Anything other than being able to compete with a good Coastal Carolina team would have been reason for major distress for Temple football.

The next logical step is a win.

That’s something that has been hard to come by for Temple in Stan Drayton’s three seasons as he is now 6-21.

Drayton came to Temple and promised–in my presence on Cherry and White Day–to the Bruce Arians’ alumni that he would “get this thing back to the way you guys are used to seeing it.”

He’s running out of time, unless he meant that AFTER 10 years of 3-9 seasons he would get it back to the good old days.

As the lady said in that famous tik tock video, “ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Even in Arians’ worst times, those guys never saw something like this. Arians faced three top 10 schedules, going 6-5 in two of them. Drayton faced the 121st, 129th and now 131st schedules and fared worse.

Now it’s time to win (2 p.m., Saturday, Lincoln Financial Field, ESPN+).

Utah State is not terrible, but it is nowhere near as good as Coastal Carolina. Several Utah State starters are out. The two best Temple players who are out are edge rusher Diwan Black and wide receiver Zae Baines. Those are two areas where Temple is deep. Owls should be able to survive those losses.

Temple held Oklahoma to 1-for-12 on third downs but threw that effort away when the offense turned the ball over four times. That game might have been much more competitive had it been turnover free. Maybe closer to 21-3 than 51-3 but we will never know.

The Owls, though, took a step forward by competing in a 28-20 loss to a very good team.

For some reason only known to Drayton, he stuck with a turnover machine in Forrest Brock against Navy and he played like Forrest Gump and the Owls lost 38-11.

We will never know what happened if Evan Simon had started against Navy but suspect it would have been a much closer game if he did.

Now it looks like Simon will start against Utah State.

Simon has started and won big games before in the Big 10. He deserves a shot to build on his Coastal Carolina performance.

We suspect that if he manages the game, and Antwain Littleton (not Joquez Smith nor E.J. Wilson) gets the carries, Temple will be able to establish a balanced attack and be able to fake it to Littleton and get explosive downfield plays in the passing game to guys like Antonio Jones and Dante Wright.

That’s the next step.

Do the Owls go forward, sideways or backward?

Drayton promised but hasn’t delivered.

He knows what he has to do now.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis