The exacta in the eighth race at Gulfstream on Thursday paid a cool $898 for a $2 bet because a couple of 30-1 shots finished first and second.

Dot and Twirling Queen.

You have to be a pretty brave gambler to go against the chalk and pluck a $2 bill on that pair but it paid off.

The Daily Racing Form’s Youtube analysis of that race totally missed those two horses and went so chalky a bar of Coast soap might not be enough to remove all the white substance from the hands of analysts Dan Ullman and Mike Beer.

Stan Drayton and his Temple football staff rolled the dice in a similar fashion on the “real signing day” with mostly 30-1 shots while the bluebloods of the college football world were using chalk on to sign national letters-of-intent.

That was really out of necessity because Temple doesn’t have the money to compete with for 4* recruits, let alone 5* ones.

Still, they reached for the stars and got a couple and that was pretty impressive on its own.

You can really say his two chalk bets probably will help the Owls more, but there are a lot of Dots and Twirling Queens to connect with the other signees.

To me, the two chalk guys will be starters and impact players for the Owls at positions of need.

As good as E.J. Warner was, and we think he will do very well at Rice, Cliffton McDowell–in our humble opinion–will be an upgrade over the son of a Super Bowl winner. He’s a proven championship-level quarterback. Warner, for all the good things he did here, was 6-15.

Put it this way: I will take McDowell’s 17 touchdown passes and four interceptions at Montana (a better team than Temple) from 2023 over Warner’s 23 and 14 in the same year at Temple (duh, a worse team than Montana). I will pluck a $2 exacta bet with McDowell and incoming Big 10 running back Antwain Littleton II over the Warner/Saydee combo.

I will bet Temple makes a lot more third-and-ones in 2024 than it did in 2023.

It looks like Stan Drayton and company are making the same bet.

The AAC college football return on that exacta might not be $898 but it certainly could push the needle toward six wins and that would be enough for Drayton to keep his cushy $2.5 million job at Temple. More importantly, it will keep the BOT bean counters away from Temple football in general.

Temple needs more than McDowell and Littleton and that’s where the 30-1 shots come into play.

The Owls did this year what they should have done last year and that was to shore up both lines.

Last year, because the Owls left three scholarships on the table, they were forced to start two true freshmen on the offensive line and one true freshman on the defensive line and that’s never a good sign. As a result, Warner ran for his life on most Saturdays and was knocked out on two of them and his parents thought his chances of getting killed on a football field far exceeded his chances of being harmed anywhere near Broad and Norris.

What did Drayton do Wednesday?

Overbook both lines so much that the Owls now have 92 players under scholarship when they have only 85 to give. They are booking on turnover in the age of the transfer portal and might have to Grey shirt some players to make room.

That’s OK because the Owls will not have to rely on true freshmen to start. They averaged 6-2, 265 across the offensive line last season with those two true freshmen in the mix. Now they will average 6-4, 288 across the offensive front and 6-3, 268 over the defensive front and that’s considerably more bulk. Additionally, they will have at the minimum JUCO starter experience over high school starter experience and that should show on the field.

They won’t be competitive against Oklahoma on Aug. 31, that’s a given.

BUT … and this is a big but … they were competitive with all of their flaws against a USF team that beat Syracuse 45-0 and those are the games this kind of recruiting was built to turn around. Temple lost to USF only because a player who is no longer here hit a guy out of bounds. That same USF team blew out a bowl-bound ACC team, Syracuse.

With the right players, Temple is not all that far away.

Hitting the McDowell/Littleton exacta plus finding some gems underneath for tri and super bets could mean the Owls get the bowl game they should have had a year ago.

Cashing in at the AAC football window would be a lot sweeter than anything Gulfstream or Parx has to offer.

Monday: The Rest of The Story

Friday: Coaching Additions

Monday (2/19): Spring Practice Priorities