the moment.

Not when you have the best helmet in college football sitting back home in the equipment room at 10th and Diamond.

Georgia Tech’s stadium with Atlanta as the backdrop is one of the best homefield advantages in the country.

When you look sharp, you play sharp and the Owls certainly didn’t look sharp.

Then the game started and it wasn’t long before first-year Temple head coach K.C. Keeler made the most perspicacious statement of the day.

Doing a first-quarter interview on ESPN2, Keeler said: “I thought we didn’t meet the moment.”

This time, he wasn’t talking about the equipment room.

There were plenty of moments the Owls didn’t meet but a few of them came on defense early when they hit Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer early and didn’t bring him down. Other times they touched him and he spun away.

A decent crowd on Saturday at the Linc would have looked way more impressive if Temple had an on-campus stadium like GT has.

A lot of that is traced to Mateer’s talent but when the Owls were touching quarterbacks–good quarterbacks with FBS starts under their belts in the first two games–they were bringing them down.

That was meeting the moment. Albeit the moment became bigger against better players on Saturday getting to Mateer and not putting him down didn’t meet the moment. He’s human. If hit hard enough, he goes down, too.

The Owls had a minus-6 deficit in the turnover battle in last year’s game and lost, 51-3. They stopped Oklahoma on third downs 13 of 14 times in that game and still lost by 48.

The Owls cleaned things up this year to have no turnovers and still lost by almost the same margin. That does not compute except that they didn’t do as good a job getting off the field defensively as last year’s team.

The formula to win wasn’t there against Oklahoma but the formula to stay in the game certainly was and the Owls didn’t have the right mix. Limit turnovers. Check. Repeat last year’s performance on third down. Not check.

Throw some trick plays in there to keep Oklahoma off-balance.

Definitely not check. Would have loved to seen Evan Simon toss a throwback pass to Hollawayne and have the former UCLA QB hit JoJo Bermudez for six on that first series. That would have fired everyone up. Instead, a couple of boring handoffs to Jay Ducker got nowhere.

OC Tyler Walker–who had a fantastic first two games–didn’t meet the moment, either.

You won 55-7 with these home helmets. Don’t mess with Karma. (Photo Courtesy Zamani Feelings)

A lot of national type guys–Chip Patterson of CBS sports and Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN–thought the Owls had a chance to stay in the game against the Sooners. Now that those national guys saw what happened, they are off the Owls. The Owls showed in the first two games that they are deep and talented along both lines but allowed themselves to get bullied by the Sooners.

I didn’t see that happening. Maybe neither Patterson nor Herbstreit did.

Maybe that’s what Keeler meant by not meeting the moment but they really have one more big-time moment to meet on Saturday at Georgia Tech.

Like Oklahoma, the Yellowjackets have a big-time quarterback in Haynes King. The lesson of Saturday is when they get their hands on him, they have to put him down.

That’s meeting the moment on the field.

Off the field, leaving the White helmets home might not help, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Friday: Georgia Tech Preview

09.13.25
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Oklahoma: The Best Team Money Can Buy

Somewhere along the last decade or so, college football has lost its way.

Oklahoma’s football team provided a pretty good example of that on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field in a 42-3 win over the Temple Owls.

With a player reimbursement budget only about 100x–probably closer to 10,000x–higher than Temple’s, the Sooners proved you get what you pay for.

The lower bowl was pretty much full.

That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

After World War II, the NCAA established the “Sanity Code,” principles that covered financial aid, recruitment and academic standards and were intended to ensure amateurism in college sports. The idea was to level the playing field, to make sure no school with more money would have an advantage over another school with less.

For a long time, it worked.

In 1987, the NCAA put its foot down and gave SMU the so-called “death penalty” for paying players.

Now, the only code is “The Insanity Code” otherwise known as the NIL and the transfer portal.

Owls have a much better chance against the UTSAs of the world than the Oklahomas or Georgia Techs.

Since the NIL and the transfer portal, though, paying players is legal and that’s a sad state of affairs.

As former Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer once said, “NIL stands for Now It’s Legal.” That was my second-favorite quote of this new era (error, really) of football.

That’s great for the Oklahomas of the world and terrible for the Temples.

All that was on display at LFF on Saturday afternoon.

Through no fault of the Temple kids or the Temple coaches, a bigger, faster, stronger Sooner team dominated the Owls and put on display the widening gap between the haves and the have nots.

My favorite quote was what I saw on twitter a few weeks ago by a P4 fan who said, “it’s all fun and games until Mark Zuckerberg takes an interest in Temple football.”

What he meant was the man with the deepest pockets wins and the only way to show how ridiculous the NIL is would be for some billionaire to fund a historically downtrodden program.

At this point, I don’t really care if it’s Temple, Troy, South Alabama or Kent State. Just would love to see a billionaire back one of those programs and have them win the natty every year. I wonder how fast the so-called “blue bloods” would scrap the current system if that happened.

For Temple, neither Zuckerberg nor a Saudi billionaire is walking through that door any time soon.

The reason a No. 21-ranked Temple was able to stay with a No. 9-ranked Notre Dame on national TV a decade ago was because the Owls were able to recruit good players, put them in a rigorous offseason training program and retain them.

For one a few nights in 2015 and 2016, Owl fans were in Heaven.

No more.

Now a team like Temple will probably forever be stuck in the Purgatory of being outclassed by P4 and with its only hope of competing being against similarly situated schools. The best the Owls can hope for is to compete for bowl games every year and maybe challenge for a league title every five years or so.

Because Georgia Tech–next week’s opponent–has many of the same advantages over Temple that Oklahoma has, the real season begins in two weeks. That playing field in Atlanta will be tilted in the home team’s direction, too.

It’s not what the NCAA had in mind when it set the rules.

Now there are no rules other than the guy with the most money wins.

That’s not the sport I signed up to be a fan of when I was in college so many years ago but it’s the one I’m watching now.

If things don’t change soon, the NFL business model–which gives all teams an equal chance–looks more appealing every day for the few entertainment dollars I have left. College football would be wise to study it.

Monday: The Moment Too Big

Saturday: Georgia Tech Preview

09.06.25
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Oklahoma is now on the radar

Between looking down at the Dopler Radar and looking up to see if my favorite Temple quarterback was going to turn an ankle, it was a pretty stressful afternoon for at least this Owl fan.

Evan Simon conducting the world famous Diamond Marching Band.

Fortunately, after a half-hour delay to start the game due to “lightning in the area” (Eagles fans know all about that), the game started and Temple won, 55-7. All game long, my radar had a ton of lightning bolts around Lincoln Financial Field but most of them went south.

My favorite Temple quarterback (Evan Simon) not only didn’t turn an ankle, but he also lived to see an important next game, played a terrific first half and conducted the world-famous Diamond Marching Band in perhaps the best rendition of “T for Temple U” anyone has ever heard after sitting out pretty much the entire second half.

Leonard Bernstein (RIP) couldn’t have done it better.

Never thought it was necessary for him to play in a 55-7 win over Howard and wanted to preserve him for Oklahoma. Fortunately, he slid enough to prove K.C. Keeler right in playing him and me wrong for worrying about it.

A win over Oklahoma would be the sweetest music Temple fans have heard since the 27-10 win over Penn State in 2015.

The fact that this Oklahoma game day is the day he’s been waiting for the last 365 days for a particular day that will happen a week from today is interesting.

I was very tough in this space on Stan Drayton because I felt that very nice man had the “want to” but never had to “how to” for a Temple head coach.

K.C. Keeler is also a nice man but he has both the want to and the how to part down.

That much he’s proven in his two games on the job at Temple.

An example of the how to part came in the opening day game against Oklahoma last year. Believe it or not, both Temple lines more than held their own against the Sooners but that game got out of hand when Temple had 6 turnovers to the Sooners zero. Oklahoma was 1-for-13 on third down against one of the worst Temple football teams in history last year.

Plus, knowing how to be Temple head coach means knowing who the best quarterback on your team is. Drayton never had a clue.

I do know this.

If Simon played, rather than Forrest Brock (responsible for five of the six turnovers against Oklahoma), he’d have zero or maybe one turnover last year and that would have been closer to a 35-21 game than a 51-3 one.

Does that mean Saturday will be a 35-21 game?

Have no idea.

It could be closer.

What I do know is that it won’t be a 51-3 one and Temple does have a puncher’s chance.

With a Maestro like Simon, who knows how to orchestrate an offense and it on all the right notes, Oklahoma fans, might be the ones most stressed a week from now.

There’s a storm coming in so batten down the hatches.

Monday: 5 Trick Plays for Oklahoma

Friday: Oklahoma Preview

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

05.23.25
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Way too early 2025 Temple football predictions

K.C. Keeler might have this pose after the Owls beat North Carolina in the Military Bowl.

Our “way-too-early” 2024 predictions appeared in this space on May 19, 2024.

Only four days and a year later, we’re going to swing and hopefully hit on a lot of these but first a review.

We predicted the 2024 Temple Owls to go 2-10 and they went 3-9 (again). We pretty much nailed the Tulsa game on the head, predicting the Owls to win by 11 (they won by 10). Also nailed the UConn game predicting the Owls would lose, 17-14 (they lost 29-20).

Our biggest miss was Utah State, where we predicted the Owls to lose, 34-7 (they won, 45-29). We predicted a 77-6 loss to Oklahoma (they lost 51-3) and a win over Coastal Carolina (they lost that one, 28-20). Also lost FAU as we predicted Temple would lose to Tom Herman. Owls won, 18-15 and Stan Drayton was fired the next day.

The football is a strange shape and it takes funny bounces but we’ll give it the old college try in this spot:

Temple 24, UMass 10 _ The fact that Temple was able to steal UMass’ best linebacker tells you all you need to know about this one. Temple has a seasoned head coach in K.C. Keeler. UMass has a first-time head coach in a former Rutgers’ assistant. Evan Simon throws for two touchdown passes, Gevani McCoy adds another on the ground and Carl Hardin kicks a field goal. Temple is unbeaten (1-0).

Temple 48, Howard 7 _ Howard shocked the world a few years ago when it went to UNLV and came away with a win as a 37-point underdog against an FBS team. That’s not happening. Simon plays the first half and throws for three touchdown passes and McCoy does the same in the second half. Jay Ducker runs for 176 yards but no touchdowns as he is caught from behind twice. Temple is 2-0.

Oklahoma 34, Temple 14 _ Not completely sold on the Owls, the Temple fans are outnumbered in the stands by the visitors from 1,600 miles away. Crowd of 52,333 is heavily pro-Sooner and that makes the difference. Temple is now 2-1.

Georgia Tech 38, Temple 7 _ Plenty of talk about Georgia Tech’s 24-2 loss to Temple in 2019 before the game. Yellowjackets are primed for revenge and get it. Temple is now 2-2.

Owls to face both Bill Belichick and any distractions Jordan Hudson can provide in the Military Bowl.

Temple 24, UTSA 21 _ Carl Hardin nails a 48-yarder with 2:53 left to give Temple a lead and Temple’s defense stops the Roadrunners at midfield to end the game. Temple is 3-2.

Navy 31, Temple 21 _ The Midshipmen, which lost to Temple, 32-16, in 2023, get some revenge for that one. Temple, though, shows improvement over its 38-11 loss to Navy last year. Still not good enough. Temple is 3-3.

Make that 99 as of today.

Temple 34, Tulsa 21 _ Jay Ducker runs for 142 yards and sets up two short touchdown passes from Simon to Antonio Jones and Temple comes away with a comfortable win in Oklahoma. Many of the Oklahoma fans who made the trip to Philadelphia show up rooting for the Owls. Crowd is generously announced at 6,234. Temple is 4-3.

Temple 28, Charlotte 14 _ Owls go into the 20,111-seat Jerry Richardson Stadium and come away with a comfortable win. McCoy starts, throws two TDs and runs for one. Simon comes in to close out the game in the fourth quarter. Terrez Worthy scores a 56-yard touchdown and wins the starting RB job from Ducker. Temple is 5-3.

Temple 28, East Carolina 20 _ The last time ECU visited Lincoln Financial Field, the Pirates escaped with a 49-46 win because the Owls couldn’t convert a third-and-1 at midfield (trying a pass instead of a run) and kicked the ball away with a lead. This time, the Temple defense has a much better day, getting two picks. Temple is now 6-3.

Army 31, Temple 28 _ Temple leads the whole game but Army, in a game similar to the 2017 game, wins on a last-second bomb from a backup quarterback. Afterward, K.C. Keeler shakes Jeff Monken’s hand and says, “You are the best coach in the country.” Monken returns the favor, saying, “K.C. you are not so bad yourself.” Temple is 6-4.

Tulane 28, Temple 17 _ Keeler spends the entire off week showing the Owls film of their 52-6 loss at Tulane last year. It helps only a little. Brian Smith’s defense contains but does not stop the Green Wave. Temple is 6-5.

North Texas 31, Temple 17 _ The late November temperature in Denton, Texas is 82 degrees. Owls, who have practiced all week in 30-degree temperatures in Philadelphia can’t hang. Temple finishes 6-6 and accepts a bid to the Military Bowl to play North Carolina afterward.

Keeler laughs.

“I have a lot of respect for coach Belichick but I don’t have the off-field distractions he has,” Keeler says. “We’re going to be focused on winning. I told the kids anybody who opts out of the bowl game is no longer a Temple Owl. Kids said they are all in and so am I.”

There you have it. Temple finishes 6-6 in the regular season.

I had them at 2-10 a year ago. I won’t be mad if they win one more game than predicted this season.

Again.

Monday: The Temple Push


05.15.25
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Temple football: We’re No. 4

Nobody is predicting that in a league with 14 teams Temple finishes No. 4.

Yet in that same league, Temple has a coach ranked No. 4.

A couple of days ago, the popular college football site Yardbarker ranked the top four coaches in the American Athletic Conference and new Temple coach K.C. Keeler was in the group.

Not surprising considering Keeler is the all-time winningest FCS coach and a lock to be the third Temple Owl ever inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame when he hangs up the clipboard.

What does this mean for the 2025 Temple football Owls?

Both a lot and a little.

Everyone knows in these terrible days of college football when money talks and bullshit walks, money means a lot.

Yet it doesn’t mean everything.

As a lifelong football fan, particularly of high schools and colleges, I’ve seen a lot of remarkable stories and wrote many of them.

As a sportswriter for The Doylestown Intelligencer in the 1980s, I covered perhaps the greatest high school football program of all time in Central Bucks West. The coach there, Mike Pettine Sr., a Villanova grad out of the same Conshohocken high school as legendary Temple baseball coach Skip Wilson, took a team of mostly 5-10, 170-pound white kids to multiple state championships. First, “mythical” ones when the PIAA did not conduct postseason playoffs and then reaffirming those in real state championship games in large school football playoffs. Pettine’s lifetime record: 364 wins, 42 losses and three ties, including 10 unbeaten seasons.

Amazing.

Mostly done with only about 700 boys in a school district split in half when Central Bucks East came onboard. I arranged a series between CB West and a big-time Catholic League power, Archbishop Ryan, and West won those games, 22-14 and 14-7. At the time, Ryan had 2,500 boys and West had 700.

“Hey, Mike, can you imagine how good we’d be with 2,500 boys?” assistant head coach Mike Carey said to Pettine as they walked off the field after the second win.

A few years earlier than that, watched as Wayne Hardin took the Temple Owls from a small school schedule to three consecutive close losses against a national championship contender in Penn State. Hardin was the real deal, having proven himself as the head coach at Navy, leaving the Middies to the No. 2 ranking in the country in the 1960s with a program that required a five-year service commitment after graduation.

I know what good coaches can do against insurmountable odds.

These guys aren’t Temple fans but they see what the college football world sees.

Maybe the NIL and transfer portal odds facing Keeler today are tougher than those facing Pettine and Hardin but I doubt it.

Hat tip to Finland for its support of TFF.

Unlike Stan Drayton and Rod Carey, Keeler has dipped into the portal and filled a lot of needs of this program by bringing in good players.

No doubt in my mind–like Pettine and Hardin–he can coach them up.

Others are noticing what a good hire this is for Temple.

Keeler doesn’t have to finish in the top four in the league but a top six finish isn’t out of the question.

That’s why this season is the most exciting one in at least half a decade. There is no sport where a great head coach makes an impact more than football on any level and we are witnessing it now.

Somewhere up there, Pettine and Hardin are looking down and nodding.

03.30.25
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Temple should give thumbs down to Penn State

Maybe an unpopular opinion here, but Temple should probably say no to Penn State’s offer of a joint practice.

Maybe even a joint spring game.

There are a couple of good reasons for that.

One, Temple has nothing to gain.

Two, Temple has a lot to lose.

Penn State gave Temple two transfer quarterbacks, one was Kevin Newsome (above) and the other won the Maxwell Trophy as the best college football player in the nation (Steve Joachim). But there was no NIL then.

I’ve always said the Cherry and White game spring game was a maddening affair because the good guys always played the good guys. Thought it would make sense for Temple to bring in a team from a similar-sized FBS league (not its own) and play a “real game” against them to get a better gauge of where they are and what they have to do to get better.

In the Cherry and White game, if the offense did well you really didn’t know if that was because the defense was bad and the offense was good or that the offense was really good because the defense was also decent.

Kevin Newsome went from second team QB at PSU to third-team QB at TU but he wrote this great song.

One year, the Owls had a transfer from Shippensburg gain over 100 yards in its spring game. Turns out he was a bust when the real season began in the fall. That was a year the Owls had a bad defense.

Penn State would have been great, say, a dozen years ago.

Now Penn State routinely raids Temple-sized schools, including Temple itself, when it plucked Arnold Ebiketie from the Owls and put him on their DL.

Temple and PSU play in a “real game” in 2026. That should be enough.

James Franklin probably won’t walk over to one or two Temple players that he likes after a Cherry/Blue scrimmage and shake their hands and whisper something into their ears but why even give him that chance?

To be fair, Temple has done the same with a couple of Penn State players–quarterback Kevin Newsome comes to mind–but they usually have been Penn State backups who became Temple backups.

Those were trades that only benefited one ballclub, not both. New Temple coach K.C. Keeler seems to realize that, as he said he is considering the offer but hasn’t decided yet.

For a future spring game opponent, Temple probably should look south to take on someone its own size outside its own league and playing the same level of football.

A team like Sam Houston or even Delaware makes a lot more sense at this point than someone like Penn State, however enticing a spring game involving the Nittany Lions might be to Temple fans.

Friday: The Last One Ever?

03.07.25
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Delaware: Schedule them and beat them

Temple not only got Delaware’s best current player but stole its best recruit as well.

When a first-year Temple head coach named Wayne Hardin was asked about scheduling Villanova, he came up with his succinct response:

“I’m all for scheduling them and beating them.”

Another first-year Temple coach, K.C. Keeler, would be wise to adopt the same policy in the near future about not only the Wildcats, but his alma mater.

Temple puts fannies in the seats in Delaware and the Blue Hens would do the same in Philly.

Hardin pretty much did both in his 13-year Temple career. He also believed in scheduling smaller school power Delaware and doing the same.

Temple hasn’t scheduled Delaware since Bruce Arians ended that series by saying: “I’m all for scheduling smaller schools but not when you are the biggest game of their season.”

Now, with a former Delaware head coach and the Blue Hens moving up to FBS, it’s time to renew this longstanding rivalry.

There are a couple of reasons for that.

Wayne Hardin’s record against Delaware and legendary coach Tubby Raymond was 8-4, proving that when both teams have a legendary head coach, Temple is the better football school.

One, the storyline.

Former Delaware player and legendary head coach K.C. Keeler is now the head coach of Temple. Keeler stole not only the best Delaware player in the transfer portal but the Blue Hens’ best recruit this year so there’s that.

Two, fannies in the seats.

What visiting team STILL holds the Delaware single-game attendance record?

Temple.

Delaware hailed the acquisition of RB Keveun Mason. He is now at Temple.

That was set when a Joe Klecko-led Owls’ team spanked the Blue Hens, 31-8, before a record crowd.

Temple needs fannies in the seats and visiting Delaware would bring a significant amount (maybe 30-40 percent) of a crowd that could exceed 30,000 at Lincoln Financial Field.

Delaware has asked to play Temple before but the Owls (rightly) demanded a 2-for-1 deal. Delaware wanted a 1-for-1. Temple said thanks but no thanks.

Now that Delaware has joined FBS, maybe the Owls can relent and settle for a home-and-home.

That’s a deal that makes sense for both ballclubs.

Kind of like the Eagles sending Nolan Smith to Cleveland for Myles Garrett. Cleveland gets younger at the same position without losing a whole lot of talent and Philly gets a possible two- and three-peat.

Monday: Football Season is Here (Kinda/Sorta)

02.20.25
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Last on Keeler’s to-do list: Film Study

Temple is blessed to have a great returning quarterback in Evan Simon.

Every new head coach has to have “to-do list” and, frankly I’m surprised by one thing new Temple head coach K.C. Keeler admitted he has not done.

Study game tape on the current Temple team.

The answer I was looking for here was: “Yeah, Shawn, I saw all those against Utah State and Evan Simon is a pretty special QB.“

Not being a College Football Hall of Fame head coach but someone with a solid grasp of Temple football history and a graduate degree in Wayne Hardin University, that’s the first thing I would have done had I gotten the job.

Color me surprised that he told OwlsDaily.com editor-in-chief Shawn Pastor that he had not reviewed any film of the current Temple holdovers.

Some pretty good Torrez Worthy highlights here. Kinda reminds me “a little” of Saquon Barkley.

It’s not too late for Keeler to put the projector in the team meeting room and take a look at a few players he now has under his control.

My first duty as a new Temple head coach would have been to study game film on every single Temple football player.

There is a simple reason for that.

I want to know who I want to keep as a starter and who I want to replace.

Don’t know how Keeler could move forward without that information but it’s not too late to do soon.

I will offer this current bit of advice: Please study the game film of two players in two games against teams that would have fared pretty well against any G5 team, Utah State and UConn.

The first player is Evan Simon. The second is Torrez Worthy.

Simon made five great throws under pressure for touchdowns in a 45-29 win over Utah State.

Torrez Worthy had 95 yards on 12 carries, including a 35-yard run that set up the Owls on the UConn 1 to win the game against a bowl-bound team. Instead of going with the leaping handoff to Worthy on a 4th-and-goal (think “Sam Bam Cunningham” here), the Owls went with a tush push to a 160-pound backup quarterback.

Instead of a 26-23 Temple win (which 99.9 percent of the CBS Sports audience thought they would see), the soaking wet 160-pound QB fumbled the football and it went the other way for a 29-20 loss.

Not the No. 1 reason the old staff got fired, but certainly near the top.

If Keeler is the coach I think he is, he will find out the film doesn’t lie about two of his players.

Both Simon and Worthy are special talents.

Temple can win big with both.

The Owls need to upgrade most of the other 20 positions. (Really, not many because the Owls have a lot of good returning players, particularly on defense.)

Keeler has crossed everything else off his to-do list before the start of spring practice on March 11.

This one last thing should be at the top of his list. Get that damn projector and walk a couple of feet outside of his Temple football coaching office to the film room and take some notes on Simon and Worthy and maybe four or five other returning Temple loyalists.

Then we can move forward to fill his other needs.