Tag Archives: North Texas football

11.28.25
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Only one team in the league could have beaten UNT today

Only one team in the American Conference could have beaten No. 22-ranked North Texas today.

No, it wasn’t the usual suspects–Tulane, South Florida, Navy or Memphis–but it was another 3-4 team like Temple was:

Army.

This highlighted play is what lost the game for Temple.

The Cadets have pretty good intelligence in the sense that Jeff Monken is probably the most underrated coach in the country and knew that North Texas had the 14th-ranked run defense in the league. That’s another way for saying it was the worst run defense in the league. Monken probably also might have known that on top of that the Mean Green had two starting defensive tackles out with injuries.

Army would have run, run, run until UNT proved it could stop the run.

Temple probably should have done the same thing in a 52-25 loss in Denton.

For awhile there, it looked like the Owls had this thing figured out–run the ball, keep the ball away from Drew Mestemaker and company and shorten the game.

Maybe it wouldn’t have won the game and maybe UNT would have answered every long Temple run-dominated drive with a short drive to tie it.

“Why the hell are you guys even attempting a pass when it’s obvious North Texas can’t stop the run?” Jeff Monken probably said while watching the Temple game on Saturday.

Then again, Temple forced one turnover and, if the refs had any integrity whatsoever, would have forced at least one other and the Owls would have been ahead of the trading scores game.

That’s assuming Temple would have shredded a suspect UNT run defense.

We will never know because the Owls abandoned the running game a little too early.

How early?

On the first play from scrimmage, Jay Ducker had an 8-yard run, followed by an 8-yard run by Keveun Mason, followed by runs of 10, 5, 6 and 1 from Ducker.

Except for that last run, they weren’t stopping Ducker. Then Temple had to dick around and throw a pass.

No need to do that.

The Owls were called for a questionable ineligible man downfield but had Ducker gotten another opportunity, who knows if they would have been able to stop him? Or even a couple more opportunities. The weird thing is that Temple never needed to go triple option to win–just Jay Ducker right, Jay Ducker left and Jay Ducker up the middle with occasional cameos by Keveun Mason and Hunter Smith to the outside.

Army would have stuck with the game plan.

For some reason, Temple got away with something that was working and everything unraveled shortly after that.

When the battle plan is working, stick to what got you there and don’t deviate. If the enemy is in full retreat of your infantry, you never have to call in air strikes.

Army understands that.

Maybe Temple will next year.

Monday: Season Post-Mortem

11.27.25
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Temple-UNT: Moving parts offer some hope

If the Owls can visualize a 34-28 OT win at North Texas, they can do it.

If nothing had changed over the past few days, the prognosis for Friday’s football game at North Texas would have been exceedingly dismal for Temple.

Now it’s just regularly dismal. Or to be optimistic, more interesting.

This would be K.C. Keeler’s greatest win of his 276 as a head coach and enough for Temple to commission of statue of their living legend placed at the E-O.

A couple of moving parts, though, have given the Owls some hope in their final attempt to secure a bowl bid to make it a magical season at the 22d-ranked Mean Green (3:30 p.m., ESPN). One, North Texas head coach Eric Morris is headed to Oklahoma State and, two, quarterback Drew Mestemaker is probably following him.

How well UNT compartmentalizes those distractions probably will determine whether the Owls can stay in the game so we did a deep dive only over the last 10 years to find out how similar teams and coaches handled those situations.

Spoiler alert: Not very well.

Most head coaches who get other jobs at or near the end of the seasons go right to the other job and skip the final game with their old teams. Over the last decade, we’ve found 14 FBS head coaches who did stay and coach both the final game of the regular season and the bowl game.

In those 28 games, those coaches were 12-16. Shocking, because in every single one of those cases, all 14 of those head coaches had winning records in those seasons.

No data available if that also includes the star quarterback.

Breezy and 68 for Friday’s game on ESPN.

That’s an indication of a couple of things. One, their level of detail to the job currently at hand probably isn’t as comprehensive. Two, their eyes are on the next big thing.

None of that applies to Temple, though, and, if the Owls have an advantage, that’s it. The Owls have a committed coach and a roster of players whose stated goal at the beginning of the season was to make a bowl and turn this program around.

If they can visualize this win, they can do it. If they can’t visualize it, they can look at the video at the top of this post.

Their level of detail should be razor-sharp. For this game, that detail includes resurrecting the running game of Jay Ducker and Hunter Smith against a UNT defense whose Achillies Heel is run defense. Keep the ball. Control the clock. Use play/action passes from Evan Simon to keep drives alive and, most importantly, keep the ball out of the hands of Mestemaker and his explosive offense. North Texas is ranked No. 14 and last in the American Conference in run defense, giving up more than 211 yards a game. Put it this way: Ducker has 746 yards and, if he gets those 254 yards Friday to hit 1,000, Temple wins.

Plain and simple.

Or maybe get 150 and Smith get 100.

Sounds like a game plan head coach K.C. Keeler can get behind.

Also, that coach has been here before.

In Keeler’s 276 college football victories–the most ever as an active head coach–he has won 11 games as an underdog of 20 or more points. He is “only” a 19.5-point dog right now but that could change by kickoff.

Never, though, has Keeler beaten a ranked FBS team as a 20+ point underdog. He’s got everything else on a stellar resume so why not add this? No better time than now.

If he and the Owls are able to pull this one off and get to a bowl, it should be enough for Temple President John Fry to commission a statue of him placed right inside the gates of the E-O. Or at least approve a Go Fund Me to get the project going.

That would be one moving part Temple fans can get behind.

Late Friday Night: Game Analysis

Monday: Season or Bowl Analysis

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