K.C. Keeler says Owls are "getting healthy at the right time" heading into Navy game
All things considered, Temple football coach K.C. Keeler and his team can feel pretty good about themselves.
The Owls posted a 27-21, come-from-behind win over UTSA Saturday to snap a two-game losing streak, claim their American Conference opener and improve to 3-2 overall, and Keeler said he expects to get three key defensive starters – safeties Javier Morton and Louis Frye and linebacker Katin Surprenant – back for Saturday’s homecoming game against Navy.
Morton (ankle), Frye (hand) and Surprenant (hand) missed Saturday’s win with their respective injuries, but fellow safeties Jamere Jones and Avery Powell secured interceptions for a Temple defense that limited UTSA to just seven second-half points, and linebacker Curly Ordonez led the Owls with seven tackles on a day in which they held Robert Henry Jr., the nation’s second-leading rusher, to just 42 yards on 12 carries.
“When you play a team like Navy, you need those safeties,” Keeler said, “because so many times they’re filling the alleys. Lou Fry should be back (at practice) Wednesday. He’s out there kind of moving around. Javier Morton, he looked great out there today, going through footwork and those kind of things. So we were always shooting to get them back for this game because having played these kind of offenses, I know that the value of the safeties.”
Keeler said he also expects to have defensive tackle Sekou Kromah back for Navy after he left the UTSA game with a shoulder injury after playing 38 snaps. Fellow defensive tackle Khalil Poteat, who has missed the last two games, will be available Saturday as well.
“He had a little shoulder issue last year,” Keeler said of Kromah, who has 14 tackles and three sacks this season, “and I think when he got the other shoulder, he thought was the same sort of thing. It’s just a strain. So it’s a strain, a strained shoulder, and he should be 100% ready to go.”
Listen to Keeler’s full interview from Monday’s weekly press conference here.
SCOUTING NAVY
Temple will host a 5-0 Navy team Saturday at 4 p.m. in the program’s homecoming game, one that will be carried nationally on ESPN2.
The Midshipmen, who have already posted three conference wins over UAB, Tulsa and Rice, still run their triple-option offense, but they also have one of the better passers the program has seen in recent memory in Blake Horvath. The 6-foot-2, 195-pound senior completed 20 of his 26 passes for a career-high 339 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 130 yards on 17 attempts in Saturday’s 34-31 win over Air Force. His 469 yards of total offense set a Navy program record.
Wide receiver Eli Heidenreich, not to be outdone, caught eight passes for a program record 243 yards and three touchdowns of 19, 80 and 60 yards.
Defensive tackle Landon Robinson, who posted 1.5 sacks Saturday, has five sacks this season, the second-most in the American this season.
Navy’s defense gave up 460 yards to Air Force (1-4 overall, 0-2 on the road) Saturday and allowed the Falcons to go 7-of-13 on third down and 1-for-1 on fourth down.
