For just the second time this season, Stan Drayton sat down for his Monday press conference at Edberg Olson Hall to address reporters following a win.
The Owls are coming off their first American Athletic Conference victory since they beat Navy on Nov. 4 last season, 352 days ago.
While the Owls came out with the win, Drayton was not happy with some of what he saw in Temple’s 20-10 victory over Tulsa.
“We need to play better,” Drayton said. “We’re getting ready to play a really good ECU team that is facing some adversity of their own. We have to play better if we want another opportunity for a victory. We got to eliminate our penalties, got to play better up front on offense, and just find ways to get more points on the board.”
You can watch the entirety of Drayton’s press conference here.
Injury report
Temple wide receiver Dante Wright started Saturday’s game but spent the rest of it in street clothes on the Owls’ bench with undisclosed injury. Drayton said after the game that it was something different then what he had been dealing with throughout the season.
On Monday, Drayton said the staff is taking Wright’s situation day by day and evaluating him throughout the week to see if he can be ready for this week's game at East Carolina.
“He’ll be day to day,” Drayton said of Wright, who is tied for the conference lead in receptions with 42, to go with 517 yards and four touchdowns. “It’s something that he’s going to overcome. He’s a tough nut. We’ll be day to day with him. We’ll be very cautious. I think he’ll be questionable to probable going into this game.”
In Wright’s absence, quarterback Evan Simon spread out the ball to 13 different receivers and passed for 297 yards and a touchdown. Drayton said Simon, who returned Saturday from a shoulder injury, was given the day off of practice Monday because he was sore, but the redshirt junior will be fine for this weekend.
Redshirt freshman left tackle Kevin Terry went down Saturday with a lower body injury and had to be helped off the field, but Drayton said Terry should be OK moving forward.
Second half miscues
Temple scored the first 17 points of the game and took a multiple-score lead into halftime for the first time this season.
The second half was a different story.
The Owls scored just three points in the second half, and just two of their drives entered Tulsa’s territory. When asked about what led to the offensive struggles in the second half, Drayton pointed to missed assignments and miscommunication.
“We did a lot of self-inflicting things that limited our production on the football field,” Drayton said. “Missed assignments, lack of communication in spots. Most of our issues were self-inflicting issues. It was just a matter of us executing our plays better and those missed assignments just hurt our production.”
Drayton spread the blame across the board.
“Somebody took a turn every series,” Drayton said. “That’s something that we have to work on. We have to play smarter football. We have to be locked in, laser-like focus on our job at hand, and do our job better. That’s for every position on offense.”
Drayton also wasn’t a fan of how the defense came out in the second half.
Tulsa came out of halftime with some in-game adjustments that worked. After gaining just 88 total yards in the first half, the Golden Hurricane nearly doubled that in the second half with 163 yards.
Temple’s secondary, in particular, struggled. Cornerbacks Torey Richardson and Ben Osueke each had three penalties, and five of their six penalties came in the second half.
“Too many pass interference and defensive holding penalties,” Drayton said. “Not to take the aggression out of our guys. We just got to play smarter. So moving forward, those are things that we can build upon and they’re owning it. We just have to enhance it and get better.”
Scouting ECU
The main storyline heading into the matchup against East Carolina for Temple is the recent firing of Pirates head coach Mike Houston.
ECU is coming off back-to-back losses to Charlotte and a 45-28 loss to Army. The Pirates currently sit at 3-4 on the season, as defensive coordinator Blake Herrell steps up to be the interim head coach.
“I don’t know that,” Drayton said when asked if he thought ECU would change its approach after the coaching change. “I would assume with the talent that they have on both sides of the football that they’ll remain mostly the same. I don’t think with that type of change happening on a Sunday, they’re going to wholesale change on a Monday.
“I don’t anticipate a whole lot of change. I believe that they’re going to continue to do what they’re doing because they’re not bad at it. But, we’ll see. I’m sure there’s going to be something behind door number two like there always is. So we’ll just have to adjust if that’s the case.”
ECU running back Rahjai Harris is one of the top threats for the Pirates offense, currently sitting at eighth in the American Athletic Conference with 431 rushing yards this season.
Harris has been a skillful back in the AAC for the last couple of years and was also the AAC rookie of the year in 2020. Containing him will be a priority for a Temple team that’s looking for its first road win since 2021 and its first conference road victory since 2019, which came at ECU.
“He’s the real deal,” Drayton said. “[We need to] tackle, diagnose the scheme, and get off blocks. They complement him with those wide receivers in their perimeter game. He brings speed, and the receivers bring speed. We just have to be disciplined with our eyes and see if we can get him stopped before he gets started. That’s the key with this guy.”