Tag Archives: Jaxon Smolik

03.08.26
by

5 Things We’d Like to See From Spring Ball

If the Owls beat Penn State this season, expect the drums to start beating for their own stadium like this one on the river

When you spend every March in Philadelphia, as I have (except for the few March months I covered the Phillies), there are certain signs of spring.

One, Rita’s Water Ice opens every March 1.

Two, there is a first sunset after 7 p.m. (Sunday).

Three, Temple starts spring football practice.

Can Phillies opening day be far behind? (Spoiler alert: It will be on us in a flash.)

Temple’s spring practice begins on Tuesday and ends with Cherry and White Day a month from now and we can tell you right now that the only significant outcome will be dibs on first- and second-team spots on the depth chart.

To say that you can determine what the Owls will do in the regular season based on that is really premature but there are some position battles that should be interesting.

Quarterback

Evan Simon set the bar high for the next QB.

We should see separation between Jaxon Smolik and Ajani Sheppard by Cherry and White Day. Expect one to quarterback the Cherry team and one to quarterback the White team. Right now, it’s a 50/50 shot who starts the opener against Rhode Island. Will it be that way in August? Something tells me one of the guys coming in during the summer, Lamar Best, balls out. If he does, it will be hard to keep that “it factor” off the field.

Pass rushers

Plenty of prospects to replace the reliable group of Cam’ron Stewart, Sultan Badmus, Khalil Poteat and Sekou Kromah but just as many suspects. To me, the key to winning in college football is keeping your quarterback’s jersey clean and getting the bad guy’s quarterback dirty and Temple did that in its most significant win, a 26-21 job over a UTSA team destroyed league champion Tulane, 48-26. Getting the guys who replicate that feat on a MORE consistent basis than that one game will be the difference between another 5-7 season and a 7-5 one.

Tight End

1,000 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns should be enough to get Peter Clarke drafted in the first round.

Temple has the best tight end in the country returning in Peter Clarke (IMHO) and he has a chance to become the next Owl drafted in the NFL’s first round. Still, as good as Clarke is, he wasn’t the starter in the opening game last season (spring sensation Ryder Kusch was). Does Temple go two tight ends to jumpstart the running game? That’s an option for the Owls to work on this spring.

Kick returner

Temple had one of the best punt returners in the country in JoJo Bermudez last season. Question is do you use your best wide receiver on punt returns again or find someone else? I think redshirt freshman Tylik Mitchell is one of the many who can fit that role. He ran a 10.7, 100 meters in high school. How fast is that? Former Temple superstar running back Bernard Pierce WON the PIAA state indoor 100 meters as a high school senior at Glen Mills with a 10.8. Mitchell was an elusive running back in North Carolina, so he’s got the same “twitch” to his return game that Bermudez has.

Secondary

The Owls have always had transfers come in to take up key spots and this year is no exception. Purdue transfer Earl Culp should be able to compete for a starting spot as should Asa Locks. There’s always room for a wild card to impress.

Friday: Second Seasons

Monday: Under Attack

01.12.26
by

Lamar Best’s chances to start just skyrocketed

Lamar Best’s high school film is clearly superior to the high school film of Smolik and Sheppard.

Back when Tiger Woods was winning just about every major golf tournament that there was, sports books had a standard bet before majors: Woods against the field.

Jaxon Smolik played third string QB at Penn State but an interesting tidbit is that he played QB at Dowling Catholic in Iowa which is the high school that produced Caitlin Clark.

Woods won just enough to make the bet–appealing on its face–a moneymaker for the house.

K.C. Keeler went into Temple’s offseason promising to get an experienced QB or two and some Owl fans, me included, weren’t expecting a Woods but certainly hoping for someone who reached the leaderboard of some quarterback competition on the field somewhere.

Instead, they got a couple of guys–third stringers at Penn State and Washington State–who now have a 50/50 chance to win the starting job at some point before the Sept. 5 opener.

Or at least a significant shot against a field that includes three true freshmen.

Say, those three–Brody Norman, Brady Palmer and Lamar Best–are roughly the field and the two transfer portal acquisitions, Ajani Sheppard and Jaxon Smolik–are “Tiger Woods.”

I’ll take the field, specifically Temple’s “secret weapon” in Best, whose film is off the charts. Best is every bit the passer P.J. Walker was and a far better runner. All Walker did was break every career passing mark at Temple.

Ajani Sheppard was third string at Rutgers behind Gavin Wimsatt and Evan Simon.

He might not be the starter but Temple’s failure to get a high achieving starter in its two transfer portal acquisitions raises significant concerns.

Among them, this: Smolik got on the field in a real game and did virtually nothing for Penn State. Same with Sheppard in stints and Rutgers and Washington State.

When you have a chance to get on the field in an actual game, you’ve got to do something. Neither of them did. Sheppard, like former Temple quarterback Evan Simon, is a one-time Rutgers’ backup but Simon threw for over 300 yards in a Big 10 game at Iowa so you knew he came with receipts.

Neither of these guys are coming with receipts.

Both, like Best, Norman, and Palmer, have good high school film but at least in the two transfer portal cases, that film has not translated into actual results in real college football games.

Maybe they will at Temple and maybe they won’t, but they haven’t so far, and the best predictor of future success is past success. I was hoping Temple would land the Saginaw Valley or Western Carolina quarterbacks, but apparently the staff whiffed on those two high-achievers.

This seems like settling to me and far from the dynamic duo of Simon and Gevani McCoy, but we will see.

Back to the drawing board.

BYU’s Bear Bachmeier showed a “true freshman” can go 11-1 on a college football field so that’s why I’m taking the freshman field against the two transfer portal pickups. He had to come from a long way in summer camp to beat more experienced quarterbacks who had a full spring and maybe that’s what will happen here.

May the Best man win.

Or at least the most talented one.

Friday: Best Available