Tag Archives: Layton Jordan

10.09.23
by

Mid-Mortem reads like a post-mortem

Something I thought I’d never see again after Carey was chased out of town. Yikes.

Halfway through the season is about as good a time to gauge how the rest of the season is going to go.

The sample is not small anymore and few can accuse analysts of jumping to conclusions too soon.

Too early to declare the patient dead but early enough to take the temperature and it doesn’t look like this fever is going to break in the next two months. Maybe a miracle will happen and head coach Stan Drayton will say enough is enough on defense, make a coaching change and start turning things around.

Here’s what we know about the first six games of the Temple season:

Temple 24, Akron 21 _ The Owls entered that game double-digit favorites and were lucky to escape Lincoln Financial Field by the skin of their teeth. It was easily their best defensive effort of the season, shutting out the Zips in the second half. Really, though, in light of what’s happened to Akron, how impressive was it? NIU, not exactly a powerhouse (it lost to Southern Illinois) just put up 55 points on Akron, one week after Akron lost to an 0-4 Buffalo team. Verdict: About as unimpressive a win as there is on a FBS team resume.

D.J. Eliot put Layton Jordan in positions where he could have and did make plays like this all last year, a sack of the Rutgers’ quarterback. Too often, Everett Withers has Jordan dropping back in no-man’s-land on pass coverage and not sicking him on the bad guys’ quarterback, where he can cause havoc plays like forced fumbles.

Rutgers 36, Temple 7 _ Owls hung in there as late as the fourth quarter, scoring a touchdown early to make it 13-7 but a huge red flag was that they allowed the nation’s current 110th-ranked offense to run all over them in the final dozen minutes of the game. Another one was the slow start of their own offense, as the coaching staff allowed a quarterback who produced zero points at halftime to take the keys to the offense in the second half. The third quarter fared no better for the Owls’ offense. Verdict: After playing this same team to a 16-14 loss a year ago, improvement to a win was not asking for much considering that head coach Stan Drayton himself said the 2023 version of Temple would be better than the 2022 one.

Temple 41, Norfolk State 9 _ The Owls entered the game as a 32-point favorite and won by that exact amount. Nothing to brag about because Norfolk State had lost to a Division II (not even FCS) team, Virginia State, earlier. Since then, Norfolk State allowed North Carolina A&T to get its first win of the season. Verdict: Owls should never have scheduled this team.

Miami 41, Temple 7 _ The Hurricanes’ recruiting pedigree was on display in this game as their lines overwhelmed the Owls on both sides of the ball. After the game, Drayton said “we hope to one day recruit players like them.” Yet this same Hurricane team lost on Saturday to a Georgia Tech team that lost to Bowling Green and former Owls’ OC Scot Loeffler. After beating Georgia Tech, Loeffler didn’t say “we hope one day to recruit people like them.” He just figured out a way to get his guys to beat those guys. After that game, Georgia Tech coach Brent Key fired his defensive coordinator and was rewarded with a win at Miami. Maybe Drayton will pick up on that clue. All over college football there are examples of less talented teams beating more talented teams. Why hasn’t that happened with Temple since Geoff Collins beat No. 17 Cincinnati? Verdict: Even as 24-point underdogs, the Owls underperformed.

Even “Wager Talk” apparently knows more about hiring than Stan Drayton

Tulsa 48, Temple 26 _ It’s one thing to allow 48 points to a Tulsa team that scored only 10 against Washington and 17 against Oklahoma. It’s another thing to allow 48 points to a Tulsa team that was only able to score 22 on NIU. Hell, even Arkansas Pine-Bluff’s defense allowed fewer points to Tulsa than Temple’s defense. Not “regular Arkansas” or even Arkansas State but Arkansas Freaking Pine-Bluff. Verdict: A complete and utter embarrassment.

UTSA 49, Temple 34 _ The offense for a change played well except for two fumbles that turned into 14 points the other way, but when you put up 34 in a college football game a normal team should expect to win that game. You shouldn’t have to play perfect offensive football to have a chance to win a game but, with Everett Withers in charge, that’s what this season has been reduced to unfortunately. Verdict: Expect more games to come unless a change is made at the top of Temple’s defense.

After a year where the Owls’ defense played like mad crazed dogs in losses to Rutgers and at Navy, there are no mad crazed dogs in sight on defense. Strange, because the same players are out there and the only difference is the defensive leadership.

Friday: North Texas Preview

07.07.23
by

Numbers crunching: Hope and Change

By Mike Gibson

Not for nothing, some numbers could mean big things for Temple football fans.

Hopefully sooner for some than later.

The Powerball for Saturday night is $610 million. I’m playing a lot of numbers pretty close together because they are the most important ones for Temple football this season.

I will take 15-6-10-7-24 with 13 as the Powerball and take my chances tomorrow night.

The reason is that I think those are the five most important numbers of players for the 2023 Temple football Owls. (Unfortunately, a lot of Owls who are just as good including tight ends David Martin-Robinson and Jordan Smith have numbers too high to qualify as Powerball numbers.)

If they don’t come through with the $610 million, my fervent hope is that even a slight improvement of their 2022 numbers will mean the Owls’ bottom line will be the best since 2019 when the number on the left was greater than the number on the right.

Let’s go through it and, for the record, I’m predicting the production for every single one of these players improves the Owls’ chances of winning.

You heard it here first: Layton Jordan will be the AAC Defensive Player of the Year.

15-WR Amad Anderson. The Purdue transfer had his best season for the Owls a year ago when he caught 38 passes for 348 yards and four touchdowns.

My hope: He gets that number up to 60 catches, 700 yards and 8 touchdowns. My prediction: 514 yards, 6 touchdowns.

6-LB Jordan Magee. Last year’s stats: 86 tackles. My hope: 123 tackles. My prediction: 100 tackles.

10-WR Dante Wright. Called by one non-Temple person as “the steal of the portal” this guy is the most explosive wide receiver Temple has had since All-Pros Steve Watson and Leslie Shephard. He was a first-team freshman All-American at Colorado State where he caught 57 passes for 805 yards and four touchdowns. My hope: 1,000 yards and 10+ touchdowns. My prediction: 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns.

7-CB Jalen McMurray. The sophomore-to-be is easily the most talented CB to play at Temple since Rock Ya-Sin transferred from FCS Presbyterian. He already owns a Pick 6. My hope: He gets another Pick 6 and raises his interception level to his number (7). My prediction. He leads the team in pass breakups with 10 or more and picks off four passes.

24-RB Joquez Smith. Smith is the most heralded incoming running back at Temple since Al Golden signed state indoor 100-meter track champion Bernard Pierce out of Glen Mills. Pierce proved himself right away at Temple, getting over 1,000 yards freshman year, including a 268-yard, two-touchdown game in a 2009 27-24 win at 10-win Navy. Smith has a much higher ceiling than returning starter Edward Saydee and, if he wins the job, it will be a good sign. His best season was his junior year at high school when he went for 1,883 and 27 touchdowns for unbeaten Florida 6A state champion Tampa Jesuit. My hope: 1,500 yards, 15 touchdowns in his first season at Temple. My prediction: 943 yards, 11 touchdowns. Either way, it’s an upgrade over Saydee’s 639 yards and six touchdowns.

Temple’s Powerball: 13: E.J. Warner and Layton Jordan

For the first time in 15 or so years, Temple’s two best players are not wearing single digits (yet) but are wearing the same lucky number: 13.

If you live in Pennsylvania and your house rep is a Republican, dash off an email urging for them to vote to release these funds. Martina White, I’m looking at you.

A lot of people are predicting a sophomore slump for quarterback Warner. I’m not one of them. The simple reason is that this guy lives in the film room at 10th and Diamond and is getting great coaching not only from inside that building but from an NFL Hall of Fame quarterback. Joe Burrow from LSU went from 16 touchdown passes his junior year to 60 his senior one. Do I think Warner can go from 18 true freshman touchdown passes to 60? Not this year but it’s not out of the question he could hit 40. My hope: 40 touchdown passes, 10 or fewer interceptions. My prediction: A Temple season record 30 TD passes with the same number of interceptions he had last year (12).

Jordan is a remarkable playmaker with 18.5 tackles for losses, including a TFL that resulted in a touchdown in the checkered end zone at Navy. He had nine sacks and three defensive touchdowns. The grad student will earn his football Ph.D. at Temple with double-digit sacks, 20 TFLs and five defensive touchdowns. If he does all that–and I think he will–he will be a first-round NFL draft choice, joining former Temple Owls Haasan Riddick and Mo Wilkerson. He will also be the AAC Defensive Player of the Year, joining former Owls Tyler Matakevich and Quincy Roche in earning that honor.

That’s both a hope and prediction. Hitting all of those numbers tomorrow night would but a nice bonus but I will gladly setting for hitting the numbers associated with those numbers no later than the AAC title game.

If the hope outperforms the prediction, Temple will be one of the teams in that game.

Monday: Cheat Sheet