Three games into the season, we know this about the 2024 Temple football Owls:

They giveth but they don’t taketh away.

Job 1:21 pretty much describes Stan Drayton’s team over not just three losing games but over the last 15 games.

The Lord giveth but also taketh. On the other hand, Drayton’s football teams only giveth and that was on full display in a 28-20 home loss to a good Coastal Carolina team.

Better than the first two games, but not good enough.

Drayton, like Job, is probably too good a man to deserve this fate but seems to be resigned to building a team that turns the ball over a lot but almost never steals it from the bad guys.

Temple was 134th and dead last in both turnover margin and also dead last in forcing turnovers a year ago.

This year is 2023 redux in that Temple hasn’t forced a single turnover but has given it away nine times.

This trend cannot continue or Temple is on the way to another 3-9 season.

Probably worse.

The problems are pretty identifiable. On offense, the line is not giving the quarterback enough time to throw the ball and he’s forced into fumbles or interceptions.

That was again on full display in Evan Simon’s Pick 6. Simon tried to get rid of the ball fast enough, but the rush was on him and his arm was hit, resulting in an interception return for a touchdown.

On defense, Everett Withers plays a “vanilla” system that gives up yardage but is not designed to take the football away.

Weird because take away the two takeaways the Owls coughed up deep in their own territory and had Maddox Trujillo made both his field goals (he made one), Temple wins the game, 23-14.

That doesn’t work in a sport that puts a premium on turnovers. Look at the NFL stats. Teams that win the turnover battle over the last decade have won 86 percent of NFL games. Could not find a similar stat across 134 FBS teams (that number has fluctuated over the last decade).

Still, football is not rocket science. If Temple starts taking it away more than giving it, the Owls have a legitimate shot at salvaging the season.

A couple of things can change those dynamics but the Temple brass has to be willing to change. On defense, send more guys that they can block on passing downs, getting to the quarterback and forcing both strip fumbles in the backfield and interceptions caused getting rid of the ball under pressure.

On offense, forget about E.J. Wilson and make Antwain Littleton the featured back, running downhill to create more makeable second and third down options.

Langsdorf has shown he’s willing to change the scheme to fit his players.

Withers is obviously unwilling to do that.

That leaves CEO Drayton to step in and make necessary decisions moving forward.

OC Danny Landsdorf has proven to be more flexible and might be talked into a run/first, pass/second offense, particularly with a game manager like Simon at the helm. A third-and-3 swing pass to Dante Wright would definitely work better than a third-and-7 Pick 6.

Either way, Drayton is the CEO and has to put his foot down.

In this case, two feet.

Otherwise, like Job, a higher power will come in and give the bad guys more than Temple is willing to take away.

At the end of the season, Drayton will not be blaming that higher power, only himself for not making the hard CEO calls he has to make starting now.

Monday: The Road Forward

Friday: Utah State Preview

Having planned most of my fall Saturdays over the last 40 or so years around Temple football, the last couple of years opened my eyes to the big wide world out there.

So, too, apparently for most Temple fans.

Several of the last few games my usual crew was hit or miss with tailgating. After walking to the end of Lot K and learning a couple of times we weren’t setting up, decision time.

Do I really need to go to every game or does the team need to earn my trust?

I chose the latter.

The plan now is this: Temple wins, I go to the next game. Temple loses, I split the baby and eliminate the travel time, watch the game on TV and hope.

Hope is never a good plan.

My gut feeling on Temple hosting Coastal Carolina (2 p.m. Saturday, ESPN+) is Temple puts up a fight early, then starts doing “Temple-like” things like fumbling, throwing interceptions, getting called for illegal shifts and illegal formations and eventually loses, 37-17.

What do is the BEST I can HOPE for?

A Maddox Trujillo 43-yard field goal as time expires for a 20-17 win.

Coastal Carolina, which didn’t have a FBS program in 2016 when the Owls won their last championship, is 2-0 and Temple is 0-2.

Among those wins was a spanking of a well-coached (Rich Rodriguez) Jacksonville State team. Jacksonville State had no illegal formations and illegal shifts in that loss. Temple had plenty of both in a 38-11 loss at Navy.

Stan Drayton apologists will be the first to point out that NIL and the transfer portal have worked against him but there have been other factors that have caused Temple to lose that cannot be ignored.

Illegal shifts, illegal formations, personal fouls on offensive linemen have nothing to do with the NIL and transfer portal. Nor does sticking with a starting quarterback who keeps giving the ball to another team. For some reason, those things have hurt Temple more than they have hurt the bad guys and that is something the administration should investigate sooner than later.

An “X-factor” type situation in Temple’s favor this week could be a quarterback change. Forrest Brock has been a turnover machine in the two losses and could be replaced by Evan Simon, who is more of a game manager. Brock is in “concussion protocol” and is a game-time decision. My vote is to give him a long rest and give Simon a chance to be Lou Gehrig to Brock’s Wally Pipp.

There’s a chance that if Simon does start, eliminates the turnovers and moves the team, Trujillo gets his chance to be a hero.

If so, I HOPE so see everyone next week against Utah State.

That’s the plan.

Watch the game on TV between 2-5, win, then go on a bike ride between 5:30 and 7 blaring “T For Temple U” from my bluetooth speakers. Then I put aside next Saturday for Utah State and good Temple friends.

With a Stan Drayton-coached team, that’s not worked quite the way I had hoped the last two seasons. He only has a couple of games to change this dynamic around.

For my sake and, more importantly, his.

Late Saturday Night: Coastal-Temple Game Analysis

You can learn a lot about a football problem by reading a play-by-play sheet.

Certainly, a lot more than walking around a locker room and listening to post-game platitudes or excuses from a head coach.

Admitting mistakes is the first step to fixing them and you couldn’t find many admissions from Temple head football coach Stan Drayton in the post-game press conference after a 38-11 loss at Navy on Saturday.

Not worth delving into every Drayton word but what he essentially said was that they were going to have to find players who had the right mindset to be out there.

Little was said about the coaches but, after looking at the play-by-play, sheet, that’s probably where the emphasis should have been. All week long, Drayton said “getting off to a good start” was priority No. 1.

What did the Owls do on the first drive?

Quarterback Forrest Brock throws 3 yards behind the line of scrimmage, a catch by Dante Wright. Then E.J. Wilson rushes for 0 yards and Brock throws a 9-yard pass to Antonio Jones, which was complete but short by 3 yards. Just a bad scheme all around for a coaching staff that supposedly put a high priority on getting off to a fast start.

Got to throw the ball past the sticks, not behind them, on that first drive.

Worse was the penalties.

On the drive that resulted in a safety, offensive lineman Wisdom Quarshie was penalized for unnecessary roughness.

Joquez Smith was called for offensive pass interference on Temple’s next drive.

An illegal formation penalty ended Temple’s drive right after that one.

The next drive featured a false start.

The next one was ended by an offensive holding.

No penalties on the next drive but the one after that featured an illegal formation.

By then, the score was 22-0 and the game was pretty much over.

The No. 1 fix has to be to eliminate the penalties, particularly the illegal formation and illegal shifts. That doesn’t speak well for the staff and begs the question “what does this team do during the week?” Do they even practice?

No. 2, REPLACE THE QUARTERBACK! Either Evan Simon or Tyler Douglas but a message has to be sent to the rest of the team that seven turnovers in two games is unacceptable.

Brock isn’t cutting it and sending him out there is sending a message that while offensive linemen who miss a block are pulled or defensive backs that blow a call are pulled, nothing happens to a quarterback who keeps giving the football to another team.

The team has to rally around another quarterback. Accountability should matter for the coaches and the players. A quarterback being exempt from accountability is a recipe for disaster.

No. 3, on defense, the tackling was abysmal and, when that happened in the Bruce Arians era, he made the team hit the field the next morning and put the pads on for the hardest-hitting practice he ever coached. The Owls became a great tackling team the rest of the year. Maybe putting the pads on for the four practices prior to Coastal Carolina would have a similar impact.

Many problems were on display against Navy. Business as usual won’t solve them. Shaking up the troops with extended practices to fix the penalties and hitting might not, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Friday: Coastal Carolina Preview

There are times–too many times–when I detest summer camp.

Not much news comes out and therefore there’s few ways to get insight into the Temple football team.

Not this week.

One of my favorite receivers, the speedy John Adams, was promoted from walk-on to full scholarship and that was very good news because he was the best receiver on the field–both teams–in USTA’s 59-34 win at Temple last year.

Hell, the Owls imported one of the fastest members of the USC track team and I’m still not sure if he’s faster than Adams. I’d love to see that match race.

The other clue was provided on Thursday when head coach Stan Drayton named the newest Owl single digits.

For the most part, Drayton followed our advice and kept it to either graduate players or current seniors.

I was very happy to see a lot of holdovers on the list, including linebacker D.J. Woodbury and defensive linemen Tra Thomas and Demerick Morris. Thomas sacked current Owl quarterback and probable starter Evan Simon twice in Temple’s heartbreaking 16-14 loss to then 3-0 Rutgers in 2022 and Morris might have been the most consistent performer on the defensive interior that same year.

Latrell Jean, mostly a starter transfer from FAU who comes highly recommended by none other than Tom Herman, also earned an interior defensive line single digit.

Safety Elijah Deravil’s single digit was somewhat surprising in that he was a corner on a secondary last year that got frequently burned by long passes. Maybe it’s an indication that he found his groove on the interior. We can only hope.

Dante Wright, who wore No. 10 last year, is the Owls’ most accomplished receiver and, even if he duplicates his freshman year at Colorado State (when he was named a first-team freshman All-American), the Owls could have the top receiver in the AAC.

Not surprising was another safety, Western Carolina import Andreas Keaton, who led that team in tackles in each of the last two seasons. He’s an exciting player that Temple fans should love.

Tight end James Della Pesca also earned a single digit despite having only three career catches–two more than last year’s true freshman Peter Clarke. Always the best blocking tight end, Della Pesca dropped a key pass that led to a 27-20 overtime loss at Navy two years ago so maybe the digit means he has also become a more dependable receiver.

All in all, Drayton said the single digits this year were his toughest to hand out in three years. If by that he means there were so many candidates, that’s a good sign.

If, on the other hand, he had a hard time finding the eight, lay Oklahoma and the points a week from tonight. Here’s hoping that these are the guys who help the Owls keep it close.

Monday: Game Week