2-6, lost 3 straight, on track for 4-8 in the regular season.
Now
Career arc
This week Wed Nov 4
- Last gameL 9-17 at East Carolina Sat Oct 31
- This season2-6 lost 3 straight
- Hot seat13% 30th of 132
- On track for4-8 regular season
- Nextat Navy Sat Nov 7
- Stature113th of 138 FBS programs
Win and he’s at 9%. Lose and he’s at 14%.
at Navy, Sat Nov 7, 3:30 pm ET CBS Sports Network · Navy is 2-6 · Keeler vs. Brian Newberry: 0-1 · Temple’s chance to win: 29% (the site’s model)
- If Temple wins: 9%, 39th of 132
- Now: 13%
- If Temple loses: 14%, 27th of 132
Is he getting fired?
13% chance he’s out after the season · 30th of 132 FBS head coaches · Warm
If he finishes…
Bar: how likely that finish isNumber: his chance of being out
- 2-1020%
- 3-913%
- 4-89%
- 5-76%
- 6-63%
Why his number is where it is
Our hot-seat model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, and his contract (a bigger buyout, relative to pay, makes a change costlier). Ranked against the 132 FBS head coaches with 3+ games this season.
Now hotter than at this point in 2025.
His hot seat, week by week
The chance he’s out by the end of that season, as it stood after every week of his tenure here, by today’s model.
Earlier seasons price the games left with power ratings rebuilt after those seasons ended.
What drives his number
The biggest factors, each against the typical FBS job today.
- ▲ Hotter2-6, outscored by 24
- ▲ Hotter5-7 over his previous season here
- ▼ CoolerYear 2 · tenure, which this model overrates
(why?)
Tenure is one of this model’s strongest inputs, but its weight was set when retirements like Nick Saban’s and Bob Stoops’ still counted as being pushed out, so it overstates how much tenure matters.
What happened to coaches like him, 2004–2025
A different comparison: past coaches, not today’s, grouped by one fact at a time. Neither line knows the games he has left or his contract, so they can sit above or below his chance.
- Were 2-6 after 8 games
- 16% pushed out over results · of 288 coaches
- Were in year 2, after 8 games
- 5% pushed out over results · of 469 coaches
How good is this number? Checked on every FBS coach from 2010 to 2025, with its percentages calibrated each season on earlier years only: they track what happened — coaches it put near 25% were out about a quarter of the time — and a version pricing the games left with the previous season’s ratings ranked jobs as well as the ranking this page used before. Each week it learns from coaches who were still on the job at that point, so a firing during the season counts. In the Boiling zone it has run a few points high. Every job, and the method.
One headline named him in the last 7 days
85th of 138 FBS head coaches
The headlines, Nov 1–4
Inquirer.comK.C. Keeler shoulders some of the blame after Temple’s third straight lossMon Nov 2
Offense: 54th of 138 per play. Defense: 122nd.
4 games left
- Sat Nov 7at Navy (2-6)CBS Sports Network29%
- Sat Nov 14vs. UAB (4-4)
39%
- Thu Nov 19vs. Rice (1-7)
67%
- Fri Nov 27at Memphis (7-2)
16%
Percent: Temple’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
How the season got here
Where Temple stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
- Oct 26–Nov 1L 9-17 at East Carolina1 headline · 87th of 138
- Oct 19–25No game2 headlines · 73rd of 138What Now For Temple Football After "Single Most Embarrassing Game" of K.C. Keeler's Career? Crossing Broad
- Oct 12–18L 31-38 vs. Charlotte2 headlines · 74th of 138
- Oct 5–11L 20-34 vs. UConn1 headline · 83rd of 138
- Sep 28–Oct 4W 17-13 at South Florida0 headlines
- Sep 21–27 · rebuiltL 17-21 vs. Army1 headline · 83rd of 138Temple ‘needed to make one more play’ vs. Army, but coach K.C. Keeler found silver linings in the loss
Inquirer.com
Each week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Watch the biggest plays from Temple’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.
Fans
Fan chatter
- Oct 17L 31-38 vs. Charlotte
Temple gonna temple, thought Keeler was gonna change things but here we are
Temple fan - Oct 10L 20-34 vs. UConn
KC Keeler just setting us up for another heartbreaking loss, just like with Toledo and Army. All part of the plan.
Temple fan - Oct 3W 17-13 at South Florida
I have not been liking Keeler's use of timeouts this game.
Temple fan
Earlier weeks
- Sep 25L 17-21 vs. Army
I thought KC Keeler was a good hire. I was wrong. This program probably doesn’t exist in 5 years.
Temple fan - Sep 19L 48-49 at Toledo
So we go from Matt Rhule calling weird ass time outs, to Keeler not calling one to give us a chance to take one last shot. Great.
Temple fan - Sep 12L 9-27 vs. Penn State
KC Keeler actually knows how to coach, unlike Stan Drayton and Rod Carey.
Temple fan

Many stories about him in the last 30 days
Sat Nov 7: Navy
from several outlets and r/CFB
K.C. Keeler shoulders some of the blame after Temple’s third straight loss
Inquirer.com Nov 2 · one outlet
What they’re talking about
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
Dozens of stories about him this season
from many outlets and r/CFB
Penn State’s Matt Campbell carries much respect for Temple’s K.C. Keeler
Reading Eagle +2 Sep 8 · a few outlets
All 3 articles
What they’re talking about
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
What was said at each stop
Stories we tracked, by school.
TempleDozens of stories2025 to now
Most about: press conference and quotes, game preview, loss.
PennLive +1Temple’s K.C. Keeler’s early thoughts on Penn State defense, Rocco BechtSep 7
Inquirer.com +1After Temple's 'embarrassing' 38-31 loss to Charlotte, K.C. Keeler says changes will be madeOct 17- Bearkat Bites: Former Coach KC Keeler Sounds Off on Sam Houston's NIL BudgetAug 29
- Temple Secures First Win in the K.C. Keeler Era at MassachusettsAug 30
Inquirer.comK.C. Keeler addressed Temple’s needs in the transfer portal. First, he recruited his locker room.Jan 20
Sam Houston2023 to 2024not trackedIs he on the hot seat? What has he said?
Across his career
30 stories about him across 4 seasons
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Nov 4.
Stats
Big games
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
Signature games






Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
Signature games






Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Called about what the situation called for.
699 run and pass snaps at Temple, 2025–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Building the roster
Four numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His recruiting, really
His one ranked Temple class of his own finished #68 nationally.
Sam Houston
TempleAcross every program: 3 ranked classes of his own, averaging #96 nationally.
His class — he had the full signing cycleTransition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Followed him here
Sam Houston→
Temple2025Players who transferred from his old program to his new one through the portal in the same year he made the move. Name-matching across data sources misses some, so every count is a floor, not an exact number.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 88 of 119 players. The other 31 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 28% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2025–2026Counting players who have since left: 34% of the 107 arrivals we can classify came through the portal.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 14 of 51 signees (27%) across his 2025–2026 tenure, drawn from 13 states in all. Next: MD (10).
67% of his signees come from PA and its 6 border states (MD 10, NJ 6, NY 2, DE 1, OH 1).
Off this map: 2 signees to the west (AR, MS).
- median hometown distance
- 96 mi
- within 100 mi
- 51%
- within 500 mi
- 78%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 9%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
News
In his own words
Every quote, back to August 2026
In his own words
If we let the quarterback sit in the pocket, it’s going to be a long day for us
I thought we grew up a little bit today
With all the new players we have, I mean, God bless them
I could see us playing two
Yeah, we’ll probably have an idea of what that first play looks like
and it depends on that first play what we’re going to do.
We went into it last year thinking that we were going to play two
and then Evan obviously had six touchdowns that first weekend, played really well, and we kind of zeroed in on him.
I think Ajani’s strength has been him pulling the ball down and running and some of those designed runs
Career
Hires into jobs like this
Hired into programs rated 11 to 12 (Regional Program IV tier). Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
- Stan Drayton20223–9-1.1
- Rod Carey20198–5-1.0
- Geoff Collins20177–6+0.4
- Matt Rhule20132–10+0.0
- Steve Addazio20119–4+4.6
- Al Golden20061–11-3.2
- Bobby Wallace19982–9-0.6
- Ron Dickerson19931–10-3.3
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
Followed Stan Drayton (2022–2024).
| Season | 2025 | 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 5-7 | 2-6 | |
| Postseason | — | — | |
| Coordinators | |||
| OC | Tyler Walker | Tyler Walker | |
| DC | Brian Smith | Brian Smith | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | 43 | 55 | |
| Defense | 7 | 13 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | 41.0 | 35.4 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 46.8 | 40.3 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 39.3 | 30.4 | |
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on offense and underperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.
AI Narratives — “Temple — stat check”.
Succeeded by Phil Longo (2025–now).
| Season | 2023 | 2024 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 3-9 | 9-3 | |
| Postseason | — | — | |
| Coordinators | |||
| OC | Brad Cornelsen | Brad Cornelsen | |
| DC | Clayton Carlin / Joe Morris | Skyler Cassity | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | 23 | 9 | |
| Defense | 47 | 87 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | 49.5 | 38.1 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 45.8 | 23.4 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 36.6 | 28.6 | |
Underperforms his recruiting talent on offense and outperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Barely touches the portal — recruits and develops his own.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.





