Temple's 52-25 loss to No. 21 North Texas leaves Owls short of bowl goal

Thirty-four days ago, Temple was a five-win football team with plenty of momentum after a road overtime victory. Bowl eligibility was a very real possibility for a program that had not enjoyed that distinction in six years. 

All they needed was just one more win in their last four games.

Thirty-four days later, No. 21 North Texas showed the Owls why procrastinating is never a good idea.

Caleb Hawkins’ 186 rushing yards and four touchdowns, coupled with Drew Mestemaker’s 366 passing yards and three scores through the air, were way too much for Temple to overcome in a 52-25 loss Saturday at DATCU Stadium, one that sent the Owls back to North Philadelphia with a 5-7 record, one win short of their bowl goal. 

K.C. Keeler had no choice but to frame Friday’s game as a great opportunity for his five-win team, and it was. 

Win, and the Owls would gain bowl eligibility in style, knocking off a top-25 team on national television.

But realistically, this was the situation Temple wanted to avoid all along. The one-point losses to Navy (32-31 on Oct. 11) and at Army (14-13) on Nov. 8 were the games that got away and put the Owls in the unfavorable position they found themselves in at UNT Saturday. 

The nation’s top-ranked offense played accordingly and wasted little time in running the Owls’ defense off the field. The Mean Green rolled up 605 yards of total offense and got on the board just five plays into their first possession when Mestemaker hit wide receiver Cameron Dorner on a 77-yard crossing route catch-and-run touchdown. 

Temple showed some early ability to punch back when quarterback Evan Simon engineered an 11-play, 75-yard drive by tossing a two-yard touchdown pass to tight end Ryder Kusch on fourth down that tied the game at 7-7 with 2:42 left in the first quarter. 

But UNT, which finished off the first 11-win regular season in the program’s history, made quick work of the Owls by scoring 28 unanswered points from there, using a 21-point second quarter to put the game away by halftime with a comfortable 35-7 lead at the break. 

Jay Ducker ran for 63 yards on 12 carries in his final game in a Temple uniform and made it a memorable day by scoring one rushing and one passing touchdown. He executed a third-quarter trick play by taking a pitch and tossing a 16-yard touchdown pass to tight end Peter Clarke and later scored on a five-yard run at the 11:14 mark of the fourth quarter. 

Simon, in his final Temple appearance, completed just 10 of his 27 passes for 82 yards and the touchdown toss to Kusch. Attacking the American Conference’s worst rushing defense was something Temple tried early, as Ducker and freshman Keveun Mason helped produce 38 yards on the Owls’ first six plays, with Ducker handling five of those six carries. 

But that drive eventually ended with a Dante Atton punt, and the running efforts of Ducker, Mason (six carries, 26 yards) and Hunter Smith (10 carries, 66 yards) were never ultimately going to be enough to account for a defense that had no answers for Mestemaker, who came into Saturday’s game as the nation’s leader in passing yards with 3,426. 

This offseason will of course be an important one for Keeler and his staff if they hope to make the 2025 season the step in the right direction that it could be. The five overall wins and three American Conference wins were still the best totals the program has seen in six years.

To keep the momentum going, Temple will hope to retain a talented core of offensive players like Mason and Clarke, along with wideouts like JoJo Bermudez and Colin Chase. Both sides of the ball need some speed reinforcements, particularly the defensive secondary. The Owls currently have 24 verbal commitments from the 2026 class heading into National Signing Day on Wednesday, and the NCAA’s two-week transfer portal window officially opens Jan. 2. 

Extra points

Peter Clarke‘s touchdown reception from Jay Ducker was his sixth scoring catch of the season and set a single-season program record for the most touchdown catches by a tight end, surpassing Kenny Yeboah‘s five touchdown receptions in 2019. … Temple’s defense forced two second-half turnovers, both on forced fumbles. Defensive end Cam’Ron Stewart forced a fumble recovered by safety Avery Powell on UNT’s first drive of the third quarter, and cornerback Adrian Laing later recovered a fumble forced by defensive tackle Khalil Poteat in the fourth quarter.