It was the winter of 2001, and KC Keeler had just taken the job as the head coach of the University of Delaware. He'd gotten the job because he went 88-21-1 over nine seasons at Rowan University, a Division III school in New Jersey, and also because the Delaware program had gone into disrepair. His predecessor, College Football Hall of Famer Tubby Raymond, was a legend, winning 300 games on the dot, but the Blue Hens fell off as Raymond approached retirement. They reached the FCS semifinals in 2000, but the 2001 team went 4-6 and in the eyes of UD president David Roselle, the team probably needed to get worse before it got better.
"The president said to me, 'Do not talk about winning championships.' We're changing the offense, changing the defense, they hadn't recruited great lately, they're 4-6. And in my first press conference, I talk about winning a national championship within the first five minutes," Keeler said.
"I see our president (with his head in his hands). Afterwards he goes, 'Coach, you disobeyed me within the first five minutes of having the job.' I said, 'Dr. Roselle, there's 80 players in the back of that room. They don't want to hear about rebuilding, they want to hear about what we're doing right now. They don't care about when they're alums, they want to know what's going to happen during their experience here.'"
Two years later, Delaware won the FCS national championship.
Keeler told that story nearly 25 years later, two games into his tenure as the head coach at Temple. Game No. 3 is against No. 13 Oklahoma. Keeler told that story on the Oklahoma Breakdown, and he said his realistic expectation is for his Owls is to compete with the mighty Sooners.
"When I walked in here I said, 'Guys, if you're realistic, you're at the wrong place. I don't want guys who are realistic.' It's unrealistic to think we can play with Oklahoma. Well, guess what? Realistic guys do not play for me. Unrealistic guys play for me," Keeler said.
Temple is 2-0 for the first time since 2019, and the Owls have won consecutive contests for the first time since Sept. 24-Oct. 1, 2021 -- 47 games ago. Temple has not finished above .500 since 2019, and has gone exactly 3-9 for four seasons running.
Part of the reason for Keeler's instant success at Temple, he said, was that the players the previous regime left behind were better than the ongoing run of 3-9 records implied. Keeler hired well, and he's devoted a significant amount of time toward building bonds: player-to-player, coach-to-coach, and player-to-coach. And part of that is the mindset he's instilled. "Being realistic is boring," he said.
To be sure, an "unrealistic" mindset is not a shortcut to success, and there are drawbacks associated with it. It will probably not build trust between Keeler and his players if he spends all week telling his Owls that they're going to compete with OU, and then OU wins by 60 on Saturday.
"Sometimes I put a lot of pressure on a program because I am out there saying, 'This is who we want to be.'" Keeler admitted. But the alternative to an unrealistic mindset is that, in a game where his team is a 24-point underdog, Temple kicks off effectively down 24-0. "We live one time," he said. "I'm taking one shot at this thing right now. We're going to go all-in, all the time."