Tag Archives: writing

07.03.25
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New Temple Unis: A Solid B

Al Golden, whose 56th birthday is today, brought back both the striped pants and TEMPLE on the helmet.

One of the things a lot of new Temple coaches do is try to change the uniforms.

Some get it right.

Some swing and miss.

Some get close.

New Temple football coach K.C. Keeler is in the third category.

I had hoped to give the new Temple uniform reveal which came three days ago an A.

Got to admit I’m a little disappointed to hand out a B, but I have to be honest.

It’s not an exaggeration to say Al Golden saved Temple football, both from an on-field standpoint and a uniform standpoint.

Only two Temple football coaches in my lifetime nailed the new uniform assignment and both were among the best, Wayne Hardin and Al Golden. (Happy Birthday to Temple Hall of Fame head coach Al Golden and a sincere thank you from TFF for saving the program.)

Hardin turned the old Owl the side of the helmet into TEMPLE on both sides.

“A lot of people wear Ts on the side of the helmets,” Hardin said in 1971. “Tennessee, Texas Tech and Texas A&M, among others. We don’t want to be confused with anyone. We’re TEMPLE and we’re proud to wear the name on our helmets.”

That theme returned in Al Golden’s second season when he decided to put TEMPLE back on the helmets.

“When I played at Penn State, we played a lot of teams that hit us pretty hard,” Golden said. “We played Notre Dame. We played USC. Nobody hit us as hard as those guys wearing TEMPLE on the side of their helmets. I wanted to return to that kind of tradition.”

Helmets through the years. The only decent ones were TEMPLE and the T.

So Golden, like Hardin, put TEMPLE back on the helmets.

That’s kinda what I was hoping for Keeler.

Not being a perfectionist, all I wanted was for the team’s football logo (TEMPLE) to share the school’s logo (T).

Split the baby is what we’ve been writing about for the last decade.

A King Solomon-style solution would be for one side of the helmets to be TEMPLE and the other side of the helmet to be the school’s familiar T logo.

Keeler made a step in the right direction with putting the T on both sides of the helmet. Maybe next year he’ll consult with King Solomon. For now, getting rid of the stupid numbers on the helmet is a huge step in the right direction. There was never a need to have numbers both on the front and back of the jerseys AND the helmets.

Steve Addazio made the most egregious change in the helmet when it removed the TEMPLE of Al Golden to the T of the school.

He was out after two years. I would have fired him for the helmet change but fortunately BC took him off Temple’s hands after a 4-7 Owl season in 2012.

Keeler’s unis–while not the pure dark Cherry colors or having the TEMPLE on the helmet–aren’t perfect, but they are a step toward perfect.

Kinda like the program on the field at this point and we’ll have another reveal this time next year so there’s always hope that the grade could be upgraded to an A.

King Solomon is counting on it.

03.23.25
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Keeler’s first play call: Split the helmet baby

The greatest Temple helmet in history IMHO.

In the grand scheme of things, not one of the top 10 things K.C. Keeler needs to do as a head coach but it is certainly an important play call only he can make.

Go back to the “TEMPLE” helmet or keep the university signature “‘][‘ Logo.

Or do both.

The status quo is not an option.

There is a direct correlation between winning football at Temple and the TEMPLE helmet.

Had a long discussion with Matt Rhule about this a couple of days after he was hired and he said: “I don’t know if that’s my call.”

Told him that it was because the precedent had been established by a number of coaches before him.

Wayne Hardin changed an absolutely putrid-looking Owl logo to simply “TEMPLE” spelled out on the helmet.

“We want people to know who we are, that’s why I did it,” Hardin said at the time. “Plenty of teams have a logo or a T. We want to spell it out so there is no confusion.”

No consultancy fee necessary so splitting it in two is perfect.

TEMPLE had some–err, most–of its best football years wearing that helmet. It lasted from Hardin through Bruce Arians before Jerry Berndt switched it back to the T and 20 years of hell followed.

Like Rhule, though, Al Golden didn’t know if it was “his call” and stuck with the T through his first season, which was a 1-11 one.

After that season, though, Golden changed it and rubbing that helmet put some luck back in the program. Then Steve Addazio changed it back to the “T” and more hell followed after that.

“I did it because I associated that TEMPLE helmet with some of the toughest teams I played when I was at Penn State,” Golden said.

That’s why, when Rhule answered my first congratulatory email with “Mike, give me a call” I thought that was a good place to bring it up.

Rhule also stuck with the T, proving that the person inside the helmet was either just as or more important than the brand itself.

Since then, my King Solomon Solution has been my constant recommendation.

Split the baby.

Temple has had some bad helmets (and one good one) over the years.

“TEMPLE” on one side and the ‘][‘ on the other. The helmet was one of many things that didn’t make sense during the Stan Drayton Era because it had the ‘][” on one side and the number on the other. Talk about the Department of Redundancy Department.

The number was on both sides of the jerseys and didn’t need to be on a third spot.

Splitting the baby and putting the football logo on one side of the helmet and the university logo on the other would be the logical solution and it would be a bloodless one.

Somewhere up there, we think both Hardin and King Solomon would approve.

Friday: Some Progress