What's next for Temple's backfield after Terrez Worthy's departure?

After Terrez Worthy’s decision to leave the Temple football team for what he deemed to be personal reasons, as OwlScoop first reported Wednesday, the Owls’ offense is without a running back they hoped could give them speed on the edges, an option in the short passing game and a potential threat on special teams. 

A 5-foot-11 senior, Worthy led Temple last season in rushing yards with 425 and all-purpose yards with 961 before deciding to enter the transfer portal once Temple fired former head coach Stan Drayton. Worthy decided to come back to play for new head coach K.C. Keeler and offensive coordinator Tyler Walker and appeared primed for another prominent role in the Owls’ offense, even with the transfer portal arrival of Jay Ducker, who played for Keeler at Sam Houston State. 

Worthy played just 21 fewer snaps than Ducker through Temple’s first four games but managed just 71 yards on 23 carries, with his best game coming against Howard in which he logged six attempts for 58 yards and a touchdown while also catching a 23-yard pass. Worthy had minus-4 yards on six carries and caught two passes for 13 yards in Saturday’s 45-24 loss at No. 18 Georgia Tech, which turned out to be his final game in a Temple uniform. 

Worthy could ultimately decide to appeal for a redshirt season since he only played in four games, something that factored into his decision according to a source familiar with the situation who told OwlScoop that Worthy does intend to play elsewhere next season.

Temple, sitting at 2-2 heading into conference play, has some extra time during this bye week to figure out its approach in the backfield before the Oct. 4 American Conference opener at Lincoln Financial Field. 

So where do the Owls go from here following Worthy’s departure?

Jay Ducker

The good news for Temple is that everything is cut and dried here when it comes to Ducker, the 5-10, 210-pound redshirt senior who followed Keeler to North Broad Street after leading Sam Houston State with 745 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground last season. 

Through four games, Ducker has pretty much been as good as advertised. He’s rushed for 315 yards and two touchdowns while averaging 6.3 yards per carry and looks about as fresh and spry as he did when he rushed for a career-best 1,184 yards as a freshman at Northern Illinois back in 2021. His 55-yard run highlighted a 128-yard performance in his Temple debut at UMass, and Ducker tallied 87 yards and a touchdown on just 10 carries the next week as the Owls made quick work of FCS opponent Howard in a 55-7 rout. 

No one on Temple’s offense fared well the following week against an Oklahoma defensive front that dominated the Owls at the line of scrimmage, and Ducker managed just 24 yards on seven carries. But last week down in Atlanta against Georgia Tech, Ducker got Temple on the board with a 2-yard touchdown run at the 12:29 mark of the second quarter on fourth-and-goal. Later on in the fourth quarter, his 42-yard run – another fourth-down attempt – was part of a scoring drive that resulted in a field goal. He finished the day with 76 yards on 14 carries and firmly remains Temple’s No. 1 back heading into conference play. 

Hunter Smith

The player best positioned to see more work after Worthy’s departure, Smith came to Temple via the transfer portal from Louisiana-Monroe. He has 126 yards on 18 carries, with 65 yards coming on a fourth-quarter touchdown run that closed out the scoring against Howard. 

Temple smartly recruited Smith out of the portal during the offseason when it was looking for running back depth, and the signs of what made Smith one of the most promising running backs in the Sun Belt two seasons ago have flashed through the first four games this season.

“It was great to see Hunter have that big run,” Keeler said of Smith two days after the win over Howard during his weekly Monday press conference. “You can see he’s getting healthy. We kind of got him off the fender-bender line and put him into our offense, knowing that he was going to be coming off an injury, and he keeps on progressing. Every week he’s getting better, and that was a big run that he made.”

Keeler’s reference to getting Smith off the fender-bender line was his clever way of saying Smith was coming off a major knee injury. Smith tore his posterior cruciate ligament – the one in the knee that connects the thigh bone to the shin bone – a week before Louisiana-Monroe’s season opener last fall and missed the entire 2024 campaign and spring ball. He tallied 507 yards and three touchdowns while averaging 5.4 yards per carry in 2023. 

If he continues to get healthier and progress as Keeler has noted, the 5-11, 190-pound redshirt senior could become Ducker’s primary backup. 

Keveun Mason

Mason, a 5-10, 190-pound freshman out of Florida’s Sebring High School, now goes from being a potential redshirt candidate to a potential contributor in 2025. 

Mason originally signed with Delaware last December as part of the Blue Hens’ 2025 recruiting class but then opted to come to Temple when his lead recruiter and running back coach Andrew Pierce left for North Broad Street to accept that same position under Keeler, the coach Pierce played for at Delaware. Mason’s lone carry of this season – a late tote in the Howard rout – went for five yards. 

As a senior at Sebring High School, Mason ran for 1,112 yards and 15 touchdowns. And as a track standout, Mason clocked personal-best times of 10.90 seconds in the 100-yard dash and 22.60 seconds in the 200. 

While it would be reasonable to assume that Ducker and now Smith will see most of the carries moving forward, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the staff activate Mason, who could edge past Joquez Smith as the third back in the rotation. 

Joquez Smith

Speaking of Smith, he will be a player to keep an eye on next Saturday in Temple’s conference opener at home against UTSA. An ankle injury he sustained against Howard sidelined him for the last two games. He did make the trip to Atlanta and dressed for the Georgia Tech game but did not play. Barring any setbacks during the bye week, he would seem to be in line to compete for some carries against the Roadrunners. 

Smith collected 21 yards on seven carries in late action across the UMass and Howard games before the ankle injury. He came to Temple as part of the Owls’ 2023 recruiting class with some promise out of Tampa’s Jesuit High School and ran for 325 yards and a touchdown two seasons ago as a true freshman. Just two games into his freshman season, Smith racked up 142 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries in a Week 2 win over FCS opponent Norfolk State. 

Since then, however, Smith has never rushed for more than 39 yards in a game, which he did in last year’s season finale against North Texas. His second-quarter touchdown against the Mean Green last November was his first since his breakout game against Norfolk State.