Category Archives: Temple football

03.11.22
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Temple Football: Hope springs eternal

Fall football is the main course, complete with the mashed potatoes, meat and all the sides like tailgating Temple fans have come to know and love.

Spring football is an acquired taste, more like an appetizer than a full meal.

Fans starving for football love both and, for Temple fans, the menu changes starting this morning when the Owls begin a month of drills at the $17 million Edberg Olson Football Complex.

People ask me why I occasionally throw in the price tag of something that started as a significant $7 million investment in 2003 and included a $10 million add-on in 2011.

Simple.

The $10 million addition to the E-O under construction in 2010.

That kind of investment shows the commitment from the top on down at Temple to a winning football program from the Board of Trustees. There are not many current AAC practice facilities better than Temple’s if you include the indoor one at 15th and Montgomery. Add a $200 million commitment to building a football stadium on campus the Temple brass appears all-in on football.

What has happened since the neighbors pushed back three years ago today in a March meeting that was more madness than the NCAA tournament was troubling but the fact that the face of Temple leadership now more reflects the face of the community is a sign that those at the top understand the goals remain unchanged.

Now the football part.

Temple needs to win this year.

You and I and everyone who follows the program know that.

The $17 million (err, $217 million) question is whether the old guy has set things so far back that the new guy can’t make an impact his first year.

That won’t be answered in the next month, but some clues should give an insight into the future.

To me, the biggest key to winning in football is protecting your quarterback and putting the other guy’s quarterback on his ass and Temple did a piss-poor job in both areas last year and, if there is a No. 1 goal of this coaching staff in the next four weeks, it is fixing both.

To me, “simulated pressures” won’t get the second task done but D.J. Eliot deserves a chance to show that philosophy leads to real pressures.

Offensively, the Owls have some talent on the line and should be better able to protect the quarterback if they establish a running game first. Darvon Hubbard and Iverson Clement following an experienced line gives them the chance to do that. Under the last guy, the scheme to run the football behind guys who didn’t have the speed to break a long run was a failed philosophy.

New philosophies will be in place starting today. If there is a real Cherry and White game on April 9 with hitting and long runs, that will be a good sign that Temple TUFF is back.

Light a candle and pray those changes will be obvious once we see a real Cherry and White game for the first time since 2018.

Monday: 5 Newcomers to Watch

03.07.22
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Outside perception: We’re No. 119

The good news today is that the “outside world” sees Temple football as improving under first-year head coach Stan Drayton.

The bad news is that the improvement is so incremental to be negligible.

We’re No. 119.

Last year we were No. 121.

As former co-defensive coordinator, Ola Adams has said many times on Twitter: “Start small and build.”

Going from No. 119 to 121 to starting too small and building too slow, but that’s where ESPN’s Bill Connelly projects the Owls to be in 2022.

Pretty sure those close to the program now aren’t expecting moving two spots up a 130-team FBS totem pole nor are we.

Still, it’s easy to see why the outside world feels that way.

Interesting that Temple is rated below Navy but has an 8 percent better chance of making a bowl.

The Owls have a roster good enough to only win three games under a head coach who was cancer in the locker room.

They’ve cut the cancer out, the roster has bought what the new guy is selling but is that good enough to move from 121 to 80?

Eighty isn’t asking for much because that’s how many teams make bowl games. Eighty out of 130 is the lower half of the second group of FBS teams. Temple should demand that even in an off-year. Yet everybody on the outside seems to think that’s a bridge too far for Temple after 1-6 and 3-9 seasons.

Another way to look at this is Connelly’s projections are usually solid and fact-based but he published a story earlier this month that projected linebacker George Reid as one of the Owls stars.

Two problems with that:

Reid gave up football last month and, while a nice player, I don’t know anyone in the program who said he was a “star” or even projected as one. I’m not all that sure he would even start if he came back.

Connelly never even mentioned a running back transfer from Texas A&M, Darvon Hubbard, who figures to be an immediate upgrade nor mention a Florida transfer at the same position, Iverson Clement, who fell out of favor with the prior staff and is back in the good graces of the new one. The Owls didn’t have a single home run hitter in the backfield last year. Now they have two.

They should be strong at linebacker and in the secondary and be decent on the offensive line. They need to upgrade the defensive line because they, quite frankly, stunk at getting after the quarterback and stopping the run.

In the era of the transfer portal, there are a lot of moving parts. There are still a bunch of good players in the portal now and, if Drayton feels the Owls have an area of need after spring practice, there are better players available.

Spring practice starts Friday and, while the outside evaluation of Temple is important, what the coaches decide about the roster this spring will dictate the results this fall.

If the outside world is right again, the Temple program is in a whole lot of trouble. The good news is that the inside world can do a lot to change perceptions between now and then.

Friday: Line Play

03.04.22
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Marching into the most important spring practice

Bad weather was no excuse for the Owls to shut down in the winter of 2017, like it was in the winter of 2021

A year ago at roughly this time, we outlined a rather grim but damn close to perfect 2021 season forecast.

We went through every game and saw only two wins for our most beloved sports team: The Temple football Owls.

We were only off by one game.

The coach who shall remain nameless gets no credit for exceeding our expectations because our reasoning was this: 1) because he brought in only six starters from the transfer portal and needed to bring in 15 starters, he failed in the offseason. 2) He lost the locker room that was already here.

Spring practice begins in a week

Another valued poster here, KJ, chimed in with a 1-11 prediction. I take no joy that I was 33 percent closer to being right than he was simply because the win over Memphis proved to be an outlier. Every other game, even the 41-7 one over Wagner, proved him to be more right than me. (Temple should have beaten the worst team in FCS by 82-7, not 41-7.)

Now what?

Signs of life are beginning to show at the $17 million Edberg-Olson Facility in that the Owls are lifting weights and running at a level we have not seen since Geoff Collins and Nick Sharga practiced in the snow in the January and February of 2017.

What happened then?

The Owls followed up a 10-win championship season with an acceptable but still underachieving 7-6 and a Gasparilla Bowl win over Butch Davis and FIU.

Underachieving because Matt Rhule left Collins with 10-win talent. Acceptable, because Collins was learning how to be a head coach for Georgia Tech on Temple’s time and Temple’s dime and his first-year loss to Villanova was an example of an entrenched good staff taking their ums and beating Temple’s better ums due to a coaching staff learning on the job. The Temple kids deserved better coaching that year.

This much we will give The Minister of Mayhem. His 8-5 in 2018 was way more impressive than the coach who shall remain nameless’ 8-5 the next season. Beating Cincinnati and fewer blowouts were the difference.

My guess and gut feeling is that new Temple coach Stan Drayton is closer to Collins than he is to the nameless guy simply because he got the team to buy in the same way Collins did and the opposite way the nameless guy did. He, unlike nameless, will be learning on the job but he, unlike nameless, has the respect and love of the kids and that cannot be underestimated.

Still, there is a learning curve for him as well. Collins’ curve was high and outside. Let’s hope Drayton’s curve catches the corner of the plate. John Chaney always liked to talk about the known and the unknown. Both Collins then and Drayton now are unknowns and that, at last to me, poses some concern.

Spring practice begins on March 11. It might not be the most important spring practice ever but certainly is the most important in at least five years.

If you see a real Cherry and White game, with hitting and punt returns and football excitement and fewer routine drills, that will be a good sign that 2022 will be closer to 2017 than 2021.

Until then, we will reserve a game-by-game forecast.

What Drayton has done to this point buys him that much wiggle room.

Monday: Outside Noise

02.28.22
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Key to season: Taking care of business now

No pain, no gain at the E-O this winter.

Judging from social media, it looks like the Temple football team has lifted more weights in the last three or four weeks than in the prior full year under the coach who shall remain nameless.

There is a temptation that all these videos coming out of Temple football of the players lifting weights is pure public relations but put it this way: If the Owls were lifting weights like this and as many drills, wouldn’t the staff of the nameless guy want to put it out there?

Yes, just to give the appearance of showing fans he was earning his $2-million-per-year paycheck.

So he either didn’t care to promote what they were doing or they weren’t doing enough.

From the results on the field, the evidence is the latter.

Getting in some speed work.

The real eye-opener for me was the 34-14 loss at USF. The Owls were not only dominated on the scoreboard, they got pushed seemingly 5-7 yards down the field by a very bad team before they could even make contact. It’s almost like they had lifted no weights last winter.

Maybe they didn’t.

They lacked both strength and speed.

They had a cornerback pick up a loose ball and seemingly headed for the end zone only for that cornerback to be chased down from behind by a tight end.

A corner should never be caught by a tight end, especially when spotted 10 yards.

That game more than any demonstrated that big-time college football is a 365-day business and the Owls were not only out of business on game day but did not do enough work on the 300 days preceding the season to be competitive both strength and speed wise.

Now, under new coach Stan Drayton, they seem to be putting in the necessary work.

Now they have to show it. Winning the opener is nowhere near a given–the last time the Owls played Duke they lost, 56-27–but they need to show they can do what a mid-level Conference USA team (Charlotte) did and win there.

Then physically overwhelm UMass and Lafayette and not get embarrassed against Rutgers.

Then, to have a successful season, they had to win three of the last eight.

Tough?

Yes, but doable.

UCF, Cincy, revenge-minded Memphis (with quarterback Sean Henigan), Houston, Cincy and ECU seemed to have lapped them in the last couple of years. Maybe they can steal one of those games, but I doubt it.

They can beat Navy, Tulsa and USF if they put in the work now.

The fact that they seem to be doing it so far gives them a puncher’s chance. They will get a chance to throw a few punches (figuratively, of course) soon enough.

Friday: Spring practice keys

02.21.22
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Now we’ll find out how bad Carey really was…

As the losses piled up and the exorbitant margins added to the pain of losing, one truth was more apparent last year than even the year before.

Rod Carey is a really bad coach.

At least he was for Temple. How he went 52-30 at NIU is a question for another day.

The answer to how bad could come in about seven months when the Owls are finishing up what could be a 3-1 September.

After that, it will be tough to find three wins on the schedule in the last eight because of the way the 2021 Owls got handled by most of the same teams.

Three wins in those eight will be hard but doable.

There are two keys to a successful season:

No. 1, the Owls have to do what Charlotte did last season: Open with a win at Duke.

No. 2, find three wins in the last eight games.

It should not be too much to ask Temple to do what a lower level CUSA team did. If Temple can’t do better than a team that allowed 56 points to Old Dominion, 38 points to Florida Atlantic, 45 points to Western Kentucky and 49 points to Marshall, maybe the Owls should get out of the football-playing business.

The team that gave all of those points away beat Duke.

Temple should be able to as well.

Then the Owls must take care of business in two of three next three games against overmatched foes like Lafayette and UMass.

Beating a Rutgers team that beat them, 61-14, might be a bridge too far but what the Owls do with the momentum of 3-1 behind them might be enough to get three wins in their next eight games.

That (6-6) would be a successful season, especially after 1-6 and 3-9.

Anything less?

That would probably raise serious questions about the future and would not meet even the minimal expectations of success.

The 3-9 probably was worse than the 1-6 because of how the Owls lost those nine games. They weren’t in any of them and probably shouldn’t have been because of the way they were pushed around. They had one historically bad strength coach. Now they have three new strength coaches and 12 months to lift weights and that should show on the field.

They always say the biggest game is your next one and, for this year’s Owls, that’s never been more true. It’s probably the difference between making a bowl or having a third-straight losing season.

If Carey is as bad as we think he was, six wins should be attainable.

Friday: Finding Those Three Wins

Monday: Benchmarks

02.18.22
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How did a DC become a better job than a HC?

Roughly nine years a couple of months ago, the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame took a head coaching job at an AAC school.

It wasn’t just any defensive coordinator. It was the one, Bob Diaco, voted as the Broyles Award Winner, the best assistant coach in the country.

For UCONN, it was a spectacular fail of a hire, hitting on a number of themes we warn about here on a regular basis (i.e., being an assistant is a totally different job from a head coach and being good at one is no guarantee of success at the other).

Classroom, community, competition, complex.

Those are the four C’s that helped Al Golden build Temple from a 20-consecutive loss team to a nationally respected program.

When Golden took the Temple job, the Owls were ranked dead last in the classroom and lost scholarships due to a poor APR. By the Eagle Bank Bowl, the Owls were ranked among the best in the classroom. Under Golden, the Owls were a regular part of the community, building bridges of trust with the neighbors. The competition factor was there for all to see as the Owls went from 1-11 to 5-7 to 9-3 and 8-4 in Golden’s final season.

As far as the complex, one of Al’s secretaries told me his last sentence on the day he left the E-O was: “God, I love this place.” He then turned around and walked out the door. Miami and the big money were even more of a lure than that love.

There was some talk about Golden, like Diaco, going from an assistant coach (this time in the NFL) to head coach at UConn. No one knows if UConn offered the job to Al but I would not be surprised if the Huskies did and he turned them down.

Notre Dame might not have been on the horizon then but it certainly makes sense now than any current G5 head coaching job.

That’s because the UConn head coaching job as presently constituted is now an inferior job to the Notre Dame DC and, if Golden didn’t see that, he wasn’t reading the current college football landscape right and he’s too smart for that.

Reason being that the deck of cards that were stacked against the G5 schools even back in 2013 are even more slanted today. G5 players routinely transfer to the P5 even if they have a modicum of success and that wasn’t even a thing in 2013.

Moreso, a G5 team probably will never make the CFB playoff after Cincinnati goes to the Big 12 because one of the leagues, the ACC, is dead set against playoff expansion.

Back in 2013, there was always some hope for the G5 to eventually join the big boy club but now it looks more and more impossible.

Marcus Freeman jumped from DC to perennially top 10 program HC at Notre Dame and that’s probably the path more coaches feel will be more realistic in the future than grabbing a HC job at a G5 and moving on up to the East side.

Golden was rumored as a head coaching candidate to replace Rod Carey at Temple but at least six of his former players told me he would not take it not because it was Temple but because “he loves being in the NFL.” A contrary view by a guy who coached with Al at Temple told me that Golden himself told him that he would take the Temple job if the Owls “recruited” him. My response to that guy, who currently works in the NFL, was that since Golden is in the school’s Hall of Fame that’s a courtesy Temple should have extended him. It probably never happened because the school’s new Texas AD was enamored with hiring a guy from the same school, much like LaSalle’s Bill Bradshaw hired a guy from his school (Fran Dunphy) and Indiana’s Pat Kraft hired a guy from his school (Rod Carey).

You would think those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it but there are always exceptions to every rule and, as a Temple fan, I hope the hiring of Drayton gives the Owls a .333 batting average in crony hires. Right now, it’s 0-for-2. You know what George W. Bush was getting at when he said “fool me twice” even if it escaped him at the moment.

Well, it turned out that the Owls a) probably did not “recruit” Golden and b) that Golden didn’t love the NFL so much he wouldn’t return to college for the right job.

For him, being an assistant at Notre Dame is a better job than HC at UConn and, probably, Temple.

Sadly, for his career trajectory, he is probably right.

That wouldn’t have been the case nine years ago and that’s another reason why college football has devolved and not evolved in that relatively short span of time.

Fans of teams like Temple should take no joy in that fact.

Monday: The Calendar

02.14.22
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Simulated pressure: Something we’ve never seen before

This is how simulated pressures are supposed to work.

In the last two Temple football coaching regimes, Temple went from promising Mayhem on defense to absolutely no pressure on the quarterback at all.

Now Temple fans will get to see something they’ve never seen before: Simulated pressures.

Meh.

To me, I’ve always felt that the best defense is putting the bad guy’s quarterback on his ass and, in the process, hopefully separating him from the football, and picking it up and running the other way for a score. Plus, the benefit of hitting the guy so much is putting his head on a swivel looking for pass rushers instead of open receivers.

That’s the kind of Temple TUFF most fans like to see.

D.J. Eliot is considered a master of simulated pressures.

That was what essentially was promised by former coach Geoff Collins, the self-anointed “Minister of Mayhem” who rarely delivered what he promised.

Collins was the victim of his own hiring process, though, grabbing a guy from Kennesaw State (Andrew Thacker) to run his defense. In fact, his own staff was peppered with FCS coaches who had a hard time adjusting to FBS life. Still, the few times we did see Mayhem, it was a beautiful thing. The Owls had a pair of pick 6s (Christian Braswell and Ty Mason) caused by pressure on the quarterback as well as a Quincy Roche-forced fumble that Karamo Diaboute picked up and took to the house.

Too few and far between.

This is the best example of “real” and not “simulated” pressure.

The guy who succeeded Collins, Rod Carey, made no promises on defense and delivered on that promise.

Now new head coach Stan Drayton is delivering the keys to his defense to a “simulated pressure” specialist in D.J. Eliot.

In terms of points and sacks, they haven’t delivered much in Eliot’s last three stops but he has a chance to draw up the X’s and O’s here in a way that have his linebackers and safeties getting to the quarterback faster than Matt Rhule’s defensive ends did and, if that happens, all will be forgiven.

Just remember that in the greatest Temple victory of maybe all time, the Owls put the bad guy’s quarterback down 10 times and six of those were credited to defensive linemen and only four to linebackers (Nate Smith and three for Tyler Matakevich). The only sack that came as a result of a “simulated pressure” was Smith’s on a two-man rush.

Sometimes the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, which was proven that day.

Another kind of day starts with the opener at Duke and pardon at least one Temple fan for being skeptical at this point.

Friday: Which coaching job is better?

02.11.22
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The Case for the Defense: Keep hope alive

If this win doesn’t give you hope for the Temple defense, nothing will.

Sometimes reading through the bios of Temple coaches, both past and present, provides some useful clues for anyone trying to look into a crystal ball and predict the future.

Having had a course in sports information at Temple to get some insight into the guys I was going to be dealing with for the next several decades in sports journalism, I found out a big part of their job is to put lipstick on a pig.

Maybe D.J. Eliot gets his first career shutout at Duke. We can only hope.

There were two major defensive coaching hires made by Stan Drayton, one I liked and one I didn’t, and the guy I liked went off to the Denver Broncos on Wednesday, and the one I didn’t remains here.

Maybe the silver lining in this development is that the successful guy, co-DC Ola Adams, won’t have to butt heads in the coaching room with the unsuccessful guy, DC D.J. Eliot. Let’s put it this way: If Eliot went to Denver and Adams was elevated to sole DC, I might be more optimistic about the future.

That didn’t happen, though.

Now the show is all Eliot’s. Soon we will find out if it’s a long-running hit or a circus. Logic doesn’t look good but, as the above video indicates, at Temple there is always hope.

Hope doesn’t get me to a bowl game.

So to Eliot’s bio I went. Here are some highlights (my comments are in italics, the other is from Temple PR people):
 
Kansas: In 2020, true freshman cornerback Karon Prunty earned Freshmen All-America honors by 247Sports.com after having the most pass breakups of any true freshman in the country. Additionally, Kyron Johnson earned All-Big 12 Honorable Mention at outside linebacker, along with Prunty. Up front, redshirt freshman Marcus Harris totaled 7.5 tackles-for-loss, which marked the most by a Kansas freshman since 2012.

Err, nice but who did he shut out and how many points per game did he allow? Kansas lost every game that year and gave up 36.1 points per game. Ugh as in ugly.
 
Colorado: Eliot led the Buffaloes to one of the best defenses in the Pac 12. The Buffs ranked fourth in the conference in yards allowed per play (5.24), while tying for fourth with 29 sacks. Colorado also ranked third in opponent third-down conversion rate (36.36 percent) and fourth in red zone touchdowns allowed (51.6 percent).

Fourth in yards allowed and fourth in sacks and fourth red zone touchdowns allowed ain’t going to get it done in the AAC. Temple has got to get guys who were first in their conference, not fourth.
 
Kentucky: Eliot joined the Colorado staff from Kentucky, where he was the Wildcats’ defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for four seasons (2013-16). He helped coach UK to the 2016 TaxSlayer Bowl, the first postseason appearance for Kentucky since 2010. Eliot also helped Kentucky land the 22nd-ranked recruiting class in the nation, marking the first time the Wildcats assembled a Top 25 recruiting class.

In Kentucky’s best season under Eliot, the Wildcats were 7-6 but allowed 42 points to New Mexico State (3-9 that year), 38 points to Mississippi State (6-7), 21 points to Missouri (4-8) and 38 points to the only winning team he beat, Louisville (9-4).

 Those were his most recent stops.

Not exactly, in my mind, the stellar resume I would look for in a defensive coordinator. There’s a lot of “he developed this guy and he developed that guy” in his resume, but I could not find a single team he shut out during his tenure as a defensive coordinator anywhere. For comparison, former Florida and Temple DC Chuck Heater shut out Ball State and Bowling Green in consecutive weeks (not years) for the 2011 Owls.

To me, keeping the bad guys out of your end zone is a prerequisite for being a good defensive coordinator, not “developing guys.” Developing guys for someone else (like the NFL), doesn’t hold the same appeal for me as sacking the quarterback playing against Temple, getting turnovers for Temple and, most important, pitching a shutout against the team Temple is playing that day.

Hell, maybe Adams walked into a room at the E-O and had the same feelings before leaving for Denver. We might never know but now Adams joins Manny Diaz in having the two shortest tenures of any ex-Temple coach.

Maybe this will work out to Eliot’s advantage but hope will have to defeat logic.

It happened for Temple at least once before.

If the 1998 Temple Owls could prove the naysayers wrong in upsetting No. 10 Virginia Tech, maybe Eliot can, too.

Shutting out Duke would almost be as shocking as that win. Maybe more.

Monday: Pressures


 

02.04.22
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Temple Football: It just feels different

The number one takeaway from Wednesday around the world will be that Temple signed about a dozen fewer football players than anyone else in the American Athletic Conference, most of them with fewer stars than the top dozen or so signees from the other teams.

That’s important but no less important is the vibe very successful ex-Owls who have been to the Edberg Olson facility since Stan Drayton took over have experienced.

Almost to a man everyone else has said: “It just feels different.”

Different, meaning good.

Stan Drayton’s hastily put together first class might not be rated high but has a couple of starters

Personality matters and the Owls went from a dead fish personality (Rod Carey) to a dynamo (Stan Drayton).

Many of us (raising my hand here) believe both Al Golden and Fran Brown (Temple guys) would have the same dynamic personality of (Texas guy) Stan Drayton but, now, with the decision already made, I will take my dynamos wherever I can get them. More and more, Drayton is becoming a Temple guy and that’s not an easy thing to do.

Anyone who treats Paul Palmer, Dave Gerson and Nadia Harvin with this much respect is OK in my book.

If you really believe only one person can return Temple to the kind of glory it had only in 2018 and 2019, then you are a special kind of naive. It wasn’t that long ago and there’s nowhere near the work now that needs to be done that, say, Golden did in 2005.

I’ve always felt that there are dozens of guys who could perform CPR on Temple now and my fellow ex-Owls who have visited the E-O have given Drayton their stamp of approval.

Since I haven’t been in the building (but most likely will on Cherry and White Day), I have to take their word for it.

Now the bigger question becomes does signing a dozen or so supbar (compared to the rest of the league) players put Temple in a position to win immediately?

That answer appears to be no.

In the AAC, the Jimmies and Joes will always beat the X’s and O’s.

There are two starters in this class, one I can identify (running back Darvon Hubbard) and that will come out of nowhere, maybe in the linebacker group. After 1-6 and 3-9, that’s not enough but it’s a starting point.

Drayton gets major points in my mind for acknowledging the need to sign a “scholarship quarterback” sometime after spring if “no one here has demonstrated the ability to handle the job.”

My advice is meaningless but I think Drayton should not wait until spring. Incumbent Dwan Mathis hasn’t proven to be good enough and newcomer Elijah Warner probably is a year away. Mathis needs competition at least as good and probably better if the Owls want to double their 2021 win total and that should be the minimum goal. Waiting until after spring means one of those three guys will already have committed elsewhere. Temple can’t afford to gamble.

If the Owls want more adversity, they should probably settle with Mathis and Warner leading the quarterback room.

Drayton said he wants adversity but if adversity means 3-9 again, that’s probably the kind of adversity he doesn’t want nor the kind of adversity fans are expecting.

There are at least three quarterbacks right now still in the portal who are better than anyone Temple has now and Drayton should probably pull the trigger before one of them gets away. Waiting until spring is definitely not needed if Drayton has, as he noted, watched the film. Stan, please rewind to the 3d and 17 play in the Cincy game and watch was Mathis did. After seeing that, please tell me he doesn’t need competition.

No matter how different things feel now, another 3-9 would be the kind of flashback no Temple fan or coach ever wants to experience again and raise questions about the future that would counter any current optimism.

Monday: American Underdog

01.31.22
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Temple football: Dog hunting season

Hopefully, Drayton does turn out to be a home run for Temple.

That old saying a “hungry dog hunts best” certainly could apply to new head Temple football coach Stan Drayton.

The outsiders, objective people supposedly in the know about college football, rated the Temple coaching hire pretty low on the totem pole and maybe Drayton will use that disrespect and work that much harder to prove the doubters wrong.

What he needs now is players and this is the week to get them.

Heaven knows the Owls need some dogs, the fighting kind and not the laying down kind.

The national sports website Yardbarkers rated the Temple hiring 25th between Sonny Cumbie (Louisiana Tech) and Jon Sumrall (Troy).

Maybe Drayton is hungry enough to prove the doubters wrong. Or guys like Cumbie and Sumrall will prove to be hungrier.

Whatever, the way college football works these days, we could know as soon as December because the transfer portal has proven to turn some mediocre teams to winning ones in a year. For instance, Western Kentucky recruited a portal quarterback out of Houston Baptist, Bailey Zappe, and his 61 touchdown passes helped turn the Hilltoppers from 5-7 to 8-5 in a few months.

Co-DC Ola Adams teased some good news with this Sunday tweet.

Can Temple go from 3-9 to 8-5?

Probably not, but certainly a bowl is within reach in an era where there are more good players in the portal than available scholarships across the 130 FBS programs. It’s a buyer’s market, not a seller’s, and the teams that shop best off the field produce best on it. Recently, defensive back George Reid left the Owls and declared for the portal. Nice player, but there are upgrades all over the place out there and one of Drayton’s jobs is to find one for Reid, and another for record-breaking wide receiver Jadan Blue, two of the few who left.

Already, Drayton got a South Carolina cornerback to commit and a Florida linebacker visited this weekend and Kurt Warner’s son, Elijah, “fell in love with the place” (Temple) and committed. While Warner is only 5-foot-11, the more important numbers associated with him are 26 (touchdowns) and eight (interceptions). That’s a more than acceptable ratio when you consider the Owls’ starting quarterback, Dwan Mathis, had 20 touchdown passes to 11 interceptions in his last full high school year. G5 football proved much tougher as Mathis had only nine touchdown passes against six interceptions and that was nowhere near good enough for either Dwan or Temple.

In fact, only two other recent Temple recruits had more touchdown passes as a high school senior than Warner did and those were Anthony Russo (Archbishop Wood, 2015) and Adam DiMichele (Sto-Rox, 2004), both with 35 each. Even the great P.J. Walker (Elizabeth, N.J) had only 24 touchdown passes his senior year. If Warner produces at Temple like Russo, Walker and DiMichele did, I will sign for that now. It’s not the only metric but consider this: Vaughn Charlton (Avon Grove) and Chester Stewart (DeMatha) had nine and 17 touchdown passes, respectively, their senior years and they were at Temple what their record said they were in high school.

Subpar would be a kind word.

Still, it’s hard to figure that Warner, right now, is anything more than a replacement for Justin Lynch, who transferred to Northern Illinois. Maybe a couple of more years down the road he can be a starter at Temple.

One immediate starter probably will be at running back, where the Owls upgraded their room with the addition of Texas A&M portal transfer Darvon Hubbard.

Definitely fits the profile of a fighting dog, not a passive one.

The Owls need a few more who fit the description. By Wednesday, we will know how hungry Drayton turned out to be.

Friday: Reaction to Signing Season