Tag Archives: ncaa

01.20.25
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Keeler finally showing his recruiting hand

Jay Ducker appears to be the biggest addition so far for K.C. Keeler.
Ty Davis takes an INT to the house for Delaware.

A lot can change in 12 months.

This time in 2024, Temple football Chief of Staff Marcus Berry was talking about having a “good plan” to upgrade the roster.

We learned then that the plan was rooted in 1980s recruiting philosophy where immediate needs were filled by JUCO transfers. Not surprising because head coach Stan Drayton and DC Everett Withers were assistant and head coaches, respectively, back in the 80s and never changed with the times.

New Temple head coach K.C. Keeler was also coaching Rowan in the 1980s but the difference seems to be that Keeler has adjusted to the current reality of the transfer portal and finding talent at higher levels than JUCO.

New Temple LB Jayvant Brown talks about his offers coming out of high school.

As we’ve been preaching in this space for the last two years, the fastest way for Temple upgrade the roster is at levels higher than JUCO, with a special emphasis on disaffected but good P4 backups and FCS stars.

That appears to be the case with the latest additions.

The biggest addition is Jay Ducker, a proven 1,000-yard FBS back at Northern Illinois as a freshman who Keeler is familiar with because he was at Sam Houston State this year. Ducker, who is 5-10, 205, had 1,184 yards in just his freshman year for NIU.

Temple looks like it landed a pair of cornerback starters in Youngstown State’s Jaylen Castleberry and two-year Hampton starter Omar Ibrahim. Castleberry (6-0, 190) was an All-Missouri Conference performer where he had 50 tackles, including five tackles for losses.

On defense, the new 3-4 will be bolstered by a pair of speedy linebackers, Delaware transfer Ty Davis (6-3, 218) and Kentucky transfer Jayvant Brown (6-0, 225). Originally a Michigan State commit, Brown had offers from LSU and Alabama coming out of high school in Florida.

While Keeler also added a backup RB to an All-American at Stony Brook, and a starting quarterback at Robert Morris, those appear to be walk-ons for depth purposes.

The other guys are potential starters and there is not a JUCO in sight.

That’s a new plan better than the old one.

01.12.25
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Walker should turn the LFF scoreboard into an adding machine

This is the way Montana State plays offensive football and the way Temple will going forward.

After three years of watching Stan Drayton’s offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf throw 3-yard swing passes on 3d and 5, Tyler Walker’s approach should be like a breath of fresh air.

Walker is Temple’s new OC and he will be joined by offensive line coach Al Johnson.

There are a couple of strong signals in those hires for Temple football fans.

One, there is no indication that either one of those coaches had a prior relationship with new Temple head coach K.C. Keeler. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing, as Drayton showed by his hires that he was more wedded to hiring friends than he was to the overall advancement of the Temple program.

He made one of those friends, Everett Withers, his Chief of Staff and then gave Withers carte blanche to hire a staff that included three of Withers’ assistants at Texas State University. Withers was fired there after a 2-10 season.

Losers beget losing and that’s exactly what happened at Temple.

Huge red flag.

Arthur Johnson and John Frey have to be pleased with K.C. Keeler’s staff additions.

Hire the best people, not the guys that you feel comfortable having a conversation with by the Edberg Olson coaches office water cooler.

Keeler has signaled he is willing to do the former, not the latter. Drayon never did.

Two, the frustrating offensive system that caused Temple fans to pull their hair out is no more. That means a unique RPO game based on establishing the run first and then throwing off fakes to the running backs that results in explosive downfield plays in the passing game.

Too often, especially with immobile quarterback E.J. Warner, Langsdorf tried to force a square peg into a round hole–hoping a short passing game would open up running lanes on draw plays.

That never worked because the Owls could never convince defenses their running game was a threat.

That’s where Johnson comes in because the Montana State offensive line coach and new Temple one, realizes that some beef is necessary to move the ball on the ground first.

Fortunately, he had a mobile quarterback who won the Walter Payton Award as FCS Player of the Year but still that mobile quarterback threw for 29 touchdowns against only two interceptions.

Contrast that to Warner’s best year at Temple–23 TDs, 13 interceptions.

In case you didn’t notice what happened in the NFL on Sunday, winning teams only win when they cut the number of mistakes to as close to zero as possible.

Temple QB Evan Simon may not be as mobile as the Montana State QB, but he has functional mobility and a knack to protect the football.

Even if the Owls don’t get a super mobile QB in the transfer portal, Simon can run this kind of offense and maybe even draw some NFL eyes with it.

Drayton proved that hiring losers begets losing and Keeler is determined to show hiring winners will do the exact opposite. Sounds like a plan.

Friday: High-Profile Reunion

Monday: Five Most Impactful Newcomers

Friday: Wants and Needs

01.10.25
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What Thursday’s semifinal said about the state of Temple football

Some TU fans say this guy can’t throw. This film indicates otherwise.

What a difference a decade makes …

That’s what we learned most from Thursday night’s 27-24 Notre Dame win over Penn State in a national football semifinal.

Temple’s Brandon Shippen, right, scores against Notre Dame’s Max Redfield, left, in the 2015 game.

Especially from the Temple football perspective.

One decade ago Temple routed Penn State, 27-10, in front of a strongly pro-Temple sellout crowd at Lincoln Financial Field.

About a month and 25 days later, No. 21-ranked Temple took No. 9-ranked Notre Dame down to the wire before safety Will Hayes jumped the wrong way allowing William Fuller with 1:07 left to catch the game-winning touchdown pass in a 24-20 ND win.

That crowd was more evenly split but another LFF sellout.

That game was the highest-rated game ever in the Philadelphia TV market for college football.

We will see by Friday whether that game withstood the test of time and beat Thursday’s night’s game in Philly.

Either way, that was a magical year for Temple and, to be honest, something we probably will never see again through no fault of Temple.

That’s the perfect way to illustrate where we are with Temple football. The big boys with the big money will always get the players and the Temples of the world will get the discarded scraps.

Even though K.C. Keeler is a great coach, the best he can hope to do is recruit P4 castoffs and make some noise in the G5.

That’s OK because even in that environment Temple can win and compete for G5 championships.

It’s not 2015 but it certainly beats the alternative.

Winning in football at the level Temple currently plays at should be the goal and not competing for national championships.

There are still a lot of good things that can be accomplished at that level, including energizing the alumni and getting them out to more games than just Homecoming.

Look at it this way: A few months ago people were talking about dropping football being a viable option at Temple.

No more.

All the Temple administration had to do was hire a definite college football Hall of Fame head coach in K.C. Keeler and then start recruiting players like the Michigan backup quarterback (Alex Orji) who visited Temple this week. My personal feeling is that he reminds me of Quincy Patterson and Walter Washington, a run/first, pass/second quarterback. In a fair QB battle, my money is on Evan Simon. Temple can win with Evan Simon. Not so sure about Alex Orji but if these coaches trust him, I trust them.

Temple is bringing in championship-level coaches not only in Keeler (who won national titles at Delaware and Sam Houston) but the offensive coordinator at Montana State and his OL coach.

Certainly better than the coaches we’ve had the last three years with the possible exceptions of Chris Wiesehan (OL), Tyree Foreman (RB) and Adam Schierer (ST). Those were objectively good coaches who got overruled by incompetent ones.

Keeler is bringing in his own guys and that’s exciting.

It’s also exciting that he’s bringing in P4 guys who were recruited at a high level but stuck behind better talent. They have a chip on their shoulder that will be on display game days.

They might not be able to win there but they can certainly win here.

We’ll always have 2015 and 2016 but getting back there isn’t realistic in the current environment. Getting back to respectability certainly is and that’s something we haven’t seen since 2019.

After 1-6, 3-9, 3-9, 3-9 and 3-9 it’s about damn time.

Monday: A Deep Dive Into Temple’s New Offense

01.02.25
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K.C. Keeler: Trust, but verify

K.C. Keeler’s New Year’s Eve message to Temple fans.

If you had to create a perfect Temple football coach in a petri dish, you would be hard pressed getting the DNA to replicate a K.C. Keeler.

Born North of Philadelphia, had success both East and South of Philadelphia with other teams, intimately familiar with the team in the middle who gave him his only loss in the 1979 season.

Hell, he wanted to go to Temple but head coach Wayne Hardin ran out of scholarships.

Not hard to trust K.C. Keeler as my football coach for the next few years.

That said, as Ronald Reagan might say of the Soviet Union when it made a nuclear weapons sweetheart deal with the U.S., “trust but verify.”

K.C. Keeler said his goal was to be in a bowl game immediately. If so, he needs to upgrade the roster via the transfer portal with about 20 solid FBS/FCS players right now.

For a guy who got a new job in December, he’s been pretty slow to make major moves on the coaching offensive side of the football or the transfer portal.

There are a couple of clues about the verify part.

Keeler hasn’t announced a new offensive coordinator and that might be because one of the leading candidates, a running backs’ coach from Penn State, is currently otherwise occupied. If so, I’m more than willing to wait.

The transfer portal is another story.

Temple has been slow to pull the trigger. Maybe too slow.

Kinda hoping that Al Golden’s first national title was with Temple but, that being impossible, I am literally betting on him to take it all as ND’s DC and I made that bet 14 days ago.

Watching Notre Dame win its quarterfinal game on Thursday night against Georgia, 23-10, it was abundantly clear they did it on the backs of two transfer portal acquisitions: 1) Duke’s Riley Leonard and 2) Marshall’s Jayden Harrison.

Temple fans are all too familiar with Leonard, who led Duke to a 30-0 win over Temple in Stan Drayton’s first game.

Notre Dame went out and got a big-time P4 quarterback in Leonard.

Temple can’t do that but certainly a big-time FCS quarterback is within reach. In my humble opinion, I can ride or die with Evan Simon who has shown he is Temple tough. I can’t depend on either Forrest Brock or Tyler Douglas to be a capable AAC backup. Keeler has to show me he can either convince the Sam Houston starting quarterback to come here to compete for the job with Simon or get me a star-level FCS quarterback to do the same.

I love Evan Simon as my quarterback and I’m sure once Keeler sees him throw a few balls in practice he will feel the same way. The film is the film. All K.C. has to do is to watch the entire Utah State game. If Simon played against UConn, the Owls win by at least two touchdowns. I will never change my mind about that. Simon has been quoted as saying he loves Temple.

(For the record, Simon wins the job in my mind.)

Harrison was the No. 1 kickoff returner in the country for Marshall last year and ended up at ND as a portal transfer. His return the house to open the second half was maybe the key play in a national quarterfinal game. Temple hasn’t had a good kickoff returner since Isaiah Wright was named AAC’s Special Teams’ Player of the Year in 2018.

Does Keeler have to get me the No. 1 FBS kickoff returner in the country?

Hell no.

I’ll take the top FCS kickoff returner. I’ll take the top Division II kickoff returner.

Just don’t give me another JUCO like Stan Drayton has done.

The trust the level with a guy who has done it at Rowan, Delaware and Sam Houston State is off the charts.

The verify level will come with what we see in the next couple of weeks.

Hoping it’s a nuclear-type jawn like Reagan had with Gorbachev but as always in this space we will be honest with what we see.

12.30.24
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What Temple can take from Navy’s win

If Temple can keep a lot of players like Khalil Poteat, it should be OK next season.

About a year and a month ago, Temple got a terrific game from a quarterback and a linebacker and earned a 32-18 win over Navy.

A couple of days ago Navy completed a 10-win season with a win over an Oklahoma team that opened this season by beating Temple, 51-3.

The AAC’s image improved this bowl season. Now it’s time for Temple to contribute to that profile.

If anything, the juxtaposition shows how much fortunes can change in one year.

That’s because the transfer portal system both giveth and taketh away. The schools who decide to build their rosters with high school players will be left behind by the other schools who judiciously scour the portal to upgrade their rosters with 20 or so new players who can compete for starting spots.

So far, Temple head coach K.C. Keeler has talked about building a team through high school players and, as the lady on the video said, “ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Me when I heard K.C. wants to build his roster with high school players.

For now, let’s hope that is all that it is–talk.

However, if Keeler adds a couple of key players from, say, Sam Houston, a few all-star type players from FCS ranks and as many disaffected really good players from P4 schools who can’t get on the field there that’s the formula to do what Navy did–go from three wins (and dominated by a three-win team)–to, if not 10, then eight or nine wins.

Ironically, Navy got better not from an influx of new players but from being able to retain its roster. Temple can do the same but still needs to keep the good players like quarterback Evan Simon and a few others.

On the flip side, the Owls need to upgrade their offensive line with solid players from the portal (be it FCS, Sam Houston or P4) so Simon doesn’t spend next year running for his life.

That’s one of the reasons why the old staff got fired. They relied too much on JUCOs on the offensive line. The one player who fit the profile of the kind of guy they should target, a South Carolina transfer starter, was their most valuable offensive lineman. Really, the only good one.

So Keeler knows what he has to do. Keep a solid chunk of the current roster and upgrade with the top end of the 6,000 or so players who won’t find a home. He already has shown the chops for being able to coach them up.

First, he has to get them to coach them and we’ll be keeping an eye on those developments over the next four or so weeks.

12.22.24
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Clayton Barnes: The Howie Roseman of Temple

When there are 8,000+ players in the portal and only 2,000 or so keep their scholarships, finding 20 or so gems among the other 6,000 is the job for a guy like Clayton Barnes.

Anyone hanging out at the Cherry and White street sign (see above) looking for the white smoke to come out of the top of the Edberg-Olson Complex chimney might be disappointed today.

When the smoke clears, it doesn’t look like Temple football will have its offensive coordinator today or tomorrow.

From what we hear, the Kirk Ciarrocca talks have fallen through because, while Temple paid former OC Danny Langsdorf a half-million dollars to continually throw 2-yard passes, that doesn’t come close to what the Temple grad currently is making at Rutgers.

Meanwhile, an addition that was made last week might be more important.

New head coach K.C. Keeler is bringing in Clayton Barnes to be his “general manager”–the so-called “Howie Roseman of Temple” and that’s been something we’ve been advocating for in this space for the last three years.

Because, while Temple will never be able to offer big-time NIL money, scouring the portal for disaffected P4 players good enough to start at that level but stuck as backup players to future NFL players might be the key to that success.

Barnes, like Roseman, has a keen eye for talent and has been primarily responsible for feeding Keeler the kind of talent that overachieves. Barnes is a Texas A&M graduate who was in charge of evaluating recruits and managing the football scholarships for the past two seasons under Keeler.

He did a pretty good job putting the roster together two years ago and a better job at keeping them together before this current season as Sam Houston State had only one player exit the portal before the opening game, the lowest among all of the 134 FBS teams.

Temple had no such guy under Stan Drayton, instead relying on the staff to evaluate newcomers and sticking with the old model of recruiting high school players and JUCOs.

That was the kind of thinking that led to three-straight 3-9 seasons.

Barnes concentrated on upgrading the Bearkats’ roster with a hefty dose of P4 recruits.

That led to an improvement from 3-9 to 9-3 this regular season and a bowl championship.

That involves not only scrutiny of a player’s football skills but also character.

The football transfer portal is a financial windfall for only the top one percent, who move to the SEC or the Big 10.

Most of the other players are looking for a chance to start and to increase their own football profile, either for the NFL or for a possible move up the latter down the line.

Even more of the players–the great majority–looking for riches and end up out on the street, their scholarships lost and their football careers over.

That’s a lesson worth teaching not only the current Temple football roster but 20 or so newcomers who could upgrade what the Owls have now.

The fact that they have a Czar of the portal probably means the roster will be upgraded for the first time in at least three years, maybe more.

Friday: My Christmas List for Temple Football

12.03.24
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Temple football has a winner in town

Former FSU All-American QB Danny Kanell nods his head in agreement as Chip, Tom and Bud Elliott compliment Temple on the choice of K.C. Keeler to coach the Owls.

One day after being named one of CBS Sports’ “Coaches of the Week” for Week 14 in college football for a Texas team, K.C. Keeler was standing at a podium 1,000 miles away in Philadelphia talking about leading a Pennsylvania team.

Things move fast when you beat other teams to the hiring punch as Temple seems to have done.

Keeler didn’t open his press conference like Buddy Ryan did with the Eagles in 1986 by saying “you’ve got a winner in town.” He didn’t have to because, as a real winner (Bill Parcells) once said, “you are what your record says you are.”

Unlike 1986, Philadelphia–and most importantly Temple–has a winner in town.

Keeler’s wife, Janice was back in Texas selling their house in Huntsville. They already have another house 40 minutes from Philadelphia that they’ve maintained since leaving for Texas.

Keeler’s opening press conference brought something even the press conferences of Al Golden, Matt Rhule, Steve Addazio, Geoff Collins and Rod Carey never did.

A winning pedigree in post-season football.

Ryan was 0-3 in playoff games as Eagles’ coach. Carey was 0-7 in bowl games both at Northern Illinois and Temple.

Keeler’s post-season exploits are chronicled elsewhere in this post. You don’t have to google him. He’ll get you to the postseason and he will win his fair share there.

That’s kind of where Temple is at now.

K.C. Keeler under the goal post where the best field goal kicker in the nation this year practiced his craft every single day.

The arms’ race is such in college football that really the best the Owls can hope for–barring putting the NIL genie back in the bottle–is playing in great bowl games and winning in the postseason. Maybe grabbing an AAC title every five years, tops.

A great school like Temple should expect to be in the top 80 of college football teams every year when only 134 teams are playing at the FBS level. The Owls should expect to win their share of postseason bowl games.

Do that and the fans come back, especially after four-straight 3-9 seasons. Making Lincoln Financial Field a happening place again requires only consistent winning. Al Golden proved that. So did Matt Rhule.

K.C. Keeler’s postseason record screams winner.

Keeler has a history of doing that, too, even against teams with greater resources. With no NIL, Keeler’s Sam Houston State destroyed a Rice team that beat Navy. That was the same Navy team that beat Temple, 38-11.

He has a history of turning loaves into fishes and he’s going to have to take that approach with Temple.

Keeler’s familiarity with Temple will help as he talked about playing three games in his college career and losing twice to the Owls, including in Delaware’s national championship 13-1 season (1979).

“Then lens through I look at it is Temple was a great program at one time,” Keeler said. “This is a great university. It can even be greater.”

It got greater on a very cold December Tuesday morning in Philadelphia. Now all that remains is to determine how great.

Friday: The Letter Keepers

Monday: The Reaction

11.30.24
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The most painful error of TU football is over

When the history of Temple football is written, the period between 2021 and 2024 will be forever known as “The 3-9 Era.”

You can’t go from 9 bowl games in 10 years to four-straight 3-9 seasons. That’s unacceptable, even in the NIL/transfer portal era.

That’s because in the long and often painful history of the sport at Temple there is arguably no worse era. You can’t go 3-9 four years in a row after teasing your fans with nine bowl games between 2009-2019.

Here’s my argument: I suffered through a 20-game losing streak and 30 years between bowl games only to see that losing streak end when Adam DiMichele threw a flea-flicker touchdown pass to Travis Sheldon to beat Bowling Green. Sheldon was the hero that day, also taking a kickoff return to the house.

After a rough first start against Layton Jordan and Temple for Rutgers in 2022, Evan Simon has proven to be if not a great Temple Owl a very good one. I would be happy if this kid is K.C. Keeler’s starting quarterback next year.

The coach that day, Al Golden, got an ice bucket bath.

It was onward and upward after that.

Three years later, Temple was in its first bowl game in 30 years.

Two years after that, Temple won its first bowl game in 32 years.

Four years after that, Temple was the major story in the nation with a Prime Time Game on ABC-TV that broke all kinds of ratings records. To this day, that was the No. 1-rated college football TV game in the nation’s fourth-largest market.

Any college football game. Ever, including Penn State-Notre Dame games, college football championship games. From the time Philo Farnsworth invented the TV set in the 1930s until 2024 and probably way beyond.

Unless Temple gets a prime-time game again, I doubt that record will ever be broken. (For the record, I doubt Temple will ever have a prime-time game again. Unless a Saudi billionaire wants to make a statement by backing the Temple NIL fund. Shoutout to MBS, who reads this website occasionally.)

Did I think Temple could sustain that kind of success?

Hell no. (I was just happy I lived long enough to see it.)

Did I think Temple could be a regular visitor to great bowl games and win its share?

Hell yes.

What happened?

Two buddy hires (Pat Kraft/Rod Carey and Arthur Johnson/Stan Drayton) poisoned the well of success we’ve been drinking from. Kraft and Johnson were responsible, but so was the BOT which should have provided oversight.

Today’s 24-17 loss to North Texas was bad, but proved the kids never quit and that is important.

They were down, 24-3, and had enough pride in themselves, the school and their teammates to compete.

The second half was 0-0 against a bowl team.

IF … and that’s a big IF .. the next coach can keep the core base of talent (I’m thinking QB Evan Simon, RBs Torrez Worthy, and some guys on defense) here and supplement them with P4 backup talent and FCS stars (not JUCOs), Temple has a chance at a winning season.

Not far in advance like the old days. Next year.

It also has to have a good coach who understands that the way to beat offenses is an attacking defense (which means sacks and strip fumbles in the backfield or forced interceptions) and an offense that supplements its base philosophy with surprises (i.e. halfback passes, double reverses, shovel passes and jump passes ot the tight end).

The last three years we saw nothing of that at Temple.

Disappointing but not surprising that this offensive staff played backup QB Tyler Douglas at RB on several downs but never realized they had a RB who could throw a halfback pass. North Texas might have been fooled by that but we will never know because Temple never tried to fool the opposition.

Wayne Hardin, who fooled Temple’s opposition for many years, was probably turning over in his grave.

The next four years we should see plenty of fooling the opposition or there will not be four years after that. Pain should be followed by gain, but we will see.

After four years of the most painful Temple football watching in history, no fans deserve that kind of future more.

Monday: Season Review

11.28.24
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North Texas at Temple: No “D” in Owls

There is both humor and truth to this. Nothing would end all this transfer portal and NIL nonsense faster than for a Saudi man to invest $10 billion in Temple football’s NIL fund. Watch how fast the rest of the college world shuts down the NIL if Temple wins three national championships in a row. The Saudi man would get a good laugh out of it, though.

Any thoughts of an upset for Temple in the high noon season finale (ESPN+) at Lincoln Financial Field on Saturday probably went out the window a week ago.

That’s when the Owls gave up 51 points.

The last coach who called the Temple game his Super Bowl was the Utah State coach this year. He lost, 45-29.

To have a chance to win in college football a respectable defense is a must and the Owls haven’t been respectable since holding Tulsa to 10 points in a 20-10 win.

That was back on Oct. 19, a long time ago. We wrote in this space on that beautiful 70-degree day that “we all be freezing our asses off a month from now at the North Texas game.”

And we will as the temperatures won’t escape the 30s.

Since then, Temple has given up 56 (ECU), 52 (Tulane) and 51 (UTSA).

The lone outlier was the 15 points given up against FAU.

There is no “D” in Temple and even no “D” in Owls. That’s something the next coach is going to have to fix because to have a chance to win at football or even break even, you can’t be giving up the 35+ points per game Everett Withers has in his two years as DC.

There was some hope that a change in the DC to Chris Woods last week would have stopped some of the bleeding but it was apparent that it was the Jimmy and Joe’s as much as the X’s and O’s because the Owls could not sustain a pass rush.

North Texas has called this game its “Super Bowl” and there is a good reason why. The Mean Green have lost five in a row after a hot start and needs the win for a 6-6 record and a bowl game.

Of course, the last coach who proclaimed the Temple game as his team’s Super Bowl was Utah State’s and Temple won that one, 45-29. So there’s that. If it’s a Super Bowl, it will probably be the least-attended one in history as no more than 5-10K fans are expected to rattle around in a 70K stadium.

Still, the incentives seem to be all on North Texas’ side here.

All Temple has to play for is a 4-7 season after three-straight 3-9 ones (one Rod Carey 3-9 followed by two Stan Drayton 3-9s). That’s not what Drayton promised when he was hired and that’s why he was fired.

Now the Owls are faced with an almost impossible task of stopping a team that played Army and Tulane a lot tougher than Temple did.

The football is odd-shaped and can take a lot of funny bounces but for Temple to even be competitive in this one would require a defense that has shown the capability to stop someone.

The Owls aren’t going to get that until a new coach comes in and, with him, a lot of Jimmy and Joe’s who can strike fear into an offense and put a quarterback on his ass.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

Monday: Season Analysis

11.03.24
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Will Temple have a press conference if it finishes 2-10?

Stan talks about the American Conference here but doesn’t make any promises about the bottom line.

Even though Temple football didn’t play over the weekend, the results on the field elsewhere in the American Conference don’t paint a rosy picture for the bottom line.

Tulsa, a team Temple beat, was manhandled by a bad UAB team. UTSA, a team that some thought was a possible win down the line, beat Memphis in the same stadium the Owls have to visit.

So the Tulsa win may have been overvalued and, while the team might have had thoughts of a win at UTSA, that becomes less likely by the way the Roadrunners looked against Memphis.

Two and 10 is a definitely possibility now and you’ve got to wonder if Temple will even do what “normal” schools do when a coach goes 3-9, 3-9, and 2-10: Hold a press conference and bring in another head coach.

That’s not a given.

Drayton was optimistic going into the season as the above video shows but the results are the results.

“I’m excited about this football team,” Drayton said three months ago. “This off-season we were able to put together a roster that enhanced our football team.”

That may be so, but the bottom line is the bottom line. You have to win. Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.

Why is Temple 2-6 if the roster is enhanced? Doesn’t that seem to imply it is the coaching?

“We had some major voids in the defensive line and the offensive line,” Drayton said back in July. “We’ve gotten bigger. We’re not trying to find excuses. We’re setting some standards that are really high.”

The Owls head to Tulane, which has only lost to Oklahoma and Kansas State, as 25.5-point underdogs. Tulane probably is the most physically talented team the Owls will have faced all season, with the possible exception of Oklahoma.

IF … and this is a big IF … the Owls have one win left in them, it looks like maybe a home win against FAU but Tom Herman also is thinking the same thing about Temple.

Drayton can avoid that departing press conference by beating FAU, UTSA and North Texas but now that seems as likely as those teams beating Alabama, Georgia and Texas.

The gap appears to be that large.

A normal school would have a press conference to say something to the effect that Drayton is a great guy but the number on the left hand side of the win column never exceeded the number on the right side and that’s why we have to move on.

It will be impossible to sell any season tickets coming off 1-6, 3-9, 3-9, 3-9, and 2-10 years. The crowds have eroded from respectable to nearly non-existent over those years. This is a fan base that got used to going to bowls on a regular basis between 2009 and 2019. These fans can take one or two years of building, but not five consecutive ones.

You know that. I know that. The question is, “Does Temple know that?”

Or does Temple even care?

While that press conference three months ago was nice, the one at the end of the year appears to be a necessity now.

Friday: Tulane Preview