8/17 Practice Notebook

Tagged under: News, Pennsylvania Colleges, pfn, Temple

Mike Livingston | August 17, 2026

The third week of fall camp got Monday morning underway at Edberg-Olson Hall, with Temple working through a humid and muggy practice in spider pads and shorts.

The Owls are entering the final week of traditional fall camp, meaning the countdown to Rhode Island is getting real.

Next week, K.C. Keeler and Temple will shift into a simulated game-week routine as preparations ramp up for the Aug. 29 season opener against the Rams.

Monday’s practice featured plenty of work in the red zone, with the final team period providing the most notable action of the morning.

Clarke remains a red-zone problem

When Temple gets inside the 20-yard line, Peter Clarke remains a popular target.

It didn’t matter which quarterback was taking the snaps Monday.

Ajani Sheppard found Clarke for one of the day’s prettier touchdowns, lofting a pass toward the back line of the end zone. Clarke made a difficult toe-tapping catch over his defender to come down with the score.

It’s becoming a familiar combination for the Owls. Whether it’s Sheppard or Jaxon Smolik behind center, Clarke continues to show why he’s one of Temple’s most trusted options when the field gets compressed.

Smolik had a red-zone connection of his own.

The Penn State transfer fired a pass through a tight window from roughly 20 yards out and found JoJo Bermudez for a touchdown. The throw had plenty of pace, but Bermudez still had to locate the ball through traffic before securing the score.

Defense makes its presence felt

The defense had several answers of its own during the red-zone period.

Safety Zyil Powell came up with one of the better defensive plays of the morning. In single coverage near the goal line, Powell stayed with his man and timed his jump perfectly to knock the ball out of the receiver’s hands.

No interception. No pass breakup credited to the stat sheet in the traditional sense. Just a well-timed play that prevented a touchdown.

Then there was Jaylon Joseph.

Joseph has been one of the more noticeable defensive players dating back to the spring, and that trend continued Monday.

Working from roughly 15 yards out, Joseph beat his blocker almost immediately after the snap, used a move to shed the block and reached the quarterback in a hurry. In a game, it would have gone down as a sack.

With Temple’s first game approaching, plays like those are becoming increasingly important. The Owls still have another week of traditional camp ahead, but the margin for experimentation is beginning to shrink.

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