Evan Simon was on his way to a 14-yard designed run that would have resulted in a touchdown, but K.C. Keeler blew the play dead at the 5-yard line. Simon’s head coach wanted to see how his offense handled itself from there.
Not well, it turned out. The Chodoff Field end zone was a bit of a lonely place Saturday afternoon.
The Owls’ offense came up short of there on that drive and on 10 other occasions. A late, 4-yard scoring pass from Simon to tight end Peter Clarke was technically the offense’s only touchdown of the day, and the defense otherwise limited the offense to five field goals in the program’s annual Cherry and White game.
Carl Hardin hit field goals of 36 and 43 yards, Lucas Glassburn hit 48- and 38-yard kicks, and third-string kicker Darren Wu split the uprights from 44 yards out.
“You can see we can kick field goals,” Keeler said after the game. “We’ve got to score touchdowns, but we can kick field goals, that’s for sure.”
Simon rattled off a 33-yard, read-option run on the game’s first play and completed 16 of his 25 passes for 138 yards to go with 48 yards on three carries, but defensive coordinator Brian Smith’s unit produced two interceptions – one of them a pick-six by linebacker Katin Surprenant – and two fourth-down stops inside the 5-yard line to win the day.
“You saw the offense made some plays and then the defense did a great job bowing up,” Keeler, who arrived in December to replace former head coach Stan Drayton, said. “I think our defensive line’s really good, they’re really physical. They can play, like, six or seven or eight (players), so that is definitely the strength of this team.”
Linebacker Curly Ordonez, a midyear transfer addition out of Independence Community College, led the defense Saturday with eight tackles, and defensive end Cam’Ron Stewart was a factor all afternoon with five tackles and two quarterback pressures. Defensive end Tyrese Whitaker (two tackles) and defensive tackle Demerick Morris (three tackles), who entered the portal, landed at Oklahoma State for a few weeks and then came back to Temple, flashed as well.
Stewart, who missed the second half of last season after getting injured at UConn, said the defense feels rejuvenated with the arrival of Smith, who joined Keeler’s staff after spending the past seven seasons as the defensive coordinator at Rice.
“I feel as though it’s Coach Smith,” Stewart, who explained that he’s playing a mix of defensive end and outside linebacker, said. “Coach Smith put us in the best position for the defense to always evolve. We have great guys in the front end and also in the back end. … It's night and day compared to last year.”
The defense’s first deep red-zone stop came on the offense’s first series of the second half, with Simon at quarterback. A 20-yard connection from Simon to Clarke (three catches, 29 yards) set up the offense at the 18. Simon fired off his 14-yard run two plays later that otherwise would have gone for a touchdown before Keeler stopped it there and directed the next play to start at the 5-yard line.
From there, running back Jay Ducker picked up just three yards on the next two carries, and a Simon incompletion followed. On fourth-and-goal from the 2, defensive tackles Sekou Kromah and Allan Haye teamed up to stuff Ducker for no gain.
The second fourth-down stop came near the end of the game on a drive that initially started at midfield and at first looked promising following a 32-yard connection from Simon to tight end Ryder Kusch. Four Ducker runs steadily pushed the offense inside the 10, and a false start penalty later moved the ball back to the 8-yard line on third down. On third-and-goal from the 8, wideout Xavier Irvin picked up some steam on an end-around and had a path to the end zone, but safety Javier Morton tracked him down three yards shy of the end zone, one of his more impressive plays on a five-tackle day.
Then on fourth-and-goal from the 3, Ordonez stuffed Ducker after a two-yard gain.
Although the day produced just one offensive touchdown, Simon said the Cherry and White scrimmage was not a microcosm of the 14 previous spring practices.
“No, that was not indicative of the spring at all,” said Simon, who split time with backup Tyler Douglas. “Obviously, it was a back and forth all spring. … But it's good to see. Iron sharpens iron is the saying, and it was also good to see that out of them, and we're just making each other better day in, day out.”
Douglas, who missed part of the spring with an injury to his right throwing elbow, completed just four of his 15 passes for 26 yards and threw two interceptions – the batted ball that landed with Surprenant for his pick-six and another to redshirt-freshman cornerback Adrian Laing.
Ducker, who played previously at Northern Illinois, Memphis and then with Keeler at Sam Houston State before arriving midseason at Temple, logged 21 carries for 66 yards while Joquez Smith contributed 36 yards on eight carries. And with Terrez Worthy and freshman DeCarlos Young out all spring with injuries, walk-on Darius Morant made the most of his opportunity Saturday with 53 yards on 10 carries.
As was the case just about all spring, the first-team offensive line consisted of Kevin Terry at left tackle, Diego Barajas at right tackle, Eric King at left guard, Jackson Pruitt at right guard and Chris Smith at center. Keeler called it the most improved position group on the team, and Smith, who replaced injured starter Grayson Mains during the spring,
Smith, like Stewart, tipped his hat to his position coach.
“Really, I would say our mentality, our coaching,” Smith said, a nod to offensive line coach Al Johnson, who came to Temple with offensive coordinator Tyler Walker from Montana State after last season. “He changed our mentality. It's nothing to do with us or how we're playing the game. It's all mental up top, right now for us.”
Later in his postgame remarks, Keeler got down to the heart of the matter – what’s next for the program and a roster that will change during the 10-day NCAA transfer portal opening from April 16-25.
“I’ve seen a lot of improvements in a lot of different positions, but I just know how good this (American Athletic) conference is,” Keeler began. “We’re not where we need to be.”
The current players, Keeler said, will be evaluated Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and get the chance to meet with him and the program’s general manager, Clayton Barnes, who held that position with Keeler at Sam Houston State.
“Because that's the way the world works now, in terms of revenue share and those kind of things,” Keeler said. “And I told them very bluntly, now that you've been with me, if you get to go in the (transfer) portal, we're not bringing you back. I had a whole different attitude in December. The guys came off a 3-9 season. They didn't know me. They never played a down for me. They weren't in this facility with me for any period of time.
“Now they've been with me. They know how I operate. Now, if they feel they can find something better, they should go. Because we just won't, we won't do that. There's gonna be no negotiation here. You’re either all in or you're not, you're all out. So I'm just brutally honest with them, and I think they appreciate that. But there's no testing the water. That not how this is gonna work.”
