AAC Media Day: Temple Between the Lines

The question is always asked on these media days to coaches about expectations and the answer, at least for the last two Temple head football coaches has always been something like this:

“We won’t set a number on wins and losses we just want to play the best we can.”

Temple’s Stan Drayton broke from that mundane view on Thursday when he said “we have set expectations and we expect to meet them” in terms of wins and losses in separate interviews with members of the media (not shown in the above video).

Guess what?

Reading between the lines, just four wins is not acceptable to this coaching staff and that has been transmitted to the players.

What is?

Certainly a dozen would be but we get the distinct feeling from the way Drayton talks that a losing first season is not on his radar.

Nor should it be.

Those who don’t set goals never reach them and the last two coaches, Rod Carey and Geoff Collins, wanted just to “play well.”

That doesn’t cut it.

In Adam Klein, Victor Stoffel and Isaac Moore, the Owls have at least the foundation of a terrific offensive line and that was communicated to the media on Thursday.

What was surprising, though, was Drayton’s assertion that the DEFENSIVE LINE–considered coming into the season as the biggest question mark–was his biggest exclamation point:

That is surprising in the sense that the returning personnel didn’t get enough pressure on the quarterback last season (only 15 sacks for 104 yards of losses) but not so because new line coach Antoine Smith led Colorado State’s defensive line to a top 10 sackmeister rate last season AND Temple’s most talented defensive lineman, Xach Gill, did not play a year ago. Now he’s not only playing but becoming a leader of the returning guys.

The best way to win in football is protecting your quarterback and putting the bad guy’s quarterback on his ass. Games are won in the trenches and that’s exactly where the Owls plan to win at least six and maybe more this season.

Temple seems to have progressed a long way in both of those areas.

How far?

Nobody knows but Drayton already has set the bar and it ain’t low. That has to be good news for every Temple football fan.

Monday: Something no one has seen in 30 years

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8 thoughts on “AAC Media Day: Temple Between the Lines

  1. I really like Coach Drayton, even though he hasn’t coached his first game yet. He has that energy, that positive air which he seems to share with his players. He reaches out to the Temple community. Saw him on 6abc Action News Thursday evening. Getting good vibes. Time will tell of course!

    • The only thing I’m concerned about is gameday coaching. Al Golden was a great CEO, not so great gameday coach but produced more than acceptable results. Matt Rhule was a little better in both areas (after a shaky first two years) and got better results. If Stan hits the ground running, we should be OK. I get the idea that he won’t be a control freak the way Al and Matt were and that could work to his favor. He has experienced OCs, DCs, DL and OL coaches and if he lets them do their jobs, the learning curve is negligible.

  2. Mike,

    Here are the results of the media poll for projected AAC finish this year. Unsurprisingly, the Owls are dead last. BUT what stands out to me, and I do not really know how the poll works, but look how little respect there is for the Owls.

    I don’t think we are in the top half of the division, but out of Tulane, Tulsa, USF and Navy, I feel it is all up for grabs. is Temple really that far behind Tulane or Tulsa or is there a clear disregard here?

    Preseason AAC Media Poll
    Houston — 243 (7)
    Cincinnati — 242 (10)
    UCF — 225 (7)
    SMU — 187
    Memphis — 162
    East Carolina — 157
    Tulane — 115
    Tulsa — 93
    South Florida — 71
    Navy — 61
    Temple — 28

    • Owls are much better than that IMO. I believe (hope) 6-6 is achievable. As Mike says, it’s important that Coach hits the ground running, which would be a win in Durham on September 2. Go Owls!

    • The Temple of Carey really was that far behind. This Temple is completely different and I feel has passed half the league.

    • Still, even after seeing the recruiting Stan and his crew have done, 33 votes behind Navy? 43 behind USF? I sure hope We’re going to see some very good game-day coaching – as mike said above and I mentioned here a couple weeks ago, that’s the one big question mark. But I sure hope the voters are very wrong. Go Owls!

      • Vegas is often wrong about G5 football. The just look at the scores from last year and usually plug in the same results from last year for this year’s forecast. Almost no mention of upgraded rosters or position coaches, let alone head coaches. Very sloppy research and Temple isn’t the only school affected.

  3. Was impressed with Coach Drayton’s comments on Media Day. I am hopeful the team gets a good look at that media poll and vows to prove the nay-sayers wrong.

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