Tag Archives: nfl

10.24.25
by

Keeler has a chance to challenge Hardin’s start

Probably the best look behind the scenes at Wayne Hardin and Temple Stadium that I’ve ever seen.

Only one new Temple coach started his career with the Philadelphia school winning roughly twice as many games as he lost.

That was the great Wayne Hardin, a College Football Hall of Famer who continued his great career here in 1970 and finished 18-9-1 over his first three years at Temple.

Nobody else started at Temple so successfully.

Tomorrow’s high at Tulsa is 59 but there is plenty of wet weather in the forecast.

Not Bruce Arians. Not Al Golden. Not Matt Rhule.

To me, and pretty much everyone else, K.C. Keeler is a sure-fire bet to join Hardin in the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta for what he’s done before he got here.

That was the way with Hardin, too, who had Navy as the No. 2 team in the nation in 1962.

Yet what Hardin did at Temple might have been more impressive.

Same with Keeler at Temple because his best may be yet to come.

Top teams in the country in turnover margin.

Keeler got his 275th career win on Saturday, 49-14, at Charlotte.

In his first season, the Owls are 4-3 with a shot to finish 9-3. Amazing in the sense that they were 3-9 for the last four years and 1-6 the year before that.

Even more amazing that they were only a missed false start away from being unbeaten in the American Conference and having their championship destiny in their own hands.

Now they are going to need help to knock Navy out of a tie-breaker situation.

It all starts on Saturday (3:30 p.m., ESPN+) at Tulsa. Temple has no chance in that game if it is thinking about 9-3 or even looking at the scoreboard.

K.C. Keeler tells the story about being recruited by Wayne Hardin in the late 1970s.

It does have a chance if it does all the “Hardin-like” things Keeler has been preaching all season. One, don’t look at the scoreboard. Two, concentrate on the next play. Three, “do your job” on the next play and not go outside that job by “trying to make a play.”

These things have been what Keeler has been preaching all year and, for the most part, the Owls have answered his prayers.

Saturday at Tulsa will provide a challenge because the Owls will have to overcome some weather issues. There is a good chance of rain, a high temperature of 59 degrees, and even some thunderstorms in the area. That’s advantage Temple because the Owls No. 4 in the country in turnover margin and Tulsa is No. 109. On a rainy day, that ball is slippery and the team who values it most has the advantage.

You can add 4 wins to that total.

The Owls have experience in that area as the home game against Howard was delayed by a half hour by thunderstorms in Philadelphia and the game at Georgia Tech was also delayed by the same thing. The Owls remained focused at home, not so focused on the road, but the lessons learned in Atlanta should be applied in Tulsa.

One game at a time. One play at a time.

Seven years after the above video was made, Hardin had Keeler in his office on a recruiting visit. The Owls ran out of scholarships that day, but Keeler is where he belongs now.

Beating Tulsa tomorrow opens another door. There are four more doors to bust down after that.

A 9-3 start is implausible but not impossible. Wayne Hardin showed the way in 1972.

K.C. Keeler is doing the same almost 60 years later. The fact that the two were in the same room once talking about coming to Temple is a pretty neat thing indeed.

Late Saturday Night: Tulsa Game Analysis

10.16.25
by

Temple-Charlotte: Long past time for a trick play

Halfway through the season one thing Temple fans know about both offensive coordinator Tyler Walker and head coach K.C. Keeler is that they don’t like trick plays.

Walker has shown an innovative offense with a lot of motion that causes both defensive coordinators and defenses in general to scratch their heads.

CBS Sports and Emory Hunt made Temple a highlight game and like the Owls. Great photo of Temple center Grayson Mains here. The Owls’ offensive line led the way for 518 yards of total offense against Navy and deserved the win.

What he hasn’t shown is a “trick play” and, by that I mean, a throwback pass to Kajiya Hollawayne (a quarterback at UCLA), who draws the defense to him and leaves JoJo Bermudez wide open on the other side of the field for six.

Saturday (3:30 p.m., ESPN+) would be a good time to dust that one off because the Owls need a booster shot after being made sick by a heartbreaking loss to Navy.

When asked about trick plays two weeks ago, Keeler said he was hesitant to use them “when we’re not playing well.”

He didn’t say anything about the first play of the game.

Not going to be an easy game for the Owls because it’s Charlotte’s Homecoming in this compact 15,000-seat stadium.

The Owls have played six games and, on five of them, the first play of the game has been a standard handoff to Jay Ducker. I know that. You know that. The bad guys certainly know that.

None of those handoffs have gone for more than 3 yards.

Why not fake that handoff to Ducker, toss a throwback to Hollawayne and have the former UCLA quarterback hit Bermudez in stride for six?

Why not indeed?

This is how wide open JoJo Bermudez would be on a throwback pass from Hollawayne.

That would get the sideline pumped.

Mentioned this to Evan Simon’s dad the last couple of tailgates and he agreed. Also brought it up with Grayson Mains’ dad and he didn’t hate the idea.

Don’t know if these dads enough pull with their kids for them to draw this up in the dirt like a sandlot play but it wouldn’t be a bad idea for this game particularly.

This team is hurting (hell, I’m still hurting) from the toughest of tough losses and getting off to a spectacular start would just be what the doctor ordered.

That doesn’t mean a 3-yard handoff to Jay Ducker.

Showing the world that the Owls have bounced back means a touchdown on the first play of the game. Nothing ventured nothing gained is a great saying for a good reason.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

10.11.25
by

First- and second-guessing turned out to be the same

With 1 minute, 16 seconds left in a 24-24 game, Temple quarterback Evan Simon hit Kajiya Hollawayne at Navy the 1 and Hollawayne was fortunate enough not to score.

I say fortunate because that gave Temple some time to play with and an opportunity to burn Navy’s last two time outs.

A gift, really.

No way the team on the right should have lost to the team on the left.

There were a couple of Navy fans in front of me and I leaned over to one and said:

“If I’m you guys, I would let Temple score here. If I’m Temple, I take three knees, make Navy take two timeouts and kick a field goal to win the game.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

America’s next Military leaders never had an opportunity to pull a France and surrender because Temple scored a touchdown on the next play and it looked like the Midshipmen, as they have all night, put up a fight.

That meant Temple gave the ball back to Navy with that 1:16 still on the clock.

I leaned over to my Navy fan friend and said, “That’s too much time with this quarterback.”

He tried to console me.

“Temple has a good quarterback, too,” he said.

“Yeah, I know but it won’t make much difference because he’s probably not going to get the ball back.”

We all know what happened after that. Blake Horvath, who in my mind is every bit the quarterback (and probably more) than Oklahoma’s John Mateer in the Heisman Trophy race, did what Heisman Trophy winners do and negotiate the length of the field.

Navy, 32-31, game, set and match.

By my calculations, a first-down knee and a second-down knee kills both Navy timeouts. A third-down knee takes the clock to about 40 seconds or less.

A fourth-down FG from extra point distance wins the game, 27-24.

Or at least gives the ball back to Horvath with 40 seconds and no timeouts as opposed to 1:16 and two timeouts left.

Maybe Horvath takes the ball all the way down the field. Maybe he doesn’t but, what he actually did with those 40 seconds was to get the ball to midfield.

That’s where the game would have ended all things considered.

Afterward, Temple head coach K.C. Keeler said he “wasn’t comfortable” with taking knees and anything could happen but, to me, after a first down on the 1, you can pretty much safely take a step back and down the ball without a disaster.

The alternative was worse.

Keeler also said there would be second-guessing and “I get that” but, when the second-guessing also includes the first guessing a Mike Philadelphia had with a Joe Annapolis guy while this was unfolding, that’s where I don’t buy it.

I’m thinking we weren’t the only two people in the stadium having that same discussion with 1:16 left.

Every NFL team would have done the same thing which means great coaches, even Hall of Fame ones like Keeler, occasionally make mental mistakes.

Just like the one a pitcher for the Hometown baseball team made a couple of nights ago. This hurts a whole lot worse.

Monday: Game Week

10.09.25
by

K.C. Keeler is the last hope for Philly Sports

On probably one of the worst nights in Philadelphia sports history, we are on the eve of … maybe … one of the best ones in Temple football history.

The Phillies lost on a monumental brain cramp by a relief pitcher who didn’t even know what a 10-year-old Little Leaguer knows. The Eagles were blown out by the worst team in the NFL one year away from being the best team in the NFL.

If all the Temple alumni and students head inside instead of hanging out to tailgate, they will make the difference for the kids on the field.

K.C. Keeler might be Philadelphia sports’ best hope.

There is a vulnerable unbeaten college football team left and it’s up to the Temple Owls to hand them a loss. Navy (5-0) is in town (4 p.m., ESPN2) and every Temple fan within an hour of the stadium needs to put down the remote and head to Lincoln Financial Field.

Yeah, I know the Joe Sixpack guy living at 8th and Bigler doesn’t care much about Temple football but this is all Philadelphia has right now and you’ve got to take the wins where you can get them.

We’re focusing on Keeler right now because he not only beat a UTSA team that hung with a potential national champion this year (Texas A&M) but he has the Owls buttoned down in areas that even the Phillies or Eagles neglected in the last few weeks.

As much as Jalen Hurts looks disinterested in winning (or even making a play), that’s how invested Temple quarterback Evan Simon is in winning. Put it this way: Does Hurts sleep at the Eagles practice facility? No. Does Simon sleep at Temple’s?

Yes.

In a town that appreciates that kind of commitment, Temple is this weekend’s only hope.

There is a big Navy presence in town this week with the 250th anniversary of the Naval Academy with the festivities centered on Philadelphia, not Annapolis.

Yet there is a bigger Temple presence in this town because the Owls are expecting around 30,000 of their own fans for Homecoming.

Say, a crowd of 30K Temple fans vs. a crowd of 12K Navy fans.

That’s the ceiling. The floor is 20K Temple, 15K Navy.

Either way, the Linc should be rocking. It doesn’t matter whether the announced crowd is 35K or 42K.

The “buttoned down” part is that Temple hired the Rice DC who held Navy to its lowest point total in 2024 in a 24-10 Rice win. Brian L. Smith knows how to stop a triple option and he’s been preaching gap integrity for two weeks.

Navy head coach Brian Newberry said as much this week when he said that Smith is the kryptonite to the Navy offensive scheme and that Temple has better athletes than Rice which makes this Saturday scary for the Midshipmen. The Owls need to contain Navy quarterback Brian Horvath, who loves throwing it to No. 22 (Eli Heidenrich). He can outrun Air Force’s corners but he won’t be able to outrun Temple’s.

If the Owls listen, and do their jobs and take care of their assigned gaps, the Owls win. If they go outside their jobs and “try to make a play” they lose.

It’s as simple as picking a ball up and throwing it to first base. The Phillies nor Eagles got that message Thursday night.

In a day or so, if the Owls do, Philadelphia sports gets to celebrate a big win and K.C. Keeler becomes a Hometown Hero.

For a guy who is from here and for a school that was always here, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Very Late Saturday Night (pushing Midnight): Game Analysis

10.04.25
by

It’s official: Keeler is ahead of schedule

Leave it to first-year Temple head football coach K.C. Keeler to set the bar high and then do a Fosbury Flop over it by the fifth game.

As early as mid-summer, Keeler said he wanted his team to be thinking about championships this year, not some far-off year in the future.

Owls sing the school fight song afterward holding the best helmets (Cherry) in college football. (Photo Courtesy of Zamani Feelings.)

It’s official now. Keeler and the Owls are ahead of schedule because, while many had the Owls beating UMass and Howard, nobody had the Owls beating Oklahoma, Georgia Tech or UTSA in the pre-season prognostications.

By this week, though, some pretty knowledgeable college football observers–Gary Segars, Bud Elliott, Colby Dant and Ryan McIntyre–had saw enough of how hard the Owls played and how well Keeler coached in that first four to pick them to win outright today (see our Friday post for the receipts).

And they did, 27-21, at Lincoln Financial Field, rallying from a 14-3 halftime deficit to pull it out against a pretty darn good team.

How good?

UTSA hung with Texas A&M before losing, 42-24, and, at the time Keeler said he wanted his Owls to be thinking championships, some people actually picked the Roadrunners to win the American Conference. After that loss to the Aggies, UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor said: “We have championship fiber.”

It’s one thing to say you have championship fiber and it’s another thing to show it and the Owls were the team who showed it in the second half, outscoring the Roadrunners, 21-7.

They did it with an offensive line that kept Evan Simon clean and a defensive line that put the other guy on his backside and running for his life on the few occasions they didn’t. Going into the season, Keeler said this was the best defensive line he’s ever had and he won 271 games as a head coach coming into the season so he had some good ones.

Then he said he “never saw a group improve as much” as his offensive line, the product of “iron sharpens iron” for both spring and summer ball. They opened holes for both Jay Ducker (the MAC’s leading rusher in 2021) and Hunter Smith (the Sun Belt’s leading rusher in 2023). Smith’s 54-yard run for a score put the Owls up, 17-13.

That aged well.

On a beautiful 82-degree afternoon in South Philly, the Temple fans who made it found out that Keeler wasn’t blowing smoke. Nothing wins more football games than putting the other guy on his ass and the Owls did that in the second half.

Going into a two-game home stretch that included UTSA on the front end and Navy on the back end, the thought process was this: Split the two and the Owls have a chance at a bowl. Sweep both and the Owls have a chance to face Memphis in the league title game.

Might as well set that bar a little higher in one week and jump over it. That’s all Keeler ever wanted and that’s more than Temple fans could have ever expected.

Monday: What We Don’t Care About

10.03.25
by

Temple-UTSA: Some educated guesses

Only a couple of things are certain around 1 p.m. or so at the Sports Complex in Philadelphia on Saturday.

The Philadelphia Flyers will be playing indoors next door and the Temple Owls will be hosting UTSA outdoors at Lincoln Financial Field on a jammed packed day of Philly sports. My guess is 17,000 plus fans in both places. Between 1-4 while things are being settled in those two places, about 45,000 Phillies fans will arrive on the scene for some pre-game tailgating.

They will probably find Lot K closed and all Temple parking. Those fans can make a difference by making noise and standing on third down when the Owls are on defense.

If anyone tells you they know what the outcome of the football game will be, they are lying. The ball is a funny shape and takes odd bounces and this one figures to be close. If those balls bounce Temple’s way and the fans can make a difference, everybody leaves happy.

In between, there are some educated guesses on both sides.

It’s amazing to me that two separate betting sites have this game at a projected 28-27 Temple score and the line has remained with USTA a 6.5-point favorite. Both Gary Segars of Winning Cures All and the guys at The College Football Experience (including Colby Dant and Ryan McIntyre) like Temple.

TCFE has gone as far as to lock things up for Temple.

Bud Elliott of CBS Sports “The Cover Three” Podcast picked Temple OUTRIGHT on the Moneyline.

This can go either way but this win is right out there on the table for Temple to taste and so the Owls must do what they have to do to put a fork in it.

This is just the kind of game first-year Temple head coach K.C. Keeler has preached about for the last nine months. Almost every day Keeler said the conference games are going to be a “50/50” ball and the team that plays the cleaner game will come out on top.

Should be a beautiful day for a good chunk of the 250,000 Temple alumni living within an hour of LFF to make the trip to support the Owls.

So far, Temple has played pretty clean. It is one of only three FBS teams with no turnovers through four and there are 129 other FBS teams.

Now it’s time to move on to the next thing as former Temple head coach John Chaney famously said:

“Take care of the known and don’t worry about the unknown.”

So far, the “known” about UTSA is that it can run the ball with Robert Harvey, Jr. (is there a Robert Harvey Sr. of any note?), who is the leading rusher in the country.

So Temple needs to stop that known and do its best against the unknown.

That element is in good hands with Temple DC Brian L. Smith, who has had major success against UTSA. Last year, Smith held UTSA to 13 points through three quarters in a Rice win. Contrast that to former Temple DC Everett Withers “holding” UTSA to 51 points in that same season. To me, that’s the biggest improvement of the K.C. Keeler hire: Bringing in a DC with a history of success versus the handicap that Temple had the last two years, a DC (Withers) with a history of failure just because he was a friend of the head coach at the time. In 2021, Withers gave up nearly 40 ppg as DC at FIU. In 2023-24, Withers came pretty darn close to that at Temple (38.7 ppg).

Smith has revamped the scheme and put personnel in positions to win.

The other known is that UTSA is terrible against the pass and Temple quarterback Evan Simon is pretty good for the pass and the Owls must exploit that secondary.

Temple must also continue to run the ball well with the 2021 MAC leading rusher (Jay Ducker) and the 2023 leading Sun Belt rusher (Hunter Smith) controlling the game and the clock, all the while keeping Harvey and company off the field.

That’s the way we think things will go down. Because we don’t know for sure is the reason why we will show up and support and will be standing and making noise on third down.

All other Owl fans should do the same.

Very Late Saturday Night (pushing 11 p.m.): Game Analysis

Monday: What We Don’t Care About

Friday: Navy Preview

09.22.25
by

5 Things We’ve Noticed After Game 4

If the Owls use their heads to clean up things like penalties and use Kajiya Hollawayne’s throwing arm on a couple of surprise throwback passes, the sky’s the limit.

After four weeks of the 2025 Temple season, we are back to where we were this time last month.

At Square One.

Pretty much everyone expected Temple to win the first two and lose the next two. It’s now an eight-game season with a mini-Fall Camp in the form of a Bye Week.

Here are some things we’ve noticed:

A real possibility: 6-2 Turning into 8-4

With no Memphis on the schedule this year and Georgia Tech and Oklahoma in the rear-view mirror, there is nobody Temple can’t beat in the final eight games. There is also nobody Temple can’t lose to and head coach K.C. Keeler predicted as much before the season when he said the American Conference games were going to be so close that Temple needed to play clean. They’ve done so in terms of turnovers. They have not in terms of penalties. Half of that problem is theirs. The other half is the refs. They have to fix what they can, and the former problem needs to be addressed. No grabbing the facemask. No jumping 5 yards offsides on a blitz. It shouldn’t be that complicated to watch the ball before coming off it. Temple is not going to win all eight remaining games but 6-2 is a strong possibility and winning both the turnover and penalty battle will be the determining factors.

Hunter Smith was the Sun Belt’s leading rusher in the 2023 season. He is averaging 7 yards a carry for Temple in limited action so far.

Hunter Smith is intriguing

While Temple has a nice Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside combination in Jay Ducker and Terrez Worthy, Hunter Smith is a talent worth exploring. Smith is a Mr. Inside with speed and can be a home run hitter. He probably needs more touches.

The Run Defense Needs Some Attention

Even against UMass, opposing running games were gashing the Temple defense. The Georgia Tech game–where the Yellowjackets rushed for 279 yards–was a real eye-opener. Others have noticed and, with nation’s leading rusher Robert Henry Jr. coming to town in two weeks, selling out to stop the run might not be a bad idea for new DC Brian L. Smith.

The GT-Temple TV ratings aren’t in yet, but Temple-Oklahoma was the highest-rated TV game involving a G5 school through the third week.

A Good Temple team is good for the conference

For the second year in a row, a Temple game was the highest-rated TV game involving a G5 team against a P4 in the first four weeks of the season. Last year, it was the game at Oklahoma. This year, it was Oklahoma at Temple. It’s not all eyeballs on Oklahoma because Temple is located in the nation’s fourth-largest TV market and the only Top 10 TV market without a P4 team. A winning competitive Temple team attracts eyeballs to the conference and the sooner that happens, the better.

A Few Trick Plays Couldn’t Hurt

Good coaches like K.C. Keeler utilize the unique talents of their players. The Owls have a wide receiver who was a highly rated quarterback coming out of high school and signed with UCLA as a quarterback. We assume Kajiya Hollawayne can still throw the ball. Would it kill anyone if the Owls tried a throwback pass to him once to draw the defense his way and have him throw the ball downfield to the elusive JoJo Bermudez?

It’s worth a try. Nothing ventured nothing gained and there is plenty to be gained in the next eight games.

Friday: How the Conference Shapes Up

09.07.25
by

5 Trick Plays that could fool Oklahoma

Nice call on this fake field goal for Temple at Houston a couple of years ago.

Usually in this space on Monday after a Temple football game we’d slot it for reviewing some things from the past game.

Our predictions for the first three games way back on May 23d. If anything, we sold Temple short in the first two games.

Bleep that.

That was Howard the Owls were playing and there is not much to learn from that game. Our May 23d post predicted the score of every single Temple game and, if the result of the first two games are any indication, we sold Temple a little bit short.

We had the Owls beating UMass (24-10) and Howard (48-7) and the Owls beat our expectations by 18 points in the first game and seven points in the second. We also had Oklahoma beating the Owls, 34-14, so if the Owls split the difference and are, say, a dozen points better that game finishes 34-26.

The trick now is to shave even more points off that differential and if the TU offense shows the Sooners wrinkles it hasn’t shown so far that could do it. Temple has been pretty vanilla on offense so far but what new OC Tyler Walker has done that is so impressive is a lot of pre-snap reads that cause the defense confusion.

Emphasis on trick.

Here are 5 plays that could fool Oklahoma:

Kajiya Hollawayne, like former Big 33 MVP quarterback Jalen Fitzpatrick, is a Temple WR who can also throw the ball, having committed to UCLA as a QB.

One, the throwback pass _ WR Kajiya Hollawayne is a former top-rated QB recruit at UCLA. We assume he can still throw the ball. Simon throws backward to Hollawayne who finds a streaking JoJo Bermudez down the sideline for six. The Sooners are an over pursuing defense and the pass to Hollawayne suckers the other corner just enough that Bermudez can get behind him. (We gave this suggestion to Matt Rhule before the SMU game one year when we mentioned to him that he has a Big 33 MVP QB who had not thrown the ball in his career up to that point. Rhule had WR Jalen Fitzpatrick throw a 95-yard touchdown pass on a double-reverse in that game.)

Two, the shovel pass _ One of Wayne Hardin’s staples was the shovel pass, faking a handoff usually to a fullback (Henry Hynoski, Mark Bright), then dropping back to pass and then shoveling the ball ahead on a pass against a defense going for the QB. Temple doesn’t have a fullback but does have an effective between-the-tackles runner in Jay Ducker and a shovel pass to him might earn him a touchdown.

Three, the tight end jump pass _ Al Golden pulled this one out at the Fake Miami (Ohio) with Chester Stewart dropping back and jumping while throwing a TD pass to Evan Rodriguez.

Four, the fake field goal _ If you are Temple playing a P4 like Oklahoma, at least once you have to roll the dice for six instead of setting for three. Temple had a successful one at Houston (see video above).

The Fake QB sneak_ Facing a 3d and 1 at midfield in the 2008 Navy game, QB Adam DiMichele feigned a QB sneak and deftly hit Bruce Francis for a touchdown pass. Obviously, this is a 3d and 1 type call or maybe even more ballsy as a 4th and 1 call.

Friday: Oklahoma Preview

Late Saturday Night: TU-Oklahoma Analysis

08.30.25
by

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

08.24.25
by

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