Amid all the noise about no lopsided scrimmages and things looking good at Temple football’s spring practice is this indisputable truth.

The best quarterback on the team left for reasons unclear and there is no one on the current roster who possesses the same kind of skill set or talent level as Clifton McDowell.

Don’t believe me.

Believe the numbers.

There is not a single quarterback on the roster who has put up the kind of numbers in college football as Clifton McDowell did.

If the season were to start on Cherry and White Day against Oklahoma and not a meaningless game between good guys and good guys, which is what the Cherry and White game has always been, the starter would be a guy who had four college touchdown passes against six college touchdown interceptions or a JUCO guy who did nothing above the JUCO level and looked like total crap in his only game against SMU.

Not good options.

Had to laugh when I read on message boards “next man up.”

Not a believer in “next-man-up.” Never was. Never will be. Temple’s got to go out and get a replacement for McDowell with similar athletic ability.

I saw Forrest Brock play in the SMU game and, if he was better than the kid from Ocean City (Tyler Douglas, got to assume he was because the coaches put him in first), Temple is bleeped. He didn’t show me any throws that indicated he could start at West Chester, let alone Montana. Next man up gets you beat 55-0. Forrest Gump might have played better. Hell, Forrest Tucker of F-Troop, a college football star before getting into acting, certainly would have.

I saw enough of Simon in the RU-TU game to know he was the second-best quarterback in that game.

Temple needs to get better than E.J. Warner at that position, not worse.

McDowell offered that possibility, having thrown 13 touchdown passes and only four interceptions for FCS national runnerup Montana. Contrast that to Warner’s 23 TDs and 14 interceptions for Temple last year and there was a chance that Temple would get better just on the turnover factor alone. Warner had this nasty habit of throwing Pick 6s at exactly the time Temple didn’t need them (Rutgers, 2022 and USF, 2023).

Temple head coach Stan Drayton knows what he has to do.

Get a big-time quarterback in the transfer portal.

There is a list published in the graphic of this post of the current big-time quarterbacks available. One, former Georgia Tech and Nebraska starter Jeff Sims, is available. I would not go that route, rather looking at quarterbacks with Sims’ talent but with a demonstrated history of protecting the football. (Temple already tried to get a 4* quarterback with a history of fumbling, Dwan Mathis, and that did not work out too well.)

Drayton has to ask himself this question: Is he more comfortable going into the Oklahoma game with possibly a quarterback (Brock) who lost, 55-0, to SMU in 2023 or a guy who beat SMU, 24-23, in the final game of 2022?

One possibility on this list of undecideds in the BYU quarterback, Sol-Jai Malavia-Peters. Kid led his team to a bowl win and is a great runner. Former teammate of Antwain Littleton at St. John’s (D.C). Like many other great football players in this transfer portal, Peters still does not have a home. He can help Temple and Temple can help him.

All Drayton has to do is call in Littleton after practice tomorrow and have him do the heavy lifting to recruit a guy who won a bowl game for BYU as a starting quarterback.

Since Littleton is 6-1, 235 pounds lifting that cell phone and selling Peters on Temple should not be that hard.

Monday: Ponzi and Temple