Temple had the lead. Again. And lost. Again.
Temple was up 17-14 late against Army on Friday, then walked off Lincoln Financial Field on the wrong end of a 21-17 final. Cale Hellums, Army's workhorse back, finished it with a short touchdown run that erased Temple's lead for good. Army improved to 2-1. Temple dropped to 1-3, and this one came in its first American Athletic Conference game of the season, so the loss costs the Owls in the conference standings, not just on the scoreboard.
This is the second week in a row it's happened. A week earlier, Temple led Toledo 42-28 late in the fourth quarter and watched the Rockets score twice in barely over a minute to force overtime, then lost when K.C. Keeler kept his offense on the field for a two-point conversion to win it outright, and Ajani Sheppard's pass sailed over his own receiver in the back of the end zone. That was an aggressive call that blew up. Seven days later, Temple built another late lead against a team it was favored to lose to, and gave that one away too.
Do that twice and you're looking at a program that can't protect a lead in the fourth quarter, under the same head coach, in back-to-back weeks. That falls on Keeler, the guy deciding what this team does when the game is on the line, more than any player or vague talk about "execution."
Sheppard has been asked to do a lot early in his career as the starter, and young quarterbacks make mistakes that look worse in the fourth quarter than they do in the first. He also threw touchdowns of 78 and 67 yards in this game. He's not the problem. A quarterback who can produce plays like that deserves a program that knows how to close out a game. If Keeler's staff keeps putting a talented, inexperienced arm in position to decide the ending twice in a row, that falls on the coaching staff.
The scoreboard says Army 21, Temple 17. Temple has now had a late lead in back-to-back losses and found a way to blow both. That's a head coach who hasn't figured out how his own team wins.
