Tag Archives: UTSA football

10.04.25
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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

09.28.25
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Game Week: How good is UTSA?

UTSA has had an up-and-down season but hasn’t faced the quality of competition Temple has.

In between worrying about getting a parking pass and navigating traffic on Saturday, the next-in-line question for Temple fans should be this:

How good is UTSA?

Evan Simon cuts last year’s game down to one score with this bomb to Dante Wright. With Jay Ducker and Hunter Smith being able to establish a running game, Temple should be in this thing until the end. If the players take care of things one play and a time and not watch the scoreboard, Temple could win handily.

For fans, not players nor coaches because it would behoove the Owls to practice and prepare for the Roadrunners like they are as good as Georgia Tech or Oklahoma.

Spoiler alert (players, please turn away): They are not.

Even though Vegas has the Roadrunners as a 6.5-point favorite, I fully expect that to be bet down to 4.5 Wednesday and maybe a field goal by kickoff.

Let’s examine what they’ve done so far:

They got blown out by Texas A&M, 42-24. The Aggies are a good team, maybe as good as Oklahoma and slightly better than Georgia Tech.

However, UTSA’s last game–a 17-16 win at Colorado State–might provide more clues. Off that result, you can pretty much say the Roadrunners are on a par with the Rams and the Rams are really not good. Colorado State got blown out by Washington (38-21) and barely beat Northern Colorado–Northern Freaking Colorado–and that score was 21-17. They also lost to possibly the worst P4 team alive, Washington State, 20-3. Northern Colorado barely beat Houston Baptist and lost to Indiana State, two teams I think most college football experts would agree are far worse than anyone Temple’s played, including Howard and UMass.

So however good UTSA looked against Texas A&M and that wasn’t much, that was canceled out by how bad it looked at Colorado State.

If UTSA lets a team like that hang around with it, that bodes well for Temple. Temple has to sell out to stop the run because Robert Henry Jr. is the leading rusher in the country, but TU DC Brian L. Smith understands that a lot better than we do so we think that will be part of the gameplan. He understands a lot about UTSA and has beaten them before at Rice, something UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor acknowledged this week.

“I know the defensive coordinator is from Rice, who’s given us a pain in the rear end for the past five years.”

On the other side of the ball, it should be interesting to see how Temple’s new Mr. Outside (Hunter Smith) combines with Temple’s Mr. Inside (Jay Ducker) to both control the clock and set up deep play-action passes for Evan Simon. With the departure of Terrez Worthy over the weekend, Ducker is now No. 1 on the depth chart and Hunter Smith is No. 2. That means Temple has the 2021 leading rusher in the MAC and the 2023 leading rusher in the Sun Belt topping a deep running back room that also includes Joquez Smith.

This is not Oklahoma coming to town (1 p.m., ESPN+) on Saturday. It’s not even Georgia Tech.

Temple has been sharpened by that iron and, other than one Texas A&M game, the Roadrunners have been sharpened by, let’s say, plastic.

What Temple learned in its Georgia Tech game was that, after spotting the Yellowjackets a 21-0 lead, the Owls played even with that team the rest of the way.

If the Owls have learned their lesson and applied it in the bye week, this is win No. 3 for Temple.

If not, it’s another disappointing loss.

Stan Drayton might let that happen. I’m guessing K.C. Keeler won’t.

Friday: UTSA Preview

10.07.23
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Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Defenses

After Saturday’s Homecoming 49-34 loss to UTSA, the math just doesn’t add up for Temple.

With six games left, the football Owls have to win four games just to become bowl eligible. That doesn’t look likely. Hell, Stan Drayton’s stated dream of “winning championships” at the school will have to wait another year.

Or two unless he hits the portal as hard as he should.

Or maybe never with this guy in charge of his defense.

You could make a strong argument that the math didn’t add up all the way back on St. Patrick’s Day when Drayton handed the keys of his defense to long-time friend, Everett Withers, after D.J. Eliot left the same DC position to become a linebackers’ coach with the Eagles.

If Drayton learned anything this season, friends don’t let friends drive defenses.

Were there more qualified people available?

Sure.

The last time a head coach handed the keys to his defense over to Withers was not all that long ago in 2021 and Withers got the head coach, Butch Davis, fired at FIU. Of the 130 FBS teams that year, FIU finished 128th in total defense, giving up just over 496 yards and 39.7 points per game. That’s hard to do on purpose, let alone ostensibly trying to tackle people.

That’s not the kind of resume you take into a job interview.

Yet Drayton probably didn’t vet Withers because he knew the guy and liked him.

When I was sports editor of two daily newspapers, I never hired a guy because I liked or knew him before. I would sort through the resumes and find the best guy for the job. When I was 24, I was given the responsibility of hiring someone for an assistant editor’s position.

Nobody worked out. They were either too slow or too sloppy or too unreliable. That is, until an experienced guy walked in and killed the tryout. Wrote the best headlines, made the best edits, laid out the best-looking pages.

“This is the guy I want to hire,” I told my Editor-In-Chief.

“But he’s 50,” my editor said. “Are you sure?”

“Fifty isn’t old,” I said.

“You’re getting a raise,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m 50.”

Editor was true to his word with the raise and he let me hire the guy, who turned out to be one of the best hires I ever made. I didn’t become his friend until after the hire.

Withers is 60 but he could be 30 and still wouldn’t have been the best person for the job. In his last season at FIU, he allowed 54 to Texas Tech, 31 to Central Michigan, 58 to FAU, 45 to Charlotte, 34 to Western Kentucky, 38 to Marshall, 47 to Old Dominion, 50 to MTSU and 49 to North Texas.

Most not FBS powerhouses but he made them look that way.

I’d rather have a 90-year-old guy who knows how to stop a modern offense than a 60-year-old who appears to be in over his head.

So far at Temple, against FBS opposition, he’s given up 21 points to Akron, 36 to Rutgers, 41 to Miami, 48 to Tulsa and now 49 points to a 2-3 UTSA team.

He has Temple on par to break the dismal record of the 2021 FIU defense.

That’s a shame because an offense that scored 26 points against Tulsa and 34 points against UTSA has done enough to win. E.J. Warner woke from his season-long slumber and became the E.J. we knew and loved at the end of last year. He and the offense deserved better. The defense once again didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

Sometimes you have to take the keys from your friend and tell him he can’t drive anymore. If Stan doesn’t do that to Everett, he’s staring at another 3-9 season.

That’s only if there’s at least one team out there Temple can win a shootout against.

Monday: Post-mortem