A Christmas gift changed Carl Hardin's life
With a game as close as its last win, a 38-37 overtime victory at Tulsa, Temple has a very recent reminder of how one play can decide a game, and this week’s test could be another close one.
A 4-3 East Carolina team that boasts the nation’s 17th-best defense is a formidable opponent for Temple, one that will stand between the Owls and bowl eligibility when the game kicks off Saturday (2 p.m., ESPN+) at Lincoln Financial Field.
Temple placekicker Carl Hardin, a player capable of delivering some decisive points, talked Monday with reporters about “a different energy” at Edberg-Olson Hall as the team is enjoying its best season in five years.
“We’re going in each week with, I think, a really good team mindset and just believe that we’re going to win,” Hardin said, “and just go off that. I think we’ve been feeding off each other’s energy. We’re getting really close as a team, and I think that’s helping us a lot.”
The story has been told a few times now about how Maddux Trujillo, a 2024 American Conference second-team selection, told new head coach K.C. Keeler that the league’s second-best kicker behind him was already in the building in Hardin.
Hardin has done his best to prove Trujillo right.
Hardin has converted eight of his 10 field goals this season and hit a career-long 52-yard kick in last Saturday’s win over Tulsa. It was a satisfying feeling after coming up just short on a 61-yard try last month at Georgia Tech.
On a day in which it needed every single one of its points to escape Tulsa with a win, Hardin’s 52-yard field goal in the fourth quarter was critical.
“It felt great,” Hardin said. “I mean, I always knew I could hit a kick of that caliber, but to do it in a game, it’s just different. You can’t recreate that in practice, so it felt really good.”
It all started, Hardin said, with a Christmas gift when he was in eighth grade.
“I started out playing soccer,” Hardin explained. “I always felt like I had a strong leg in soccer. And then one year, I just kind of figured I’d try it out, asked for a football for Christmas, ended up getting one. And on my first day kicking, I hit like a 25-yarder.
“It was kind of a hobby to me, at first. I just enjoyed doing it. And then from there, I realized I could be pretty good at it.”
