K.C. Keeler is Temple’s new football coach. Of course, if you want to get the most buzz for your hire, make sure to announce it in the middle of an Eagles game:

You probably know who Keeler is. Emmaus native who got his first head coaching job at Rowan. He won a national title with Delaware in 2003 and coached the Blue Hens to two 2nd place finishes at the FCS level. He coached Joe Flacco, Mike Adams, and Pat Devlin and was flanked by assistants like Kyle Flood, Dave Cohen, and Kirk Ciarrocca, who all went on to bigger and better programs. After Delaware, Keeler won 97 games and a national title at Sam Houston State, which transitioned from FCS to FBS in 2023 and joined Conference USA.

Keeler is 65 years old and has only led three schools. He tends to stay for a decade or more at each stop. If you’re banking on that trend to continue, then it’s a good hire, because you need someone to come in, solidify this program, establish a culture, and channel some continuity. Back in the not-so-distant past, Temple could get by with these transactional Power 5 coordinator hires, like Geoff Collins and Al Golden, but in an NIL world and after logging 10 wins in four seasons, the situation seems to call for a veteran program builder who is here to stay. Keeler isn’t a threat to run off to the ACC at age 67, is he? I don’t think so. In that sense, this hire feels like Fran Dunphy going to La Salle, essentially returning home to stabilize things and get the program on the right track, maybe fuck around as well and wind up in the Big 5 championship game.

In the first paragraph of the press release, it notes that Keeler brings “a track record of effective recruiting in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.” Temple isn’t an NIL powerhouse at this particular moment, so there needs to be more of an emphasis on recruiting locally and scouring the transfer portal for Moneyball-type reclamation projects. Keeler should be able to do that. He’s been gone for a decade, and has spent most of his career coaching below the FBS level, but in CUSA year number two, Sam Houston went 9-3 with wins against Rice, Hawai’i, and Liberty. It was a decent enough conference with Jacksonville State, Western Kentucky, SHSU, and Liberty all winning 8+ games. He just went through that jump in competition with the Bearkats, so he’ll have an idea of the competition level adjustment here. Conference USA is probably closer to the MAC and Sunbelt while the consensus usually has the American right after the big four power conferences. Hope he’s ready, because Temple has Oklahoma and Georgia Tech on the schedule next season.

Let’s give K.C. Keeler a warm Philadelphia welcome back. He’s a proven winner and knows how to build a program. Someone tell Kyle Pagan that Temple is a football school.