Homecoming Must: Urgency to Win

UTSA coach Jeff Traylor pretty much tells you he’s not concerned with Temple here. Owls should take it as an insult.

Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s something else, but the way the Temple football Owls performed at the end of last season gave me significant hope for this season.

That’s pretty much all gone now.

At the end of the season, I wrote on this site that if the Owls got me a great running back from the portal (Western Michigan’s Sean Ryan and Ball State’s Carson Steele to name two) and two great FCS defensive ends to replace Darian Varner, the Owls were off and running not only to 8-4 but a possible AAC title.

Not having done any of that we recalibrated those expectations down to 6-6.

Stan Drayton needs to have a quick hook if E.J. produces zero or three points at the half again.

Now, with the biggest home game of the season less than 24 hours away (2 p.m., ESPN+), we might have to lower even those expectations.

Why?

The most disappointing thing about this 2-3 season so far is not the loss to Tulsa but the lack of urgency to win from this coaching staff.

I had us 3-2 at this point, not 2-3. Had the losses to RU and Miami but the loss to Tulsa came out of nowhere.

If this coaching staff really, really deep down inside had the urgency to win, they would not have handed the keys to the offense back to the driver who drove them into a ditch in the first half at Rutgers. After giving me 46 against ECU and 35 against Houston, no points there should have been a huge red flag.

If this staff really wanted to win, what was the same guy doing in the game down, 21-3, at half to a team that gave up 66 to Oklahoma and 43 to Washington and why were they allowing that to happen? I don’t get it.

They rolled the same guy out there expecting him to overcome a 21-3 deficit when it’s quite obvious he can’t move the sticks by running if a play breaks down or if he gets any pressure.

As the kids say today, “WTF?”

That cannot be allowed to happen. It just can’t. Next man up.

Our picks this week: Rutgers getting the 13.5 at Wisconsin, and the above four games, Rice blowing out UConn by more than 10, Texas State beating Louisiana, South Florida beating UAB by at least a FG and TCU winning at Iowa State. Season: 20-7 overall, 8-4 against the spread.

If the Owls only had a promising freshman from Ocean City, N.J., I can understand that. But they have a guy in the fold who not only beat North Carolina but engineered 47 points on them. They have a dynamic backup quarterback who can both run and throw.

Nothing would please me more than to see E.J. Warner turn the first-half scoreboard into adding machine against UTSA and, say, give the Owls a 31-14 lead at halftime.

Failing that, though, this staff has to show me inertia is not their middle name and show me another word that hasn’t been in their dictionary all season.

Urgency.

Get him out of there and at least show the fans you are trying to win by getting Quincy Patterson in there to create plays and move the ball not just with his arm but his feet.

Rally the defense and special teams around him.

Don’t wait to win.

Win now.

Or that biggest crowd of the season won’t come back this year or maybe even next.

Sunday: UTSA analysis

The roster: Grasping at Straws

No doubt Jeff Traylor has seen this film and Tulsa gave him a blueprint of exactly what to do Saturday.

Those running backs on opposing teams who keep running through, past and over defensive linemen against Temple are an indictment of what Stan Drayton and company did this offseason.

Or didn’t do.

“OK, who here wants to switch to the DL?”

Hit the portal hard.

As a 40+ year Temple fan, I’m appalled by the ease of which Tulsa running backs hit the hole and gashed the Owls’ defense. It’s one thing to let Miami do it. It’s another to let Tulsa do it. They were grasping at running backs on Thursday night.

They might as well been grasping at straws.

Those big chunk passes Tulsa made all night were the result of the D-Line not getting to the quarterback. Temple might have to change its scheme and gamble with numerous all-out blitzes, using their most talented room (linebackers) to make plays like sacks, fumbles, fumble recoveries and interceptions. Do anything but sit back and get run over. That’s not Temple TUFF.

Not that we didn’t see this coming a mile away because we advocated many times for the Owls to get running backs from Ball State and Western Michigan and Liberty who remained in the portal and the Ivy League defensive lineman of the year from Harvard as soon as he entered it. You knew Darian Varner was leaving in December. The priority then should have been to get Temple fans two Darian Varners from the FCS ranks.

What did Temple do instead?

Hit the Junior College ranks for an offensive lineman and a cornerback and they’ve been pretty much the only help the Owls have gotten so far that has meant a damn.

Junior college should have been the last place Drayton and his staff looked because every year you see lower-ranked FBS teams knocking off P5 teams (Bowling Green over Georgia Tech on Saturday and Georgia Southern over Nebraska last year are just two of many examples).

Temple should have been able to talk some of those Georgia Southern and Bowling Green guys to come to Philadelphia in the offseason. Got to think one or two of those really good players who made impacts for those teams in those games would have given Temple some consideration.

We will never know.

Failing that, there are some great FCS teams. Albany beat Villanova, 31-10, on Saturday. You think there might have been someone from Albany who can help Temple now and who would rather play for Temple?

I do.

Owls have to put the playmakers they have in a position to make plays. D.J. Elliot did that. So far, Everett Withers has not.

There are great players on FCS teams who end up drafted by the NFL. Temple should go after those guys. Logically, a move up to Temple’s level would improve draft profiles. Instead, Junior College appears to have been their focus.

That’s two steps below where the focus SHOULD have been.

Now the Owls are caught between a rock and a hard place. There is an obvious need for talent especially on the defensive line and the Owls are out of big bodies who can stop the run and get after the passer.

There is no place to find those guys on campus now. They should have been found beating the bushes in the offseason.

Everybody knows what Jeff Traylor, a great head football coach, is going to do on Saturday: Run right at the Owls and dare them to stop him. Some FBS and FCS linemen in the portal last year could have helped them Saturday. Right now, the Owls have no choice to do it with the guys they have in the building. Having Layton Jordan drop five yards into pass coverage does nobody any good when he can create havoc rushing the passer. Increasingly, unless they figure out a gambling scheme that can cause more havoc and turnovers, the Owls need to win battles at the point of attack.

Although they didn’t show it at Tulsa, Owls may have the will to do it. They may not have the means.

Friday: Where’s the Urgency?