K.C. Keeler talks about Temple's roster movement, proposes a five-year eligibility rule
While the name on the front of the opposing uniform will not be accompanied by a national ranking, Temple will still face plenty of challenges when it opens American Conference play Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field.
UTSA, like the Owls, comes into league play with a 2-2 record, but the Roadrunners are also bringing with them one of the nation’s best running backs in Robert Henry. The 5-foot-9, 205-pound senior leads all FBS players in rushing yards per game at 156 yards per contest, and the former JUCO All-American trails only Missouri’s Ahmad Hardy in total rushing yards nationally.
Henry has tallied 624 yards and seven touchdowns on 68 carries through UTSA’s first four games, good for a staggering 9.2 yards per attempt. He’s coming off his best all-around game of the season with a 76-yard touchdown run and a 74-yard touchdown reception in UTSA’s 17-16 win over Colorado State eight days ago.
Considering Temple enters Saturday’s game ranked 113th out of 134 FBS teams in rushing defense, having allowed an average of 180 yards per game, the Owls have a lot to clean up in practice this week, something head coach K.C. Keeler believes is possible.
“When we do our assignments, we could play some pretty good defense,” Keeler said during his weekly Monday press conference at Edberg-Olson Hall when asked about how Temple’s struggling run defense will counter one of the nation’s top backs. “What I’m trying to have them understand is, I don’t want the perfect call, but I want the perfect execution. And that’s kind of where we are right now. We are kind of trying to trim down some of the things that we’ve been doing, and we’re trying to get better at executing, because I think there’s enough talent on both sides of the ball if we execute. We’re in eight (remaining) 50/50 games. That’s how I see it.”
Henry, who is on track to be drafted in April, torched Temple for 178 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries last season in San Antonio, including a 40-yard touchdown run in a 51-27 rout of the Owls on a night chock full of explosive plays for the Roadrunners.
Keeler said he paid Henry a home visit and tried unsuccessfully to get him to take an official visit to Sam Houston State during his tenure there. Containing Henry and a quarterback in Owen McCown who also can run will involve a lot of what head football coaches typically say.
“When you play people a little bit better than you are,” Keeler began, referring to Temple’s losses to Oklahoma and Georgia Tech, “you have a tendency to try to do too much, and you’re [thinking] ‘I need to make plays.’ Do your job. … That was one of the things that frustrated me so much after Georgia Tech game was we did some things where I’m trying to make a play. I don’t want you to make a play. I want you to do your job, because if you do your job and the next guy next does his job, we’re gonna be OK.
“But when you try to do more than your job, that’s when we get out of our gaps. That’s when all of a sudden, we have two guys in the same gap, and that’s when you get hit with those big plays. So it’s a lot of, learn to trust each other, and a lot of understanding what your responsibilities are. And so again, that’s been my theme with the coordinators and the players. We’re gonna play a little simpler, we’re gonna play a little faster. And again, know your job, do your job. That’s where it really all starts.”
You can listen to Monday’s interviews with Keeler, center Grayson Mains and cornerback Ben Osueke here.
Another roster departure – and some injuries
After running back Terrez Worthy announced last week that he was leaving the Temple football program, wide receiver Xavier Irvin has followed, Keeler confirmed Monday. Irvin, who leaves the Owls after catching five passes for 85 yards and a touchdown (he caught the late scoring pass from Gevani McCoy last Saturday at Georgia Tech with three seconds left) can – like Worthy – apply for a redshirt season if they want to play elsewhere next season.
Worthy’s departure should clear the way for more snaps for Hunter Smith and Joquez Smith, and the hole Irvin leaves in the receiver room could create more of an opportunity for players like Ian Stewart and Antonio Jones. Stewart missed last season with a torn quad tendon, and Jones hasn’t had the impact he hoped for after transferring to Temple prior to last season from Grambling. He caught 23 passes for 170 yards and a touchdown last fall and has just one catch for five yards this season, which came late in the Owls’ rout of Howard on Sept. 6.
Keeler said the staff also feels “really good” about true freshman running back Keveun Mason, who originally signed with Delaware out of Florida’s Sebring High School before following Andrew Pierce, his lead recruiter, from the Blue Hens to the Owls when Keeler hired him away from Delaware to coach his Temple running backs.
As for the injuries, they are noteworthy as well.
Safeties Louis Frye and Javier Morton did not practice Monday with their respective right hand and ankle injuries. Same for linebacker Katin Suprenant, who also is working through an injury to his right hand. Suprenant had been playing with a wrapped right hand and missed the Georgia Tech game. Keeler said Monday that both Frye and Suprenant could be out for “another couple weeks” because they just underwent surgery. Morton, who did not play at Georgia Tech, has been “moving around” at practice, Keeler said, but he’s more likely to play next week against Navy.
Redshirt senior Dontae Pollard, who filled in for Morton at Georgia Tech, would appear likely to play more again this Saturday. And Temple’s late-summer acquisition, Jamere Jones, could replace Frye Saturday. Jones, a seventh-year player, transferred to Temple from Division II University of Nebraska at Kearney, where he posted nine pass breakups, two interceptions and 72 tackles last season.
Let’s play five
The departures of players like Worthy and Irvin are not uncommon, considering players know they can likely preserve their redshirt and play elsewhere if they leave within that four-game window.
Keeler told reporters Monday that he believes players should get five years of eligibility instead of four, something he feels would curb a lot of this roster movement.
“I’ll say it out,” Keeler began. “I was on a conference call with the American coaches on Wednesday, and a big topic was this five-year rule. It just makes too much common sense. It’s taken players four-and-a-half years or so to graduate. Why don’t we just give them five years of eligibility? And now we don’t have to worry about redshirting. Now we don’t have people – and this has nothing to do with the two players who left (Temple) – but we won’t have people knocking on the door saying, ‘Hey, my agent said …,’ and our two guys had nothing to do with any agent tell them anything or anything like that. There’s was a different situation.
“But just in general, this has happened nationwide to people. If they all have five years of eligibility, we won’t have to deal with it. They don’t have to deal with it, we don’t have to deal with it. And so it’s just makes too much common sense. And this is something from the football coaches that we want, because we live firsthand in this world, and we know it’s just the only thing.”
Keeler said he proposed this rule change as far back as 2005.
“And the big thing back then was, ‘Well, (what about) the record books.’ Well, once COVID happened, the record books don’t matter anymore. We’ve got guys in school seven years. So that whole record-book thing, that’s no longer an excuse. So I do anticipate that there’s going to be some sort of decision that is going to come forward over the next three, four months, probably, sometime after this season, and what we’re going to do about the five year. But I know as coaches, we all believe that it’s the best thing for the student athletes. It’s the best thing for us, because now we’re not dealing with knocking on the door saying, ‘Hey, can I get a pay raise?’ or ‘I’m going to redshirt this year.’ We have to cut that out of our world.”
