K.C. Keeler earned his 275th career win. The first-year Temple coach recounts how he got there.

After Temple’s 49-14 win against Charlotte on Saturday, quarterback Evan Simon decided he wanted to give out a game ball to someone who stood out. Usually, that’s the coach’s job.

This time, it was K.C. Keeler’s turn to get recognized.

Simon exclaimed that the victory was Keeler’s 275th, which puts him in the top 20 all-time in wins among college coaches. The team erupted and mobbed Keeler.

In honor of reaching 275 career wins, Keeler took a trip down memory lane, recounting some victories that stood out and the people who helped him along the way.

“This is not just business to me,” said Keeler, who’s in his 32nd year as a head coach. “I truly want to be successful so [my players] are successful. I truly do want to help them through life. I explained this to our staff, if this is just a business arrangement, your cap is only so high. But, like, if this is truly like something where you’re in this thing together and there’s love and trust between the players and the coaches, it takes your ceiling so much higher.”

Keeler was named the head coach at Rowan before the 1993 season. He had been the offensive coordinator and was promoted when his predecessor, John Bunting, left for a job with the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Profs beat Newport News, 54-7, in Keeler’s debut as head coach, and the victories did not stop there. Rowan won 10 more games that season and played for a Division III national championship. Although Keeler’s squad lost to Mount Union in the final, it was a banner first year for him.

“First game, there’s funny things that I can remember like stopping at a rest stop on the way home with the fellas and just kind of hanging with the players and just enjoying being with them,” Keeler said. “I remember my wife made it down for the game also. And so it was a big deal. It took a lot of pressure off getting that first win. It really did.”

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Keeler continued to stack wins and Rowan won at least 10 games from 1995 to 1999 under his guidance. As Rowan continued to build momentum under Keeler, there was one program that had its number, Mount Union.

The Purple Raiders beat the Profs in the national championship in 1993, 1996, and 1998. They brought a 54-game winning streak into a matchup with Keeler and Rowan in 1999 in the playoff semifinals. In that game, however, Rowan was on the right side of the outcome.

“Larry Kehres is a legend, a phenomenal football coach,” Keeler said. “We beat him in overtime out there to break the longest win streak ever.”

Keeler won 88 games in nine years at Rowan, which set him up to land a job at his alma mater, Delaware, in 2002. That job meant more to him than just being a head coach. Keeler played linebacker at Delaware from 1978 to 1980 and described it as his dream job.

Without Rowan, he never would have ended up at Delaware.

“I show up at a [Rowan] team meeting,
and I get a standing ovation. What I realize is those kids realize they got me my dream job,” Keeler said. “They knew how much I loved Delaware. … I got really emotional. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, they’re giving me permission to leave.’ They got me this job. It was so powerful. There’s a couple of moments in your life you remember forever. I wasn’t expecting it. It wasn’t something that was on my radar. That was something that I’ll always remember about Rowan. They didn’t want to lose me, but they felt good. They were turning me over to my alma mater.”

Keeler went 6-6 his first year at Delaware. It was the first time in his career he did not finish above .500. That one season was all Keeler needed to turn the Blue Hens into a national power.

At Rowan, Keeler was in a “do it all” role and got involved in everything football-related. That was not the case for him at Delaware. He moved into more of a “CEO” role in which he was more of a manager.

Once Keeler realized he needed to change his approach as a coach and trust his coaching staff, Delaware took off.

In his second season, Keeler guided the Blue Hens to a 15-1 record. Delaware cruised through the playoffs in Division I-AA (now known as the FCS) and faced Colgate in the national championship. Keeler lost five national championships with Rowan, but his luck finally turned at Delaware.

“We went out and won, 40-0, and had the biggest point differential in the history of a national championship game,” Keeler said. “They had me, and the energy level we came out with was off the charts. They say you take a championship, that team took a championship. That would be my most memorable win just because it’s a national championship at your alma mater and they had never won a FCS national championship.”

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Keeler spent nine more seasons with the Blue Hens and amassed 86 wins, ranking second in school history behind Tubby Raymond. He was fired after the 2012 season when the Blue Hens went 5-6 and decided to take a year off from coaching.

He worked as a commentator for ESPN and for NFL Matchup. It did not take long for Keeler to realize he missed being around the game. The Sam Houston State job opened in 2014, and it was the last job available in the cycle. Keeler took it.

Once Keeler was back on the sideline, it was like he never left.

He won double-digit games in his first four years with the Bearkats, then in 2020, he won the FCS national title.

“We ended up beating the only three teams to win an FCS national championship in the last decade in 16 days,” Keeler said. “We beat
North Dakota State, James Madison, and South Dakota State in 16 days. All three of those are the only teams besides Sam Houston now that have won national championships in a decade. Some people said there should have been an asterisk because of COVID. There should have been an asterisk because of how we did it. We had to do it during COVID and we beat the best three teams in the last decade in 16 days.”

Sam Houston’s success under Keeler boosted the program to the FBS in 2023. The Bearkats won only three games in their first year but won 10 in 2024.

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On Sept. 28, 2024, Bearkats squared off with Texas State in a battle to “take back Texas.” Texas State led, 22-0, before Sam Houston stormed back to win, 40-39.

“Their whole thing was take back Texas,” Keeler said. “So when we played them, we took back Texas. That was really a cool moment for the program and for a rivalry that had not been played in 10 or 11 years.”

Keeler left as the second-winningest head coach in Sam Houston State history with 97 victories. He decided it was time to head back home.

Keeler was hired at Temple on Dec. 1, 2024, and tasked with turning around a program that finished 3-9 for four consecutive seasons. Keeler needed seven games to surpass the three-win mark, doing so in the milestone victory over Charlotte.

Entering a road matchup against Tulsa, Temple is 4-3. Each win this season has meant a great deal to Keeler, especially the Owls’ 42-10 victory against UMass in the season opener.

“That obviously is a really memorable game because [the players] put their trust in myself and the staff, and they had results that they really hadn’t had in a while,” Keeler said. “I think we all felt really good about that, and it was a great way to start the building.”

Keeler is tied with Monte Cater for 20th all-time in wins among college football coaches. He had plenty of people to look up to on the way to 275, especially his father, Ralph Keeler, and Raymond, his coach at Delaware whom he replaced.

While the milestone is special, it’s just another win in Keeler’s eyes.

“That 275 is just a symbol of the fact that I’ve done this a long time,” Keeler said.
”I coach a lot of great players, and I put together really good coaching staffs. And that’s how I got to that number. Every one’s significant. I am going to be as happy for 276 as I was for 275.”