10.06.24
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After the fumble heard ’round the world, where does Stan stand?

All these “coaches on the hot seat” stories assume Temple operates like a normal school.

The math for Stan Drayton was getting problematic after the Army loss.

After the fumble heard round the world on Saturday, nothing adds up. Temple’s fumble at the goal line on an ill-advised play call went so viral, it was the number one trending sports video on twitter (or X) between 8-9:10 p.m. on Saturday night. So pretty much everyone saw it and was laughing at Temple.

All the while we who have loved the program so many years were crying.

Athlon Sports Preseason Magazine had Stan Drayton on the hot seat before the season and it hasn’t gotten any cooler after a 1-5 start.

We’re No. 1, at least in ridicule. That’s the kind of math Temple doesn’t need to be associated with, and the numbers adding up in its favor at the end of this season not likely now.

Temple would have to basically run the table–and lose only to, say, Tulane–in order to qualify for a bowl.

In just about every other job in the world “up or out” applies after a certain probation period. Drayton’s probation period expired a long while ago and in no world does 3-9, 3-9 and (most likely) 3-9 represents an up.

Does it really represent an out, though?

At a normal school, an evaluation is made after three or so years whether it’s prudent to keep paying the guy big-time money to keep repeating the same record, or “fish or cut bait.” The assumption is that an important decision must be made and caution or indecisiveness just postpones the inevitable and causes a couple more years of suffering.

Temple, though, works with a different, err, template.

The history of the Owls with major coaching hires has been this: Temple has no stomach to pay two big coaching salaries at the same time and will wait until the contract is up and just not renew it. The one outlier to the process was eating a couple of years of Rod Carey’s salary to get him the hell out of here.

That was a different time with a different administration.

With a new anti-football President coming on board Nov. 1, that’s probably not going to happen with Drayton so while he can stand another 3-9 season, Temple football might not. There’s been a rapid decline in fan support since the big 2022 Homecoming Crowd against Rutgers and the 2024 Homecoming Crowd against FAU will probably been the smallest one since Al Golden’s first year (2006).

When the BOT votes to keep football or not in one or two years, that kind of math is most unhelpful.

It’s too late to get those crowds back this year but it’s not too late to show the powers-that-be football can thrive at Temple. Finish 5-1 and making a bowl is the way to do it and that means no bonehead decisions like doing a tush push with a 160-pound backup redshirt freshman quarterback. Fake it into the belly of Torrez Worthy who does the leap into the end zone, have the QB put the ball on his hip and with an option walk in and toss a short pass to one of five wide-open guys.

That’s probably one game too late.

For the most important sports equation in school history to add up for Temple now means rising to the occasion over the next six games and nothing that happened in the first six supports that hypothesis.

Friday: Five Guys

10.05.24
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These kids deserve better coaches

This was one of those games where, after watching, had to get into the car and go for a drive to let off some steam.

By some miracle, nobody was killed or even injured by my driving but plenty of thoughts of the train wreck I had just witnessed caused the windows to steam up.

Temple losing to UConn, 29-20, (really, 23-20) on the last play of the game was bad enough but the way was much worse.

Temple was the better team for 59 minutes and 57 seconds and that was because of the kids.

It finished as the second-best team because of the coaches.

The coaches started their bumbling and stumbling early when they didn’t notice a punt went off a UConn helmet in the first quarter and Temple recovered. Any other professional coaching staff has someone watching for that, getting on the headset and telling head coach Stan Drayton to throw the challenge flag.

The nation noticed and so did the CBS Sports TV announcers.

Temple did none of that and gave up early points that would have made the ending moot.

Now what should have been moot but wasn’t. Second-and-goal inside the 1 with two more chances to punch across the win in the last minute and UConn having no time outs.

Should have been easy peasy for any coaching staff in America but the one employed by Temple.

First of all, running back Torrez Worthy was the guy who put you in a spot to win the game getting a second and less than a yard at the goal line. You ride or die with him. You don’t dick around giving the ball to anyone else. At worst, you fake it to him and then do a simple pitch and catch for the winning touchdown to a wide-open receiver in the end zone.

UConn was selling out for the run. It would have been an easy score.

Second, every single time backup quarterback Tyler Douglas came in the game he ran the football. You do not telegraph plays like that on the college level. You don’t do it in the pros. You don’t do it in high school. You don’t do it even do it in Pop Warner Football.

Stan Drayton was essentially telling the Huskies: “Hey guys, heads up, we’re going to run the ball.”

Piece of cake but the Temple coaching staff would rather eat a turd, and that’s exactly what they did.

Is he working for Temple or UConn?

If you are going to have Douglas come into the game, have him make a few throws to cause the defense to think.

There was no thinking involved on Saturday.

There really hasn’t been all season.

Or any of the last three years for that matter.

No doubt in my mind this was the most heartbreaking Temple loss since the Hail Mary that ended the game at Buffalo in 2007.

The difference between that time and this one was that those coaches led by Al Golden put the Owls in a position to win the game and a freak play ended it.

This was the game where the kids put the Owls in position to win and some Rick James-like super freaky play-calling by the coaches robbed them of a deserved celebration.

Inexcusable.

These kids deserve better coaches.

Whether they get them or not is a question only Temple decision-makers at the highest level can answer now.

Monday: Waiting for the Temple administration to do something

10.03.24
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Talking myself into a Temple win

For the better part of a week, you’ve heard all of the reasons why Temple should lose at UConn on Saturday.

The Huskies hammered fellow AAC member FAU, 48-14 and are coming off a 47-3 win over a relatively good Buffalo team.

They also hung with an unbeaten Duke team.

Bleep that.

Stan Drayton owes it to all of these ex-Temple players who owned UConn to deliver with a win on Saturday. Rather roll out Evan Simon with a bad shoulder than Forrest Brock with two good ones.

Trying to talk myself into a Temple win on Saturday (3:30 p.m., CBS Sports TV), there are a few reasons to come to the conclusion that Temple might win this game.

One, Temple beat Utah State, 45-29, a team that traveled to Connecticut and won last year. Two, Temple hung with Coastal Carolina in a 28-20 loss and there’s is no doubt in my mind that Coastal is a better team than UConn and probably a better team than Duke.

Three, UConn lost to Maryland, 50-7, and Maryland “only” beat Temple’s Philadelphia FCS crosstown rival Villanova, 38-20. Got to believe Temple, even with all of its problems, is better than Villanova. In Dante Wright, Antonio Jones and Zae Baines, Temple has three playmaking wide receivers who have NFL skills.

In running back Antwain Littleton, Temple has a guy who can break out at any time if the pass sets up the run. He’s Mr. Inside and Torrez Worthy is Mr. Outside.

In a 17-14 overtime win at 5.5-point favorite UConn in 2012, current ESPN analyst and then Temple head coach Steve Addazio said: “Our intention was to get the ball in the middle of the field for the best kicker in the country to win the game and that’s what happened.”

The “best kicker in the country” then was Brandon McManus and he did just that.

A dozen years later, Temple might again have the best kicker in the country in Maddux Trujillo. It might have to come down to that, maybe in overtime.

Our $10 bet will return $236 if all of the above happens. Looks like we are on our way to two wins so far. Would stay away from the Temple game with a 10-foot pole if the Owls are stupid enough to roll Forrest Brock out there.

Fingers crossed.

All offseason we’ve been told by Temple coaches that this team is a far better team than the 3-9 team Temple fielded last year and there were plenty of reasons to believe them.

Matchup-wise, Temple has a better chance against UConn than it did against Army in that the Huskies like to throw the ball and Temple has good edge pass rushers in Diwan Black and Tre Thomas. Andreas Keaton is a great safety and Torrey Richardson and Jaylen Lewis are good cover corners.

The Owls upgraded not only their depth but arguably 21 of the 22 starters. The one area they failed was quarterback but Evan Simon’s six-touchdown performance against Utah State caused many (raising my hand here) to believe he’s an upgrade over E.J. Warner.

If he plays, and as of right now there is a 50/50 shot, Temple has a good chance to get its first road win under Stan Drayton.

Ever.

If he doesn’t, no shot.

The flip side of this argument is the Temple coaching staff.

Quarterback Forrest Brock and running back E.J. Wilson must be the greatest practice players in history, but they don’t pass the eye test in actual games and the fact that Temple coaches have given both so much playing time in an indictment of their player evaluation skills.

It does cause one to pause over other possible evaluations. Is Tyler Douglas better than first-game starter Brock? Probably. Is Worthy better than Wilson? Definitely.

We need to see more of Worthy, who is definitely a gamer.

My feeling is that if you are going to run all of the RPO stuff offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf wants to run, Douglas is the better quarterback than all three. Put it this way. John Harbaugh wouldn’t run RPO with the Ravens if he had Tom Brady at quarterback. His offense is perfect for Lamar Jackson.

Temple has done a piss/poor job of scheming to the talents of their players so maybe put players in there who fit the scheme.

Better late than never and if Temple figures all of this out in the next 24 hours, it could be a terrific bus ride back from Storrs.

And set up the Owls for a sensational Homecoming.

If not, it’s a Bataan Death March to the end of Stan Drayton’s head coaching career.

He’s too good a guy to deserve that fate and the players love him so it’s time for the coaches to play the right players and those right players to do right by the coaches.

Late Saturday Night: Game Analysis

09.29.24
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Begging to differ: This is not fixable

This was 10-on-11 blocking but looked like 42-on-11. Things like illegal shifts, too many men in the backfield, offsides, illegal formations are fixable but how is this fixable?

For three of the last four games, really three of the last dozen, Temple head coach Stan Drayton looked the assembled media in the eye and said what ailed his team in losses was “fixable.”

We beg to differ.

Maybe the penalties are fixable but what we have seen too much this season doesn’t appear to be.

Army pushed the Owls’ defense aside like they were bowling pins. At times, it looked like Army had 42 guys blocking 11 guys and not 11-on-11.

How is that fixable?

It would be one thing if that was the only time the Owls looked like that, but they also looked that way against Navy and also looked that way against Oklahoma. Yes, they stopped Oklahoma on 11 of 12 third-down opportunities but whenever the Sooners needed a first down on fourth down, they got it.

Oklahoma is a Power 4 team and that can be excused.

Looking the same way against two Group of Five teams is inexcusable.

Next up is at UConn on Saturday (3:30 p.m., CBS Sports).

UConn just finished beating Buffalo, 47-3, in the same stadium and an argument can be made that Buffalo, not just UConn, is clearly a better team than Temple.

Buffalo beat NIU, which beat Notre Dame. That was not just a one-off as NIU lost by only a touchdown at North Carolina State on Saturday. Buffalo played Missouri, another SEC team, a lot more competitively than the Owls did Oklahoma.

Has Temple done anything as impressive as Buffalo, which came into Storrs with a 3-1 record?

No.

Other than all of the above, everything is just peachy at 10th and Diamond.

For its part, UConn hung with Duke in a 26-21 loss. (It also lost to Maryland, 50-7.) UConn also beat FAU, 48-14. (For comparison, Army “only” beat FAU, 24-7.)

It has a professional head coach in Jim Mora, Jr. who was a winner as a head coach before coming to UConn.

Temple cannot make the same claim.

That’s not to say that UConn is going to ramrod Temple, 47-3, but the general public is not believing in the Owls right now. At noon on Sunday, the line opened with the Huskies favored by 11 and jumped up to 13.5 just two hours.

That’s a lot of money riding on the Huskies.

Can you blame the betting public?

Army outgained the Owls, 417 to minus -5.

Temple is a team that cannot run the football, cannot stop the run and can’t protect the quarterback. In the rare cases they have protected the quarterback, he can do damage but those cases and too few and far between.

None of those things appear fixable now, no matter what Drayton says in post-game press conferences.

He has one chance to prove himself right and the public wrong and it’s coming up on Saturday.

Friday: UConn Preview

09.26.24
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Everett Withers strikes again

Any good vibes after Utah State were destroyed by a terrible defensive game plan.

When Stan Drayton gets fired by new Temple president John Fry at the end of this season, one major CEO decision will be the only reason why he was sent packing.

Undeserved loyalty.

After his second unacceptable 3-9 season in 2023, Drayton promised to review the entire operation “including the coaches” and, instead of getting rid of the guy who was responsible for the worst Temple defense in history, DC Everett Withers, decided to jettison a couple of lower-level assistant coaches.

After a 42-14 loss to Army on Thursday night, a third-straight embarrassment on ESPN in front of the entire nation (coming off 55-0 to SMU and 51-3 to what turning out is a not-as-good-as-expected Oklahoma team), it’s clear that being a buddy of Drayton is good for Withers and terrible for Temple.

Hiring your buddy is the No. 1 thing that has ailed Temple football since Matt Rhule left in 2016 and nobody is a bigger buddy than Withers. Athletic director Pat Kraft, who played football at Indiana, hired his buddy Rod Carey, who also played football at Indiana at roughly the same time.

New Temple AD Arthur Johnson, the Texas football director of operations, hired buddy Stan Drayton, who was the Texas RB coach when he was there. Drayton hired longtime buddy Withers to be his DC despite Withers giving up 40 ppg as a DC at FIU in 2021.

Ugh.

The beat goes on and those black eyes belong to Temple fans who deserve better.

We can now compare Withers to another former Temple DC in Phil Snow.

In the opening game against Army in 2016, Snow stubbornly kept his base 4-3 defense and the Owls fell, 29-16.

Before the AAC title game against a better triple-option team, Navy, Snow studied the Army film and came to the conclusion that the reason the Owls lost that opener was because he left the “A gap” uncovered.

Before the Owls faced Navy in the title game, he also noticed that SMU left the same middle uncovered and Navy won in Dallas, 75-31, a couple of weeks before the title game against Temple. Snow decided the secret sauce for Temple to win was to alternate Averee Robinson and Freddy Booth-Lloyd at nose tackle, take away the fullback dive, and force the triple option from sideline to sideline.

Mostly, Robinson, a three-time Pennsylvania state heavyweight wrestling champion who not only destroyed the Navy center but stopped the Navy fullback every time for no gain. That left superior athletes like Haasan Reddick and Sean Chandler chasing the pitchman and forcing him out of bounds or, better yet, punching the ball free for Temple turnovers.

That’s what I’m talking about Willis.

That worked for a 34-10 championship win.

Withers?

Played the same base defense against Army on Thursday night that he played a couple of weeks ago in a 38-11 loss to Navy.

My only bet on this game was that the over would be accomplished because Withers likes to clock in a 9 a.m. and clock out at 5 p.m. and won’t do anything to change his base defense to scheme against the strength of the opponent.

This guy doesn’t give a shit about Temple, only the paycheck he gets from it.

Drayton, on the other hand loves Temple, but is also blinded by his love for mentor Withers.

It will be his downfall.

I was right once again. I wish to hell I was wrong.

What’s the definition of insanity?

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

What Drayton should have done at the end of last season is sever his relationship with Withers and gone out and replaced him with the best FCS defensive coordinator in the country.

Drayton might be more comfortable shooting the shit with Withers on Friday morning over the office copier than some stranger who might have shut down Army but Temple fans are the ones squirming now.

Unless Drayton does something drastic like replace Withers with linebacker coach Chris Woods next week, the new Temple president will notice and decide to do something about it. Woods was a successful DC in the USFL. Withers hasn’t been a successful DC since one game in the 1980s.

Unfortunately, Drayton is too nice a guy and we all know what Leo Durocher said about nice guys.

They finish last.

Monday: Avoiding the inevitable

09.25.24
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Bulletin Board material or cold reality?

After seeing the above video, Temple football players could be excused for feeling like Mike Schmidt, who once said:

“Philadelphia is the only city where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day.”

Plenty of bulletin board material is one way to look at it. The Owls were somewhat impressive in a loss to Coastal Carolina, an elite Group of Five team, and even more impressive against Utah State but most of the prediction sites–like the above one–aren’t buying the Owls on being for real.

At least not yet. They will if Temple beats Army.

Temple is expecting its biggest home crowd by quite a bit for the Thursday night game and hopefully they will make a lot of noise supporting the Owls.

Watching the celebration in the Owls’ locker room on Saturday, I got the distinct impression that the team is buying into what Stan Drayton and staff are selling but we won’t be sure until about 10:30 p.m. tomorrow night (Lincoln Financial Field, 7:30 p.m., ESPN).

Are they fired up enough to show the doubters they are wrong or were the prognosticators right to call the Owls a bad football team?

“Is Temple actually like normal bad on offense compared to like atrocious with (Evan) Simon instead of (Forrest) Brock?” Kyle Hunter said here.

“Temple, to me, is still a bad football team,” Gary Segars said.

“I do think there’s a potential letdown effect for Temple coming off a win,” Parker Fleming said.

Them’s fighting words to a team that has pride and hopefully Temple will have it. Letdown? How is a team that finally got a taste of winning going to have a letdown over a team that is favored and going on the road?

The weather should be good for a big Temple home crowd.

Make no mistake it going to be a daunting task, but an argument can be made that Army is not as good as Coastal Carolina and maybe even less explosive than Utah State. Really, who did Army beat? They beat FAU, which got blown out by UCONN. (It’s worth nothing that UCONN lost to Utah State at home last year.) Army also beat Rice (which got blown out by Sam Houston) and FCS Lehigh.

Coastal and Utah State would have probably beaten all three Army foes.

Our low/risk high/reward bets this week. Betting that Everett Withers didn’t burn any midnight oil worrying about the Army offense and also that Temple’s offense is for real with Evan Simon at the helm.

It all comes down to Everett Withers, though, and his film study on how to plug the gaps against a triple option that were all too apparent in the 38-11 loss to Navy. There is a way to stop the triple option and that’s to put a nose tackle over the center, take away the fullback dive, and force the pitch outside where Temple’s superior athletes can string the play from sideline to sideline. Eight men in the box and trust your corners to single the wide receivers and break up a rare pass or two. Sell out to stop the run at the point of attack.

Does Withers have the courage or sense to tweak the defensive scheme to stop what the opponent does best or does he stick with the Temple base defense?

Temple’s most athletic defensive player, end Diwan Black, is back for this game and, like Jordan Magee in the Navy game last year, has a chance to make a difference chasing those ballcarriers.

Black will have plenty of help, though, in that Pro Football Focus rates safety Andreas Keaton as the best tackler in all of college football. In corners Torrey Richardson and Jaylen Lewis, they can gamble singling the wide receivers and play eight in the box to not only stop the run but disrupt things in the Army backfield.

Not many teams are disrespected after hanging a 45-burger on another squad but Temple has been and maybe the Owls use it to their advantage.

Nobody will doubt Temple again if it beats Army and that has to be a powerful motivator.

Friday: Temple-Army Analysis

09.22.24
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Warner/Simon: How A is Unlike B

Evan Simon has come a long way since being sacked by Layton Jordan here.

Just like election polls, nothing is decided yet but the early trends are pointing in one direction:

Evan Simon might just be an upgrade at quarterback over E.J. Warner.

Like that other thing, nobody saw this coming back in June when the only evidence we had was that one was a record-setting passer at Temple and the other was a guy who had seven interceptions against only four touchdowns on the FBS level.

While the other election night is more than a month away, the election night between Warner and Simon is in four nights (ESPN, 7:30 p.m., Lincoln Financial Field). Simon’s popularity is soaring with Temple fans after throwing five touchdowns and running for another in a 45-29 win over Utah State on Saturday.

That popularity will be under a microscope on Thursday night, as several thousand more Prodigal Son Temple fans return to Lincoln Financial Field buoyed by that win.

Evan Simon threw five TD passes and ran for another. (Photo courtesy Zamani Feelings)

We have a real A and B comparison and if I’m reading the returns right, about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday we will find out who the better quarterback for Temple is.

That’s because we can compare what Warner did against Army vs. what Simon will do against Army.

The No. 1 benchmark is the win.

If Simon gets Temple a win against the unbeaten Cadets, it’s a landslide. That’s the No. 1 job of a quarterback. If you put up gaudy stats and lose, it doesn’t prove much.

Still, even without a win these are the numbers Simon needs to surpass to get the vote of the swing fans: 28 for 43 completions, 235 yards, two interceptions, two touchdown passes. That’s what Warner had against Army in a 37-14 loss.

Same defense, two different quarterbacks.

A Temple win and good TV ratings wouldn’t hurt the Owls’ national perception on Thursday night.

It’s an apples-to-apples comparison the likes we have not seen so far.

Our feelings about Warner were always this. He was the perfect guy for Danny Langsdorf’s system of short drops, quick releases, short passes. But he had this annoying habit of throwing Pick 6s in close games that cost Temple wins. Had Warner not thrown a Pick 6 against Rutgers in 2022, Temple wins that game, 14-9. Had Warner not thrown a Pick 6 against South Florida last year, Temple wins that game, 22-20. That was the same South Florida team that beat Syracuse, 55-0, in a bowl game a few weeks later.

Warner’s size contributed to both those disasters as his vision was obstructed in both cases.

Simon doesn’t have the same problem.

All he has to do Thursday night to win this election is go 29-for-42 with 236 yards, 1 INT and 3TD passes. One more yard, one less pick, one more TD pass.

Or complete one or two passes for a couple of yards and get Temple a win.

Polls close on or about 10:30 p.m. Thursday night.

Wednesday: Temple-Army Preview

Friday: Temple-Army Analysis

09.21.24
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Temple’s key: Don’t look back

Nothing would be easier after Temple’s 45-29 win over visiting Utah State on Saturday to look back and wonder what might have been.

No use crying over spilled milk. Saturday’s win represented a cleanup in aisle four. Those first three bottles of milk aren’t for sale anymore.

Let’s go over the easy part first.

It would be easy to dwell on what would have happened if Evan Simon quarterbacked the Owls from the jump instead of Forrest Brock.

Here’s what we know about the two of them.

One turns the ball over.

The other doesn’t.

On top of that, one had a five-touchdown passing game and that was only hours ago. The other has never had one, including high school.

That was the easy part.

Here’s the hard part.

Even with Evan as the starting quarterback in those first three games, the Temple Owls are probably in the same place as they are now.

One win, three losses, with almost the entire AAC schedule ahead. Without Brock’s three turnovers at Oklahoma, maybe the Owls lose that game 21-3 or, at best, 21-10. Without Brock’s two more turnovers at Navy, the Owls probably lose that game, 24-11, instead of 38-11.

That’s why it makes no sense to look back, only ahead. There are at least five more winnable games left on the schedule. Army (Thursday, 7:30 p.m., ESPN) does not appear to be one of them but the Owls will be playing with house money in five days.

All the pressure will be on unbeaten Army and nothing will be expected of Temple. Sometimes, good things happen under those circumstances and maybe Temple can see what it did wrong against Navy in the triple option and correct those defensive shifts against Army.

Either way, there are way more winnable games left than Army and that’s where the Owls can build of the performance against a good but not great Utah State team.

Maddox Trujillo hit a 64-yard field goal–the longest in the 21-year history of Lincoln Financial Field and in Temple history–and that got the halftime locker room juiced.

After that, Temple outscored Utah State, 28-8. That’s even a more dominating stretch than Utah could have against their in-state rivals a week ago.

That’s something to build on as is Simon’s five touchdown passes. P.J. Walker was the last Temple quarterback who had five touchdown passes in a single game and he went on to become XFL MVP and started several NFL games.

Temple has plenty of room to improve. On passing downs, it needs to blitz more with linebacker D.J. Woodbury but that’s another story for another time.

Temple has plenty of offensive firepower, including an accomplished Big 10 running back (Antwain Littleton), the best running back in all of JUCO football last year (Torrez Worthy) and the best high school running back in Florida two years ago (Joquez Smith, Tampa Jesuit). They have a stacked tight end room as three TEs caught touchdown passes Saturday. Their best TE from last year, Reese Clark, returns from an injury soon. They have a great receiver in Dante Wright and a very good one in Antonio Jones. Last year’s leading receiver, Zae Baines, makes his first appearance on Thursday night.

Simon seems like the right kind of gunpower for those weapons.

Looking back won’t do them any good. Looking ahead could unlock a season not a single person saw coming seven days ago.

Monday: How A is Unlike B

Thursday: Army Preview

Friday: Army Analysis

09.19.24
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The next logical step: A win

The complete Saturday TV sked. Temple is up against the end of the Rice-Army game.

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.

Stan Drayton promised to these Bruce Arians’ players that he would “get this thing back to where you guys are used to seeing it” and Saturday is his chance to deliver on the promise. Give the ball to Antwain Littleton, follow it with play-action fakes to Littleton and make explosive downfield plays in the passing game with Evan Simon hitting Dante Wright and Antonio Jones. On defense, blitzing with linebacker D.J. Woodbury on passing downs and plenty of sacks by Latrell Jean, Tre Thomas and company and getting a pick or two by Andreas Keaton should be enough to win the game.

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.

Our low/risk, high/reward picks this week.

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

09.15.24
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Temple enters “must-win” phase of season

Temple spends a lot of money on football but has gotten little in return.

As a Temple fan you have to ask yourself, “does the season end with a loss?”

At this point, the answer for Saturday’s 2 p.m. game with visiting Utah State (2 p.m., ESPN+) has to be a resounding yes.

Simply, to save Stan Drayton’s job anything other 6-6 season puts his team outside top 80 teams in the country. Since there are only 134 teams, that’s less than mediocre.

After four-straight losing years, Temple will be at a crossroads if that becomes five-straight losing seasons.

Unacceptable.

Maybe acceptable for some lesser schools but certainly not acceptable for a school as large and prestigious as Temple University.

The defense must increase risk (blitzing on passing downs) to generate turnovers. That’s the key over the last nine games.

So while the math is challenging after 0-3, it’s almost impossible after 0-4. Losing the first three games means you have to go 6-3 over the last nine to reach a bowl game which is doable in a watered-down AAC. Losing the first four games, though, means 6-2 over the last eight and that is highly unlikely.

Utah State has to be a win.

Like Temple at Oklahoma, Utah State had a blowout loss to an elite team (USC, 48-0). Utah State also struggled to beat Robert Morris, trailing at the half and leading only 20-14 going into the fourth quarter. Robert Morris then lost to Edinboro, which lost to Kutztown. Utah State scored 16 points in the fourth to win going away, 36-14.

If Temple lets the likes of Utah State beat it, an argument can be made by new President John Fry about Temple even being in the football business. Does Edinboro give Utah State a better game than Temple? Does Kutztown?

If so, Temple is spending a lot of money and getting nothing in return on the investment.

The way to turn it around is to start forcing turnovers and the way to do that is to bring more people that they can block on passing downs, which means getting to the quarterback, strip sacks, fumbles and forced interceptions.

The defense Everett Withers has played the last two seasons is essentially a “bend and break” defense. It needs to be more attacking than it ever has been to up that -40 turnover margin Drayton has had in his nearly three years here.

Withers might not want to change his scheme, but Drayton is still the CEO and a strong leader puts his foot down and dictates policy.

Or the organization gets another leader. Drayton doesn’t have nine games left to make that decision.

He’s got one and it’s coming up in five days.

Friday: Utah State Preview