New Temple football head coach K.C. Keeler did his introductory press conference on Tuesday morning. This was the biggest takeaway quote IMO:

Q: As you return to this mid-Atlantic region and make your way back home, how much do you look forward to recruiting in this area/etc?

Keeler: Yeah, so my recruiting background is unique in that, as a Division 3 coach (at Rowan), you recruit New Jersey. Because of in-state tuition, that made the most sense. I developed relationships through my whole 10 years there in New Jersey. And when I went to Delaware it was a lot of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New York, and then it ended up being pretty much from New Hampshire down to Florida. I started taking some Georgia kids, some Florida kids, and then when I got to Texas, I realized (a different scene), and that’s what the job of a head coach is, to kind of solve this rubik’s cube. In Texas, at Sam Houston State, we recruited Texas, Texas, and Texas. We didn’t go outside of Texas. And I understood why, because within a three and a half hour radius of where I was, the high school football was so outstanding. Plus, you had the discount because they didn’t want to go away and play at a MAC school or one of those schools outside the area.

I think coming back to the region, and here at Temple, my job is to figure out the best way to attack this recruiting. I believe, if you look at the history of Temple football, and all of the NFL players they’ve had, a good portion of those are Jersey guys that they got out of high school. High school recruiting will always be our foundation. That’s the fabric of the team. I believe if you are taking transfers to fill every gap and hole, it’s tough to develop a culture. We’ll start with high school recruiting, but we’ll obviously be involved in Junior College and transfers also. 

Keeler noted that he vets his players “really hard.” He wants culture as much as talent, so they’re going to be a little slower to make sure they get the right guys before jumping into personnel decisions right off the bat.

But he’s right about Temple’s foundation. Haason Reddick is from Haddon Heights. Ryquell Armstead is from Millville. Matt Ioannidis and Dion Dawkins are Jersey guys. Those Matt Rhule teams especially featured a lot of homegrown talent and had a culture and an identity. When you coach in Texas, as Keeler notes, you don’t have to recruit anywhere else. So there’s gonna be a shift back to doing what he did at Delaware and Rowan, now in an NIL world. They need to set a new foundation and build some continuity here and they’ll be okay.